Summary:

Medusa isn’t happy to see Maka arrive to save Crona, particularly since Maka doesn’t care about the fact that Medusa is using someone else’s body or the deal that she made with Shibusen. Maka quickly gets Marie and Crona to work with her and Soul, but she has a hard time getting past Stein. He is currently suffering from a noise in his head that he can’t get rid of, and Medusa is telling him to destroy the source of the noise. Marie has a solution against Stein, but he’s too agile to let her get to him, and he blows all three of them away. Wanting to put an end to this, Medusa sneaks a Vector Arrow behind Maka and tries to stab her with it, but Crona pushes Maka out of the way at the last second and takes the hit. As Crona starts bleeding to death, she tells Maka not to cry and expresses how happy she is to have finally been of help to Maka. The loss of Crona drives Maka over the edge. Soul tries to warn her about her negative feelings, but it’s too late and he’s soon enveloped in black blood.

Stein has to come to help Medusa against Maka, but Marie then gets between them. She takes this opportunity to use her healing wavelength on Stein, and it helps rid Stein of the noise in his head and return to how he used to be. Maka protects the two from Medusa’s ensuing attack, and Stein is soon ready to fight again, this time against Medusa with Marie as his weapon. However, he first reassures Maka that Crona is still alive, if only barely, and he promises to save her, but for now he wants Maka to concentrate on Medusa. He also tells Medusa that her agreement with Shibusen is invalid because of her treacherous intentions. As for how to deal with the fact that Medusa is using the little girl Rachel’s body, Stein and Marie plan to distract her while Maka and Soul use the power she inherited from her mother. Stein thinks that this will allow them to defeat Medusa without harming the little girl.

When the opening comes, Maka channels all her feelings for Crona into the Majin Gari, and the attack succeeds in splitting Medusa from the body and subsequently kills her. Before she disappears though, Medusa warns ominously that this wavelength won’t work on the Kishin. In the aftermath, Stein declares that neither Crona nor Rachel’s lives are in danger, and as she watches over Crona, Maka pulls out the postcard that her mother sent her. On it is some writing that Maka can’t read, and when Stein takes a look, he realizes that it says شجاعت (shaja’at) which means courage. In any case, Marie and Stein are ready to head back to Shibusen with Crona and Rachel, but Maka and Soul decide to go face the Kishin. What they don’t realize is that Black*Star and Tsubaki have just reached Baba Yaga’s Castle, and they are met outside by Mifune.

Preview

I really liked this episode save for one big thing: they kept Crona alive. They go through a lot of trouble in making a fairly powerful death scene, showing Crona’s own courage and even Ragnarok in a sympathetic way, but in the end they walk it all back and say that Crona’s life isn’t really in danger. That’s the kind of thing that makes me bang my head against the wall. Death shouldn’t be something that you can use as a simple plot device like this – it should actually mean something. Gundam series, for example, often use death to show the brutality, senselessness, and/or tragedy of war. In this case, it would have shown the ultimate sacrifice for friendship, and that’s cheapened by having Crona still alive.

What I did like about this episode, though, was all the action, the various music pieces used during the fighting, seeing Marie finally redeem Stein, and seeing Stein kick some ass again using Marie like a tonfa. Medusa’s end came a little sooner than expected (I originally thought that she would outlast Arachne), and that leaves around half a dozen episodes to deal with Arachnophobia and Ashura. For the time being we’ll get to see Mifune vs. Black*Star, but I’m not sure if they’ll be able to do everything that the manga did at this point since Black*Star’s character hasn’t been developed in the same way – in other words, I worry a little that it’ll be a watered-down version of the that fight.

38 Comments

  1. Yes, Black Star vs. Mifune is likely going to be a diluted version of the form we see in the manga. :\ Medusa dying earlier was also a large surprise. Oh well, now all that is largely left to look forward to is the final battle vs the Kishin.

  2. What happened to the whole collect-99-evil-souls-and-one-witch-soul idea?
    Medusa’s soul just sort of…disappeared. Did they forget about this?
    Aside from that, highly enjoyable episode.

