tyrese.altenwerth - 2015-02-07 16:42:52

jocelyn.schiller - 2015-01-24 14:24:12

The thing about SEN! is to fully appreciate it, you need to have finish SE and be emotional invested in the world & environment. To me it feel necessary. Like a final good bye from the makers. I was just super happy to be back in the WORLD of SE after so long and seeing all the the things and people i missed plus new ones(which, IMO was a bonus). Also the 1 weapons, 2 miester dilemma was super interesting and in all honesty it had a better ending than the original SE which was a cheesy bullshit cope out...But hey forget about that.

nat61 - 2014-10-08 21:14:28

About a year ago, I found a copy of Soul Eater Not! on the shelf of my local bookstore. Having been a big fan of the original anime and slowly but surely been reading the original manga, I decided to give it a try. A few weeks ago I found that Not! had been adapted to an anime. So in the last few days I chilled out between classes by watching it. While writing this I even have a copy of the Soul Eater and Soul Eater Not! Manga next to me just to get spellings right.

I felt this little introduction was necessary just to explain the mind set I was in when watching this. After all, someone who has been expecting this show and been hyped as hell for months will probably have a different opinion from those who just stumble across it or are just casualy viewing it.
Right with that out of the way, On To The Review!!

After spending sometime away from a world, weather it be your hometown, your favorite video game or, in this case, the world of an anime, you feel a curtain nostalgia on some level. Exploring the streets, seeing the people, grabbing a cup of coffee with your old friends, but after a while you start to notice all the changes. You start to remember all the flaws and even though new elements may appear appealing at first its never as perfect as you remember.

The story of Soul Eater Not! takes place about a year or two before the original series, following the school lives of three girls just starting at DWMA and the adjustments they must make to there new lives.
We are introduced (Or rather re-introduced) to the school through Tsugumi Harudori, a young Japanese student about to start her first year after having recently discovering that she is a weapon. Tsugumi is, in simplified terms, a younger less competent Maka, even stating a number of times to be inspired by Maka. She is kind hearted and loyal but suffers from a lack of confidence, this isn't necessarily a bad thing since it gives the character ample space to grow. Throughout the series we see her numerous fears about the future and how she overcomes or at least learns to live with them. Not a great protagonist but not a bad start for one.
Second is Anya, a meister in training and a runaway princess. Starting the series she is gives the appearance of a spoiled brat and viewing the others as low class commoners, while this would get annoying relatively quickly (and at times it does) it is nicely juxtaposed with her inner monologue. As the show progresses her monologue become less frequent and her attitude begins to sum what subside. While this was an interesting way to show growth, it becomes slightly less meaning full when the character practically regresses during the final few minutes.
Lastly is Meme Tatane, an incredibly absent minded girl with big boobs. That's it. Meme is the kind of character that fifty percent of the time could be replaced with any other background character. Aside from being a plot device at the end, the only thing her character brings is the on-running joke of being incredibly forgetful, which gets old really quickly and becomes inconsistent at times.

A number of our old favorites return as background characters or even side characters. Black Star, Tsubaki and Kid make occasional appearances usually with only a sentence or two. Maka and Soul appear in a few episodes but usually just so Tsugumi can get some advice from Maka, sometimes good, sometimes Tsugumi doesn't even get to ask her question, needless to say during there early appearances I was hoping that the story would suddenly switch to Maka's perspective. Liz and Patty become side characters around the 4th or 5th episode and actually gives them more character development then our protagonists, not a good sign. During the series we are able to see Sid, pre-Zombie and Stein, pre-Teacher. There's very little difference.

The Main villain of the series is nowhere near as good as Medusa or Arachne, though in this case the villain was never that important. The feels as though the only reason there was a villain was to give the three main characters a major obstacle to over come.

The Animation throughout the series is great and on pare with the original series at times. Character designs are solid and backgrounds are great and rarely reused. The occasional effects for things like transformations are just as good though rarely used so there would have been no excuse. Standard Bones quality.

