Anime/Manga Review: Soul Eater

The Soul Eater manga is still ongoing, though only released once a month... so it's a bit slow. The anime on the other hand, has finished... and since it ended while the manga was still going on, it means that the anime story diverted at the end. I actually didn't know this until I decided to look into the manga, and I do find it frustrating when animes do that, especially because the stuff that's in the manga but not in the anime... is actually quite good.

The story revolves around 'Shibusen' which is an academy started by 'Shinigami' (direct translation is Death God... which is what he is, but his actual name is just Shinigami). Shibusen is basically a school for 'technicians' and 'weapons'. Each student is either one of these, and work together in pairs, i.e each technician wields a weapon. The weapons have both a human form and a weapon form, which they can switch between. The final aim for each technician is to turn their weapon into a 'Death Scythe'. To do this, the weapon must consume 99 evil souls, and 1 soul of a witch. A Death Scythe is the ultimate form of a weapon, and have a very high status in Shibusen.

The main enemy in the story is known as 'Kishin', and he is a demon god that spreads insanity. He has been imprisoned in the past by Shinigami, but there is a witch named Medusa, who is trying to revive the demon god.

The main characters are;

Maka Albarn - The main character of the story. She is a scythe technician, and her partner is Soul. She is a very dedicated student, and is consistently at the top of her class. She specialises in 'soul perception', which is an ability that allows her to see the souls of others, and to detect the presence of them. She has a bad relationship with her father, because he keeps flirting with women, which was the cause of his divorce with Maka's mother. This is one of the ongoing jokes throughout the anime, as Maka's father is very obsessive with Maka.

Soul Eater - Maka's weapon partner. He is a scythe weapon. He is very laid back, and has a strange obsession with the word 'cool', and seems to apply it to a lot of stuff... although thats mainly just in the beginning, he doesn't seem to talk about it as much later on. He is very protective of Maka, and is willing to sacrifice his life for her.

Black Star - A descendent from a ninja clan. His partner is Tsubaki, who is a shadow weapon. Tsubaki can change into an assortment of weapons, making Black Star a very versatile fighter. Black Star is a very arrogant person, although he is still the strongest technician (aside from Death the Kid, since he's a death god). He is obsessed with being 'big', which coincides with his arrogant quality. Out of all the characters, he undergoes the most character development, so he's one of my favoured characters in the aspect.

Tsubaki - Black Star's weapon partner. She is a very quiet, kind and patient person. She seems to be the only person able to put up with Black Star's behaviour.

Death the Kid (normally referred to as Kid) - He is Shinigami's son. He insists on becoming a Shibusen student, despite his father telling him he doesn't need to. He is a dual-wield gun technician, and his partners are Liz and Patty Thompson. He has a major obsession with 'symmetry' (very far beyond Black Star's 'big' obsession), and is his major weakness. He needs everything to be in symmetry, or he'll become extremely depressed, or he will go out of his way to fix it. Sometimes he will forget whether he left something in his room perfectly aligned, and he will head back just to check on it, despite being in the middle of a mission. Along with Shinigami, they are my favourite characters in terms of humour.

Thompson Sisters - Kid's weapons. They are sisters of course, with Liz being the older one. Liz is a bit of a coward and finds Kid's obsession very annoying. Patty is very childlike, and finds just about everything amusing. Patty also has larger breasts than Liz, which Liz finds annoying when Kid points it out (because of symmetry reasons).

Dr Franken Stein - He is a teacher at Shibusen, and is also considered the best technician to ever graduate at Shibusen. He is very obsessive with disecting things, and wants to experience on basically everything. He has a great understanding of soul wavelengths, and can adapt his soul wavelength accordingly, in order to nullify someone's attack against him, or to be able to wield any weapon.

Spirit aka Death Scythe - Maka's father, and is sometimes known as Death Scythe, since he is a Death Scythe, but mainly because he is a scythe weapon. He is Shinigami's main Death Scythe, and he resides in Shibusen. He is obsessed with his daughter, and tries everything to get her to like him again. Yet he is a womaniser, and is commonly seen in seedy places.

