Pumpkins. Pump, pump, pumpkin. Pump, pumpkins.
Hello and welcome. And two are we there yet? In exploration and education in anime? I am Patrick dugan, your anime idiot.
I'm dana hollander, and I'm an anime expert.
I'm brenda mccullen. I'm a filthy weeb. I won't even say expert. I'm just a degenerate.
We've known this for a long time. Today we are talking about a show called Soul eater, which is the first show that I've had zero knowledge of.
It's a weird like, it's popular, but it's also, I think, one of the more popular shows I know of that a lot of people know nothing about. Like, you might have seen it here and there, but it's not, like, in your face everywhere.
I haven't watched it since I was 13, so it was a lot for.
Me to take in again, it's a run back.
Yeah. Original run of the mango was 2004 to 2013, and then the anime was 2008. So ten years ago.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. That's weird.
All right, so yeah. What are your histories with it? Did you watch all of it? Did you see some of it? Where do you stand with this show?
So I watched most of it when I was in 8th grade, I think. I haven't seen the last ten episodes or something like that. I, for some reason, just stopped watching it. But I did really like it. My friends and I actually cosplayed from it. My first real cosplay with a wig was the witch Medusa. Yeah. Even though I hadn't watched the whole thing, I liked Medusa enough to cosplay.
Her because, like, a character with literally no redeemable qualities whatsoever.
Hell, yeah.
I believe I started watching it first, and I think I got through a good few episodes, but I don't know if I was watching it while it was airing or not. But I remember at some point just dropping the show and just reading all of the manga. From what I hear, apparently the ending of the show was weird or bad or different.
Yeah. People didn't like it. I forget what happened, but people didn't like how it played out.
Yeah, because I remember reading The meng. I'm like, I don't know. I'm fine with it. I'm not upset. I'm not crazy about it. But I also wasn't incredibly invested in this series. I enjoyed it enough to keep up with it, but I wasn't like, Die Hard fan for it. Yeah, I remember enjoying it, and that's why we picked it. And we'll see looking at some of the images, I'm remembering bits and pieces of like, oh, yeah, I repressed that memory. So we'll see.
Yeah. So going into this, knowing the name only, I'm going to completely make up what I think this show is going to be about.
Oh, how exciting.
Based off the title alone, Soul eater, I believe this will be about a lonely demon chef who is making delicious treats out of souls and energies of different monsters that they have to fight. And that sounds really good. And I very much hope it's that.
I would watch that this sounds like.
A mashup of this. And Food Wars, that'd be the crossover episode.
Another show I know nothing about, but I hope it's that.
We'Ll see. I'll say that.
Yeah.
All right, so we are going to watch the show and we will be back with our impressions in just a moment. All right, we watched episodes one, seven and 23 of Soul eater, which Brendan decided was a good smattering to give me a feel for the show. And yeah, an appetizer sampler of episodes. And yeah, I think I got what's going on.
We picked it because we were talking about the episodes, me and dana. And there's arguably like three main characters, kind of or at least three prominent protagonists groups.
Yeah.
So the first three episodes are all introducing them. So each episode, like episode one to three would have felt like a first episode with each of them. So we didn't want to just hit the first three because you wouldn't have gotten a real idea of what it's about. So instead, we tried to pick the most, I guess, plot intensive episodes. So, yeah, it was the first episode which builds the world and gives you an idea who the characters are and how everything's set up. Episode seven, which is the introduction of Crona, which is a very prominent character emadusa. And then episode 23, which I would personally argue is like towards this season one finale, at least on Netflix, it has broken up into four parts in a weird way. But episodes honestly, 24 and 25 are like season one finale. And then 26, you could argue, is season two because the storyline changes dramatically after that. So, yeah, we wanted like a big actiony episode 23 to show you where it all winds up without spoiling too much.
Yeah, that was a good selection. We sort of got the first two episodes getting a little bit of narrative with maka and Soul and then getting into the big fights towards the end of the season.
Yeah, part of me was a little disappointed soul's last name wasn't eater and it was just super on the nose.
Yeah, that wasn't my favorite. I feel like they could have done anything to make that a little more creative.
Well, so episode one, we start with literally just introducing Seoul and maka and kind of the world that they inhabit. I mean, it starts off describing where they go to school and stuff, which is the death of Weaponmeister Academy. And I wrote kind of a mouthful, huh?
Oh, real mouth.
Or the dwma, which is kind of still not the greatest sounding acronym.
The duama.
The duma.
The duma. Sure. That is a school that was started by Death himself to train meisters and weapons. Weapons are people turn into weapons.
Weapons are people too.
Yeah. They have feelings and thoughts just like we do. And I was reminded of how much I like Death as a character in the show.
Yes. It caught me off guard how immediately Death was like Vejaliest happiest character in it. And I was like, whoa, that's not the dark, brooding anime I was expecting.
Yeah, I like his giant, chunky, square hands.
Yeah, his, like, judo chop hands.
Death chop. I wrote another Op song that bops.
Yeah.
This one, I could see the appeal of it, but it didn't necessarily grab me. At least not the way the Death Note one did.
I feel like this one is much more of a traditional kind of anime opening. I mean, I guess Death Note is, too, but kind of this it definitely fits more into the genre that Soul Leader is with the cool fights and the cool angles.
