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Scanspam Week: Back on Track.
In honor of my laptop's untimely demise, here is a Very Special Post about a Very Special Series that treats the subject of death with appropriate gravitas and deep thoughtfulness. Or not. Oh hey look I have a Soul Eater icon now.
Click on these images for high-res versions. High-res scans are all less than 2 MB each.
This is going to be a humongous Soul Eater scans post, in case you can't tell. Here are a bunch of images scanned from recent issues of Shounen GanGan magazine.
PS - Non-bleed-through version now posted here.
Maka used to be my favorite Soul Eater character. Although towards the end of the first season of the anime, she was slowly overtaken by Kid.
Those of you who know me IRL know exactly why I'm latching on to Kid as a favorite character. (Hint: It's the same reason that I get a huge kick out of Adrian Monk.) But really, it was episode 22 of the anime that catapulted Kid over Maka in terms of my absolute favorite character. Why? Well, this was Kid's handiwork. That's why. Oh, and in the most recent chapters of the manga? Kid totally went Alucard all over Mosquito's ass. Spoiler: Dismemberment ain't nothing when you can just ectoplasm yourself back together. (The way that Patty said "I'm ba~ack!" to Liz as Kid's dismembered arm re-attached itself was priceless.)
I found the above image floating on an image board with no credit. I recognize it as colored panels from the manga. But who did the coloring? Anybody? Help?
Anyway, one of the things that I found continually fascinating about this series is the relationships between the characters, particularly the weapon/wielder partnerships. It's interesting because the characters in Soul Eater really aren't terribly complex or layered, with the possible exception of Stein. They generally have one-note personalities, or one-note-with-a-few-occasional-surprising-background-trills personalities. And yet between these simple characters, Ohkubo has crafted a variety of incredibly nuanced and extremely interesting relationships, whether they be partnerships, friendships, romantic crushes, or even parent/child relationships.
If the writing - in both the anime and the manga - manages to layer complexity on top of simplicity, then the artwork in the manga does too. Ohkubo quite frankly isn't the world's most technically proficient artist, but she makes up for simple character designs and panel layouts by throwing wildly bizarre and creative flourishes on every page. Little details, such as Maka's Mickey Mouse gloves, Justin's skull earbuds, the way that Ox's hair behaves in the shower, etc... It all adds up to make the manga artwork look a lot more awesome than by any rights it probably should be.
I want the color version of this!!!
And then again, the stylish, refined visuals of the anime series pretty much blow the manga artwork right out of the water.
(For a demonstration of which, Please to be enjoying this cheesy music video! Oh yeah and the trailer for the Wii game looks awesome too. And yes, the television animation actually does look as good as that. Yes, in every episode. Really.)
Further lulz: This month's GanGan included the results of a Soul Eater character popularity poll. And the winners are...
I included the high-res for Japanese readers, because some of what the characters say in their "reaction" word bubbles is priceless.
Kid is the most popular character, to the surprise of nobody. I'm also amused at how Medusa trounced Arachne in the poll.
I am surprised, however, to see Kim and Ox rank so low. Especially in light of the "Kim/Ox OTP" fanart special that GanGan solicited a couple issues ago and published the results for in this issue.
Okay, final scanspam: I just posted scans of an eight-page bilingual (yes, really!) Soul Eater manga short here. The English dialogue is... kind of beautiful, really. Impressively beautiful.
Click on these images for high-res versions. High-res scans are all less than 2 MB each.
This is going to be a humongous Soul Eater scans post, in case you can't tell. Here are a bunch of images scanned from recent issues of Shounen GanGan magazine.
PS - Non-bleed-through version now posted here.
Maka used to be my favorite Soul Eater character. Although towards the end of the first season of the anime, she was slowly overtaken by Kid.
Those of you who know me IRL know exactly why I'm latching on to Kid as a favorite character. (Hint: It's the same reason that I get a huge kick out of Adrian Monk.) But really, it was episode 22 of the anime that catapulted Kid over Maka in terms of my absolute favorite character. Why? Well, this was Kid's handiwork. That's why. Oh, and in the most recent chapters of the manga? Kid totally went Alucard all over Mosquito's ass. Spoiler: Dismemberment ain't nothing when you can just ectoplasm yourself back together. (The way that Patty said "I'm ba~ack!" to Liz as Kid's dismembered arm re-attached itself was priceless.)
I found the above image floating on an image board with no credit. I recognize it as colored panels from the manga. But who did the coloring? Anybody? Help?
Anyway, one of the things that I found continually fascinating about this series is the relationships between the characters, particularly the weapon/wielder partnerships. It's interesting because the characters in Soul Eater really aren't terribly complex or layered, with the possible exception of Stein. They generally have one-note personalities, or one-note-with-a-few-occasional-surprising-background-trills personalities. And yet between these simple characters, Ohkubo has crafted a variety of incredibly nuanced and extremely interesting relationships, whether they be partnerships, friendships, romantic crushes, or even parent/child relationships.
If the writing - in both the anime and the manga - manages to layer complexity on top of simplicity, then the artwork in the manga does too. Ohkubo quite frankly isn't the world's most technically proficient artist, but she makes up for simple character designs and panel layouts by throwing wildly bizarre and creative flourishes on every page. Little details, such as Maka's Mickey Mouse gloves, Justin's skull earbuds, the way that Ox's hair behaves in the shower, etc... It all adds up to make the manga artwork look a lot more awesome than by any rights it probably should be.
I want the color version of this!!!
And then again, the stylish, refined visuals of the anime series pretty much blow the manga artwork right out of the water.
(For a demonstration of which, Please to be enjoying this cheesy music video! Oh yeah and the trailer for the Wii game looks awesome too. And yes, the television animation actually does look as good as that. Yes, in every episode. Really.)
Further lulz: This month's GanGan included the results of a Soul Eater character popularity poll. And the winners are...
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I included the high-res for Japanese readers, because some of what the characters say in their "reaction" word bubbles is priceless.
Kid is the most popular character, to the surprise of nobody. I'm also amused at how Medusa trounced Arachne in the poll.
I am surprised, however, to see Kim and Ox rank so low. Especially in light of the "Kim/Ox OTP" fanart special that GanGan solicited a couple issues ago and published the results for in this issue.
Okay, final scanspam: I just posted scans of an eight-page bilingual (yes, really!) Soul Eater manga short here. The English dialogue is... kind of beautiful, really. Impressively beautiful.