Shinigami - Probably my favourite character, although Kid is very close as well. He is the headmaster of Shibusen. He has a very comical voice, and generally talks quite funnily. My favourite parts are when he uses his 'Shinigami Chop' to silence people, or to punish them.

Blair - a cat with exceptionally strong magic powers. She is not actually a witch, but she can transform into a human-form. In her human form, she is a very busty young woman. She is very shameless, and likes to flirt with Soul, which angers Maka. I actually like her a lot better in the manga, because I think she's a lot better drawn in the manga, than in the anime. The way she's drawn in the manga suits her personality a lot more... in that she looks a lot more seductive.


Rating - 10/10. Soul Eater has a good combination of both humour and action (leans more on humour though), and the storyline is pretty reasonable, though not on par to other animes like Code Geass. But despite that, I think it's still well deserving of a 10 because of the comedy in it. It is suitable to all audiences, and I'd probably recommend watching the anime first, since the manga is still ongoing (there will be more manga chapters waiting for you by the time you finish watching the anime).

Below is a picture of Maka Albarn, wielding Soul in his weapon form.

Anime/Manga Review: Hunter X Hunter

Hunter X Hunter is centered around a young boy named Gon Freaks (last name has various spellings... but I'll go with Freaks since its used in the subs that I saw). He was raised by his aunt Mito, who told him that his parents had died in an accident. It is revealed early on that his father is in fact still alive, and that he is a famous hunter. Gon is a very special kid, and the first sign of this was when he was able to catch a gigantic fish that no one else was able to catch. He leaves home in order to take the hunter exam and follow in the footsteps of his father Jin Freaks. He also wants to find his father, so finding clues about his father is another of his primary objectives. Along the way and through the hunter exam, Gon becomes best friends with Killua, Kurapika and Leorio.

A hunter in this story is a special title only given to very special people. In order to become a hunter, you have to pass the hunter's exam, which involves many various skills expected of someone with such a prestigous title. If you have a hunter's license, you are basically set for life... as even the license itself is extremely valuable. One of the main things that you need to know as a hunter is an ability called nen. It actually isn't shown until a bit later in the anime and manga, but its actually a pretty important to the storyline plot.

Nen is kind of like your inner aura, which has various applications based on your personal traits. Each person will generally have a different kind of usage for their nen than others. The types include:

Reinforcement - which enhances your physical attack and defensive strength. Also enhances your healing rate.

Emission - the ability to project your aura in some kind of form. Example, theres a character who has the ability to shoot nen bullets from his fingers.

Manipulation - pretty self explanatory... you can control an object with your aura

Transmutation - ability to transform your aura to mimic the properties of something else. For example, there is a character who transforms his aura into 'bungee gum' which has the properties of rubber and gum

Materialisation - can conjure and dispel an object at will

Specialisation - this is a pretty vague ability... and is quite hard to describe. It is anything that doesn't fall in the other 5 categories pretty much, but its also pretty unique. An example is there is a character who can write poems that predict the future.


The anime doesn't actually cover everything in the manga. So in terms of storyline, its probably better to read the manga, as there is a story arc thats not yet covered in the anime or any of the OVAs. However, the majority of it so far is in anime form, which is what I personally prefer. Anyway the main characters include;

Gon Freaks - main character. He is a very stubborn person, but also very loyal to his friends and would do anything for them. He is not very bright academically, but when it comes to fighting he's extremely intuitive and is very good at thinking up strategies on the fly. Not much else to say that hasn't already been said without spoiling anything.

Killua Zoldyck - he is from a family of the most powerful assassins in the world. Despite being so young (12, same age as Gon), he has already mastered many arts in killing and is 1 of the most dangerous people in the hunter exam. He becomes friends with Gon very quickly. Unlike Gon, Killua is quite intelligent as would be expected from an assassin, both academically and in combat. He joined the hunter's exam because he wanted a bit of a challenge.

Kurapika - the last member of the Kurta clan (I forgot what spelling was used in the subs, so I used the wikipedia spelling for it). His eyes turn scarlet red when he becomes angry, which is the reason his clan was killed, as their eyes were extremely valuable. His goal is to find the Ryodan, who are the ones responsible for massacring his clan. For this reason, he joins the hunter exam, because having access to the hunter database is the best chance of finding information on the Ryodan.