Yeah. One of the reasons I wanted to pick the show is because it still hits a good niche of the shonen fighting genre that a lot of other series are based around and mirror. But this one is definitely a very unique style to it and looks much different immediately. You can tell this is often the first note I wrote was you see Jack the ripper, who's got a big beer gut and a speedo on. He just saw this, okay. And the moon is behind him and it's like, got that really creepy smile and just blood pouring out of his mouth. It's like, oh, this is an odd place.
No. Yeah. One of my first notes is just all caps the moon. Because, yeah, it is featured prominently in the first two episodes. And, oh, boy, I could not live in this city if that was just hanging out. Just mac tonight. Just above forever.
We didn't get to see much of the sun in these episodes, but the sun is the same way.
I think it's super angry.
Kind of like the majority's mask moon.
Yeah, this is the majority's mask moon. And then the sun is like the sun from Mario Three where it's in the desert and just super pissed off and it flies down at you every now and then.
I don't think I noticed it. Let me think.
It was a new episode.
Yeah. We might not have seen it, but.
It is eater's Son.
Yeah.
He looks smiley, but I assume in action that terrifying snowman carrot nose will do some damage.
It'll pierce the heavens. Yeah. Both are very prominent in any scene or background that are in it's just kind of like reminding you, like, hey, this world is weird and fucked up and people are weapons. It's like oh, yeah, I forgot.
I actually really like the style of the show. The way the characters are designed and the way they look. I think it's really interesting because they all look kind of, like, cute. Like, maka especially looks very cute.
I was thinking the long sleeve coat with what are those called at the end of the sleeves?
Cuffs.
Cuffs, sure. Yeah. And her gloves. It all very reminded me a lot of like, early Disney and cuphead and Steve willy that's particularly her with those gloves. It reminded me that Crona has like three cups or something because in old animation, they would put gloves on characters as a way to just separate the parts that actually moved to cut cost on animation. So I was wondering wondering if that was just a style choice or if that was something similar they were trying to do here in modern day, but could be no, death to the kid. Yeah, he doesn't have gloves. But yeah, I enjoy the style. And I wrote down I think I might actually like this show because of the style and less about the plot.
Yeah, I was really liking the animation in this and just it getting pretty dark and gruesome with the monsters, but still having very cartoony moments of cutting between the monstrous scissor demon in the beginning with Death, who is just a straight up cartoon character.
He's the mayor of townsville.
Maka and Seoul are very successful students of the dwma. They have 99 souls. They have just eaten well, Seoul has eaten his 99th soul and now they have to find a witch and eat her soul.
99 souls, but a witch ain't one.
Anyway, there it is.
So proud of myself.
I also wrote oh, heck, I forgot vic minyana plays maka's dad.
Yeah, I watched the episodes one and seven in English and then 23 in Japanese. And yeah, it took me a while to really recognize his voice.
I recognize it instantly. That's a fun game to play. Find Vic minyana in the English dub.
It's super easy with English dubbing because it's the same twelve people in every show, truly.
So they find Blair.
Yeah, this is where my interest in the show immediately took a nosedive.
I thought you were going to say it peaked.
Not exactly.
We talked about it like, briefly. You paused here halfway through the first episode and you're like, yeah, it's kind of pervy. And I was like, no, it's not that kind of show. And then just watching the intro alone where you see Blair just explode out of a cabinet or something naked, I was like, oh, no, yeah, I get it now I forgot. And anytime you see the weapons in their weapon form, if they ever talk, they're naked. But it's usually at least well above the chest and above. I can see anything. But it is like, yeah, I guess there are a lot of, like, half dressed people in a lot of the show.
I guess I forgot. At least in the episodes we watched, I feel like it definitely wasn't showcased as much as it is in other anime. But there were those moments of like, Soul calling maka flat chested and being like, why would I like her? I'm so cool. Why would I like a flat chested girl like that?
And it's just like yeah, it's definitely more prominent around Blair and Spirit machine's dad.
I was fortunate.
Yeah. Once we get past this first episode, things toned down, which I appreciated, but it was rough going there for a little bit.
Usually with the show, you want your first steps to be the strongest, to hook people in, and they're just like, what, hooks people in better than boobs? And they just put like, two thirds of it in this episode.
Yeah. Where did I write it? I think I wrote it in episode seven, but I wrote can we get some cooler sounding spells in here?
Maybe you weren't a fan of pumpkin. Pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin cannon or whatever.
I will say the pumpkin song of just saying pumpkin over and over again in the bath was just delightful. Yeah, that's adaptation at its best.
I do love her aesthetic, though. Like, the aesthetic outside of her house and like, that it's pumpkins. Because Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I've been feeling very autumnal lately, so I was having a good time.
Well, even in, I think, episode seven, we have a medusa and her stick. Her theme, because all the witches have, like, themes, is snakes. So her spell is snake, snake, cobra, cobra, snake, snake. I was like, this isn't like a fighting game where you're putting in a cheat code. Why are these spells so bad?
It's just nake, snake, cobra, cobra.
That's all it is.
It's the elevator witch. Up, up, down, down.
Erica says something like that, too. She's the frog witch.
