OK Captain, buckle up and get ready for one of the wildest rides you have been on in some time.  Let's take the vibrant color palette and easy-flowing character images of an early Disney and add to it the crazy dark supernatural world of the Far East, shake it all around and then pour it out like a lively modernist jazz composition and you will have Soul Eater.

Soul Eater takes place at Death Weapon Meister Academy run by none other than Shinigami-sama "Lord Death".  We have young Meisters paired with young human/weapons.  Together, they are to work on retrieving 99 Kishen or evil souls and one Witch soul to transform the Weapon into a Death Scythe.  The series focuses on 3 young students, Maka and Soul, Black Star and Tsubaki and Shinigami-sama's very own son, Death the Kid and his two guns Liz and Patty.  At the beginning, Death the Kid is not a student but wants to join in on the fun and enrolls just to get down with the real action.

As part one evolves, there is much more to this little series than the fun and games that go with collecting evil souls and trying to evolve into a Death Scythe.  The action tends to be fast and furious, but it is not the action that makes this an instant classic.  It is the abundance of wild characters and insane plot lines.  The further the series progresses the more complicated it becomes, but at the same time it appears to focus on a more central theme.

The humor with which it is infused kept me laughing the whole time.  I never knew what to expect.  Once I thought I understood the direction of the series, the very next episode would send me back to go. 

Overall:

I was very aware of this series before this release and have been awaiting the English dub version that FUNimation has given us.  I will hand it to FUNimation, they have truly understood what the greatest flaws were in dubbing a series and found a way to overcome the very reason anime has languished in the US.  All too often the US voice-overs would dilute the writing in a way that made many great series become nothing more than pablum.  FUNimation should be proud of their work over the past few years and should be very pleased with Soul Eater. 

I know that that there are more than a few people that will get a look at this series and think of it as nothing more than a happy, playful string of bright shiny laughs and turn away thinking it is a waste of time.  I tell you now that it will be your loss. Although this show does turn up the volume in imagery and color, that only enhances the real greatness of the series, the writing and character development.

OK, so it is clear that I am very high on this series, but it is a step in the right direction for animation.  Too often in the last 6 years, series have become dark and depressing with little understanding of balance.  There was almost an unwritten law that the color palette should consist of Red, Black, Gray and White.  I had begun to feel like I was walking around in a fog. Soul Eater has reminded me that you can take on a dark subject but that does not mean the presentation has to be drab.

You really need to check this out and be ready for some real fun.

ComicsOnline gives Soul Eater Part One 4.5 out of 5 Sexy Witch Kittens.