First Impressions / SOUL EATER

Summary:

Word gets out that Shinigami-sama’s son is enrolling, so Black*Star takes Soul and waits at the front of the school for him. Death the Kid is actually three hours late on his first day because he spent so much time at home making sure everything was perfectly symmetrical before he left. When he finally does arrive, he admires the symmetry of the school building and is devastated when Black*Star unintentionally destroys that symmetry by standing on and breaking ones of the spikes sticking out the main skull structure. This pisses Kidd off enough to fight, and he has no trouble handling both Soul and Black*Star. Soul attempts to attack him from behind, but Kidd stops Soul’s blade with his gun and counterattacks by shooting Soul in the gut. This fight attracts the attention of the students inside the school, and Maka, Tsubaki, and Stein go outside to deal with it.

Since Maka has the ability to see people’s souls, Stein has her look at the ones of Kidd, Liz, and Patty as part of a special lesson. Maka observes that the three soul wavelengths are indeed matched up, and she realizes that the three admire each other. Stein confirms this by explaining that Liz and Patty admire Kidd’s dignified soul since the two of them were raised on the streets. Kidd, on the other hand, admires the sisters’ positive souls because they’re different from his own highly-strung self. Back in the fight, Black*Star and Soul decide to attempt what they call a friendship union, but all that ends up happening is Soul turning into his scythe form and landing blade-side down on Black*Star’s head. This cuts a deep gash on Black*Star’s head, and he’s subsequently unable to pick the scythe up. Maka knows that the reason for this is that the pair’s soul wavelengths aren’t matched, and Stein asserts that before fighting an enemy, a meister and a weapon have to face each other as partners.

Soul and Black*Star thus choose to break up but stay friends, and while they’re hugging, Kidd shoots them both in the head. As the two get back up, they decide that they have to finish what they started, so they renew their attacks on Kidd. Black*Star eventually manages to grab Kidd’s leg and pulls him onto the ground, giving Soul an opening to slash at their opponent. This doesn’t do much to faze Kidd though, and he responds by performing a Resonance of Souls with Liz and Patty. It turns the two girls into large gun attachments and puts Kidd into what he calls Execution mode, allowing him to fire the Death Cannon. Using this on Soul and Black*Star succeeds in knocking them both out, but afterwards, Kidd loses consciousness too. Maka realizes that when Soul had earlier slashed at Kidd, he had cut some of Kidd’s bangs, and Kidd didn’t notice the broken symmetry until after the explosion. Soul and Black*Star decide that this means that they came from behind to win, and Maka and Tsubaki are reunited with their respective partners.

Shinigami-sama then shows up since it’s his son’s first day and decides to take Kidd home for today. With Shinigami-sama right in front of her, Maka tries to see what his soul looks like, but she doesn’t see anything at all. She thus concludes that he doesn’t have a soul, not realizing that his is so big that it covers the entire school.

Preview

I could probably once again talk about how this was a fight episode that still didn’t do much for the overall story, but I actually really, really enjoyed this episode because it was hilarious, and the fight was tons of fun to watch (I say that a lot about this series, but this was even more than usual). I laughed through the entire yuujou gattai (friendship union) scene that went so horribly wrong for Black*Star and Soul, and Kidd shooting them while they were declaring their friendship was pretty funny too. I also liked the twist of how the very last shot of the episode reveals that Shinigami-sama’s soul is big enough to cover the entire school. I can only imagine what kind of fighting power he wields.

Next week looks to involve one of the girls who’s shown in the OP, so I assume she’s a recurring character and thus plays a fairly important role in the story. I doubt it’ll end up being as funny as this week was, but the BONES team has thus far done a wonderful job on this series, so I’m looking forward to it.

37 Comments

  6. nice ep very hilarious, cant wait too see Shinigami-sama in action with his soul able to cover the entire city. i wonder thou is that really his soul or it is some kind of barrier to protect the city.

    were
    Reply

  11. To answer were >> Shinigami-sama uses his soul & body to fixed onto the ground to seal and stablise the Kishin underneath the city. So if Shinigami-sama plans to move out of the city, the whole city WILL move with him too. (Took from comic XD)

    Ten_Ryu_Oh
    Reply

  14. That’s actually not just the school, it’s the entire city… the school is at the very tip top of that mountain or whatever it is, you can see it if you look closely.

    RandomGuy
    Reply

  16. I wonder if Bones will continue to do one chapter per episode throughout all 51 episodes. Or if they’ll stop half-way through to give it an original ending like with Full Metal Alchemist?

    phatmlrd
    Reply

  23. Different scanlations, actually. In some, Medusa says Chrona is her daughter. In others, Medusa refers to Chrona as her son.

    In Wikipedia, they say Chrona’s gender is unpecified, though most scanlations have taken to calling Chrona a female.

    Like, wtf. o_o

    Sadmask
    Reply

  26. Chrona is a girl. You idiots who are reading those scans are…well, idiots. Did you really think they translated right when they can’t even type properly in correct English grammar?

    karasu
    Reply

  31. @karasu

    The manga never uses gender-specific pronouns or nouns for Chrona. Medusa always says “kodomo.” Even the official episode 7 summary does the same thing–always “kodomo” rather than kanojo/shounen/onna/otoko.

    Zoe
    Reply

  35. @Cain
    How far into the manga have you read?
    I’ve read up to chapter 33 and it’s pretty evident to me that she is a girl. But if you’ve read further I’ll take your word for it.

    phatmlrd
    Reply

  37. I just started picking this up and I LOVE how eccentric and crazy it is! However, I can’t get a grasp on the mythology of this whole world. It just seems like the author put down whatever was of interest- it looks like the show is aimed solely at graffiti artists instead of teen boys.

    starss
    Reply

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