And she says frog, frog.
Ribbon.
Yeah, like ribbon. croak. croak.
It's like you just threw one word into Google and just everything that came back was, like, what the spells would be called. It's like, anything associated with that animal.
But so we're introduced to our first big titty anime babe, and also we get our first nosebleed.
Yeah.
Real quick, which is fun.
So is that a thing?
It is a thing.
So in anime, if a boy sees a girl that he thinks is sexy, he gets a nosebleed. I think it's like a blood pressure.
Joke, because it's for boners can't show a boner, so they're like, well, boners are filled with blood, so the blood comes from somewhere else. So, yeah, it's kind of like pressure builds up and needs an outlet.
Gross.
It's weird.
Okay.
And it's one of those tropes that's in everything. Like, it's just ubiquitous now, and it's in every anime. So it's just kind of like if it doesn't make sense, you're just going to get on board because it's everywhere.
All right, this is the first useful trope I have learned. Yeah, I saw it as a gag on How I Met Your Mother once, and I was like, that was a funny one off joke. I did not know that was a thing.
It is. It is a thing in anime.
Yeah. It's a way to get around the sensors. And that's why there's all that tentacle stuff on the Internet, because they couldn't draw dangles oh, my God. So they drew tentacles instead.
Lovely.
That's your hentai history lesson for today.
And that's a wrap on brendan's Hentai history corner.
This is a good run.
Later.
The segment that will never return, hopefully.
Fingers crossed. So this episode features a lot of, like, blundering around, trying to fight a much more powerful being than maka and Soul are. So blair's the which they're trying to defeat.
It's kind of weird how they're like, oh, those are 99 Soul and are ready to become, like, a super young death site and super powerful. And then yeah, they just spend, like, four attempts at fighting Blair and just not even being close to winning. So it's kind of a weird juxtaposition with what they were telling us.
Yeah, because especially Blair didn't seem like a very formidable enemy compared to, like, we see a very dangerous demon and then Blair, who is like, oh, yeah, pumpkins. Let me throw pumpkins around. Just a green goblin and make sex jokes.
He's distracted by the titty.
I mean, I get it.
My favorite part is when maka says that she wishes all men would die. That's a good line. Because the whole time, Blair is like, oh, cute little psych boy, why wouldn't you be my weapon? This girl is so lame. Look at she don't even got an A cup. And then he plays a mean trick on her. And I didn't like it. I was like, I know this is a trick, but it's so mean. He didn't even tell her.
Yeah, I always remembered it as that was a plan they formed earlier because mako was able to pick up on it so quickly. But, yeah, rewatching it. I was like, oh, yeah, I guess she didn't know. I guess he needed her to be genuine to make it believable.
Soul is a butthole sometimes I forgot that his thing is, like, being very focused on being very cool. I forgot about that.
Yeah, he's the too cool for school character, which I do love because it's.
Shown that he's just the duobest dweeb at every turn and it's great.
And I mean, quote of a century, cool men don't cheat on their partners.
Yeah, it's.
Really exposition heavy. And they were like, we have to show the strain on maka and her father's relationship at the same time. We also have to deal with this Blair storyline. And there's just a lot of real big exposition dumps early on in the first episode, to the point where I even wrote down lord Death actually says as you know, which is a trope in writing called the as. You know, Dave, where you just put, as you know in the front of the sentence and just unload like four pages of narration to dump as much world building as you can. The world is crazy and weird, so I understand the need for it, but you definitely could have parsed that out a little better.
But what I really enjoyed was the sort of twist at the end that Blair was not a witch at all when they defeated her and just a magic cat.
Yeah.
Got Jews.
But I also wrote, why wouldn't a cat with magic powers be considered a witch?
Yeah. What are the rules there? What's the governing witch body that will give the certificate?
The parliament of witches. The covenant.
There you go.
Yeah, she says she's got like a ridiculous amount of magical energy, but that's a lot. That was like a real lot more than some of the other witches we'll see in this series. Yeah. Why isn't she a witch?
And also they all have animal themes. So like, why isn't Blair a cat witch?
Yeah, I think you're right. I'm trying to think of all the others like we see later or don't see it. We won't see at all from these episodes. But yeah, I think almost all the witches have some sort of animal theme.
Well, yeah, because I mean, we have medusa's snakes and then erica's frog, there's.
A mouse and a spider one that we didn't see in these episodes.
Well, there you go. So why isn't Blair a witch?
Give witch answer. I'm guessing the mouse's spells are mouse, mouse, squeak, cheese, mouse, mouse.
I can't say for sure.
Most of you are probably not far off.
I remember that there's like six of them and they're super tiny little mouse witches. And then they combine to form one person. And there's a very prominent scene where one of them gets killed early on, so there's only five when they combine into one person. It's unnecessarily sexy. Like there's a lot of midriff and underboob. And there's one episode where just her and Blair fight.
Do you know what it's called when a bunch of rodents combine like that? The wrecking of voltron. Thank you. That's been our show.
Now it's just my show because we've.
Both been kicked off for terrible months.
What was I going to say? mako and Soul done fucked up.
Don't fucked up real bad.
