Kita ze Inbou! - キタぜ陰謀!

[ Episode 2: I`m a Star For Sure! - I`m an Extremely Big Man, Can You Shoot Me Here? ]

JAPANIIZU NINJA?!?!

Episode 2 marks the introduction for the two other main characters: Black Star and his weapon, Tsubaki. I think it’s great that the staff decided to stay intact with the manga, even as to go through with the intro/prologues, but it was sort of unexpected. Still, it’s pretty sweet. I initially thought Black Star was pretty eccentric and whack, but you can’t blame him for such exuberance as youth, right? Though when it comes to following his Way of the Assassin, he can make an entrance, alright; and a pretty noticeable one too.

Their task: defeat Mifune and the witch Angela. You ain’t never gonna have a huge opportunity like that again. The chance to get all 99 demon souls + 1 witch soul through a method like this was Black Star’s ultimate chance, but he turned it down after finding out Angela’s… not really a worthy witch. In the end though, Black Star fortunately lets it go. He’s not such a bad character if you just ignore his ego. This probably isn’t saying much, but when I checked out the manga, Black Star’s hair looked way better than what it is now, but it’s no big deal.

Next episode features my favorite tech, DESS ZAAA KIDDDD. Seriously, this narrator is hilarious. As if BLACKSTER wasn’t funny enough. Anyways, another great episode with more action scenes in it. I really enjoyed the extended fight with Black Star and Mifune. Can’t wait for the next!

This isn’t a better episode than the first episode due to the fact it lacks the same WOW impact BONES gave me, but it was still a great episode even if the main character is a brat who looks suspiciously like Chipp Zanuff from Guilty Gear (the guy as my profile picture in the “About Us” page). The scenery and the battles took a back seat for a more humorous episode that works great with our new arrogant ninja and his reserved partner.

The beginning scene was excellent in the way you expect Black Star to act like a real ninja and assassinate everyone and being completely unnoticed. As much as we wished to see that, he appears he less resembles Ryu Hayabusa and more of Naruto. I have to give credit to the excellent seiyuu Yumiko Kobayashi. She won me over when she did Puni Puni Poemi and even more when she took over the lead role of Yakitate Japan!!, Asuma Kazuma. She knows how to give characters energy as she has proven countless times, but she makes the character energetic and bratty at the same time. She may sound a little too young, but her tone is excellent. It’s a little shame she isn’t really that popular because she is one of the better comedic seiyuus out there.

Tsubaki, Black Star’s weapon, turns out to be a lot more reliable than he is. In fact it is even stated by Black Star’s opponent, Mifune, that the only reason he is unbeatable is because Tsubaki is able to transform to many different forms in contrast to Soul Eater for example. Mifune, by the way, is a bodyguard hired to protect a witch from the gangsters who Black Star tried to cleanse. Mifune is so powerful he managed to beat them, as the 99 floating Kishin eggs tell. Black Star shows up and a battle begins. As expected from Soul Eater it was flashy and dynamic as always, but mainly thanks to Mifune. How can you not love the way he stopped Black Star’s Shuriken by blocking it with his sword? Black Star had to resort to some cheap tactics in order to finish Mifune, but at least it made sense considering him being a lot more adept in battle.

This episode also retained the sense of humor perfectly. Black Star turns out to be a worse Ninja than Naruto himself by yelling loud when he sees Tsubaki bathing naked. He also likes to give autographs to people who didn’t even ask him in order to compensate for his failures, which doesn’t convince Shinigami-sama that much, CHOP! What’s great about Soul Eater so far is the surprise at the end of each episode. Like Blair’s reveal, the witch in this episode turned out to be a little girl who couldn’t even use magic properly, which made Black Star retreat from obtaining her soul. The show doesn’t rely on serious plot twists to be interesting and relies on comedy, but unlike fan-service shows, this is reasonable considering we are getting the know the characters and the different dynamics between the weapon meister and their respective weapon.

Soul Eater remains excellent despite the fact Black Star is a little annoying. I have to say that next episode with Death the Kid already looks promising with him being the biggest nitpicker in history. Seriously, an anime character with extreme OCD?! Whoever came up with that idea is either crazy good, or just plain crazy.

9/10

Haha. This episode was hilarious thanks to Black Star. It’s hard for me to compare his character to someone else except for maybe Naruto. Except that Black Star is more awesome than he is. He’s definitely louder than Naruto as well. Tsubaki turned out to be cuter than I thought she’d be (in regards to personality) and I’m really liking her character, especially when she interacts with Black Star and others like Maka. At first it seemed like she ended up with the wrong Weapon Technician since all Black Star was (and still is) concerned about is making a big entrance and surpassing God (lol). That was all turned around though once he went up against that bodyguard seriously. Like Tsubaki said, if he tries then he can really kick ass but most of the time he’s really just pumping himself full of hot air and calling himself great. Some may find him annoying but I find him refreshingly hilarious, especially since he actually believes the stuff he says.

One thing I’m left wondering about is the number of souls Tsubaki has eaten so far. It’s hard to tell from this episode but from her own words it doesn’t seem to be much. Tsubaki’s stunts didn’t help her gather any either and they didn’t take the souls that were lying around the witch’s place (by the way she was really cute, only an evil bastard could harm someone like her). Eh, I suppose it doesn’t really matter since the story hasn’t started yet but I’d really like to hear a number though it may be ZERO from the way Black Star reacted to the thought of defeating Al Capone’s men and a witch.