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Thursday, June 16, 2011

Soul Eater The Meister Collection Review

"A sound soul dwells within a sound mind and a sound body"

So scandalous! From the intro saying and episode title you know you're in for a treat from Soul Eater.Just the openings and closing make the show get intense, the music choices pull you in tighter for the kill. I've been waiting for the beautiful show to be re-released on blu-ray.

Clang, smash, insane laughter, fight after fight with martial art skills with deadly weapon. in a world with magic and monsters. Oh why didn't Soul Eater get picked up by a cable channel in the U.S.

You join Maka and Soul, a soul meister and weapon team that takes down Kishins. What was I just writing about? How about this, Soul transforms his body into a scythe that Maka uses in battle to fight evil souls called Kishins, plus they're teenagers in a high school for the Grim Reaper. They take down Kishins with a mix of martial arts, super attacks, and weapon handling like no others.

Were slowly introduced to their comrades at the DWMA(Death Weapon Meister Academy) or a sort of grim reaper training high school, Black Star and Tsubaki are a ninja assassin team. Tsubaki has multiple transformations and can become a number of ninja weapons for Black Star. Black Star has the biggest ego I've heard constantly shouted in anime. Shut up Black Star, just shut up.

Next we meet Death the Kid, he is the son of Death and has two weapons the Thompson sisters. The sisters Liz and Patty become two guns that Kid fires upside down with his pinkies. Kid is intelligent and very powerful, but a total neat freak who needs everything to be perfect. One part of the anime has him talking about putting the toilet paper neatly on the roll and having to stop in battle to think about it.

The first episode takes you in with violence, a hot cat girl, and slapstick comedy. That slapstick can get super gross and bloody, but you"ll look on and at first go. " Did, did blood just spurt out of his face everywhere? Oh , wait he's okay"

I wanted to release this review closer to the Tim Burton Exhibit, but ran out of time. The world perfectly fits set designs from Tim Burton and where the creator was inspired to create sick gross worlds that seem normal to residents living their. One of the strangest aspects has to be the Moon and Sun are alive and constantly bleeding from their faces. The creator Atsushi Ōkubo was inspired by Akiray Toriyama's Dr.Slump to pull that off , like in old cartoons where inanimate object have faces. At first you think no one notices and it's just something to make the background stand out, but the characters talk about it like it's normal.


Villains and friends are like seeing the Universal Monsters picked and updated to be cool. Other character like Excalibur. Excalibur, I love Excalibur he is the most powerful sword ever, and insane. Not bonkers violence insane, more like what just happened insane? He has a few episodes and when you see him you"ll want more.

There are so many little aspects that make this world stand out. After Soul and Maka defeat a bad guy Soul has to eat that soul and after 99 bad souls and one witch soul he becomes a weapon for  Lord Death himself. Lord Death looks like a happy go lucky cartoon character and sounds like one, but it's all an illusion so the others around him don't openly fear him.

With a over all story arc about a kishin resurrection, the problems of black blood, and getting lost in madness, there's well a great story in all the madness. This is one of the best series you might have never heard of, I've been waiting to see it since I saw products from it on J-List years ago before I saw the series just because I thought character design was impressive. Being on Blu-ray in HD quality was a must and I'm glad Funimation decided to re-release this way for the awesome havoc a quick stylish fights. My favorite one is the black blood fight between Maka and Chronos it's just so violent and crazy.

Pick up Soul Eater or all still your soul!

*You will hate the voice of Black Star, I'm sorry it's just going to piss you off.

Soul Eater: The Meister Collection [Blu-ray] $40.99 on Amazon