Don't fucked up. So they had their 99 souls. And in order for Soul to become a death pipe, which is a weapon that is used exclusively by death, they have to get a witch soul. And if they don't get a witch soul, if they mess it up, they lose all 99 of the souls that they got.
Resets it.
Resets it. So that happens. So now a show can happen.
Yeah, I thought that was interesting rather than the typical, well, we just met, let's start this adventure for the very first time and going, okay, we work together. We already have an established partnership. Oh, wait, we have to start all over. Okay, now we can start our narrative. Yeah, I like that.
Yeah, it'd be very weird if it's like episode one, he becomes a death site. It's like, Where do we go from here?
Right?
But it's not something we'll see, but because I read the manga, knew more about it. But the powerful weapons that Lord Death uses are called death sites. Sites, yeah. But the only two of them, like, there's multiple Death sites throughout the world. Only two of them are actually sites. It's maka's, father and soul. Everyone else is another weapon, but they're not sites. And maka's father is the most recent one. He's the one that Debt is currently using. So I'm wondering, why are they called that and not just, like, Death weapons or something else?
Because was there an original Death site and then it was just named after that? But if not and it's just literally the two most recent things, and some.
Of them are interesting. Like, someone was like, a staff, and one of them is like a ton foot that turns into Machine Gun, I think, or something else. And in one dude, it's just straight up a guillotine. Like, his body turns into different parts of a guillotine.
That's sick.
Oh, that's weird.
Finally we can start our revolution.
That always stuck out to me. I was like, huh? And I don't know if we ever see any two weapon people. Do they have a term? Just weapons?
No, they're just weapons.
Yeah. The handlers are mistakers, but yeah, we never see two people who are the same weapon. At least not that I'm aware of. Besides Soul and Makaspa.
Well, we didn't see them in this episode, but Death, the kids guns.
True.
Wait, those were also people?
Yes, all the weapons were people.
Okay.
And black stars. Sword.
Yeah, also all right. I only saw the gun form.
Yeah, we skipped over the episodes where they got a real strong introduction just because it'd be a little redundant, but yeah, all the weapons are people.
Yeah.
Okay.
Just to tell you, dudes, there's black star and subaki. And subaki is like a samurai sword. And then there's Death, the kid who is like, death's actual son. And he has Liz and patty, who are his two guns.
Those are great gun names.
They got a good cowgirl aesthetic.
Yeah. For him, he he likes symmetry. Symmetry is his big thing. There's a really funny episode where they're taking an exam and he spends the whole time writing his name in Perfect Times new Roman font.
It's like OCD level.
Yeah.
Ruining his life because he crave symmetry everywhere.
It's the spongebob.
The exactly.
Yeah.
So, yeah, that was episode one. Fun Times.
Once we got past the gross stuff, I was feeling it.
Yeah. So now we're on to episode seven. Seoul and maka are in Italy.
Are they?
That they say they are.
Besides the few lines about pasta, I couldn't tell you. This is in Italy.
But they say specifically that they're in Italy.
They say they're in Italy. I'm just saying it doesn't look like Italy. It doesn't sound like it sounds telling. There's no way of telling it to Italy except for the line like, hey, we're in Italy now.
Well, I guess the architecture kind of looked like it. They're talking about, like, old cathedrals and stuff, gothic style.
But there's a confrontation with Seoul and some just hood lumps, some ruffians, some upstairs.
Also, I don't want to get past this point. My first note was it starts as an intro for diners Drive Ins and dives, where it's soul on a motorcycle being like Italy. We're going to check out the sites. We're going to get some food. We're going to have an awesome time.
I'm Seoul. This is maka. Welcome to diners Drive Ins and dives.
They're going to get some soul food.
I also have written down, but episode three is called The Perfect Boy. So we're really missing out.
I mean, he's perfect because of the symmetry, but he's also not because of the white stripes in his hair aren't symmetrical.
Rip.
Poor thing.
How difficult.
But yeah, without that line of soul being like, I love it. You wouldn't know it because they run in some guys and they're just thugs. They just seem like thugs you would meet in the United States. And I don't know. There's no way of knowing Italy, and that kind of bugged me.
Yeah. Well, what can you do? There's only so much an artist can do, I guess.
I don't know. Yeah.
I will give you that. Their accents were more New yorky than Italian.
Seems like they're in Detroit. I will point out that one guy had a sweatshirt on the head. 69 on it.
You bet.
I have that written down, too.
I'm glad we all noticed that right away.
Yeah.
So clearly he's the leader.
Obviously.
Seoul and macca are in Italy. Seoul just wants to eat some pasta, but macca is like, no, we have to do research. Yeah.
They are hunting the was it serial killer or just murderer sansen J?
Yeah.
Not really exploited. We got the episode seven, but like yeah, it starts off with Jack the ripper. At the very end of the episode, you get a preview of next episode where Black stars hunting Al capone. This episode where maka and Solar hunting serial killer in Italy. And I was kind of hoping it kind of tie in with that of like, the notorious serial killers or criminals of, like, history. And that's who they're hunting down for a lot of it. But then they had to go and do their narrative and actual plotline and all that dumb stuff.
Dang it.
But I was kind of disappointed. It's not like it's not like oh, we're hunting John way gacy. It's like, oh, that'd be a fun episode. The clown villain. Who doesn't want that?
