With All Your Heart and Soul: Soul Eater

Greetings, people of Earth!  I’m back this week with a review on classic among the anime world.  Many would consider this show to be a little old for its time, but it definitely caught my attention last year when I bought the entire series.  Though it’s taken me awhile to get through a quarter of the series, thanks to my college-student life, I’ve managed to dig up more than plenty of enough dirt to dish out.  Ok, I’ll stop taking and get to reviewing.  So sit back, relax, and enjoy my review on Soul Eater.

Soul Eater’s plot revolves around the adventures of three Meisters Maka Albran, Black Star, and Death the Kid, and their weapons Soul Eater, Tsubaki Nakatsukasa, and Patty and Liz Thompson.  Their duty is to hunt down evil souls that threaten to devour human souls and become keeshin-a completely defiled soul.  Aside from their own individual missions that they take on as students at the Death Weapon Meister Academy, the first half of the series takes the death meisters on a bizarre investigation into the works of a cunning witch and a mysterious child who possesses a demon weapon within his own body.  Though that’s only the first season of the series, Maka, Soul, and the rest of the gang’s crazy adventures will leave you on the edge of your seat begging for more.

So I haven’t quite finished this series just yet.  But what I have seen so far is pretty impressive.  That’s why I’m giving Soul Eater a four out of five star rating.  Overall, everything is pretty good.  Animation wise, the show takes a very cartoony approach.  If there’s anyone who takes on a stereotypical view on anime, Soul Eater would probably come to mind.  I personally found that the animation style was artistic in its own way, regardless.  Many shows that use vivid and lively animation are often comedic in nature.  All though Soul Eater can be considered a comedy at times, the show definitely breathes action in just about every episode.  But I feel that it’s the story that is what makes this series pop.  The plot is very consistent and isn’t shy about throwing in a few filler episodes.  The use of drama, suspense, and emotion within the series is also fantastic.

Now as far as anything negative, I feel that there really isn’t anything that really stands out-except that I find Black Star painfully annoying.  However, I do feel that animation may be a turn off for anime watchers.  As vivid as the animation is in Soul Eater, some may find this to be an issue as far looks goes.  That is, it’s not pretty enough.  I’m one of those otakus myself, but my advice would be to just go with it.  Like I said, it’s the story that is the real highlight of the show here.  The animation is just something to set it rolling.

Overall, Soul Eater is quite the fine show.  Though a little older- though not by much- by many standards, I definitely can say that it certainly is a classic among the anime world.  The show is available in stores wherever anime is sold- I bought the entire series at FYE-, or on online sites such as Amazon.  Funiamtion.com also has the episodes available online.  The show also has a spin off series entitled Soul Eater Not!, taking the perspective of the Meister weapons rather than the Meisters themselves.  Well, I think that about covers it for this review.  So with that, I’m off!  Stay tuned because next week I will be doing one of the first discussion post of the year.

-Hanime on Anime

Soul Eater Trailer