Customer Reviews

Soul Eater, Vol. 1

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First of all, let me say the story and art are great. Okubo is that very rare creature, a true original. His stories, characters, and especially his artwork are unique and always a surprise. In Volume 1 he's finding his stride, pulling together the story and steadying his art style, so this volume of Soul Eater is a bit inconsistent, but you can see the improvement by the end of the book as everything tightens up. From here into the next volume and beyond the story and the art just get better. I was amused to note that Okubo is quite clearly influenced by the American comic book artist, Mike Mignola (Hellboy), especially in his use of chiaroscuro.
The printing is excellent, very important with a book that has such sharp blacks and whites and large areas of black fill.
So why does it only get three stars? The translation is a big disappointment. First of all, adding two translations (a transliteration and a suggested English reading) to the sound effects makes for a large extra "blob" of text that interferes with the art and fills spaces that are meant to be white. Adding the English version would be acceptable but why the literal Japanese? It does no good at all. And fan who really wants to be able to read the sound effects could teach themselves katakana in at most two weeks, probably less. So it's just a waste of space. A notable number of the sound effects are mistranslated, as well. The dialog is inconsistent and lacks life and voicing. Several Japanese jokes and phrases are far too literally translated. Some so much so they need to be explained in the end notes. This means the impact of them is lost to the reader during the actual reading of the story. I doubt this is what the author had in mind.
All in all, it's nice to look at, very original, and a fun story. But I really had to knock off a star for the disappointing translation. Yen Press, you can do better than this!

Two words sum up "Soul Eater's" overall flavor -- Halloween kitsch. Fortunately Atsushi Ohkubo's horror/comedy manga has a bit more than its silly-spooky style going for it. While "Soul Eater, Volume 1" spends most of its length introducing the trio of main characters (and their talking weapons), it spins up some hilarious characters and plenty of bizarre supernatural confrontations.

Every scythe meister wants to have their shapeshifting weapon/partner turned into a weapon worthy of Shinigami-sama. To do this, the weapon/partners must devour ninety-nine rotten human souls, and one witch soul. In that order. If they screw up, they have to start again.

As the story begins, Maka and her brash partner Soul Eater have nabbed their ninety-ninth soul -- now they just need a witch, and he'll be a Death Scythe. But their battle with the Witch Blair becomes a very complicated one, since she's not only powerful but has some weird secrets of her own. In the meantime, the narcissistic ninja Black Star and his partner Tsubaki have nabbed the last of their souls... but to get a witch, he'll have to fight her bodyguard!

And while these two are struggling, Shinigami-sama's son Death the Kid is on a mission of his own with his twin pistol-partners -- they have to infiltrate a pyramid infested by mummies, and clean it out. Too bad Kid's OCD is slowing them down. And in the main story: Soul, Maka, Tsubaki and Black Star are all called in by Shinigami-sama, who is assigning them a mission. They have to eradicate a former teacher who has become a zombie and is attacking students -- and if the students don't succeed, they'll be booted out of Death's special academy!

Fanservicey witches in pointy hats, haunted forests, cemetaries, jack-o-lanterns, a leering moon and sun, big spooky castles, an angular skull-faced Death, zombies and monstrously freaky villains -- all set in a vaguely European night-world that is crawling with supernatural creatures. Reading "Soul Eater Volume 1" is a bit like having an adventure inside a Halloween haunted house, where the intent is more to entertain than to scare.

In fact, "Soul Eater" isn't very scary -- Ohkubo usually balances out supernaturally-charged action with plenty of comedy and fanservice (usually followed by somebody getting severely injured -- think a shuriken in the head). The first three parts are a bit limp storywise, since their main intention is to introduce the main characters and show them in action. But the last story is when the plot starts blossoming, with the introduction of zombies, superpowers, and a new Big Bad Guy.

All the meisters and their partners are pretty much standard opposites -- Maka is an uberserious girl with a violent streak, while Soul is rough around the edges and kind of rude; Tsubaki is sweet and mellow, while Black Star's ninja stealth is directly at odds with his tendency to grandstand. As for Death the Kid, he's utterly hilarious -- uptight and obsessed with symmetry, and even willing to vanish during battles just to be sure that a picture is perfectly straight.