I would love that.
Yeah, it's the guy with a bag on his head.
I wrote that down. Where did I write it? chubby dude wearing a bag on his head and a knife versus maka. Who will win?
The amazing Bag Man.
So maka and sol are approached by some ruffians, and then they beat them up. And then later on, they end up in a church, and they're like, this is our turf.
Yeah. How does the street gang just end up with, like, a historic cathedral?
They're good religious boys. They're repenting for their past crimes of beating up children.
Yeah. You got to apologize and wipe the slate clean so you can do some more crime.
Sure.
I know how catholicism works.
Dirty crime, boys.
But then there's another child in your church, so then you got to beat that child up, too.
Right. And then you have to confess again.
Yeah. It's a vicious cycle.
Yeah. So I forget. We forgot to mention earlier in the episode, Medusa is like, go have your fill of souls. And that's kind of our introduction to Crona, but not directly.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
And then so they end up in this church, and crona's hanging out in there, and they're like, we're going to beat you up. And crona's like, give us your lunch, buddy.
What?
Who?
So crona is an oddity. It's a character I wrote down. Man, I wish calling people they them was more of a thing when this was dubbed, because in the subs, I believe on an episode by episode basis, they call Crona him or her.
It's definitely an issue with the English dubbing, I think, because this might just be me speculating. I think it's Japanese. They have more gender neutral pronouns with the way their language is structured. Whereas in the Us. It would have been weird. I looked it up because in the manga, they definitely say it's a point of contention where no one really knows the gender of karna. Some chapters, they take him or her. Some they say she.
I mean, I think Crona is just supposed to be genderless because they were just created. Like they weren't born yeah.
From the creator. I forget exactly. But they say, yeah, they've never intended to reveal the gender. It's not important. But for the English dub, I think I don't know why they didn't choose just they and them pronouns instead. Because they said we specifically chose one because we didn't want to refer to a character as it or thing, like something so dehumanizing. It's like, well, yeah, that's why we have they and them.
Yeah. I wrote down they gave Crona he him because they don't really express interest in maka. I guess Crona kind of calls her pretty.
Yeah, because there's like, I can't really hit a girl and then, no, it's cool. And Crona is like, I can do that.
Fuck, yeah.
I think it was whoever was reediting the script for the English dub saw. Those lines and just stuck with masculine pronouns.
Yeah, this was definitely dubbed in a less progressive time.
Yeah, that's what I mean when I say I wish that it was more mainstream to use gender neutral pronouns, because it definitely wasn't when they dubbed it. But yeah, krona is supposed to be an enigma. Exactly.
We've been hanging out too much. Yeah.
So Maka has special eyes, and she can see that there are a bunch of dudes in that church surrounding a meister and its weapon. So they go over to investigate, and when they get there, all the dudes are done.
There's, like, no bodies or anything. So they just, like, disappear.
Well, krona eats souls, but not bodies. Well, yeah, but Jack the ripper's body was gone, too.
Yeah, but they were kension. They were turning into kension creatures. keishan yeah. I don't know. It's weird that the bodies are gone because yeah. Maka points out several times throughout the fight, like, meesters are not supposed to be slang humans. That's a forbidden rule. And crona just did that to a whole bunch of people.
Yeah. So crona is crazy a fun character. When their sword opens its mouth. I wrote down Duck Newton. This is pretty much exactly the same situation. Almost, except so crona. It's not super well established, I think, in this episode. Or maybe I just wasn't paying good enough attention, but krona and ragnarok are like they are both meister and weapon combined.
Yeah, it's not just, like, solomon maka's relationship.
It's this weird fusion of intermingling roles.
Yeah. So they kind of get into it. And then we also get a flash of Spirit hanging out in the school hospital, bemoaning his relationship with Maka again. And then he gets really worried about running into stein, who I love, and then he runs into stein.
Oops, who wanted to list dumb bitch.
Oh, and also, we didn't get to see this in the episodes we watched either, but Medusa is the school nurse, dudes.
Okay, I did not know that.
Yeah, but people for some reason don't know that she's a witch.
Oh, that's odd.
Yeah.
So that's why Spirit was like, oh, Nurse Medusa, heal me with your sweet touch.
Okay. I didn't notice he said Medusa when he was like, oh, give me that, nurse.
Yeah, she's the school nurse.
Yeah.
Okay.
Which will also give a little bit of explanation for episode 23 when there's a fight with her. Kind of explains that they got the sordid past of she betrayed them and worked. Got an inside view of the school. Got you.
Okay, that checks out.
Yeah. So maka and soul fight crona. krona is having a good time. cronos got Black Blood, which is a weapon in and of itself. That hard blood work out. And then rip soul.
Just debt. Straight up debt.
Yeah. So it gets to, like, ragnarok, crona's sword, doing that lovely, like, scream attack of being, like, gooba gooba or whatever it was, and Soul can't cut through it or hit those vibrations and ends up dying. It's kind of left ambiguous.
Sure.
He's dead.
Yeah.
He's a titular character and dead in seven episodes in yeah.
So we were left with the cliffhanger of Soul maybe being cut in half.
Which is a little scary, I will say ragnarok, when he appears, at least in the English dub, makes a lot of weird noises.
