Soul Eater Not: Review - Not is definatly the word

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Review: Soul Eater Not

Released: UK ???

Platforms: 

FINAL OPINION: WATCHABLE

So a couple of weeks ago I heard that there was another Soul Eater anime. When I heard this I was as happy as I never knew they created another Soul Eater anime. All Kinds of things were going through my mind. Such as is it a continuation, all new story or maybe they went the Full Metal Alchemist route and re-did it to more closely follow the manga. Either way I just needed to see this latest anime. So after some searching and reading on Wikipedia I realised the anime has been out for some time and has been dubbed by Funimation. After doing some searching I managed to find all 12 episodes on YouTube in full with no crappy editing to stop the video from being taken down. I was quite sad to see only 12 episodes for this anime and by the end I was 50/50 on the idea of more episodes.      

Soul Eater Not lives up to its name in the fact that if you are going into this with fond memories of the original series you may be quite disappointed with what you find here. I’m going to say from the start this is not the Soul Eater that you know, as this series is very different in tone than the original. This series is a prequel / side story to the original. The main cast of the original take a back seat and make mostly cameo like appearances. Soul Eater Note stars three main female protagonists Tsugumi Harudori is a halberd demon weapon, Meme Tatane and Anya Hepburn. Tsugumi Harudori is indecisive about which one of them to choose as her partner meister. All three girls go to the DWMA (Death Weapon Meister Academy), which is an institution for humans who are born with the power to turn into weapons and the wielders of these weapons, called meister. There are two types of class. The EAT students (Especially Advantaged Talent) train themselves to become warriors of justice, the NOT (Normally Overcome Target) class is for those who just want to control their powers with the intent to not become a threat to others and to themselves.

The tone of this series to me is more along the lines of other anime that play a lot on breast jokes and girls in short skirts, however there are moments where the original Soul Eater pokes its head in. unfortunately those moments don't last long. There isn’t a lot of action in this and as the episodes went on it became harder to watch as the short skirt and breast jokes kept popping up, but that doesn’t mean that the show wasn’t any good. Even though only twelve episodes Soul Eater Not still told a great story and developed the three main characters pretty well. Towards the end of the show it gets good and I mean original Soul Eater good, but unfortunately once it does it ends.

For me the animation for the show was very good, but doesn't use the same style as the original show. My biggest grip with the animation was the original main characters seemed older than they should be since this is a prequel it comes across as odd, just watch the first episode and see what I mean. The music used is really satisfying and doesn't disappoint.

The drawbacks of Soul Eater Not are that once it gets good it ends. Twelve episodes just isn’t enough, however still does manager to tell a satisfying story. On top of this its biggest drawback is that it's not the original. Yeah it pokes its head every now and then but it's simply not the original and that's what people will instantly compare it to. The new show is so far from the original and Soul eater fans will find themselves disappointed with what they find. As Long as you keep this in mind the show is worth a watch. Even though this is some kind of prequel if you have never watched Soul Eater watch the original first, it's one of the best anime out there.       

FINAL OPINION: WATCHABLE