Compaired to its big brother the music is incredibly forgetful, the opening song is descent enough for the show but is fairly bland and doesn't really stick in your head as well as T.M.Revolution or Paper Moon.

For a casual watch, its an ok slice of life with some fantasy but as a side story to Soul Eater it pails in comparison. If your curious give it a try but otherwise your not missing much.

myriam.schultz - 2014-08-29 18:46:04

If you're looking for all your favorite elements of Soul Eater in this spin off, keep walking.  This series is about the NOT class of the academy while our favorite gang was a part of the EAT class.  There's a lot of cuteness and fluff in NOT if you're a fan of that.  Instead of lot of battles like in Soul Eater, Soul Eater NOT focuses on more passive life in the academy and around the city.  It made me feel like I was watching some sort of academy school life anime but with a dash of Soul Eater spice in it, though not enough for my tastes.
While it's an okay anime on its own, it's not what I was hoping for - which was more of my favorite gal Maka and the rest of the gang.  You realize they changed their eyes?  

The story seemed to be a bit... rushed in the end for me for the action and the ending was a bit anti climatic.  While I'll watch and re-watch Soul Eater plenty, I think one run through of this series was enough for a life time.

ookon - 2014-08-06 10:13:47

johanna49 - 2014-07-17 16:58:20

To be honest, I was never really a big fan of the original Soul Eater, my sister kind of forced me to watch it with her and we stopped after only looking at a few episodes. Nothing personal, I don't hate it or anything, it just wasn't my thing. So why did I look at this one by chance? Honestly I love comedy slice of life stories especially ones with cute girls (don't judge me)... that and I was curious if they could even make it a good spinoff to its predecessor (kind of like A Certain Scientific Railgun, which is said to be more popular than its counterpart). So how does it hold up?

For those who don't know, the story takes place in The Death Weapon Meister Academy (DWMA) is a special institution for humans who are born with the power to turn into weapons and the wielders of these weapons, called meisters. While the students of the EAT (Especially Advantaged Talent) class train themselves to become warriors of justice, the NOT (Normally Overcome Target) class is for those who just want to control their powers with the intent to not become a threat to others and to themselves.

The spinoff stars Tsugumi Harudori is a halberd demon weapon who takes part in the NOT class and befriends two meisters, Meme Tatane and Anya Hepburn, becoming indecisive about which one of them to choose as her partner. The series follows the daily lives of Tsugumi and her friends as they learn the ropes of the DWMA and have occasional encounters with the characters of the main series.

I'm not gonna lie, the concept seemed promising. Having a slice of life in a supernatural world seems like it would be a very interesting experience... but how is the execution? Eh... not that great.

The main character is Tsugumi, she's your typical nice and ditzy girl who wants to be special, make friends, and want some purpose in life while mentioning goody goody things and- she's basically almost every lead ever in these types of shows. Sigh.

Meme is also nice, but is more ditzy and has a really bad memory. Now to be fair, there is a reason why she is like that so I'll give points for that... though it comes out of nowhere and is really out of place (I'll mention this later)...

Anya is your generic spoiled rich blonde who is a tsundere and loves commoner things. She gets nicer as the show progresses though...

There are also side characters, [almost] all of them are pretty likeable. Akane and Clay are a very skilled pair even though they're in the NOT class (there's a reason for this), the former is cool and collective and the latter is pretty funny and calm, but is also not that smart. There's also Kana, who is the cute snarky fortune teller, Eternal Feather, a senior who likes to help others, Misery, a crazy woman who solves problems with hammers, Kim, a witch who loves to scam people of their money, Jacqueline, another obvious tsundere, and so on.

They start off having some simple generic roles but they do get some bits of development over the course of the show. However that is also a problem since that doesn't give us much time to develop the main characters. You know its sad when the side characters get more development than the main ones.

Oh yeah, there's also some characters that appeared in the original Soul Eater. They have the same personalities as in the original but fans of that may be disappointed as they only say a few lines and show up once or twice in the show... but hey at least they have their usual shtick. (Also they end up getting more development than the main characters also, as the leads only get basic development... near the end)

The animation and art is standard, some of the SE characters look a bit different but it does take place a year before the original took place so I'll let it slide. The voice work is there just because.

