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.