    Crona ended up living after all, but what about Ragnarok? 🙁

    Razor
  3. >>does this mean soul will become a death sythe? since in the 1st ep it said he needed the soul of a witch….now he killed one

    Because they screwed up in the first episode the 99 evil souls they had collected got invalidated. Granted he probably will still become a Death Scythe eventually…

    Rift
  4. @ anon, ARE YOU DUMB? so Lockon’s death was for nothing? please. >.>

    The final fight between black star and mifune is going to suck, I mean really badly, in the manga it was AMAZING, it was so epic that I saved it to my hard drive, it was that frigging good. I mean BS hasn’t even unlocked the true masumune purpose within the demon blade, how the fuck is he going to draw out the shadow star zero kata? I don’t even want to watch the next episode it would be an insult to the godlike manga, if you really want to see the true story/path of soul eater I HIGHLY suggest, no it is IMPERATIVE that you read the manga.

    Raithos
  5. I totally agree with the Crona’s “death”. It touched me, but when I heared that she (or him) is still alive that thing that I felt was gone.
    Looks like we’ll have to wait for a version that follows manga story

    pablo
  6. 6 episodes to go and my guts is telling me they will probably try and end Blackstar and Mifune’s fight in 3 episodes this is not a fact, i,m just hoping these episodes would focus only on black star and Mifune, other than showing us other people’s fight and lets not forget the reverend and the chainsaw dude’s fight if they can combine the two fights for the 3 episodes that would be good.

    Peter Rice
  7. @miko86: Medusa nullified it with her soul wavelength in the last episode.

    @Raithos: While the manga version of that fight was definitely awesome I’d suggest not judging the anime version before it even comes out.

    Kira-chan
  8. Have to agree my expectations for the Mifune and Black Star fight are very low. There is just no way they can make it nearly as entertaining here. Maka’s fight here had a chance since she had the tools. Black Star hasn’t gotten any stronger since his last fight against Mifune so this really won’t be much to remember. Agree with Raithos that this will really suck if you saw the manga matchup. If you haven’t it will probably just be a fight you won’t think much of over the series.

    The Chrona ‘death’ was disappointing to me. I mean it was such a dramatic moment and then they just say that Chrona will be fine. Sure it’s anime but making a small pond from your blood should hardly be something easily recovered from. Would have been nice if they had stuck to their guns. That or just not have Chrona take that kind of blow.

  9. @ashiguru, well 00 killed off Lockon…..then replaced him with twin Lockon LOLOL

    im thinking that BS’s secret masamune mode from the Manga is unlocked midway through the bttle, like miraculously as his ass gets beat own by Mifune

    Meduas dead? what? already? no climax? just…it? thats a shame, i honestly thought she’d last longer than Arachne, maybe even Kishin…

    Halbie
  10. that’s too mean how they killed medusa -_- i mean …at least that kid Rachel should’ve died too….the anime made an typical evil character of medusa but i think the manga medusa gonna have more pwnd moments and become more likeable ..well..whatever i hope the last 6 episodes wont suck as much as the last 5 -_- though i got some nice loli medusa x stein screens :<

    Neko-chan
  11. This isn’t gonna end well, there basically trying to cram 20 episodes of story into a mere 5. Its already apparent that there going to go with an anime original ending, but i’d still like to see something that isn’t half a**ed or rushed.

    Azar
  12. Where are Mosquito’s three other forms? Will they really be crammed into the next six episodes somehow? I wish Noah was in the show to. Cause now Kid is probably gonna kill Mosquito.

    Shadowhatchi
  13. hmmm shaja’at…. btw in the anime it’s written wrong o.O! it should be شجاعة or الشجاعة cuz this means courage…. but i guess the ppl who created the anime dunno good “ARABIC” rofl !! i was surprised to c they used arabic in anime.. this is the 1st time <3<3<3<3<3<3 i was able to understand a word lol!!

    jacob.v

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