Posted by OP Sequence
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
OP: 「monochrome」 by Dancing Dolls
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
「死武専、入学!」 (Shibusen, Nyuugaku!)
“Welcome to the DWMA!”
The cameos are strong in this one.
General Impressions
Being a huge fan of the original Soul Eater, you can bet I was a little nervous as I hit the play button. While it may have helped if I did a little research on this side-story adaptation, I’m the kind of person who likes to jump headfirst into things because some uncertainty is fun every now and then! Luckily for me, this first episode was pretty freaking great — for reasons that were completely different from the original (something I probably would have known if I had done a little reading ahead of time >>).
While we were treated to a pretty cool fight scene, I’ve heard that we’re not going to get too much of it. So instead of the cool battles that the original spoiled us with, what does SOUL EATER NOT leave us with? It leaves us with what could be a super strong coming of age story. If I were to pick one thing that I loved about this episode, it would definitely be watching Tsugumi’s coming of age struggle (I finally get to use that word in a post, achievement get!). Because in a world that seems so focused on turning kids into master witch hunters, it’s refreshing to see that the struggles we all face growing up still hold true. That and I’m always down for watching someone face a difficult situation, contemplate giving up because it’s tough, and then turns around and faces the problem head on. Or maybe it’s just because Tsugumi feels a more childish Maka and I just want more Maka in my life.
Two Meisters, One Buki
Rounding out Tsugumi is Anya and Meme, two girls who are literally on completely opposite sides of the personality spectrum. The former being your typical tsundere princess that was graced with the talent to handle pole-arm weaponry and the latter who is an extreme air-head but has enough charm to befriend the devil himself. While it’s obviously too early to say much about them (I’m rooting for Meme!), something in the opening sequence caught my eye — the scene where Tsugumi is on a bench looking depressed until the pair shows up to brighten her day. Seeing how two big things that come from moving away from home is depression and anxiety, I’m praying that this is an indication of some strong coming of age moments just waiting to hit us with the feels somewhere down the road.
The Cameos are Strong in This One
I wish I could give the people at Bones a giant hug because I don’t think they understand how happy they made me by giving our main trio from the original some cameo time. While I’m not crazy enough to think that we’ll see them anytime soon, it drives me bonkers that I’m going to be hoping they’ll randomly turn the corner or appear in just the nick of time to prevent a situation from turning dire. It makes you wonder if this side story is just a ploy to build hype for a hypothetical reboot? Personally, I would love if SOUL EATER got the FMA: Brotherhood treatment.
Looking Ahead
I am so happy that this first episode fulfilled all of my needs in one fell swoop. Giving us a glimpse at some of the cool things that are hopefully waiting for us down the road, I’m happy to see that this “side story” seems to have the “oomph” needed to stand on its own. With a fairly strong cast of characters (with cameos sprinkled everywhere!) and the SOUL EATER world for them to play around in, it sounds like the perfect combination for success. That said, the preview for next week’s episode does scare me a bit, but because it’s Bones I’m not too worried.
ED Sequence
 |
 |
 |
ED: 「夕暮れハッピーゴー」 (Yuugure Happii Goo) by 春鳥つぐみ（CV: 千菅春香）、多々音めめ（CV: 悠木碧）、アーニャ・ヘプバーン（CV: 早見沙織）(Harudori Tsugumi (CV: Chisuga Haruka), Tatane Meme (CV: Yuuki Aoi), Anya Hepburn (CV: Hayami Saori))
Preview
 |
 |
 |
personally, i wasn’t satisfied about the original soul eater’s ending, but in all honesty, it wasn’t as well written near the end in comparison to FMA. giving it a reboot is a treat for the fans, but overall the story quality near the end just doesn’t do reboot justice.
there were a lot of half-heartedness near the end and it didn’t wrap up nicely like FMA did, so in a way i’m more glad for soul eater not! being animated rather than seeing a reboot of soul eater.
You mean the original manga ended and it wasn’t that great?
As much as I would like to say the manga ending was good, it left a lot to be desired. It can be interpreted in a number of ways that the author wish to convey, but I guess that will be all we will get unless there is a sequel planned and produced like what Shaman King is doing now.
It would be interesting if they could bring in the author to create a more complete ending for an anime reboot.
The manga’s ending has a lot of people speculating that, once NOT! wraps up, we’ll see a sequel that incorporates the protagonists from both. There’s a ton of unanswered question remaining from the original SE, after all.
Cameos cameos everywhere!
and a tingle of Yuri triangle?
https://randomc.net/image/SOUL%20EATER/SOUL%20EATER%20NOT%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2042.jpg
this looks almost like Sakura Trick!