The OP sounds pretty nice though some of the subtitled lyrics are a bit odd and the ED sounds generic and keeps playing in inappropriate times.

Warning: There are potential spoilers in this review that you should be on the lookout for. I feel like I need to bring this across so this is sadly sort of not avoidable (for me anyways). Scroll down (until you see the end of the spoiler thing) so you can skip it if you have not seen the show and want to. You have been warned.

Ah yeah, that is not even the worst part IMO. The worst part is near the end of the show when they shoe horn in a villain named Shuala who goes around and mind controls everyone to attack each other with poison rings and... stuff? (Which also explains why Meme has a terrible memory and is 'nice'... I don't get it either) Needless to say, she's a pretty forgettable villain. They build her up throughout the course of the second half and she doesn't really do anything aside from the above. Her motive is weak, she just wants to rule the world cause she's evil, and she's not even that threatening. She attacks with her hair sure, but she gets killed in a single blow from Tsugumi when she finally transforms into a full fledged blade (yeah, it's very anti climatic... at least it looked cool). I wouldn't mind so much except this is supposed to be a comedy and slice of life right? I know it takes place during Soul Eater and therefore you should have action scenes in them, but for a show like this one it just feels so out of place and dark that it just makes it so... uncomfortable, especially when they still try to put in stupid jokes in the serious moments too that for the most part come across as unfunny and weak. At least Railgun mentioned that they'll be actions scenes in them. Did I mention that it's obvious who Tsugumi chooses as her partner? They can't even make that seem interesting... but at least it's not as predictable as Save Me Lollipop, I was kind of curious until the end (you should see it coming too, I know I should have though...).

*Spoilers end here*

Overall: I know I might get a lot of hate for saying this... but I like this show, more so than Soul Eater. SE wasn't the show for me, I want to say that this is, but even this one didn't impress me that much. The show wasn't bad mind you, it was alright, but it didn't have much to stand on or be worthy of the Soul Eater name. I do think its more tolerable then SE though as there weren't as many annoying characters and unfunny jokes as in this one. It's not good (heh, not) but its not awful either.

If you want to see a lighthearted slice of life comedy, then this wouldn't be the first to check out. If you're curious, want to see something Soul Eater related, or just don't have much to do, then I say its worth at least one look at. Soul Eater fans might not enjoy this as much though so proceed at your own risk (or not, there's always that).

