On completing this manga at the behest of a friend, all I can gather from this series is that her and I don't share the same tastes. The art is decent, but nothing super appealing, and the plot is stereotypical and almost feels lifted from other manga at times, straddling the line of passable. While those are valid reasons to find something uninspired, what really pushes this manga into its 4/10 rating is the characters. They are almost all extremely obnoxious, annoying and too concerned with being "cool" to take seriously. Couple that with when there is a serious action scene or moment that has you somewhat interested, one of them will make a lame joke or crazy face and totally kill the mood of the action, making it move at a snails pace to accommodate all the phoned in, lousy attempts at comedy.

If you are looking for a manga with a similar concept, but executed with a sense of charm and allurement (and fewer uninspired characters and lame jokes), I would recommend you read Shaman King and pass this one up.

... Last updated on October 22nd, 2020, 12:53am

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 am with the reviews below me. It started out relatively well for a shonen action manga and became more interesting and unique as it went along but the last two yeas at least have been just tedious and pointless. No more plot or characterization just regurgitation and standstill. Hope it gets good again.
And the spinoff is sadly really bad.
Update: And now the series is dead and the ending is the typical unconclusive shonen mess. What a letdown but i still like it enough overall.

... Last updated on November 22nd, 2014, 11:04am

I absolutely love this manga! I'm not one to get hooked into fighting themed mangas, but I was hooked with this one. I find it strange how the partner of a Meistersinger can take a human and weapon form. I liked seeing the partner of a meister in weapon form, and then seeing being able to see their human selves while they are still in weapon form as they communicate with their meister. I think I mainly love the relationship between meister and weapon; both are willing to risk their life for the other. Tht really showed with Maka and Soul. Also, the comedy in the manga was pretty good. Death the kid's obsession with symmetry is hilarious, and it adds more to his character because depending on how symmetric something is, he'll be fired up to fight, if something is asymmetrical, or he'll be staring in awe at how perfectly symmetrical something is. Ironic how he's obsessed with symmetry yet he has three white stripes on the left side of his hair and no stripes on the right. The only think I didn't like too much, was Black Star; he is rather annoying at times. Still, I definitely recommend reading this!!

Seems like after the Book of Eibon arc, the story is just rushed to get to the moon. It's a shame, there were quite a few interesting things that would have benefited from a few more chapters of depth.

The only thing to hope for is that more is added when the volumes come out to connect each chapter a little better....

... Last updated on September 1st, 2012, 12:20pm

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.

How disappointing, Soul Eater goes to shit about 2/3 of the way through, not even the internet defintion of shit (i.e. it did something I dislike) its just the overall quality drops and it feels entirely flat and tedious. Pity, suppose I'll read on anyway.

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.

...or atleast it feels shounen. As the manga builds up, we've recently encountered some actual romantic feelings between the two leads, which gets me on my toes, because its one of the primary reasons on why I read Soul Eater. Love the unique characters and story. It has its own style..

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