Age Rating: Older Teen
Genre: Supernatural/Action
Price: $10.99
Yen Press has done a remarkable job with their flagship anthology, Yen Plus. There is a great mix of manga, OEL, and manwha, and the content has something for everyone. And boy, do I mean everyone. Sometimes, that means that some of the content isn't for readers like me.
I'll admit, I have a wider range of tastes than most. I love shojo and shonen alike, and I'm a fan of most josei and seinen titles. But one title that I just can't wrap my head around is Atsushi Ohkubo's Soul Eater.
It's hard to deny the series' growing popularity. Anime conventions are full to the brim with cosplayers dressing up as characters of the show. Panels have been set up by fans to discuss the hit property, all of whom have been exposed, it seems, to the anime version of this Yen Press manga. But looking at the root of all this fandom, I see something that is a little... off.
The first volume of Soul Eater introduces us to a bevy of characters through three 1-chapter prologues that do a whole lot of "showing off" the characters, if you know what I mean, and not a whole lot else. Fan service abounds in these action-packed episodic adventures, but honestly, there's not much to tell about this band of soul hunters.
Each character seems to be assigned one or two character traits, and sent into some sort of Death's assistant position. Maka, the girl with daddy issues wields the scythe/cool guy Soul, and so on. Each of the seven initial characters (plus Death himself) show off two key bits of information: one, that sex sells, and two, that none of these characters are good at their job.
The rest of the manga, we see Death send a portion of the crew off in a sort of "remedial lessons" with a ex-teacher who has since been turned into a zombie by some "unknown scientist." Defeat powerful foe that is obsessed with a self-inflating monologue? Didn't see that coming. I also didn't see the various panty and breast shots coming either. Oh wait, this is shonen manga. My bad. (I should have seen them coming)
The art changes between scenes that are practically straight from a Tim Burton claymation film to a sort of neo-shonen that doesn't really have a straight comparison. This is probably the most refreshing part about the manga. Although the plot and characters are pure cliche, the backgrounds, whether it's the sun and the moon and their wacked-out faces or the gothic cityscapes, turn out to be some of the best parts of the book. The style is definitely something to talk about, and it's easy to see why people are interested in the way that this manga/anime looks.
A comic can be a visual feast, but if the content is shoddy, it's still a shoddy comic, and unfortunately, this first volume doesn't do so hot in presenting itself. Still, there are some interesting bits (Death Kid's obsession with symetry is amusing, and Maka's spitfire personality keeps things on the level). These little bits plus the art make the series interesting, but not engaging. Atsushi Ohkubo will need to flesh out his characters and make them do something other than expose themselves if he wants me to stick around for a longer than another volume.
6.5