The vast majority of anime are based off of manga series, and it is on the rare side for an anime to be made after the manga has finished its run. Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece are incredibly long-lived anime series that are based off of manga that are still running. What happens the most during these shows is that the anime will fill the series with filler while it gives the manga time to sufficiently jump ahead of the anime. Hence, this is why Goku would take several episodes just to power up his spirit bomb or the fact that the show was on Namek for legitimately 80 episodes. However, some series take a different approach. Rather than waiting to catch up with the manga, they create an entirely new storyline for the show to follow as they eventually diverge with the manga‘s canon at some point. The original Fullmetal Alchemist took this approach and this is also the approach Soul Eater has taken as well. I only bring this up because these last couple of episodes have had a distinctly different feel from earlier episodes and I can definitely see where this is caused by different writers.

Medusa’s surrender to the DWMA was short-lived as it was simply a ploy for her to pit the DWMA versus Arachnophobia as well as to complete Stein’s madness to complete insanity. She offered the DWMA the location of the kishin Asura as well as Arachnophobia in exchange for her freedom and a promise that the DWMA would leave her alone. Crona and Marie set off to defeat Medusa anyways since they are no longer part of the school. The rest of the DWMA heads to Arachnophobia’s headquarters to finally defeat Arachne and Asura. At the last moment however, Maka decides to join with Marie and Crona since she can’t believe that Shinigami-san could ever let someone as evil as Medusa free. During the fight against Medusa, Crona sacrifices himself (although he lives) to save Maka and firmly places himself on the good guys’ team. After Marie cures Stein of his madness, Maka uses Genie Hunter again to finally defeat Medusa who leaves with the cryptic warning that they’re still not strong enough to stop Asura.

This disc had plenty of plot and besides Maka’s angst about Lord Death releasing Medusa, it was fairly devoid of filler. The closest thing it had to a filler episode was when Kid ent to a city to find the very last magic tool. However, this episode did commit what i feel is a cardinal sin of comic books/ anime. Unless you’re Gurren Lagann, and you’re entire universe is guided by the rule of awesome, please do not suddenly give your characters new powers without explaining where they came from. This is called deus ex machina, and it’s a crutch for bad writing. While we had seen Genie Hunter before, it was never explained that it could expel spirits from the body of those possessed or that it destroyed all evil it touched. Also, the way that Marie cured Stein’s madness was from the same principle. We had never seen her use a single one of her powers and she is a Death Scythe so she’s very powerful, but it would have been easier to swallow that whole sequence if we had seen her do something similar earlier in the series.

I’m kind of excited that Soul Eater is drawing to a close. School is starting up in a week, and I just don’t have time to be reviewing three TV shows at once (not counting the ones I’m reviewing as they air which makes the number six). I should finish Soul Eater and Buffy literally right after each other. And after that, I’m sticking to one show on DVD at a time. It’s all I’ll have time for. I’m trying to make up my mind about whether the next show should be Twin Peaks or Angel. I’m possibly Jossed out at the moment, so I may decide to visit the crazy mind of David Lynch. Anyways, here’s to hoping that Soul Eater closes its page with as epic an ending as humanly possible.

Disc Score: B