Where’s your symbolism now, NGE religion theorists?

Right, so loose Evangelion reference aside, this episode was pretty good and pretty much exactly what I’ve come to expect of Soul Eater. That is, an above average action filled shounen that doesn’t take itself seriously and has plot continuity and rationale that emphasizes that point. I’m beginning to run out of things to say about it actually and end up reiterating myself every week like a corrupt mp3 file, not that I didn’t foresee this problem when I started blogging this, but I’ll give it my best to keep things at least mildly entertaining.

It’s another cool morning with Soul and Maka, Soul wakes up from a dream where he and his Meister take out the demon soul egg Rasputin, only to find Blair rubbing her breasts all over him. Maka walks in on the two and the scene unfolds like something you’d expect out of a love comedy, Soul Eater even pokes at the fourth wall and labels it as such.

At school, Maka continues to berate Soul for always playing around with Blair. Soul gets serious for a second and tells Maka of a rumor he heard, that their previous teacher Sid, who had reportedly been killed, is rumored to have turned into a zombie and is terrorizing former students of his of late, Maka gives him a whack over the head and tells him to stop believing baseless rumors. However, the fact of the matter is that Sid-sensei did in fact die and Maka’s father Deathscythe takes over their class temporarily. After making fun of Soul and trying to woo his daughter, he sends them off to report to Shinigami-sama.

On the way there, the two run into Black Star and Tsubaki, who have also been called to see Shinigami-sama. The reason is rather jarring to everyone except Black Star, Shinigami-sama assigns them a “Maintenance” job, jobs usually given to the retards of the school. Confirming Soul’s earlier rumor, he tells them that the former teacher Sid has been turned into a zombie and is attacking people and assigns them the task of taking him down, with the punishment of expulsion waiting them if they should fail.

As they reach the cemetery where Sid-sensei was buried, the threat of expulsion causes Soul to go recklessly insane, reduces Maka to a state of depression and has absolutely no effect on Black Star’s ego. Their moods sharpen into battle mode soon though, as Sid shows up to greet his former students, followed by a declaration of intent to kill.

Sid attacks first, hitting Black Star with a move he coins “Living End” and results in the NGE Angel-esque cross beam depicted above. Black Star retaliates with a kick to the solar plexus and Maka dodges a Living End, countering with a dropkick, but it’s clear that Sid is on a completely different level and it’s going to take more than petty attack to bring him down. So Maka and Soul try a Soul Resonance, which involves synchronizing the wavelengths of their souls for a nice power up. The manage to pull it off, Soul morphing from a huge regular scythe to a gigantic scythe brimming with energy. However, when Maka tries to fire off the finishing blow, she trips and ends up sending it in the opposite direction, almost slicing Black Star and Tsubaki in two.

Realizing he’s screwed if he doesn’t step up his game, Sid uses Dig (TM28) to try and catch Maka by surprise. Thankfully, Black Star’s knowledge as an assassin isn’t completely self-indulgent and he thinks of a counter pretty quickly. Using Tsubaki, he sets up a trap for Sid and calming his breathing down to silence, he anticipates Sid’s next attack and manages to bind him.

With that done with, the next part of the mission is to find the person responsible for turning Sid. Shinigami-sama explains to his son, Death the Kid, who was watching Maka and Black Star’s mission, that his current best weapon, Deathscythe, was forged by Maka’s mother. However, she was Deathscythe’s second master, the first was the most powerful weapons Meister to ever graduate from Shibusen, Dr. Franken Stein (har har).

Thoughts

So the most glaringly obvious problem with this week’s episode is the explanation Shinigami-sama offered Black Star and Maka for sending them on this mission. An assignment that pits student one star weapon Meisters against an experienced three star Meister, whom they happen to have a sort of emotional attachment to isn’t exactly what I would call elementary, as the misleading “Maintenance” title would suggest. And let alone the threat of expulsion in the case of failure, death seems to be the more pressing matter at hand.

But again, it’s hard for me to nitpick about logical plot progression in a series whose main attraction is being more or less devoid of such and instead concentrating on mind blowing action. But it’s still fun, so I’ll continue to do so.

The fighting was certainly to par this week, much better than episode three where Death the Kid beam spammed his opponent into oblivion. I’m curious as to why BONES thought it would be funny to rip off Evangelion’s crucifix beam, unless it was present in the manga as well, at which point I redirect the questioning to the mangaka. It was very much so a “WTF?” moment in the episode, but hey, I ran with it.

Maka and Soul’s unison thing was pretty neat, it brought to mind Shaman King, although I haven’t actually watched the entire thing. I like the explanation they offered for it, my inner physics nerd jumping in joy when I thought about souls as wave functions and Soul Resonance as aligning constructive wave patterns to increase amplitude, but I’m pretty sure all the physics connotations behind it are purely accidental.

Something I find perplexing about Soul Eater is its approach to fanservice. Sometimes they’re quite blatant with it, boiling down to pretty much any scene involving Blair and its near 100% probability of involving either a bathtub or rubbing her boobs against Soul. Yet at other times, as pictured above, they go through incredible lengths to snatch it away when it would actually make sense, Maka clearly being more concerned about covering her panties than putting up a guard against her flesh eating zombie teacher.

Also, I heard that there was supposed to be a “torture” scene in this episode, as per the manga, where a tied up Sid is subjected to panty flashes from Tsubaki and Maka in an attempt to get him to spill the info on Franken Stein’s whereabouts. There’s always the night “uncut” version to look forward to, but past experiences have told me that the chances of it adding more than an extended preview are slim.

Speaking of the comically named former Shibusen student now psychopathic mad scientist, it’s yet more evidence that Shinigami-sama was bsing when he called this mission “Maintenance”. Who sends remedial students against the strongest weapons Meister graduate their school has ever seen?

Though I can only presume that Franken Stein will only be of average, mini boss, strength, since it is only episode four. Alternatively, he’s a final boss and will sends hoards and hoards of midbosses at the three Meister teams before the final climactic showdown.

At this point I would like to remind the manga readers of the convenient spoiler tag feature. Not so much for me, I find spoilers in Soul Eater rather inconsequential, but there are bound to be other readers who want to savor what little suspense and excitement the story line has to offer.

Cat, fine too, etc.

~ Shirukii ~