I realise that the manga is not yet completed and the story of the anime probably took its own path and just went the wrong way. I don't know much about the manga, but nonetheless, I am reviewing the anime and nothing more.
My first impression of the first episode was different from other anime. I was really quite shocked with the events that happened being a bit cruel for a shounen. As I went through the anime, it became normal and it was just Soul Eater. My impression of the anime from the AMV is pretty much all there was to Soul Eater, great animation and somewhat brutal scenes. Soul Eater had the potential to be a great and exciting anime but it fell so badly in the two most important areas, the story and characters.
What Soul Eater tried to do was give the main characters challenging missions in attempt for some character development. The characters were sent off to missions which brought them back to tragic pasts, conflicting emotions and all that jazz. By the end of the episode, the characters seemed to have matured only to return back to their original ways in the next episode. The only character to have received some character development was Black Star, who wasn't even the main character. He was an immature brat, like Naruto, than was consumed by his past making him a bad character than realised his mistakes and matured. This maturity stayed for the rest of the anime. Stein also got some pretty good development too now that I think about it. He was quite the interesting character to watch.
The actual main characters, Soul and Maka, just stayed the same. Maka continued to be the annoying protagonist who couldn't actually achieve anything, got mopey about it, promise to try harder, and still didn't achieve anything. She made no progress what so ever. Soul did have some stuff going on with him but it was never really concluded so his character never felt finished. Disappointing how it was the side characters that received the best development yet the main characters were left for dead.
There were quite a few fillers in this anime. Fillers are a major anime turn off for me. I was hoping Soul Eater wouldn't have any but it does. There was one episode of just Excalibur just talking. Such a waste of time. So maybe a quarter to a third of the series, you don't actually needa watch. The ending was horrible as well. Nothing was concluded in the ending. The fighting literally stopped in the last minute and your ending was a 'triumphant' smile. Terrible ending.
On a brighter note, the animation is incredibly good. Character designs are different, cool and quirky, it's a nice break from regular anime where everything looks 'cute' and 'pretty'. The latest trend in moe is unpleasant and the crisp edgy animation of Soul Eater is just amazing. It is also a much more brutal anime than you'd expect from something that's raated for teens. Soul Eater could've been soo amazing. It would've easily have been one of my favourite anime as everything is fun and exciting except for the story and characters. It dropped in these two areas so badly, it was such a disappointment. The bad ending also left an incredibly bad impression as there was nothing much in the series to make up for it.
Soul Eater to me, is not a serious anime to watch. It's amazing for when you're sick of watching cute girls who can't do anything for themselves (the cool factor of this anime makes up for Maka's uselessnee...sort of). It really could've been great and I wished it was. But it isn't. I suggest maybe reading the manga f you want a better story/characters but I'm not sure what that is like. Sorry to the people who love this anime, but it really doesn't deserve an 8/9. More like a 5.