Thanks for reading my [long] 49th review~

lolita.nader - 2014-07-17 05:32:43

For about a year now, I’ve started to really get into anime. That being said, it’s a big community filled with lots of weird genres and little smaller communities. And of those genres I avoided was the moe genre, which seemed to consist ninety percent of the time consist of ditzy cute girls hanging around a school finding elaborate ways of wasting time. But not too long ago, I finished a little anime called Soul Eater, and I will say in short with all professionalism I have: IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME! And little did I know I would be watching it’s prequel sort of spin off whatever the hell show finishing its airing right when I finished Soul Eater. And think of the potential. Soul Eater was a show filled with interesting side stories, an elaborate universe, tons of material to delve into, and so naturally the show would be about... ditzy cute girls hanging around a school and finding elaborate ways of wasting time. Well, in fairness, maybe I shouldn’t be so tough on all the characters, they are from the Soul Eater universe after all. Let’s see who we got. Ditzy girl number one is named Tsugumi, and she’s about as original as her haircut that she so cleverly stole. Then there is Anya, a rich girl who looks like a giant walking doll. And lastly Meme, the queen of ditzy girls, who has worse short term memory than Leonard from fucking Memento. Than there are the list of side characters. And to be honest, this is actually a big plus for the show, since half of them are cast members from the Soul Eater, and you get to see them before their development, and yet still retain their likeableness. And even though its almost completely void of the main characters, it pays them respect where its due, besides doing some things--oh my god they made Moka moe!--#moemoka!--they still are nice to see again. As for the new cast of characters there are a cast of new members, none stand out. Their is Kim, the only one who was truly worth remembering, more ditzy girls, and then this duo that’s about as entertaining as watching two rocks conversate with each other. Overall, the characters aren’t anything to brag about, and the only ones that I really enjoyed were just returning ones not from Not, not that I did not enjoy the Not ones, it’s just the not not ones are not as forgettable. Get all that? Great! Anyway, onto story, because fuck segways. The story mostly is just a slug, spending more time getting started than actually moving past that. And before you know it, there’s only a couple episodes left, the big bad guy hasn’t even been introduced, and the characters have done about fuck all. Not that I expected any different. The show like any slice of life is more about the characters, and just about finding interest in minute tasks. The problem with that is: THIS IS STILL FUCKING SOUL EATER. This the world where people should be fighting epic battles and be moving in interesting stories, and even if so, I would much rather watch Death The Kidd, Moka, Black Starr, and their respective weapons doing nothing rather than these moe blobs. The show does have action and the usual Soul Eater aspects, but it’s a complete afterthought, and despite having much fewer fights, I can barely recall them while as I’m still reminiscing in the ones from Soul Eater months later. Not to mention the show doesn’t even mention the whole point to going to this school, fighting and trying to become a death scythe, a weapon of the school’s principal, Death himself. See! I’m more entertained talking about the story than watching this show. Now with all that being said, I can understand the property itself. If the writer of Soul Eater wants to make something like this, I can understand, sometimes as a writer myself, I want to write some completely different just to escape from the story I’m writing. That being said, when it becomes an anime and has a whole other audience, expect people like me to make fun of it. And hey, if you enjoy Soul Eater enough you might enjoy this... possibly... maybe... okay, maybe not... probably not... okay fine, you’ll probably hate it!

schimmel.erika - 2014-07-08 13:10:17

Soul Eater Not! is a prequel to the events that occurred in Soul Eater! The main characters are Tsugumi Harudori, a young teen who enrols into Shibusen as a weapon and two meisters she befriends, Meme Tatane and Anya Hepburn.

If you are excepting any thing on the line with Soul Eater you would be disappointed. While I can enjoy comedic anime I found this particular anime cliché and predictable, as for its' other sides - shoujo, slice of life, while I have no particular interest in these kind of genres (but also no dislike) I did find this anime really boring and mundane in these parts. 

Also, I wasn't expecting this amount of shoujo-ai in the series, and after flipping through the manga I saw it was exaggerated in order to draw in more crowd. While some of my dissatisfaction probably lies in the fact I don't like romantic anime too much, I generally dislike it when an anime trails that far from a manga on account of ignoring other plot points.

The anime also accentuated several of the more 'moe' traits of each of the main girls (helplessness, clumsiness, forgetfulness, general uselessness...) which is something I disliked as well (since I REALLY hate overdone 'moe').

The animation itself was sloppy and generic (unlike the original Soul Eater which had a really unique style) and the music was forgetful. The OP and ED were boring and I didn't bother listening to them. While a plot was evident, it is was badly delivered and was not a main focus in the series.

If you like slice of life/shoujo animes you might enjoy this anime, but I personally won't recommend it for anyone.

ablanda - 2014-07-02 08:08:13

Soul Eater NOT serves a companion side-story type thingamajigger to the Original Series. 

Basically, it tries to show another side the DWMA by focusing on the daily lives of a trio of young female students. The result is what is mostly the author's take on a slice-of-life show in his already established universe.

Everything is pretty flatly average here. It's not really good or bad, it just kind of... exists. Everything, from the animation to the characters to the humor to the music, just sort of 'gets the job done'.

Like I said before, the show is mostly slice-of-life comedy with a bunch of neat nods and references to the original canon. Although the cameos might be ruined for many viewers due to a drastic shift in art style. Soul Eater NOT abandons the original show's unique more cartoon-ish style for a more generic moe design.