Even if Sakura Trick is gone, the yuri is still strong in this season.
https://randomc.net/image/SOUL%20EATER/SOUL%20EATER%20NOT%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2013.jpg
Anya is such a tsundere lol
Woo Soul Eater, Yuri edition. From the OP, there might be plenty of action going around. As with Prisma Ilya, don’t judge a spin-off by the cuteness of the girls alone.
I love how Tsugumi has picked up Maka as her role model. I didn’t watch the original Soul Eater (not really my kind of show, this one suits me much better), and one could argue that it’s kind of pandering to have her fixate on the other series’ heroine, but… really, Maka’s just cool. Just the sort of person that an uncertain girl like Tsugumi could pick as her ideal sempai, whose footsteps she’d want to follow in.
PS: Why so tsundere, princess? If you pull that with people who don’t know you you’re going to get what you got: an epic failure to truly communicate.
Im so happy to see gangs comes back! The girls are deadly cute, im expected a great episodes from Soul Eater Not!! Pretty exciting! Maka and Soul new style looks even better than the original one. Aintcha?
Let me get this out of the way quick…. MY TSUBAKI CHAN IS BACK (squees). Okay now that I got that out of my system, this show is pretty underwhelming. I know it’s a prequel but I don’t the forced moe slice of life stuff at the DWMA. Part of what made Soul Eater cool was it’s funky hip hop Tim Burton style. Here it’s just MOE and cameos from the original cast. I WISH that some of them starts interacting with the main Female a bit longer than just a pop up, otherwise this show is NOT even Soul Eater esque.
So I guess I was the only one so far who was just a bit disappointed.
It was fun. But to me the characters weren’t very memorable as they’ve mostly been seen before. Shy girl, airhead, and princess tsundere.
For me the biggest way that this show got any personality were it’s cameos and references (the laughing sun for example — which I am stoked is still present), which isn’t a good thing for a sequel. (ik it’s a prequel waaa)
But hey I still liked it. Just a little disappointed with the Soul Eater! tagged to it.
I don’t know if its really accurate to call this a prequel.
It’s set in the same universe, it happens before the original Soul Eater, and it apparently contains events and information which tie into events in Soul Eater. What would you call that if not a prequel?
Also following what Wanderer said the timeline matches up too because if you didn’t notice Sid is not a zombie in this one 😛
Also, Show Spoiler ▼
Do you consider a side story and a prequel to be the same thing.
Is it a prequel when the ending point of the story has not been written yet and likely overlaps the start of the ‘main’ series?
As an example do you consider Railgun to be a side story or prequel to the Index series.
Nothing’s overlapping though…
A prequel is a story that takes place before the 1st…
(tbh are we really starting an argument over whether or not this is a prequel? lol o3o)
As Longhaul already pointed out this is a side story not a true prequel. Soul Eater has plenty of potential for a true prequel if Ookubo wanted to make one and it would likely take place much earlier in the timeline. It’s been stressed many times already that this is primarily a spin off with a much lighter tone than the original Soul Eater so sorry to say but if you’re disappointed by that then your expectations were just misplaced.
Railgun is a side story that runs concurrent with Index….
Show Spoiler ▼
Let’s see how long it takes for Excalibur to show up. xD
KILL. IT. WITH. FIRE.
FOOL! Do you seriously think fire is enough to kill Excalibur?!
http://imgur.com/iBaR0Ap
*mandatory “I just met Excalibur” emoticon*
(ﺧ益ﺨ)
lets all be honest how can it not be a soul eater show without him apearing or making a cameo.
im also curious as to when shinigami (headmaster one) will make his apearence(with speaking lines not as a model for a baner).
“soul eater NOT”
😉
Anyone else think Black Star looks more muscled then he used to?
Tsugumi’s boobs also seem bigger.
And she’s more moe.
I forgot to mention on how the new artstyle makes me want to ram my head through a field of wild rutting buffalo while kicking a baby eating a packet of spoiled ketchup.
Aside from muscular, for me he looked a bit taller compared to the original manga.
I’ll say what you all aren’t trying to say…. this show is NOT Soul Eater and it’s crappy.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions after all, even when NOT trying to be funny.
Still on the fence on checking this show out. But having recently finishing a marathon of Soul Eater, the difference in art style and character design is jarring for me. o_o
It’s like I’m watching fanart, or Kyo-Ani moe girls cosplaying as DWMA students.
Man, Soul looked so damn high.
And didn’t get a single line in this pilot, despite the show STILL being named after him! Jipped!
Death the Kid didn’t get any lines in this episode too.
I’m not sure I can warm up to a spin-off that aims at an entirely different audience and has a different animation style than SOUL EATER- in fact I still prefer if they just do a BROTHERHOOD instead. I’m on the fence about this one.
