My friend Billy got me into Soul Eater a little while back and when Funimation starting posting the episodes I decided to watch it. I just finished it today so I'll give my opinion of it.

Follow up:

Soul Eater is about 3 teams of Meisters and their Weapons. Weapons are human beings who have the ability to transform their bodies into various weapons, and can be wielded by Meisters, people who have special powers to read the souls of others, among other unique abilities. A Meister's job is to hunt down the souls of evil human beings in order to prevent them to turn into soul eating monsters that could destroy the world, as well as witches who cause chaos and mayhem with their spells. When a Weapon eats the souls of 99 evil human beings, and one witch soul, they become Death Scythes, Weapons the God of Death uses himself. The three teams in the series are Maka, the daughter of a powerful Meister and current Death Scythe and her partner the scythe Soul, Black Star and his ninja Weapon Tsubaki and Death the Kid, the son of Death and his gunner partners Liz and Patty. All three teams are good friends, and dream of becoming high ranking Meisters and Death Scythes. Despite the description, this is actually a very funny and deep series, and not what you would expect from a typical-seeming Shonen.

The first three episodes are not a good representation of the series, and if you can get past them you will really see how good this show is. These episodes introduce Maka and the others and are really random, and full of fan service. And while fan service does pop up occasionally through the series, it's really not a focus as it's not a sex comedy. I was actually pretty impressed with the pacing of the series. Rather than focusing on hunt-the-soul-of-the-day, the soul hunting activities only show up to service, rather than derail the plot. There is much more focus on plot and backstory than mindless action. And the action scenes in themselves are really good. The animation style is simplistic, but this allows for some really creative fights. The art style is also very unique, with a Burtonesque look to the clothing styles and background. If Tim Burton ever wanted to make a live action movie based off an anime, this would be a good fit. Soul Eater also nicely balances emotions, with some very serious dark stuff happening, and lot of genuinely funny comedy. And unlike Kuroshitsuji, which sacrificed all comedy in the last 3 episodes in favor of drama, this show manages to nicely stay funny even in the middle of the dramatic climax, without taking away the danger or the sadness.

And the characters are amazing. It's hard to choose, but my favorite characters would have to be Maka and Soul. I can't pick one of the two because their relationship is so good. All the Weapon/Meister relationships are different. Death the Kid and the Thompson sisters are like a Parent/Child relationship, sometimes Kid taking care of the girls, and the girls taking care of Kid. Black Star and Tsubaki are a brother/sister relationship (though they are not related) but Maka and Soul are like an old married couple: They sometimes bicker and insult each other, but in the end they do care and trust each other. Maka is what I want more female characters to be: smart, strong, tough and brave, but she's hardly a Sue because she's so stubborn and uptight. Which is why Soul is such a good match for her, he's laid back and calm and tries to stay cool in all situations. Though they aren't a canon in the anime, it's easy to see they'd make a good couple. The supporting characters are just as good as the main characters: Cid, Doc Stein, Spirit and Death himself are just so interesting, though it seems that just about every character in this series has some sort of psychological problem. Excalibur is one of those characters you will either love or completely hate, personally I think he is awesome. Two characters I can't stand though are Black Star and Patty. Black Star is just so obnoxious, though he does mild out towards the end, but Patty acts like she's retarded, and it's really, really annoying.

The dub is sort of a mixed bag, I only saw the first three episodes dubbed, because when I started watching that was all that Funimation had, so I can't judge everyone. Black Star is perfectly dubbed, as is Death's. Vic Montagna does a good job as Spirit and Maka's voice fits well. Soul's voice was a little distracting because he's the same actor as Train from Black Cat, including the same accentuation and inflection, so the two sounded the same though the characters are quite different. Kid's voice was badly chosen, capturing OCD perfectly, but not sounding sophisticated enough for when he speaks normally and is not having an 'episode'. And I simply don't like Monica Rial in anything, because she manages to sound perpetually 7 years old, though I can't say she is wrong for Tsubaki. Blair sounds a bit too much like Maka, and is totally tone-deaf, when she sings in the first episode it sounds just awful.

The series isn't perfect. The ending left a few things open, though this is more due to the manga isn't over yet. However, this is probably one of the best series I've seen in a really long time. And Maka and Soul are just so freakin' awesome that this has made it into my Top 10 list of my favorite animes. I even bought some Soul Eater merchandise at a convention, and will be making some Dollfies into Maka and Soul. I definitely suggest to everyone to check this series out. Remember, survive the first 3 episodes and it will hook you in and not let go.