OP

ED
Summary:
A monster roams the dimly lit streets and finds a victim to feed on. He makes quick work of the woman and consumes her soul. A girl happens to stumble upon the scene and screams. The monster pursues her and is about to kill her when he senses another presence. The monster looks up the stairs to see Maka and Soul Eater. Soul transforms into a scythe and Maka proceeds to fight the monster. The monster is eventually defeated and Soul consumes the monster’s soul.

They contact the head Shinigami via a nearby mirror and he congratulates the pair for obtaining their 99th soul. All that is left for Soul to become a death scythe is to obtain the soul of a witch. They decide to head to a pumpkin hut owned by the witch Blair. Soul charges the house through the window and lands in the bathroom, where Blair is taking her bath. Soul instantly gets a massive nose bleed after seeing Blair. Maka jumps in after Soul and tells him to turn into a scythe but before they can do anything Blair destroys them with a pumpkin blast.

They eventually are able to confront Blair again. Blair expresses her interest at obtaining Soul Eater for herself and as they continue to fight, Maka begins to realize that Soul is not responding to her. The head Shinigami and Maka’s father (the Shinigami’s death scythe) are watching the battle, and Maka’s father wants to intervene, but the Shinigami stops him saying that its Maka’s fight. Maka is tossed into the air and is hanging from a roof by her scythe. Soul transforms back into his human form and grabs her hand, but he lets go letting her fall into a pile of garbage. Maka quickly gets out of the pile and expresses her anger at Soul for betraying her. Soul responds by saying that cool guys don’t mess around. Soul transforms his arm into a scythe that surrounds Blair. Maka grabs Soul’s free hand and slices Blair in half.

After having achieved their final goal, Soul proceeds to eat Blair’s soul. However, nothing happens and instead a cat appears before them. It turns out that Blair was not a witch but actually a cat with unusually strong magical powers, much to the horror of Maka and Soul. Blair did not die because cats have multiple souls. Because Soul ate the soul of a cat instead of a witch they have to start all over again collecting souls.

Thoughts:
I was completely blown away by the quality of animation and the extensive fight sequences. This was much more then I had initially expected from an anime based on a shonen manga. The music for Soul Eater is being done by the same person that was responsible for Gurren Lagann’s amazing soundtrack, Iwasaki Taku and while watching the first episode, it is easy to recognize familiar tunes.

The only qualm I have with Soul Eater so far is Maka’s voice actor, Chiaki Omigawa as seen here who has not had any experience in the anime industry until now which makes me wonder why they had selected her to voice one of the main characters (money saver?). When I first heard her voice, I was completely appalled by how obviously bad it was and how it didn’t match the Maka at all. Maybe I’m over exaggerating a bit but it was still a shock after seeing a such fabulously animated OP. Her voice reminds me of an expressionless version of Mamimi from FLCL. However, the rest of the voice cast is perfectly fine.

The story is interesting, the music and animation is great and once I get used to Maka’s awful voice I’ll enjoy Soul Eater a lot more. Definitely a must watch.

-exo