Oh, yeah.
Not laughing, but just kind of like I'm sorry, what was that?
That was interesting. An interesting choice.
Yeah. Because at least in the manga, I don't know, maybe I just read past the anomaly pita and sound effects and did pay attention to them, but they seem at least to be a much more ominous figure because they constantly abused karona and just beat them up all the time.
But in the anime, it's a little more playful. Stop tickling me. I don't like it.
Yeah. Versus, like, in the mega, it's very clear. It's like a torturey relationship. It's very one sided.
Yeah.
So we make a big jump to episode 23.
Yeah.
Where we actually don't get to see Soul very much. So dudes could assume that he is actually dead.
Yeah. That's where I'm at. Since we sort of jumped, I was, like, reading the descriptions of episodes in between to sort of not get dropped in the dark, but still focus on what we deem was right. So I did see some Soul stuff still around. I also assumed the title character didn't die immediately.
Yeah. They fixed him back up.
Yeah.
Got to go to nurse. Medusa.
Yeah.
He turns out okay.
Just a big old bandage on the site.
So in episode 23, we kind of get into a fight.
Yeah.
It's kind of like climax with the big bad.
Yeah. So this entire episode is one big fight scene, which I hear from Reputation only is very common in anime.
Actually, it's interesting because, like, I'm not the biggest fan of, like, the action genre. Like, I just don't it doesn't interest me. But I feel like the fights in Soulater are very interesting because they have a lot going on. They have a lot of different powers in play, kind of.
Yeah. There were a lot of levels to it, especially when, like, each side has three or four different characters acting as, like, one fighter. So you have Dr. stein and Spirit Death site working together, but as one humanoid with a weapon. There's history going on and we get a flashback and there's a lot going on to it, which is much more than, I will show you. I am stronger than you. Fight, punch, fight.
Right?
Yeah. It relies on them bonding and working together, but it's still not technically being outnumbered. It's still not like a two on one fight. But there is a level of communication that needs to be established in order to win.
Yeah. So they're fighting medusa. And then while that's going on, erica and another character who I've forgotten about and don't remember his name.
Forgot about free.
Yeah, I did.
He renames himself Free after they break him out of prison because he wants to be free forever. Listen, he's a neat character, but my God, some of the writing for him is atrocious very clearly played by Travis. wellingham, he is Travis Wellington.
Yeah.
They make mentions that he's a werewolf.
Yeah, I don't remember him very well.
So with the witches, there's a bit of hierarchy in the witches side of things. Not like a government, but there's definitely a super badass strong witch that can just kick everyone else's shit in. And this guy, I forget exactly how, but essentially snuck in and yanked her eye out when she was asleep. And that's why his left eye is a different color. And for some reason, he has no future tattooed on instead of an eyebrow.
Because edgy prison is tough.
So he got that super powerful eye from a strong witch and that kind of gave him magical powers. I don't think he's necessarily magical to begin with, but given that he can now do spells, and I think that adds to dana, what you were saying about the fight scenes. I don't know if necessarily the animation stands out for me fight wise because I watch a ton of fighting anime because I'm a perpetual 13 year old child. There are definitely always interesting in the series because everything's so strange. So even blackstar's other character we see a bit in this episode and subaki, she has multiple forms, unlike a lot of the other soul weapons. She can turn into like a kunai and chain a sword, like a ninja star, like a whole bunch of stuff. And then, yeah, this guy's a werewolf but can also cast spells. In an earlier episode, he's casting a projection of himself like an illusion while riding on a giant tadpole because he has to keep moving. It's very silly, but yeah, there's always a lot of stuff going on. So it can kind of get jarring with how much is going on. But at least with even Medusa, she has snakes, but they're all arrows. So it's like things are weird but still interesting. It definitely keeps your attention just because of, like, what is happening right now.
Yeah. So erica and Free are trying to inject black blood into this sack that is kept below the school, much like the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter.
This is the same black blood that's in corona.
Yeah.
This is Weapon wondering what was up with this sack because it showed prominently in the intro and there's like allusions to it. And then this is the first I see characters interacting with it.
Yeah. So he's like an ultimate evil entity and they are trying to keep him contained pretty much.
In episode seven, I believe Medusa talked a few times about turning corona into kenshi.
Kenshi keishan.
Keishan. And that's what this is. This is a keishan. This is like just the super baddy, evil dude that Death himself had to take down using a Death site. And the only way he could contain this massive amount of evil energy was to trap him underneath the school. And that's why Death built the school on that spot, is so that Death is kind of locked in there in order to keep him prisoner. Death can't leave the school anymore.
Got you.
The sack that this evil being is in is his skin. Death flayed him alive and used his own skin to contain him and sucked out all of his blood.
Yeah, that's why I'm trying to give.
Him the black blood.
Okay. That that checks out when the form starts crawling out at the end. And it's just that bag turning into a dude, a super ripped dude.
He's doing a lot of crunches in that bag. He's still got to work on his core.
He's got nothing else to do.
Yeah, he's very bored.
Yeah. So that's going on and pretty much Spirit and stein are kind of trying to keep Medusa distracted and away from all that situation going on. They're pretty cool. And like you mentioned, we get a flashback of stein bullying someone and being like, I'm going to dissect you. And Spirit is like, how about let's not?
