I finally watched Soul Eater since they added it to Netflix. I had been wanting to watch it for years because I had seen several AMVs with it. For those who don’t know, an AMV is an anime music video.
Soul Eater was not what I expected it to be and that’s a good thing. I thought it would only focus on fighting and epic battle scenes like most action shows do. Instead the show looks at the bonds between meisters and weapons while also examining the characters’ inner struggles.
The show follows the students of DWMA as they collect souls in hopes of transforming their weapons into death scythes that Lord Death can use in order to maintain peace in the world. In order to become a death scythe, the weapons have to collect 99 evil souls and 1 witch soul in that exact order. If the team messes up the order or collects the wrong soul then they have to start over from scratch.
Maka and Soul Eater have a bond where they trust each other completely. Soul will do whatever it takes to protect Maka as his meister. Even when Maka is afraid, he knows that she will pull herself out of it and be able to continue the battle. They both push each other to their limits while not letting the other person lose control.
When Soul uses too much of the black blood’s power and it takes control of him, Maka enters his soul to recover him. She discerns the difference between Soul and the little demon and risks her own soul to save him. Both of them would risk their own lives for their partner’s sake and that’s just so beautiful to me. They truly have each other’s backs no matter what and that’s why their souls resonate so well. When Maka purifies the black blood and minimizes the demon’s power, Soul finally accepts it as a part of himself. At first, Soul denied the black blood completely and then he relied on the power too much. In the end, he was finally able to embrace it as being a part of him forever, so he ate it. Mmmmm little demons. I wonder what kind of poop Soul has since he eats souls.
Maka is the same way when it comes to her fear of facing somebody stronger than her and the thought that she could die in battle. Sometimes the fear paralyzes her and Soul has to shake her out of it. When Maka realizes the fear isn’t going to go away and that she must fight despite it, she is able to push forward and fight beyond her boundaries. In fact, she was able to defeat the Kishin because she had the courage to embrace her fear. The madness that the Kishin boasted about being within everybody was defeated by Maka’s courage. Honestly, that part didn’t make sense to me because the only thing she did was punch him in the face. She literally defeated this all powerful Kishin, that had to be locked away by Lord Death and even defeated Lord Death, with a single punch. Nobody was more shook than the Kishin because I’m sure he didn’t understand either. He died confused.
Two other characters with inner struggles worth noting are Crona and Blackstar.
Blackstar seems like a shallow character because he’s loud and constantly talks about how great he is. However, he works really hard and has a good heart. Black Star doesn’t have problems with his physical strength. His problem lies in his soul’s ability to understand Tsubaki’s enchanted sword mode. Tsubaki is his weapon and her strongest ability is enchanted sword mode which is a dark katana. When Black Star uses this technique, it drains his soul and he cannot hold it for long. In his search for power he starts to follow the path of the demon just like his family members that were killed by the DWMA because of their evil ways. Eventually he pulls himself out of it while fighting a samurai and creates his own path.
Crona’s mother did experiments on him and never gave him any love. Instead, she just wanted him to be a strong fighter. Crona’s blood is black because his mother was more interested in the effects of black blood than raising her child. Did I forget to mention that his mom is a witch? Yea she’s a witch that sees people as tools to get what she wants. She was so sneaky and manipulative. Manipulative Medusa. Crona is so messed up in the head that his soul is literally dry. He doesn’t know how to interact with people at all. Maka literally has to enter his soul and show him that it’s possible to interact with other people. Afterwards, Crona’s soul becomes hydrated and he grows so much. He becomes such a good person and starts making friends. Eventually, he has to choose his mother or his new life. Medusa comes back and tries to trick Crona into thinking she will love him if he does what she says. And honestly that’s a tough decision because even though Medusa is clearly evil, she’s still his mom. She was the only one he interacted with before Maka came and helped him. If choosing between friends or toxic family isn’t an inner struggle, then I don’t know what is.
I loved how Soul Eater wasn’t solely about fighting and getting stronger. It teaches lessons in embracing who you are in order to evolve and become a better version of yourself. I would definitely recommend it.
What were some of your favorite parts of Soul Eater?
