Soul Eater by Atsushi Ohkubo

Soul Eater Volumes 1-5

I admit I may have misjudged this series.  A while back when I picked up volume 1 of Soul Eater, I was unimpressed and in fact it angered me. It seemed that it was all just an attempt at gaining an audience through the use of gratuitous ‘fan service’ that was totally unnecessary, and masked what could have been an interesting storyline. So I left the series alone. After some time passed and new volumes kept coming out, and there was a lot of merchandise themed on the series in the stores, I figured I must of missed something. I decided to give it another shot.

I was glad to discover that the next volumes had really toned down the panty shots and concentrated on interesting story lines.
Quick Summary:  The two main characters are Soul and Maka, students at the Death Weapon Academy (DWMA), where students work, mostly in pairs. One of the pair trains to be a Meister, who wields the weapon in battle, and the other becomes the weapon (through some sort of shapeshifting). The duos are tasked with taking the soul of those on a list, who are usually evil. The more souls the duos consume, the stronger the meisters become and the higher in rank they are. 

What makes this series work is that it’s full of interesting and amusing characters that are based on fairly routine supernatural beings such as zombies, Frankenstein, medusa, witches, and cats and so on, but characters are given interesting flaws and quirks that keeps it interesting. For instance, one of my favorite characters is Death the Kid, who is the son of the Shinigami (death reaper) in charge of the academy. Kid has an obsession symmetry which leads to all kinds of difficulty for him: even his weapons had to be symmetrical. In a cruel irony, Kid’s hair has a white streak on one side that makes him asymmetrical.  

The most unique aspect of this series is the artwork. It is very different form the manga I have come across so far. The characters have a distinct look but what stands out the most is the environment. The Academy is a castle of skulls, and the sky has either a sun or a moon that laughs mockingly.

Skipping volume 1, I would recommend this series for older teens; it is entertaining and full of humour.

Soul Eater is by Atsushi Ohkubo and is published by Yen Press. Volume 7 is to be released in October. The anime series is also available through Funimation.