Hey, chill.
And I don't remember I don't remember why I wrote it, but I wrote, oh, stein, you're so quirky and nonconforming. I think probably because he said something along the lines was like, nobody understands me and what I want to do.
Yeah.
No one has the same interest as me.
No one wants to let me dissect them.
There's a specific line where he says there's different doctors and professors who inspected him and tried to find terrible childhood trauma or a mental illness or something. He's like, no, I just like destroying things and dissecting stuff. And it's like, oh, okay, you're not troubled. You're just fucked.
You're just a psychopath.
Yeah. And you're just aware and embracing it. It's like, okay, yeah.
Also Medusa, when trying to convince him to come back to her side, she says, don't you want to change the world to a place where evolution and progress always rain? And I was like, that doesn't sound bad.
Yeah. I wrote down that this turned into just a philosophy battle where they just are like, well, what are the roles of gods in society to prevent people from letting their egos run free? And I was like, oh, this is pretty complex thought for two people trying to kill each other.
Yeah, it's very interesting. But there was one line that immediately took me out of it, which was, I'm so bored I could piss my pants.
Who says that?
Stein says that because he's so tired and bored with all of society's dredge, and they're just conforming bullshit he's like, I was so bored I could have pissed my pants. And the medusa says it back to him like, oh, you're boring me now with your fighting. I'm so bored I could piss my pants. They say it like two or three times.
Is this the one where you watch the Japanese say that in the audio?
It might have been, yeah.
Because this is news to dana, and.
I wish I would have remembered something like that.
Well, there's a little difference in localization we just found. Yeah, that definitely made me stop and go, wait, what the fuck is happening right now?
So they're fighting. They're fighting more. And then, oh, boy. I wrote down, oh, man. I thought I wouldn't have to see Black Star because Black Star and Death the kid arrive. I also wrote down I forgot that Death the Kid skates. Skate or die. You either skate or you die.
Yeah, this was my introduction to Kid Death, which I wrote down. Kid Death is Shadow the hedgehog, where he just rolls in on a skateboard, two guns pinkies on the trigger, upside down. And I was like, oh, this is Anime shadow the hedgehog Edge Master.
I was thinking that when Dedicated kicked into the world, I was like, oh, this is dugan's first. We haven't seen anything else about him. So I'm like, oh, this is a control. This is one way to get to know a character.
Really? That's a way to make an entrance. Just skateboarding through the air, turns into.
A hoverboard in the air. Like, it's a skateboard that can turn into a hover.
He's got that kind of technology. His dad is deaf.
I have a very important question.
Yes.
Is the skateboard a dude?
That one is not, but it is completely understandable why you would okay, that.
Is a missed opportunity. I'll chalk it up to that.
They're actually triplets the Thompson triplets.
Oh, my gosh.
It's the third one we just don't talk about.
So they go in to fight erica and Free and is at this point, it's kind of revealed that the keishan has, like, some illusionary powers going on.
Yeah.
His spirit, or the sole wavelength is what they always call it, is so powerful and so corrupt with madness that it actually just being around. It leaks into people around. So in other episodes, they have hallucinate illusions. And illusions kind of freak out a little illusion. So they kind of freak out with that. So the closer they get to it, the stronger the freak outs become.
Yeah. So Death the Kid, Black Star storms in, and Death the Kid is like, hey, look out for the illusions. And he pretty much is like, I'm so stupid. It doesn't matter.
Pretty much.
That's the best thing that I remember Black Star ever doing.
Yeah, I related to that.
Yeah.
You're telling me you don't like blue haired, nervous?
I can't say that I'm a fan.
He's a pain in the head.
So they're dealing with that. We go back to Medusa and stein, and he's got her in, like, a death grip.
So stein is like I don't want to say everyone has, like, special abilities per se, but, like, the thing he's really good at is he converted, like, soul energy into sutures and, like, you know, dissecting and stitching stuff together. So when he hits her with his attack, he kind of sutures all of her nerves in her entire body except for her mouth, because she still talks, so she wouldn't be able to move.
Which is pretty cool.
Yeah. Because spirit also is like, I am focusing all my energy into this and I can't move a finger. And he's saying that and talking. So I guess that's the theme of, like, not being able to move does not affect the mouth.
It's like a Dean dee talking to free action. It costs no energy. You can just do it whenever.
Yeah. So they're doing that. I forget. At one point, he rips her in half, but he rips her in half.
It's after Black Star fucked up.
Oh, yes.
And the whole building starts quaking. Reduce is like, Ha, we win. And then stein cuts her.
All right.
She took her eyes off.
So blackstar thinks that he cut the syringe with the black blood in it in half, but in reality, he actually cut the sack open because he wasn't stupid enough for the illusions.
Yeah. It got so intense. Right as he was about to cut the syringe, he actually used his energy in $0.06 is, like, what made him susceptible to the illusions. So, yeah, at the last second, he got gone.
Yeah. So he done fucked up.
He got woofed up.
He goofed. And they did it. And meduse is excited about it and yeah, stein rips her in half and then it rains blood, which is pretty cool.
Yeah. And it was like, still the arrows raining down. This was like, the least colorful episode, but I think just like, the arrow rainstorm design wise brought me back in.
