Posted: 08/07/2011

Soul Eater: The Weapon Collection

by Ruben R. Rosario

Coming to Blu-Ray August 9th, 2011 by Funimation

Soul Eater: The Weapon Collection continues the anime greatness that the first season kicked off. Maka, Black Star and Death the Kid join their fellow classmates and other Death Scythes in order to ward off two new threats, the witch Arachne and evil incarnate, Ashura the Kishin. Allies become villains and villains become allies in the final stretch of the series, as well as some major ass kick on both sides that make this set worth owning. The set comes in a standard Blu-Ray case with an awesome reversible cover showing off a bunch of characters and each of the three discs in the set shows each of the main meisters weapons, Soul, Tsubaki, Liz and Patty. Studio Bones finishes the series in a bang, but falls into a pitfall that’s plagued them before with Fullmetal Alchemist.

When Bones made the original Fullmetal Alchemist, back in 2003, they ran out of material to adapt from and created their own storyline, with the help of Hiromu Arakawa loosely telling them where she was headed. This occurs once again in Soul Eater, with a huge portion of the second season being fleshed out by Bones with the help of Atsushi Okubo. This never hinders the remainder of Soul Eater in anyway, just like the original Fullmetal Alchemist. It still achieves the goals and gusto that was established in the first season and Bones makes sure that even though it might not be cannon, it’s still an entertaining ride to the finish line.

The Weapon Collection preserves the video quality of the first set in 1080p and a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. The show gets much more darker in terms of color palate as opposed to the first season. The animation never falters and is always smooth, especially during the final battle sequence with Ashura the Kishin. The audio also presented in the Dolby True HD English 5.1 track and the Dolby True HD Japanese 2.0 track. The English surround sound track picks up much more in The Weapon Collection than it did in The Meister Collection. The surround channels and the LFE get more use, due to epic battles being fought for the remainder of the series. Again, the only major drawback to the set is the lack of special features. There’s two commentaries, textless opening and closing videos, the Soul Eater “Late Show” and a bunch of trailers for Funimation. A really original show like this would benefit from having behind the scenes footage, a few image galleries or even interviews with the staff.

The later portion of Soul Eater doesn’t have as much charm and goofy moments as before. The stakes are high as Arachnia and Ashura infect the world with madness and the entire Death Weapon Meister Academy uses everything in their arsenal to stop them. There’s plenty of great rematches from previous fights, new ones that emerge and one giant showdown that’ll be one for the ages. Even if a majority of this season is loosely based off of the original manga, it’s still a fantastic ending to a really great anime series. Soul Eater: The Weapon Collection looks great, sounds great and deserves to be in your collection, no matter what kind of anime fan you are. Highly Recommended!

Ruben R. Rosario is a graduate from Columbia College Chicago with a degree in Audio for Visual Media. He works as a freelance location sound mixer, boom operator, sound designer, and writer in his native Chicago. He’s an avid collector of films, comics, and anime.

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