This manga is well done. The plot is paced accordingly, art has a consistent distinct style, and the characters have depth. What Soul Eater does that so many other do not, is maintain a good balance between character development and plot development. It does not overwhelm readers the way others do.

BONES picked up this series to animate because it has solid material to make into a successful anime.

Soul Eater is something I decided to read because of its strange popularity and naturally, I wanted to see what the hype was all about. As most of the commentators seem to agree upon, this series is definitely unique. Its basic storyline, characters and art style are strangely twisted and can be set apart from most of the shounen genre. Soul Eater takes "insanity" as its main theme so there are times when the explanations of some things don't make sense. Either that or the author is just plain terrible at giving proper reasons.

The problem with this series is that it is too all-over-the-place. There are too many main characters, and the ones that should be focused on more are given way to less prominent characters. I believe that Soul and Maka are the protagonists of the story, but sometimes, Black*Star and Tsubaki take the spotlight more often than not. Some of the characters themselves are annoying and overblown (i.e. Black*Star). The author seems to enjoy creating many characters with odd flaws and exaggerating them to an extent that they sometimes become unbearable. These flaws are created for lightening the mood; however, this comedic relief is used too often and becomes especially irritating during serious moments. But I do think that it is pretty funny when the author does it at the right time. There are moments that make me laugh and reread it but I think the author should take care not to overuse comedy especially when the situation is serious.

Also, the relationship between characters are sometimes shallow and unimportant even though they are supposed to be the exact opposite. The only relationship that seems genuine is that of Maka and Soul. The rest of the cast seem like they're supposed to be really good friends and genuinely care about each other but there's not really any concrete evidence that depicts their strong emotional bonds. They're supposed to be really good friends that trust and depend on each other, but they come off as distant acquaintances that sometimes talk to each other because they're sent on the same mission...Overall, the development of their relationships still needs a lot of work. Don't get me wrong, I do think that their characterization is improving, and I guess 88 chapters isn't enough for them to mature but I think the author is making it too slow that the audience can easily get bored of it.

Another problem I have with this series is that the author is not very good at drawing fight scenes. It's supposed to be an action shounen but Soul Eater falls below the standard line. The fight scenes are messy and lazily drawn, and are not as exciting as you would have hoped. Personally, when I read shounen, I like the fight scenes where the characters suddenly power up (for legitimate reasons) to defeat an enemy that was just overpowering them moments ago because they are exciting and make you root for the hero. In Soul Eater, it tries to excite its audience, but I end up disappointed and going "that's it?" The idea is sound, but the execution of the action sequence fails to live up to its expectations. For example (spoiler), when Death the Kid goes mad inside the book of Eibon, he didn't seem crazy. In fact, he seemed just the same except he was going on about nothingness instead of symmetry. He and Black*Star were supposed to duke it out in an explosion of awesomeness but instead there was just an exchange of fists, some hits here and there, and Black*Star giving a random explanation that somehow brought Kid back from the madness...which didn't seem like madness at all. However, I do think that "insanity" is portrayed well. There are moments when you just have to go "whoa. That is wonderfully horrific." The author is good at drawing horror and this aspect is probably what makes Soul Eater fun to read.

The last thing that irks me about Soul Eater is that the main storyline barely appears. There has only been one arc that focuses on the principal conflict. The rest of the arcs barely contribute to this and usually go off on a tangent. So far, all that I can get from the main story is that everyone wants to get the kishin (for some reason) and therefore Asura is unleashed and insanity contaminates the world (from the one arc about the actual story). All of the other chapters are basically about the characters powering up but it is so poorly executed that it just seems as though they've randomly gotten stronger without doing anything!

Personally, I think the anime is a lot better than the manga. It's funny, it has good animation, it captures the audience's attention, the art is better, and things just flow better.
Both the manga and the anime are unique and the author does have a lot of imagination to create such a world. The designs are, again, extremely unique. Whether "unique" is a good or bad thing, I leave it up to you. It would explain why there are so many divided opinions about Soul Eater.

I wouldn't tell you not to read Soul Eater, but I also wouldn't recommend it. Sure, read it if you're bored or if you want to read something completely different than you're usually accustomed to, but in my opinion, Soul Eater is a completely average manga, with the only thing outstanding being its strange uniqueness.

Personal opinion --> 7/10

... Last updated on October 17th, 2011, 12:01am

So it started out great. I *love* the concept of madness, how the best meister is the one straddling the line between madness and sanity, and how I could just feel it consume the characters and the pages. And because the ridiculously exaggerated expressions portray so well the concepts, for such a simple art style, it is strangely visually powerful. I love the sequence inside Soul's mentality because it contrasts the calm of ballroom with the madness. Some characters live in their own head, one crippled with narcissism, How's that for impact?

Later it seems Ohkubo suffers the same dose of drug that leaves his characters looking positively blissed out. After Kid has been rescued, everything just gets extremely confusing, excuse me for not being able to follow long exposition that exist solely to justify the next few action scenes.

After reading this series, I come to realized that shounen action series is one of the manga genre where you can't judge the series based on the first few chapters or volumes it presents *cough One Piece took over 100 chapters to realized it's glory cough*.

When I read the first couple of volumes, the story was dull (I didn't even read and just skim through several chapters) and most of the characters were uninteresting, the only thing that kept me going was my curiosity on the main hero and heroines power (plus the nagging feeling in my head that said "There's gotta be more to the plot than this!?", good thing my prayers were answered ).