It's pretty cool.
Yeah. Those are all of her snakes. They never look like snakes or was just arrows, but I think it was like a way of them working around, like, oh, we're not showing blood and organs, we're just showing a bunch of arrows. So they're able to get pretty graphic with it of just exploding out of her legs, like, all the blood. And then as it came down, it turned.
Yeah.
Pretty gross. And then even grosser, mr. Big Bad keishan is trying to come out of his skin sack, and he's, like, crawling on the floor and riding around, and erica looks pretty fucking terrified, and I'm just sitting there wondering, why were you in on this?
Yeah. This was the goal that you were trying to get. And you seem to be checking out right now.
Yeah, I watched some of the next episode just because I wanted to know what he looks like when he is fully formed. But I didn't get that far. But he like, opens his eyes and looks at her and just screams at her. And she also screams and it's just like it's pretty horrifying.
It's a great scene.
So for some reason, erica is not into the plant anymore, even though she's the one that put the syringe in the skin sack.
Hey, maybe unleashing this unholy cthulhu esque evil being upon the world. Maybe a bad.
I was also thinking about I never understand plans like this, where like in guardians of the Galaxy where Rocket raccoon is like, what did the galaxy ever do for you? Why do you want to save it? And then starlord's? Like, I'm one of the idiots that lives in it. And I'm like, yeah, why do people want to destroy where they live yeah.
Without getting like a backup plan?
Yeah. And what makes them think that the keishan is going to be on their side? He seems pretty chaotic evil to me.
Yeah. From what I remember, it's free. I think he's just out for destruction. He's just kind of mindless, like, fuck up the oligarchy or whoever's rolling Lord death in his society. But erica and the little mouse witches that combine into one person are kind of just like the nerds of witch culture, I guess, in society. So they get picked on a lot and are just kind of like the joke butt of the jokes there. So Medusa sees us and it's like, oh, these are two clearly emotionally broken characters I can manipulate into doing my bidding. And I think medusa's under the impression that she could control the Aquishan. It's like, yeah, he'll be on her side once he gains his senses and we'll be able to not destroy the world but take over it. Whereas a keishan is just pure matt energy and just like, yeah, I'm going to fuck it.
Yeah. So, I mean, that wasn't great. Not your best idea.
Medusa kind of backfired there. Who would have thought?
Sites 2020.
So those were the three episodes we watched.
Yeah.
So, dukes, how did you like it?
So this I will say stylistically, I was much more into. I'll say the second one was my favorite. I was going to say the first two. And then I remembered all that fun stuff in the first one that I hated. But yeah, I was getting into it. I'm also like dana not super into extra fighting stuff. So that episode 23 felt a little bit too long because I'm used to fight scenes being scenes, not episodes. This is something that you have to get used to, I guess.
Yeah. I've seen shows where one fight scene will last, like five episodes, but in the context of the world, it's like three minutes. It's mind blocking.
Based on what you've seen. Would you watch it to see how it gets to the point that we've gotten to and beyond.
I would say I would be willing to give the other episodes that introduce the other characters a shot. I would like to judge it based on that. I'm very interested in my sonic friend or my shadow friend's storyline.
So you said sonic and I thought of Black Star.
Oh, my God. Black star is sonic. Amy wrote okay.
So, yeah, I'd be willing to give it a shot.
We got one.
Wow.
I am genuinely surprised by that.
I would say this is more of to give it its fair shake of since we sort of cheated the system to get into a narrative a little bit, I didn't get the full experience. So I would be willing to give it a shot, but I don't know if I would continue past that.
That's enough for me.
Yeah, you give it a shot. That's all we needed. Yeah, that's why we kind of skipped to episode seven, because one to three introduce the characters and then four to six are kind of just like episodic going off on adventure and it's wrapped up within the next 20 minutes sort of stories. And then so is a lot of the first season. So we'll get bits of the overarching story with Medusa and corona and Neil keishan throughout the first season, but bulk of the episodes are just kind of one off adventures. And then towards the end of that season, it delves into the heavier plot. So that's why we kind of want to jump into it to purposely try and pique your interest. Yeah, because we knew the first few episodes went well.
You did a good job with that.
Yay. Then he can watch all the episodes with excalibur.
Those are the best ones.
He's the worst character.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Oh, boy. Well, I can't wait to find out. Thank you all for listening to this experiment, this attempt. And we will be back to learn to live with anime again.
Do we want to tease our next episode or next show?
I forgot what we decided. It was great.
So next time we record, my boyfriend will be around. My good, good boy, paul Anthony gonzalez Jr. Good man. And he is very excited to introduce Dugues to the world of Fooley cooley flc. Yes.
This one will be tough because there's only six episodes.
Okay, maybe this will be the first anime series I ever watch in completion.
After our episode, we record, you'll be halfway through. It'll be easy to kill off.
All right.
All right. Well, thank you all and hopefully you will join us next time on Are We There Yet? Soon.
Bye.
Hey, real quick, these things weren't settled when these episodes were recorded, but thank you to camille ruley for our artwork. And thank you to Louis zong for the song's Stories off the album Beats. You can find all of Louis music at Louisong bandcamp.com.