Leorio - he is an aspiring doctor, and he joins the hunter exam in order to get the money to enter medical school. In the past, one of his friends died of an uncurable illness... so his goal is to become a doctor who can cure anything. He is a bit of a comedy relief for this series, but at the same time he is a very loyal friend.

Hisoka - in a way, he can be seen as the main 'enemy' in the series, although he's not actually evil as such... however I would describe him as kind of insane, as the only thing he cares about is fighting and killing. He takes a liking to Gon and Killua (especially Gon) and often describes them as 'fruit' waiting to ripen. Basically meaning he wants to fight them when they become powerful. He uses playing cards to fight a lot of the time, however he is just generally ridiculously strong... and he would be the most dangerous person in the hunter exam. The thing I find funniest about Hisoka is that it is implied that he gets sexual gratification from fighting. This can be seen especially in a particular scene in the manga, where there is text and a large whitened out area covering his crotch area, which seems to emphasise that (you will see what I mean if you read the manga).

There are of course lots of other characters who come and go, but these are the main ones you'll see throughout the anime.

Rating - 9/10. A very good anime and manga with a good concept for fighting, and a pretty decent storyline. It also has some good childish humour to it. Its suitable for all audiences, and if you haven't seen it already then its a good time to watch or read it... as apparently the writer is going to continue on with the manga in 2010. Although I'm not certain if they'll continue making more OVAs for the anime for the missing story arc, or for the new ones.

Anime/Manga Review: Claymore

I saw Claymore quite a while back now, but I knew the anime was not finished... and that it had deviated from the original storyline because the manga wasn't finished at the time. The anime ended without properly finishing off the story, and no second season has been announced as far as I know... so I decided to read the manga because the story was very interesting and I wanted to know more.

So first up, a basic outline of the story. Its based on a world where yoma (pronounced yoh-ma) dwell in human villages, and kill people to eat their guts, which is their food source. Yoma is directly translated into 'demon' in the English language, which is pretty much what they are. Then there is the 'Organisation', which is a mysterious group who create half-human half-yoma warriors, which other humans refer to as 'Claymores' or sometimes 'Silver-Eyed Witches', who are sent on missions to kill yoma. As the name suggests, all Claymores are female.

The Claymores have a ranking system. There are always 47 Claymores at any one time, each given a rank between 1 to 47. Ranks 1 to 9 are more special and are commonly referred to as 'single-digits' denoting that they are the strongest of the Claymores.

There are also different types of Yoma. There are the basic Yoma, who are generally pretty weak, but they hide amongst humans and feed off them when needed. Then there are 'awakened ones' who are vastly stronger than ordinary Yoma. The organisation will generally assign 4 Claymores to hunt down 1 awakened one, and 1 of those Claymores will be a single-digit. Then there are the 'abyssal ones', who are the 3 strongest awakened ones, and each of the 3 abyssal ones rule over 1 quadrant of the land (the 4th quadrant is where the organisation is).

The main characters are a Claymore named Clare and a young boy named Raki. Clare saved Raki's village from a yoma, but that yoma had slaughtered Raki's family. Raki left the village with Clare, and thats how the story starts. The story also has a major flaskback early on in the series, which goes back a generation of Claymores, when Clare was still an ordinary girl. The story will also skip some years later on and show another generation of Claymores. So theres actually quite a large number of characters.

The manga is quite relaxed about nudity. I don't remember if the anime had the nudity too, but its possible... so thats something for the guys to enjoy =P The manga is only a monthly release, and is still ongoing... so if you end up catching up to the current manga story.... you'll be waiting a while for each new chapter, but its definately worth reading. The anime is good too, as its pretty faithful to the manga, apart from the last couple of episodes.

Overall I'd give it an 8/10, for an interesting storyline and good action (mainly for the anime). It loses out on some rating due to the divergence in the end of the anime, which hasnt been continued on yet... and because the manga takes so long to be released.

So I'll leave you with a fan-coloured picture of my 2 favourite Claymores from the manga; Alicia and Beth, who are the current number 1 and 2 of the Organisation. They are the only Claymores to wear black armour... and I love the look of it.