Soul Eater Not! – 06-08
Soul Eater Not! going into Sankarea territory…
 It’s unfortunate that episode 6 was as bad as it was. I was a big fan of Liz and Patty Thompson in the original series, but we didn’t need an entire episode devoted to them in this one. And not even in their role as wacky sidekicks to Death the Kid but as humorless street punk characters before they hooked up with him. At least it had some funny moments like our main trio coincidentally aping street punk characters at the cafe or Tsugumi running into Death the Kid who promptly rearranged her face, moving that bandage to somewhere completely ineffective in the process.
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I’m no big fan of the overuse of the needlessly mean-spirited punks as fodder for minor bad guys. Give them some motivations.
Episode 7 was an improvement, but barely. The first half felt a lot like a continuation of the previous episode with its antics at the cafe featuring more of the Thompson sisters. There was some story-related stuff with Sid discussing things with our 2 male student heroes, but it was presented basically as an infodump, which is not what you want to see.
At least things picked up in the 2nd half, though the results were mixed. I’m always happy to see (hear) more of Maka Albarn (Chiaki Omigawa), especially if she’s opposite the eponymous Soul Eater himself. I wonder how both voice actors are enjoying reprising the roles that got them started in this industry. They bounce off each other so well, and I still enjoy seeing the heroine of the main series play mentor figure to the heroine of this one.
Both Omigawa and Uchiyama have done well in the industry since their joint debut back in 2008.
And Eternal Feather is precious. I felt so sorry for her trying to sell those clothes out there. And that’s before she got manipulated by our villainess who finally made her move. I’m not gonna lie, I can’t help but get lost in Shaula’s gorgeous yin-yang eyes, and I like her style of diving right into creating a big murderous commotion out in the open.
This was a great opportunity to showcase more of the solid action this show’s been having up to this point, but at the most critical moment so far with the #1 EAT stars up against a major supporting character controlled by our main villain, Soul Eater Not! dropped the ball. I don’t know if the animators meant for it to look like that or if some wires got crossed somewhere, but the end result was simply awful. Maka and Eternal Feather going at each other with Soul Eater in scythe form was unnaturally smooth, motions going at almost constant speed with no rhythm whatsoever. There was no weight to the movements that felt lifeless and robotic, like gears in a well-oiled machine. The best examples of animated melee combat have stops and bursts, a feeling of quickness and instantaneous explosion followed by stops and reversals. Not a smooth nonstop almost restful motion like what we saw. Seriously, that was awful.
I ship it.
It almost seemed like Soul Eater Not! was having its Magical Girl Madoka Magica moment with how episode 7 ended, but let’s face it: we all knew Eternal Feather would be okay. This is the more light-hearted off-shoot of a shonen series that was already more bouncy and bright than that magical girl show. When Mami lost her head, you knew the show had passed a point of no return. When Eternal Feather’s braid flew off right before the credits, you knew she would be right as rain the following week.
The lack of a tonal shift is fine, but the way episode 8 followed it up was downright criminal. I thought we were starting to ramp up the tension with the show entering its 2/3 mark? But no, nothing happened in this episode other than Eternal Feather healing and Tsugumi moping more about her powerlessness as a weapon to protect her meister(s). We already saw that a few weeks ago, and this didn’t really cover new ground. I’m noticing that the show keeps forcing development upon characters. It happened with the Thompson sisters in episode 6 when they decided to become nice to Tsugumi and the gang because… something I’m still not clear on. It happened with Tsugumi in episode 4 when she was moping about being unremarkable before suddenly deciding that she would take it easy. And the same happened again with Tsugumi in the latest episode. There was also Kim just up and deciding to break it off with Jacqui. Would have been nice to have seen the 2 happily together as lesbian lovers weapon and meister a bit before reversing all the progress they had made in episode 5.
This was admittedly quite funny, especially once Meme started dog whistling.
And from the shift in seasons (as well as Eternal Feather’s returned braid), it seems like at least several weeks, perhaps months, passed in the latest episode. What has Shaula been up to all this time? Why did she retreat so quickly? And how is the investigation by Sid and our male heroes Akane and Clay progressing? That would have been much more interesting to see than half an episode’s worth of content stretched out to 1. At least we got an appearance by our favorite mad scientist from the main series who delivered an excellent multi-stage practical joke on our heroines, apparently for nothing else than shits and giggles (though I wonder if that Eternal Feather head will stick around now that it’s been freed). I’m not sure which one I liked better, Stein’s prank(s) or Master’s multi-staged joke the previous episode about his family and his daughter.
So yeah, a pretty poor stretch of episodes for Soul Eater Not! which had been alternating good and bad with an overall positive trajectory before this. Most shocking is the lack of any decent action scenes in that stretch, after almost having one great one in each episode prior. Let’s hope they’re saving the big guns for the show’s final tertile when the conflict between Shaula and DWMA reaches a head.
At the least, the show’s been providing enough laughs.
About lvlln
A math/science geek and a self-dubbed cynical optimist. I don't care if it's deep, if it can make me feel something or laugh, it's fine in my book. @lvlln
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
Aside from the sudden quality drop in episode 7 (really? THE most significant scene yet revealed in the story and they choose to be cheap on the art and animation budget there?!) I had no problems with these episodes.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Braaaaiiinnssss.
The animation team got zombified?
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Episode 6 left much to be desired but the following two made up for the disappointment. Tsugumi should be mustering her resolve to be a complete weapon soon seeing the end of the series isn’t far but I can’t shake the feeling it’s going to be rush job.
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 386 comments
yep…