"Soul Eater Volume 1" is a fun (if overly fanservicey) little manga, introducing us to Atsushi Ohkubo's eccentric characters and setting up the world they live in. Worth a read, if not the best the series has to offer.

Let me start by telling you that Soul Eater is already at volume 20 in Japan so it must be doing something right. The manga should not be based on one volume which is why I argue with some the other reviewers opinions. It can be summed up as a story that revolves around a set of different characters that all have different personalities and abilities. The summary of the first volume is the back story the introduces the 3 main set of character that have both a reaper and their scyths that have their own form. With no real main character it makes for enjoyable experience to pick the one you like the most and pay attention to how their story progresses thoughout the manga.
I'm not asking you to buy it, but if you do be warn that there is funny stupidity, sexual perversion, and awesome fight scenes.

Soul Eater is a great read. It is about three weapon miesters. The cute tarten-skirt wearing Maka, the egotistic assain Black Star and Deaths son himself Death-the-Kid. All three cary weapons, but these weapons are really people themselves, and can change form from weapon to human. Theres Kids weapons, the tomphson twins, who turn into two duel wielded guns, Tutsubaki (I hope im typing that right) a kind chain skythe and the weapon of Black Star, and of course Soul Eater, Maka's partner and a huge skythe. Together, the six set out to collect the souls of those who do bad. The manga's SFX are all written in Japanese, making the manga feel traditional, and personally I find Ohkubo's artwork brilliant. Its not the type of manga you can just breeze through, take time to take note in the detail in the enviroment and the twisted backgrounds. The combat is great, and a huge ammount of detail is put into the ways characters move. The positioning and movment is very well done, and few manga artist manage to get this much attention into the characters fighting style as Ohkubo.

There are some drawbacks. For a start, its not a kids book. There is alot of nudity, boobs and upskirt shots, but then again, thats to be expected. Its also very violant, with heavy gore in most fights.

I would still recogmend anyone to pick up Soul Eater for there manga collection if you want a funny, sexy action adventure. Its got the humour and action, as well as a reasonably deep story about partnership and working together.

The art in soul eater has a sort of halloween feel like the anime which is one of my favorite parts about this seires. It has some fan service but it's not as bad as others. This is my favorite anime/manga serise right now i highly recomend.

pros- great art
- interesting story
- great charectors
- honorfics ( chan sensei ect.)

cons- some fan service (i'm a 13 year old girl so this is a con)
- sound effects in japanese ( got confusing)

overall 4.5

In the world of Soul Eater, there are weapon meisters who have at least one human weapon; as the name implies, a human weapon is a weapon that takes on human form. The goal of a meister is to turn their weapon into a "Death Scythe," a weapon that's fit to be used by the headmaster of the Death Weapon Meister Academy. In order to accomplish this, the weapon meister and their human weapon must collect the souls of 99 evil humans and one witch; the souls must be collected in this order, or the team has to restart from the very beginning.

The first three stories in this volume focus on three individual weapon meisters. The first story focuses on Maka and her weapon partner, Soul Eater. They get their 99th evil soul, and must try to get the needed witch soul. Their story focuses on trying to defeat the buxom witch Blair. The second story focuses on Black Star and his weapon partner, Tsubaki. Black Star is supposed to be an assassin, but he has ego problems, and so he ends up announcing his presence to his target instead of stealthily approaching them and getting his assignment accomplished. The third story focuses on Death the Kid (who is the son of Shinigami-Sama, the headmaster of the academy) and his two human weapons, Liz and Patty. Death the Kid has issues with perfection and symmetry, which can affect his concentration when he's in the middle of a fight.

The final story in this volume brings Maka, Soul, Black Star, and Tsubaki together. Shinigami-Sama has decided these two teams need to take a remedial class. He sends them out on a mission to get the soul of their former teacher, who died and was turned into a zombie. Unfortunately, only the first part of this story is included in this volume; to find out how the story continues, you have to read the next volume of Soul Eater.

