Soul Eater NOT!

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A lot of reviewers (many of whom have only read the first one or two chapters) write about this series like it's a silly slice of life comedy set in the world of Soul Eater. And that's not... *untrue*. However, this manga also has some plot beats that are pretty heavy! Characters get hurt and struggle. If you want an experience that's perfectly light and happy, you're not going to get that here.

...On the other hand, if you want an experience that's gritty, psychological, and dark, you're... also not going to get that here.

So what on earth's the deal with Soul Eater NOT!? ...

This is a series that was being written at the same time as the OG Soul Eater. The characters in Soul Eater are part of Death Weapon Academy's elite EAT class, training to become heroes who defeat witches and so on, but the characters in Soul Eater NOT! are part of, you guessed it, the NOT class, where they're really just training to live in the regular world. Soul Eater NOT!, then, provides a bit of a layperson's perspective on what living in Death City is like. Most of that perspective is meant to be funny (one of my favorite bits is around how the characters in NOT! see Liz and Patty). For my money, the humor is pretty consistently successful. Even in Soul Eater proper, there's a good sense of comedy, and it's awesome to get more of that in this series. With that said, on top of the regular Soul Eater NOT! chapters, there's also "Soul Eater JOT!," little one- or two-page scenes into the lives of characters, and these can be funny, but there's... a lot of them, and I often found myself wishing that we could just have regular chapters.

With that said, there is a heavier plot going on, sometimes in the background and occasionally in the foreground. The main character gets capital-T Traumatized on a couple different occasions! A fun gimmick turns out to have a dark origin, someone dies in a really brutal way. Does that succeed? Eh... not really, in my opinion. The digressions into more serious beats often feel more the result of the writers getting bored. The central struggle of the protagonist (to pick a partner between the two main characters) doesn't really have that much to do with the antagonist and their goals, for instance. A lot of the twists that happen in the last handful of chapters are actually pretty well foreshadowed, but I often wasn't sure what the point of including them was. Still, it's not by any means unreadable. When the plot gets darker, it's in the same way that Soul Eater gets dark, so even if it doesn't make a ton of sense, it's usually still pretty cool.

That's the broad strokes of the story and tone discussed, but what about the characters? The main characters of Soul Eater are basically irrelevant in NOT! (which I kind of appreciate). Maka shows up once or twice, but after her the most relevant member of Soul Eater's cast are, like, Liz and Patty, which I really enjoyed. As for the new characters, they're a mixed bag! Some of them aren't very well utilized and don't really have an arc, while others have pathos out the wazoo. But the worst a character ever gets is forgettable, they're never that obnoxious, and the rest of the cast is really fun and endearing. I sometimes struggled with the fanservice (come on... these characters are like... 14.... we don't need to see them naked.....) but the dynamic between the main three characters is pretty strong and sets up well for a lot of funny bits! There's also a well-written lesbian relationship! I dunno, I think that's pretty neat.

All in all, I think Soul Eater NOT! is... okay! It's not going to knock your socks off, but the characters are all enjoyable and it's funny when it needs to be. There are serious moments, and I'm not always thrilled with how they're handled, but when I looked at the manga as a whole I was happy to have read it. Just keep in mind that it's not (NOT!) trying to be like Soul Eater, and you'll have a good time.

First of all, if you are reading this and haven't checked out the original Soul Eater yet, then I recommend that you stop right there and check out the original Soul Eater first. Why do I say that when Soul Eater Not is a spinoff and not a sequel? Because Soul Eater Not is everything that Soul Eater could have been, but was unable to capitalize on due to focus on plot: a school life/slice of life comedy.

Have you ever wondered what the daily lives of Shibusen students would look like? Well I personally haven't because Soul Eater was sufficiently awesome, but Ookubo Atsushi disagreed ... with me and created this. Technically a prequel to the original Soul Eater, Soul Eater Not seems like a slower pace, more comedy/character centralized manga with less focus on plot and more focus on the daily lives of Shibusen students. It takes place long before the Kishin shows up when Medusa is still the school nurse and Sid is still human. It can be seen as background information, explaining details like "Where does Maka and Soul get the money to support themselves?" and "Where does Kim live?" There is a slight continuity issue them mentioning Kim is a witch, but that can be taken out of context.

The story follows a new character, Halberd Tsumugi (Yes her family name is Halberd, the bane of cavalry,) who is a new student at Shibusen and has to become accommodated to Death City. Since we were introduced to Maka and her merry band of friends when they were already well on their way to becoming full-fledged Meisters and Weapons, Soul Eater Not provides new insight into life at Death City by starting the process from scratch. It seems to be written at a much slower and more relaxed pace than the original Soul Eater, and takes place earlier than its parent story, during times that were much more peaceful and mundane for Death City.

The characters of Soul Eater Not are just as varied and unique as our mains in the parent story. Our main protagonist Halberd Tsumugi, is a meek, shy weapon girl who attends Shibusen yearning for a school life surrounded by bishounen. She quickly meets two meisters: Anya Hapburn, our resident type-A tsundere Ojou-sama that should be voiced by Kugimiya Rie, and Tatane Meme, our resident big-breasted klutz who may have a few secrets she has yet to share. Both of them want to become her partner, and the story has not progressed far enough to indicate the nature of this conflict.

Soul Eater fans can be relieved by that the design and artwork is completely up to par with the original Soul Eater. For those of you who don't know what that means (go read Soul Eater already), Ookubo Atsushi uses rather abstract and warped and wicked artwork. The recurring visual themes include faces on inanimate objects, skulls, eyes, and other gothic themes. The backgrounds and buildings are always awesome to look at, which are styled with a sort of wicked Halloween sort of theme. Where Ookubo Atsushi's talent really shine is his ability to draw faces, especially contorted faces twisting with agony. He can draw a myriad of different expressions that are quite different from the generic Japanese moe faces like >_< or ^_^.

Overall, Soul Eater Not is a good manga to try if you have read the original story. In my personal opinion, I think Oobkubo Atushi got a little bored or stuck while writing the original Soul Eater, and began publishing this just for a change of pace.

Questions, comments, criticisms and compliments are welcomed whether you found this review helpful or not.

Soul Eater Not! is exactly as the title says. it is NOT Soul Eater. But that isn't to say it is terrible, however I definitely prefer the original story and the original characters.

In this manga, there is a girl named Tsugumi Harudori (Halberd) who has traveled from japan to DMWA "Death Weapon Meister Academy" to become a student there. Sad to say, this isn't focused on the lovable characters from Soul Eater, however we do see the majority of the original characters hanging around the school and most of them interact with Tsugumi in some way for a few brief moments.

The beginning of this ... chapter made me want to fall asleep, to be honest. I wasn't interested in this new character and nothing exciting was standing out to me. But as the chapter progressed it did get more interesting and by the end I was willing to read another chapter. I wasn't "hooked" by some epic event that took place or anything like that, but I am interested to see how things will progress with these new characters.