This was really good!

I somehow had the impression this was going to be a slapstick comedy. But it began light and then got serious. It isn't silly at all.

The basic conceit of the series is that some people have the ability to become weapons, and other people known as Meisters learn how to wield them. Obviously the weapons are doing something magical, but not clear that the Meisters have any equivalent.

When a weapon transforms, their consciousness continues and they can move and control themselves to some extent.

Our protagonist is Tsugumi, and she's a weapon. But at the beginning she hasn't learned to control her transformation -- which is part of why she's at the school. At freshman orientation the new students get told that they need to pair off for training. But what with one thing and another, Tsugumi ends up tripled, with two Meister candidates named Meme and Anya.

We do get to see Tsugumi do her full transformation in this episode and it's pretty cool; turns out she becomes a halberd, which is a fine weapon no matter how you look at it. It's certainly nothing to apologize for. Anya was wickedly good with it, too. Evidently she's had training fighting with pole arms. (I liked her smile when she saw that Tsugumi had become a halberd.)

My biggest surprise in the show was seeing a character who had the same voice as Mami Endo from Mouretsu Pirates. It's not the same character, by any means, and she's only in two scenes, but I expect she'll be around some more.

I'm definitely hooked and will certainly watch more of this.

UPDATE: I suppose I should make something clear: I never watched the original Soul Eater so I have no baggage. Taken on its own, I really liked this. The concept is intriguing, and I'm looking forward to seeing why Meme was admitted to the school, and I imagine that we're going to get some wonderful training scenes. Anya's fighting in the first ep was magnificent (and really well animated).

UPDATE: From what I'm seeing on other blogs, people who did watch Soul Eater don't seem to happy with this one.

UPDATE: The character with Mami's voice is named Maka, and apparently this was a cameo. (There were several cameos which I assume were characters from the other series.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 06:24 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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