[Powerman293]

I watched 13 episodes of Soul Eater last night. Yep, it's a lot to take in. Since it's going off Netflix in a few weeks, I might as well watch the show now lol.

There's a lot of things I like about this show. For one, I like the squash and stretch nature of the artstyle. Lord Death to me is a perfect example of this. I also like how the show can easily transition from comedy to action without necessarily messing up the flow of a scene. I've never seen a show that can do something like that before. Maybe it's because I watch serious shows, but I've never seen any physical comedy in a show with serious plot and characters work out this well. Rider hasn't done it and anything else I've seen that I can remember does it.

I also love how each pairing of a weapon and meister has it be male and female. I like this idea a lot, it promotes platonic relationships that aren't "lame" or "uncool" as seen by some parts of society (at least western ones). It also, to me, makes the soul resonance move even more cool, as characters have to get past being different genders in order to resonante.

I was worried at first after the introduction episodes that some of the characters were going to not really change all that much throughout the series (mainly Blackstar and Death the Kid). Blackstar had a great episode of development with Tsubaki, and had some great moments in the Excalibur episode too. Blackstar's voice is annoying, but he's 13 and I think he's a straight up parody of Naruto so of course he's going to be over the top.

Also, Tsubaki is best girl. She's compromising, elegant and seems like an older figure to Blackstar.

Death the kid's gimmick of breaking down when things aren't symmetrical is annoying, and hopefully he becomes more of an actual character in later episodes. He's the most powerful of the weapon and Meister groups, as stated by the show, but I guess they had to give him this annoying gimmick to make sure he doesn't just come in and destroy literally every villain.

Maka to me is probably the most interesting character to me at the moment after finishing episode 13. She's very strong willed, and I like that, but she's got her own issues too. In episode 1, she has issues form her dad cheating all the time. That episode was the only time it really caused any sort of relationship strain on anyone else besides her father, but I'd love to learn more about it. That kind of shit is really demoralizing for young women and it sucks, but she doesn't completely hate men entirely. Just when it's a very deep betrayal to her trust.

Some nitpicks I have about the show are minor, but I feel like are important. Mainly it has to do with how characters of certain genders are treated exclusively. What do I mean by that? Something I observed is that only the male characters of the weapon/meister groups are not able to compose themselves to fight effectively. Blackstar and Soul being idiots in that episode when they're fighting Death the Kid, Death the kid's symmetry problem, Blackstar not being focused and yelling shit all the time. All of the characters have some flaws ( except Liz and Patty as far as I'm aware ath the moment), but the women (mainly Maka and Tsubaki) all have emotional/physcological ones that hold them back in some way.

I just find it weird how in a show that has platonic relationships as one of it's main concepts with the way battles work and that the men and women are put into more stereotypical boxes.

Something else was that when the characters are in their weapon forms and show their faces, like the Oprhenochs in Faiz, only the women are naked. The men (Soul and Deathsycthe) are shown wearing clothes. Weird dichotomy there.