It's not that it's bad by itself, but it's just such a jarring shift. Especially with cameo characters from the main series. 

The story ramps up a bit near the end with a lot of combat, but ultimately it's just a side-story with little to not bearing on the actual plot of the main show. In fact, the slice of life bits actually had more impact on the overall narrative. Such as when Tsugumi interacts with characters that appear later on in the main show, and inadvertently kick-starts their early character development. Which is cool.

It almost makes her seem like a behind-the-scenes secondary protagonist who made subtle changes that influenced the story later on. Fans of the original may appreciate that.

I'm just kind of neutral and indifferent to this show. You don't need to see it to enjoy Soul Eater, but if you really enjoyed Soul Eater, this might be an interesting side story for you. But on the other hand, it's so different in both visual design and tone that it might just turn those fans away.

BONES has clearly gone downhill since the original show, and them pumping all their money into Captain Planet doesn't help either. The animation is awkward at times and lacks detail. The quality spikes in certain places but overall it is not a very well animated show.

The OP and ED are okay, but the rest of the soundtrack is appropriate but completely forgettable.

Overall, if you're a fan of Soul Eater, maybe give it try. But don't be too surprised if you end up NOT liking it. You aren't missing much, anyway.

Alternative Recommendations: Soul Eater|Acchi Kocchi

Rewatch Value: Maybe (Based on a Yes/Maybe/No scale) 

bauch.esperanza - 2014-04-10 02:46:38

Soul Eater Not! is a side-story to the main series, focusing on the a freshman Tsugumi Harudori (weapon), who befriends two other meisters, Meme Tatane and Anya Hepburn. While Maka, Soul and the others took part in the "EAT" class to train themselves to become warriors of justice, the main cast takes part in the "NOT" class which are for those who just want to control their powers with the intent to not become a threat to others and to themselves.

This spoiler free review is based on episode 6 and will be updated Soon™.

1. 
   What's happened so far in terms of story:

The series begins with Tsugumi (protagonist), finding out that she's a weapon, she is sent to be enrolled at the Death Weapon and Meister Academy. But right after the orientation ( given by Sid, Maka and Soul) she considers if she should continue attending the Academy since she is yet to be able to fully transform into a weapon. Her fears are soon assuaged when she meets two students in her class, who both wants to be her meisters. As expected there's allot of character development mixed in with some minor action. With that we more on to the characters.

Characters:

Tsugumi Harudori, 14. The cheerful yet nervous protagonist of the series.

Meme Tatane (meister), a friend of Tsugumi who's very forgetful to the point where she can't even remember her name half of the time and wishes for Tsugumi to be her partner.

Anya Hepburn (meister), an aristocrat fiend of Tsugumi who wants to learn about commoners and also wants Tsugumi to be her weapon also.

Akane (meister), he delivers most of the mini action in the series so far. He may remind you of Stein, without the crazy of course. He's also the reason the show isn't simply named "Soul Eater Moe".

Clay (Akane's weapon)

Some of the old cast was also given cameo appearances. If you realize that they look different than you remember them remember this show is a prologue of the original so the old cast is younger.

If your saying WTF? I feel your pain... That's just everyone's first reaction.

Here's some more screen shots:

Animation and Sound:

So as you can tell the art style, animation and sound are completely different from the original series. But it's also cleaner, gives it a good K-on feel and fits in quite well. If you want to know more about the sound then just take a look at it yourself.

Soul Eater vs. Soul Eater Not!:

If your interested in watching because your a fan of Soul Eater or just want to see the old cast again. You maybe a little disappointed. Unless if your a fan of slice of life, shoujo, moe and love triangles, then this may work out quite nice for you! If nothing else, fans may be interested in seeing Death City in a less sinister light. As Soul Eater Not! has given Ohkubo to explore and explain the hidden facets of his world that didn't quite fit in with the original series. Things such as names, places, the general function of the school and back stories of the original cast may be of interest to you.

Final Verdict?

It's far to early to give a final verdict, we will just have to wait and see how the show rolls along.