So, I would have finished this review yesterday, but my dad and sister paid a surprise visit to Morgantown, and Nicole ended up spending the evening at my apartment (hence why I watched Take Me Home Tonight). Anywho, It wasn’t until 10 this evening that I was back here in Morgantown after driving Nicole home and back that I felt settled in enough to get started on productive things like blogging. The last two discs of Soul Eater that I reviewed, so basically almost all of Part 2, were very arc-driven and heavily serialized. There was very little in the way of filler. Most of the disc dealt with the battle underneath the DWMA and the fall-out of that fight. The first part of the series had some story stuff, but there was nearly as much (if not more) of  an emphasis on filler, which admittedly is the plague of almost all shonen anime. While this disc was about half story, it was also about half filler, and as I’m finding myself confused about what exactly is happening in the story stuff and not caring about the filler, it was difficult to really engage myself with this disc (although two fantastic episodes raised its overall score).

The last disc ended after the battle between Medusa’s forces against Stein and the main meisters and weapons of the show. The kishin Asura escaped his prison and is now spreading his madness throughout the whole world. One of the way’s that his madness manifests is that it awakens powers and evil that had lied dormant for centuries. The last episode of the disc had Maka, Soul, and Crona heading off towards the Czech Republic to battle golems. It turns out this golem houses the soul of an ancient and evil witch who has now finally manifested back to her old form. This is Arachne who is competing with Medusa and Asura for the series Big Bad at the moment. Before Stein chopped her in half, Medusa spit out part of her soul which has now attached itself to the body of a little girl, and Medusa is trying to regain her former powers. The story aspects of the disc followed the students as they try to stop Arachne’s forces from acquiring these things known as magic tools which are needed for something known as the book of Eibon. I’m not really sure what’s going on. I think the book of Eibon is some all-powerful MacGuffin, but I could be wrong. Also, Stein is losing his god-damned mind.

I was just having a ton of trouble getting into this disc. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it was. However, there were two great episodes. For one, Crona is now a student at the DWMA. We got an episode where he is forced to choose between his loyalties to his new friends and his mother Medusa, who has returned from the dead. We got a fairly tragic look at the mind-set of this incredibly damaged youth. That poor boy has more mommy issues than the kid’s in Mommy Dearest. Also, we got the third Excalibur episode of the series. Excalibur finally finds a meister who can put up with his 1000 provisions, and we finally get to see just how ridiculously powerful Excalibur is. Once again, like the other two episodes, this one was hilarious. Excalibur is such a minor character on the show, but I know anytime that he shows up that I need to prepare myself for plenty of gut-busting laughs.

The disc ended with the three meisters learning how to resonate their souls together for even more awesome power, so hopefully, there’s going to be some kick-ass fights to show just how bad-ass Maka, Death the Kid, and Black Star are when they work together. Also, I just feel like the show has been laying the pieces for what should hopefully be a more serialized story leading to battles against the Big Bad’s. There’s three floating around at the moment, so the series isn’t lacking in bad-ass enemies for the group to take on. I’m not concerned (yet) that the series is undergoing some massive dip in quality. Soul Eater is never going to be a great show. It’s just going to be a beautifully animated fun show. We’re just in a lull that I’m assuming the show will probably quickly jump out of.

Disc Score: B