Bones is playing up Tsugumi’s perspective of someone who was only recently ‘normal’ and I am liking it so far.
I think something often overlooked about Soul Eater is how most of the world is actually supposed to be ‘normal’ even if it does not show up in the series.
https://randomc.net/image/SOUL%20EATER/SOUL%20EATER%20NOT%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2031.jpg
Show Spoiler ▼
Can’t remember where it was mentioned in the original Soul Eater, but this is the first I heard that Shibusen was actually in America, and that there were NOT classes which didn’t focus on witch hunting.
I understand that NOT fills in a lot of information on the school and student life and such, due to being more focused on slice of life in that setting, compared to the original being an action series which didn’t find such things important enough to talk about.
It’s in Nevada.
@Wanderer – Which I think is a good thing, so we get to see how a Shibusen student’s life is like when they’re not aiming to consume 99 evil souls and 1 witch soul. NOT does provide another interesting perspective on the Soul Eater world, wherein I didn’t know there were Weapons who had trouble living normally because of their ability, and that Shibusen had classes just for the purpose of helping these Weapons with that.
@starss – Now that’s more specific. Thanks!
Death City is located in Death Valley, Nevada. Like many things in the series it’s a pun.
I’m disappointed in this series as well. Soul Eater had more impressionable characters, here its all your stereotypes all over again.
The best part for me was the Sun laughing. The art design felt to normal and I thought Soul Eater was meant to be more crazy and ridiculous. Maybe it’s the tone of this series but it sounds like they’re trying to normalize the craziness from the original Soul Eater and fit an entirely different kind of show into the Soul Eater universe.
My expectations are low on this but I’ll probably see this through to the end.
Yes.
https://randomc.net/image/SOUL%20EATER/SOUL%20EATER%20NOT%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2009.jpg
I remember reading the first few chapters of the manga a long time ago and found it really boring, it was a high school drama (i hate those) within the soul eater universe, but i will give it a shot since there are not many shows this season that interest me and i love Soul Eater.
NOT really won’t be for everySoul Eater fan, since it focuses on newcomers to the school that landed in the NOT class, or Normally Overcome Target, which makes up 90% of the students in the school. The three teams we all know and love from Soul Eater were seniors, but also part of the EAT class, or Especially Advantaged Target. So yeah, the NOTs aren’t meant to be hunting down witches and making Death Scythes, but they do show what the majority of the students are up to in their daily lives.
Hence why this was always billed as a much more laid-back spin-off. I like it cause I find the three girls adorable.
… did the anime explain all that already? Cause it so it would be a spoiler to those who haven’t read the manga. Still, it would seem like some important information for those viewers wondering about the reason why the word “NOT!” is in the title, aside from a theoretical reason of distinguishing this from the previous anime (“this is NOT the same SOUL EATER show!”).
Ppl, ppl calm down, this show is still Soul Eater but with lesbians. So everything will be okay. Did you not see the fight scenes? It was still Soul Eater, the art style is NOT. Hence Soul Eater NOT.
P.S. Yay Tsubaki
After years of watching the last Soul Eater episode, and watching this throwing all the cameos about, I feel I couldn’t help myself to re-watch the original series again, but stopped as I changed my mind as I recall the ending is anime original, not the manga based as it was still on-going then.
I just hope BONES will consider making the “Brotherhood” version in the near future for Soul Eater as the manga has officially ended, just like Fullmetal Alchemist.
The cameos came across to me as fanservice for Soul Eater fans when reading the NOT manga at first. They’re faithful to whats in the book cameo wise.
TAKAII! Tonari no Seki-kun is still airing! You tried to end it too soon!
…Also, any chance you might be picking this series up to cover?
Think i will watch it, this Show created good Vibes inside me, and thats a good felling. So i stick with this
While the episode itself was good, I was disappointed with the art direction they took this adaptation. The whole intro with Tsugumi finding she is a weapon then flying to DWMA didn’t sit right with me. Mainly because being a fan of the original series, I was under the impression that this is a magical world, with magical and fantasy settings. Seeing Tsugumi in a regular Japanese house and school, then flying on a commercial airline with others in regular clothing ruined that impression for me. Checking the manga, it appears this intro was not included, and as such I blame it on a poor take on the Soul Eater world by the director. I do not mind the character redesigns, but I was definitely hoping that they would at least attempt to recreate the unique world they set up in the first season. No such luck. However, the fluidity of the action scenes, the likeable main characters and the cameos still make this a reasonable start to the series. Here is to hoping that the director decides on what type of world he wants to portray and stick with it.