I kept reading until I reached the point where the plot was finally intriguing and I paid attention to each chapters. I started to care for the main and side characters, anticipating each of their appearances and loving their character growth.

In my point of view this story is refreshing, simple and a fun read. If you're looking for a complex,obscure and mind puzzling story then you'll be disappointed in reading this (you will have more luck reading seinen series) because so far the plot hasn't yet presented any perplexing scenario, although it can still keep the readers intrigue and enjoy the series.

If you like the summary, the art (btw it improves as the plot progress) and deciding whether to read this series then I recommend that you do, but a piece of advice you will need time and patience while reading the first couple of arcs because it's dull and necessary to set up the more exciting future arc

... Last updated on November 22nd, 2010, 2:16am

Soul Eater is definitely one of my top mangas, and the animes is great too (until the last couple episodes). The development of external character traits is a little hectic, but most series have this problem. However, the internal character traits move at a great pace, and the author has a real understanding for the characters.While the series definitely has some story arcs that are better and more reasonable, all the arcs are good.
Problems: Due to the major theme of the manga (insanity vs. courage) not all the events make sense. Also, how much you like the manga really depends on what you think of the characters. Some may find certain characters annoying (see excalibur) while others may find these same characters funny. The ending of the anime also was...terrible.
All in all, a great story with good character development, and some intense action.

I really enjoyed this manga, but I can see where some people are coming from with the negatives. I watched the anime all the way through first, and then started the manga from where it started to diverge, and thus got to skip much of the slow prologue. The random jumping between characters was made a tad more bearable since episode-format lends itself better to it. Plus the action scenes were nicely animated~

Though the manga is far superior to the anime post chapter~ 34 ish. Everything just starts to tie together neatly, and little odd occurrences suddenly start to make sense. It helps that I often don't have much of an idea what's going to happen next, so I keep getting surprised.

As for the characters--I admit the personality extremes were utterly annoying at first. I caught myself wanting to strangle both Kid and Black*Star in the beginning, but they grew on me, and soon I found myself thinking--wow, they are actually kinda cool. By the time I reached the end of chapter 79 that annoyance had long since changed into adoring love. The characters DO change throughout the course of the series, but they still remain themselves and I love them for it.

Fanservice bugged me, but hey, Book of Eibon, Chapter 1. I loved it.

Rating is as it is because, no matter how much I enjoyed it, there's always room for improvement.

Perfect series indeed. The artwork is superb, It certainly does not loose quality when intense fights are taking place. Character development can be seen since chapter 01, and most important of all (in my opinion) is that every arc is important and develops every character and their relationship with each other . Certainly a must read.
Thanks to the author/artist and ofcourse, every group/person that made this possible.

I first watched the anime first then started reading the manga.
The thing I like most about the series is the battle scenes. This manga has the coolest and most dynamic fight scenes I have ever seen. I love it.
Someone said previously that the plot develop slowly. However, the plot becomes more and more complex as it goes.
We see significant character development. Subtly, but noticeable enough.I am absolutely attached to the characters. They are not perfect. My favorite character is Maka. She's not a perfect character, but she has the most kick-ass battle style. Oh, and I also love the Docter's fighting style, too. It makes you squirm at how much they improve since the beginning of the manga. Oh wait, sorry. Did that count as a spoiler? Nah.

I also love the art. The art is nothing too complex, like CLAMP's style; the illustration is easy to the eyes and does its job well in adding the right effect. Jagged lines, smooth lines, great explosions, cool characters.

One thing that ticks me off is the scenery. It's like--in the middle of no where. It has this fairytale kind of feeling to the place, but also kind of too desolate. I don't like it that much. I supposed, this is what it makes the manga unique.

I also look forward to the next chapter.
This manga is definitely worth a try!!

... Last updated on October 29th, 2009, 8:10pm

I fell in love with this series as soon as I looked at it! The artwork looked pretty cool (It reminded me of something that came out of a Tim Burton film and the Gorillaz videos *don't ask me why lol) and the summary sounded awesome, and then I saw that there was an anime of it. So I decided to skip the manga and watch the anime first (Everyone knows that 99% of the time the anime will suck compared to the book). The anime blew me away! After I watched the anime I went to the book and I was surprised on how accurate the anime was to it (until episode 29) and of course I loved the book more then the show. The only thing that bothered me about the anime was that it didn't make as much sense as the book (Probably due to the fact that it spins off from the book after episode 29). I would recommend this book to people who like action and a great storyline ^^

... Last updated on October 9th, 2011, 6:06am

Almost passed this due to the ecchi tag. I'm not too big on fanservice.

Still, it's been a compelling read. I know there are those who find it too messed up, jumping between characters and sequence, but for me, i think it's really part of the charm of the series. The plot needs to be tighter though.

Besides, the artwork is nice and clean. Nice designs, wacky buildings and such. There's a tim burton feel to some of the stuff. Also love how he employs different techniques to express different moods. The character designs are unique, which is a huge plus since some mangaka seem to draw everyone looking exactly the same sans hair.

As of now, the characters are developing, a tad slowly, but still.. But i enjoy how character backgrounds are being told in bits and pieces. Furthermore, what i like is how the characters are given a strong enough personality, even the side characters are unique enough for you to remember them. Soul is totally awesome, cant say the same about Maka though, i'll kill her off if i could.

Anyway, quite an interesting read. It's unlike the usual fare you can get out there. A not-so-linear-plot, cute-to-moody art, unique character personalities. Worth taking some time to check out.