Oh god Maka rape, fapfapfap

When faced with insurmountable odds in an anime, there are only a limited amount of options to be had. Victory can be wrought with sheer courage, will power or an exploitable weakness in the enemy, survival for another day can be assured by running the hell away or if your enemy is feeling merciful. Or you can go the route Soul Eater did and reveal that the enemy isn’t really an enemy at all, he’s an ally and this was nothing but LOL TRAINING, right about the time Black Star took a Thunderbolt (TM24) to the head made it clear that this was the case, or perhaps even earlier, when Deathscythe was reminiscing.

But nevertheless, the episode was alright, I’ve already established Soul Eater as fairly generic shounen, so I can’t go faulting it for following common convention. I do wish the animation had been a bit more inspired though.

Kid points out to Shinigami-sama the obvious outcome of this bout, given the story of Stein and his reputation as the greatest weapon Meister ever to graduate from Shibusen, Maka and co. are going to die.

However, first impression paint a different story, Stein falling on his ass within seconds of his appearance makes him out to be quite a clutz. However, it soon becomes clear that this is all an act, without so much as an exchange of words, Stein analyzes the wavelengths of the team’s souls, their personalities as well as compatibility with their partners. Furthermore, opening attacks on Stein from both Black Star and Maka prove the difference in levels of melee combat.

Meanwhile, Deathscythe is hitting up the cabaret, as usual, where Blair seems to have found herself a daytime job. She doesn’t seem very good at cheering her customers up though, as Deathscythe starts to wail over his ex-wife and Maka. But, on a tangent, he also speaks of the time he spent with Stein, the sadist who for five years used to sneak into his room while sleeping and experiment on his body, leaving him with scars of unknown origin, experiments which may well have continued had his ex-wife not put a stop to them.

Back at Stein’s, Maka tries another head on charge, only to get shot down again, this time with a soul based attack, not just a physical one. Shinigami-sama explains that even without a weapon, a Meister can still attack using his or her soul, it’s just not as powerful, but in Stein’s case, it certainly seems sufficient, a fearful preview of what would be if he had a weapon. But it’s not the first time we’ve seen this, Black Star’s Big Wave does the same, however, when he tries to use it on Stein, another trick is revealed, Stein can match up the wavelength of his soul with his opponent and cancel out any soul based attacks they throw at him.

With everyone in a state of shock, Stein takes the opportunity to counterattack, frying Black Star’s brain and rendering him unconscious. It’s around this time that Kid decides enough is enough, and goes to help Maka and Black Star. Shinigami-sama tells him that this is not his fight, he’s not even a student of Shibusen, Kid asks to be enrolled if that’s what is necessary, and heads out. However, he’s stopped in his tracks by his OCD, unsure of whether he folded his toilet paper before using it.

Back to Stein’s. In the aftermath of his attack, Maka’s sense finally kicks in and she’s able to see Stein’s soul. However, this doesn’t prove advantageous in the slightest, quite the opposite in fact, as the mere sight of it puts a sort of fear of God in Maka, as the difference in power is overwhelming. Soul brings her spirit back up, saying that what she saw was simply his soul, not the future, not a premonition of defeat. Putting all their eggs into the metaphorical basket, the two try for another Soul Resonance Witchhunter, and surprisingly manage to pull it off and control it quite well.

However, Stein’s strength is beyond even that, and he shatters their attack with relative ease. As he walks over to seemingly deliver the final blow, a sudden mood change ensues as he pats Soul on the head and gives them a passing grade. Apparently, this whole ordeal was just a training mission set up by Shinigami-sama, Sid and Stein being affiliates of Shibusen all along.

As if that weren’t surprising, the next day, worn out from the fight; Maka, Soul, Black Star and Tsubaki have to deal with none other than Stein himself showing up to their classroom at Shibusen, the permanent replacement teacher for Sid-sensei.

Thoughts

HURR. DURR. I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming from last week. In retrospect it seems so obvious, although, hindsight is always 20/20. But truthfully, I would have rather Stein be a final boss character, it would be a very fitting role. He has that type of personality that is sure of his skills and as such would leave our heroes alive, encounter after encounter, even in defeat, just so he can fight them again for more data. That’s cliche in its own way, but Stein would be the perfect character for such a role. Instead I’m sure we’re going to get more monster of the week sort of stuff for a while, if a final boss is even revealed at all.

All the talk about soul wavelengths and resonance and such made the engineer/physicist in me squee with happiness. However, after the initial excitement cooled down, I realized that there’s really not much to it. I had planned on explaining the respective phenomenons and their parallels to real wave theory, but so far it doesn’t go past constructive/destructive interference and resonance, so there’s not much to say. I hope they take this analogy further though, as it has potential for delicious physics wankery.

Anyways, I suppose that’s all I can really say about this week’s episode. Next week looks like it’ll be a little more interesting, as the three teams will finally be all united at Shibusen, Kid having enrolled after falling for his dad’s trick himself. From the preview, it looks like Kid is going to take on Maka and Black Star two on one, which cements the already blatant theory that Kid is the strongest of the three. No doubt we’ll also get some more hilarity out of his OCD symmetrygasms.

Bonus rant:

Look, Japan. I know that Gibson and Fender are the most renowned guitar companies in the world, but what the hell, give us some variety. Without fail, every single guitar I’ve seen portrayed in an anime has been from one of the two companies, and I’ll go as far as saying that they boil that down even further to include only: Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters or Gibson SGs and LPs. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure every single bass guitar in the history of anime is a Fender Jazz. I -THINK- Beck had a Fender Jaguar in it as well, not sure.

Point is, there are plenty of arguably better guitar companies out there. You’d think with Japan’s pride in their own merchandise they’d at least model some of them after their Ibanez brand.

/guitarfag rant

~ Shirukii ~