Personally, I think that the original art style wouldn’t work at all for the type of show NOT is trying to be. Sure, the original style is unique and awesome… but it’s unique and awesome because it is used for an action-packed show with a side of crazy comedic romp. For a show like this which is a slower-paced slice-of-life coming-of-age story, I think such a stylized art style would just feel really out of place.
Now, whether they should’ve used a normal style other than the moe style… personally, I love the moe style, so no. Razz Guess you can’t please everyone.
tsugumi can be waifu, kanojo no kawaiiiI!!!!!!!!!!!
Frankly I’m disappointed. It’s so obvious they couldn’t get the seiyuu of Soul, so he didn’t say a thing when he showed up. Plus two generic throw away bullies(with one looking like Maka’s dad but on steroids) to make the protagonists look good. Just another show cashing in on the franchise’s name.
Technically, the mangaka for SOUL EATER wrote and supervised the art for NOT! too, so it’s not exactly “cashing in” on the success of the earlier anime, unless you’re talking about the new staff that’s working on NOT!
Also, is Soul’s VA really that hard to get??
Personally I am quite disappointed but at the same time very interested in this show and how it was set up. As it was said before, the whole regular school life and airport scene at the beginning messed me up completely and shouldn’t have been there because it destroys the original thought of soul eater being a magical world and stuff. Now it’s like a chosenones are superheros type thing before it seemed like dwma WAS regular school. And naming it soul eater just messed me up because not only is it not about sou eater (which the original wasn’t really about anyway) but they use the name and make it a drama instead of that crazy action that we all love. Also I’m just waiting to see how this 2 meister 1 weapon thing will work, cause so far I’m not seeing any other main characters who’s a weapon and meister who might pair with them. I just don’t understand how you make a main character being a weapon but the show will have barely any action. And who will fight with WHO IF and when there is action. I do if I’ll watch the show all the way through, but it wasn’t cool to change the audience like they did from fight lovers to school life and occasional action
It sounds like you were just unaware that Maka and her classmates were ~*supergenius special snowflake sh0nen hero-celebrities*~ and you seem a little put off by that. Because it makes those characters a little harder to connect with, perhaps? Maybe? I don’t know. At any rate, I wouldn’t say it feels like the world is less magical. What with all of the witches and weapons and demonic entities and such.
DWMA is like a special military academy run by a god who wants control over the world’s weapons and meisters so they can do his job for him, since he can’t move around anymore. That was my impression of the school from the first series. So, logically speaking, there had to be normal schools populated by average citizens, we just never saw much of them because they weren’t important to the story.
Also I would like to point out that it’s not named “soul eater”, it’s explicitly titled Soul Eater NOT! – I really hope you see what they did there. With a title like that, nobody should come in expecting more of the same.
Loved the Not’s manga, loved Soul Eater, hated its anime for going anime original in the end, but this anime episode was just poifect, not perfect, poifect! 10/10 AOT certified with a badge of Flawless Victory!
I was reading Not before I binged watched Index’s season 1, season 2, and Railgun’s first season before its Season 2 came out. Now I notice the similarities between Railgun and Not.
It’s been a while since I’ve read Not so I don’t know if he shows up, but I mean he has to right? right?!
Excalibur, Excalibur, from United Kingdom, I’m looking for Heaven. I’m going to California!
https://randomc.net/image/SOUL%20EATER/SOUL%20EATER%20NOT%20-%2001%20-%2036.jpg Fool!
Wrong excalibur lyrics bro.
The fact that we are excited about cameo appearances more than the actual main characters say alot. This should only be 12 episodes max and call it quits. Im not even going to watch this series. I hope this is a setup for the eventual of return of Soul Eater and finish it properly. All the they have to do is start off from episode 36 and go from there. It only gets better from there. I have been waiting too long for them to adapt the rest of the original manga and Im hoping this is a sign of things to come.
I completely agree. They’re still on the first book with regards to content for the first and from what I can see the 2nd episode. They’re going to run out of material at some point, I would rather see them end it when they’re a little past the third book and revisit it after doing a Soul Eater reboot which should by then give NOT more material to animate.
Best advice I can give is to stick with it. As someone who is up to date on the manga, it gets better.
I’m completely confused on a few things…
1. Soul Eater NOT! takes place prior to events in Soul Eater (proof: Medusa is still an undercover nurse, Sid is still a human, Liz and Patty are just partnering up with Death the Kid). What I don’t understand is how Maka and Soul and the rest of them are seniors. Does that mean when Soul Eater ended that they graduated?
2. Why are Tsubaki’s boobs bigger? Like seriously, I thought this took place PRIOR to all this; does this mean they shrunk in Soul Eater?
3. Are Death the Kid’s stripes thicker or is it just me?