Looking at the art style, you can definitely see that this manga is of Japanese origin; however, there are some elements of the design that feel like they may have had some Western influence on them. There is also some humor included in this volume that Western audiences would get (such as "Maka's Blair Witch Project"). It should be mentioned that this manga includes several panels with nudity or fanservice (such as panty shots); this content helps to explain the "OT" rating that Yen Press gave to the series. It's not a bad manga for the style that it is and the audience that it's trying to target; however, I have to admit that Soul Eater is not the style of manga that I usually read. If you enjoy humor that features demons, witches, and fanservice, then Soul Eater would be right up your alley.

Soul Eater is rated "OT" for Older Teen.

I wrote this review after reading a copy of this manga that I checked out through the King County Library System.

Two words sum up "Soul Eater's" overall flavor -- Halloween kitsch. Fortunately Atsushi Ohkubo's horror/comedy manga has a bit more than its silly-spooky style going for it. While "Soul Eater, Volume 1" spends most of its length introducing the trio of main characters (and their talking weapons), it spins up some hilarious characters and plenty of bizarre supernatural confrontations.

Every scythe meister wants to have their shapeshifting weapon/partner turned into a weapon worthy of Death. To do this, the weapon/partners must devour ninety-nine rotten human souls, and one witch soul. In that order. If they screw up, they have to start again.

As the story begins, Maka and her brash partner Soul Eater have nabbed their ninety-ninth soul -- now they just need a witch, and he'll be a Death Scythe. But their battle with the Witch Blair becomes a very complicated one, since she's not only powerful but has some weird secrets of her own. In the meantime, the narcissistic ninja Black Star and his partner Tsubaki have nabbed the last of their souls... but to get a witch, he'll have to fight her bodyguard!

And while these two are struggling, Death the Kid is on a mission of his own with his twin pistol-partners -- they have to infiltrate a pyramid infested by mummies, and clean it out. Too bad Kid's OCD is slowing them down. And in the main story: Soul, Maka, Tsubaki and Black Star are all called for a new mission: they have to eradicate an ex-teacher-turned-zombie who is attacking students -- and if they don't succeed, they'll be booted out of Death's special academy!

Fanservicey witches in pointy hats, haunted forests, cemetaries, jack-o-lanterns, a leering moon and sun, big spooky castles, an angular skull-faced Death, zombies and monstrously freaky villains -- all set in a vaguely European night-world that is crawling with supernatural creatures. Reading "Soul Eater Volume 1" is a bit like having an adventure inside a Halloween haunted house, where the intent is more to entertain than to scare.

In fact, this first volume isn't very scary. Ohkubo balances out supernaturally-charged action with plenty of comedy and fanservice (usually followed by somebody getting severely injured). The first three parts are a bit limp storywise, since their main intention is to introduce the main characters and show them in action. But the last story is when the plot starts blossoming, with the introduction of zombies, superpowers, and a new potential villain.

All the meisters and their partners are pretty much standard opposites. Maka is an uberserious girl with a violent streak, while Soul is rough and sarcastic; Tsubaki is sweet and mellow, while Black Star's ninja stealth is at odds with his tendency to grandstand. As for Death the Kid, he's utterly hilarious -- uptight and obsessed with symmetry. He's even willing to vanish during battles just to be sure that a picture is perfectly straight.

"Soul Eater Volume 1" is a fun (if overly fanservicey) little manga, introducing us to Atsushi Ohkubo's eccentric characters and setting up the world they live in. Worth a read, if not the best the series has to offer.

Well i like this volume because its describe the 3 main characters in their stories and its got a very original plot and i recently started seeing the anime and the plot is awesome really buy this manga you will enjoy this volume and you will want to keep buying it .

As my review's title states.....this manga is awesome, and you should buy it.xD This is my current favorite manga and not my #1 for nothing. With hilariously odd characters and cool weapons it's no wonder why I own it lol. Anyway the plot doesn't really start till the end (the first few chapters introduce the characters), but the character intros are funny enough to keep you hooked. A little too generous in fan service (in my opinion), but all it's good points make up for that. The characters are easily liked, the art is cool, and the plot seems to be developing. So vol. 2 will probably not disappoint either. Just bought it yesterday, and I let my brother read it. He got hooked immediately so you have his thumbs up too. Basically this manga is excellent, and very, very funny.

this manga is a great pick up, if you like naruto then you are going to like this one. i dont like the main character maka [she is a lot like sakura from naruto, very annoying]. however the other character more than make up for it. black star and tsubaki are great.