It was the June of 2010 and whilst on a training course for
a new job, I was sat in the Burger King of Westfield in London, tucking into an
XL bacon double cheeseburger meal and reading the latest issue of Neo Magazine,
the cover story was hyping a series called Soul Eater, set within an academy
where the headmaster is the personification of death, and the students are either
weapon users, or able to become weapons themselves, I made a point of
remembering the name to check it out once I returned home, and I’m very glad I
did, it was awesome.
With the upcoming UK Blu-ray release of Soul Eater, I
thought it time to take a look at the spin-off set a year before the events of
the original series, Soul Eater Not! focuses on the Normally Overcome Target
(NOT) class, a group of students in the Death Weapon Meister Academy who aren’t
looking to become elite, they’re just looking to gain better control of their
powers and live a relatively normal life, we’re introduced to new-girl and
fledgling weapon, Tsugumi, who along with her new friends settle into life on
campus and the pressures therein.
Having lead a comfortable life up until discovering her
weapon transformation abilities, Tsugumi finds her arrival at the DWMA overwhelming,
until a chance meeting with main series character Maka Albarn puts her at ease,
eventually relaxing more upon entering the academy, so much so she drifts off
into a daydream, believing her days there will end up making her famous, to the
point of finding herself the attention of many boys at a time, her thoughts eventually
broken by a brawl in the corridor and send her running to class.
Once in her classroom she meets Meme and Anya, two Meister
students, one a ditsy airhead and the other a princess from a wealthy and
influential family, both yet to find themselves a Weapon partner, but after
Meme is accosted outside the class, Tsugumi stands up for her, revealing her
weapon-form, impressing each of our Meisters-in-training, with the two of them
now eager for Tsugumi to become their partner, Tsugumi realizes this was not
quite the attention she had imagined for herself earlier.
The three girls are introduced to senior NOT student, Eternal
Feather, who shows them to the dormitory where they’ll each be living, informs
them of their limited weekly monetary allowance, and warns them of the "Witch
of the Girls' Dorm", which after a case of mistaken identity with the
dormitory supervisor “Misery”, turns out to be fellow student Kim, who
intimidates Tsugumi into handing over her entire allowance for that week,
returning to Meme and Anya to try to borrow some money, she discovers that
neither of them have theirs left either.
After finding jobs at a local coffee shop to supplement
their finances, the girls find themselves working with two boys from the same
NOT class, Akane and Clay, both of whom were formally of the Especially
Advantaged Talent (EAT) Class and current employees of the Academy’s Central
Intelligence Agency, this all comes to light when Anya is attacked in the
street by a mysterious assailant belonging to a group known as TRAITOR, of
which Akane and Clay have been secretly investigating.
Out to destroy the DWMA, TRAITOR is led by the witch “Shaula
Gorgon”, sister of the two Gorgon witch antagonists from Soul Eater, she works
in the shadows, brainwashing selected students and manipulating them for her
own plans, it’s only when she takes control of Meme, that Tsugumi and Anya
track her down and confront her during the annual Halloween Battle Festival,
hoping to release their friend from the witch’s grip and prevent the downfall
of the Academy.
Given the five year gap between NOT! and its origins, Bones
does a great job improving on the animation of the original, whilst remaining
very faithful to the look and feel of the characters and world, though it would’ve
been nice to have seen some more of the interesting architecture and locations
that made Soul Eater so visually unique, familiar faces do show up from time to
time and look great alongside Tsugumi and her friends, and the brief action
sequences live up to the standard that this animation studio is well known for
producing.
Whilst Soul Eater NOT! is set within the universe, what you
get within the twelve episodes is very much just a slice of life, than the
adventure of its originator, and yes, I know, the original had 51 episodes, but
what NOT! does with its time isn’t an awful lot, we’re given more development
in the characters and their relationships, than we are anything in the way of
an over-arching story, and don’t get me wrong, it’s an enjoyable series and
perfectly sufficient for those wanting to see a bit more, or even as an introduction
into the bizarre world of Soul Eater, but it’s all a little bit cutesy and twee
for my grizzled sensibilities.