Ding dong, dead dong. Class is in session!
What They Say:
“Enrolling at DWMA!”
When 14-year-old middle-schooler Tsugumi Harudori discovers she is a weapon, she flies to America to enroll at DWMA. There, she meets the absent-minded Meme Tatane and the patrician Anya Hepburn, both of whom are meisters that are also new enrollees.
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
We probably know what the DWMA is. It’s the school Lord Death founded to teach kids how to control their powers. For some, their powers were turning into a weapon. For others, it is simply wielding those weapons (likely folks with stronger than normal soul wavelengths). Regardless, DWMA is, above all else, a school for the gifted.
…But some are not so gifted. Maka, Soul, Black Star, Tsubaki, Kid, Liz, and Patty are in the EAT class, or Especially Advantaged Talent class. Our protagonists of this anime are Tsgumi, Meme, and Anya, who are in the NOT class, or the Normally Overcome Target class. The goal of the NOT class is to simply let these gifted students live out their lives without being a burden to themselves. I read that last sentence on Wikipedia, so don’t fret if you don’t remember it from the episode.
We jump into the episode somewhere mid-series of Soul Eater, as Sid is still a human and talking about the man he is instead of the man he was. Tsugumi has accidentally turned herself into a weapon and joined the DWMA to train herself how to control the power. There are some nice cameos from Maka, Black Star, Kid, and Soul in this episode, but I’m happy to report that, thus far, you don’t need to have watched Soul Eater proper to enjoy Soul Eater Not.
After a dazzling display of resonance from Maka and Soul, the kids jump right into choosing partners. The commoner Tsugumi is trying to decide whether to even stay or not, because the school is rather overwhelming. Ditzy Meme doesn’t even remember her real name. Ojou-sama Anya is trying to stand above everyone else, when really she just wanted to meet commoners. The three characters, while having very little interaction in this first episode, will likely play off each other very well. Their personalities contrast in just the right kind of ways to be both funny and potentially endearing. I mean, who didn’t like that last scene when Meme’s grabbing onto Tsugumi and Anya’s shyly clutching a piece of Tsugumi’s uniform? It was the perfect representation of their relationship up to that point.
Oh, I also want to point out a great scene between Anya and the tough guy who thinks he’s all cool. You know the type (because we all hate those guys). He says “I won’t go easy on you just because you’re a girl” and she throws that in his face. It’s a brilliant little line that meant so much because he was literally just judging who his partner should be on boob size and he’s brought down to earth not just from the words she said to him—which basically equated to “Not only should we be equals, but we already are. You just don’t see it that way”—but the pounding he subsequently received thanks to her and weapon Tsugumi.
In Summary:
Soul Eater Not, just like Soul Eater proper, seems to be about overcoming your shortcomings. For Maka, that was her over analytical nature that distracted her from seeing the forest for the trees. For Black Star, it was his ego that made him only see ONE tree, his own. And for Kid, it’s his obsessive compulsive behavior that didn’t allow him to see ANY trees because they weren’t symmetrical.
Tsugumi is a commoner—in the eyes of Anya—that’s in a world much bigger than her own. She’ll have to learn a lot as she moves along in the series, perhaps more than any other character, because of the world she was used to. Meme is genki, but ditzy and often forgets what’s important in what she’s doing and her own life. Through her friends, she’ll probably be able to grasp onto a lot more. Anya has to get over herself and the idea that she’s greater than anyone else. The three will help ground each other in the crazy world that is Soul Eater.
Grade: A-
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Equipment: Radeon 7850, 24” Dell UltraSharp U2410 set at 1920 x 1200, Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II
