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Soul Eater Chapter 94: Creation science, bamboo, and you.
Not! is on hiatus this month.
And this month's chapter of Soul Eater is very, very silly.
You know, there are times when Soul Eater is deliberately funny, and there are times when it's just plain unintentionally hilarious. This chapter is definitely an example of the latter. This whole chapter. This whole fucking chapter.
Here, let me spoil everything above the cut: Stein's eyeballs turn into bunny ears, Spirit makes a sword pun, Spirit tells another man to "use his body," clowns explode, Justin makes a French Revolution pun, Ohkubo makes an electricity pun, Sid misses an opportunity for a booger pun, Kaguya makes a bamboo pun, Kaguya makes a Buddhist bamboo pun, Kaguya makes another bamboo pun, a gigantic tower-monster fights a gigantic clown-monster, there are some Arabian Nights puns that are too obscure for even my Google-fu to dig up a explanation for, Waffles is openly turned on by ALL OF THE YELLING, and throughout this entire mess not one character - not ONE character - makes a single penis joke.
Where the hell is Black Star when we need him?
Also I am not kidding about any of the preceding paragraph, that is a 100% completely accurate summary of the entire chapter, minus a few unimportant details.
But hey, if you still want to read the detailed version of this recap, then here we go.
So we open with Stein tearing the wrapping paper and ribbons off a present. What is it? What is it? What could be inside?
Clown face.
It's stars!
Clown face.
It's stars!
STARS AND SPARKLES HOT DAMN DO WE LOVE SOME TWINKLY STARS AND SPARKLES!!!
Only what Stein sees as ribbons and glitter are actually blood and guts spraying everywhere.
Spirit, watching this, is Very Concerned. Also, Stein's eyes appear to have turned into bunny ears. That is also somewhat disturbing.
"He removed his Insanity Limiter..." Spirit says. Wait, this thing exists and he was wearing one? "Talk about a double-edged sword..." Oh it is far too late in the game to be making that particular pun, Mr. Albarn. "And Marie's healing wavelength won't be enough to hold him back forever..."
And then Spirit notices that there's a clown sneaking up behind him.
"Use me!!" Spirit literally jumps right into the hands of a nameless Shibusen grunt.
"Mr. Deathscythe!"
Grunt just starts wildly swinging but hey it's cool because Spirit is apparently competent enough for the both of them. As in, competent enough to wipe out most of the Clown army encircling them in one swing.
"Amazing..." The grunt seems impressed.
"Well, it was your wavelength that provided the radius of that attack," Spirit says.
"Senpai's speciality is how easily he can read and control his meister's wavelength," Stein explains. His eyes are bunny ears. "You'd think that would make him more popular with the ladies, though." His eyes are bunny ears. Also I do not understand the logic behind how Stein got from Point A to Point B but who the fuck cares his eyes are bunny ears.
"At least he's still himself enough to want to lecture everybody..." Marie observes.
Meanwhile, Spirit is jumping from grunt to grunt, helping them fight the clowns. Also things are blowing up and Stein is ripping clowns apart and holy shit did SPIRIT just cause that explosion?!
Justin is unhappy with this turn of events and chooses to express himself by making an EPIC GRUMPY FACE. "Fine then. If they insist on brawling about all over Kishin-sama's peaceful resting place, then I'll give them a reason to thrash about to their heart's content..."
And then he sinks his arms into the ground.
"SCHMIDT!!"
That's probably a reference to Tobias Schmidt, designer of the guillotine that was most popularly used at the height of the French Revolution.
"Uh-oh," Stein says, realizing that he is now surrounded by guillotines. His eyes are still bunny ears.
"Too slow!" Justin exclaims.
The Shibusen soldiers scream as they're ripped apart.
But Stein is too fast for the guillotine blades.
"Too fast!!" Justin gasps.
Stein runs right through a tunnel of guillotines toward Justin. Somehow he manages to run faster than the guillotine blades can drop. A moment later, the reason is revealed: Stein is clutching Marie's weapon form in his hand.
"As expected of Marie-san's izuna ability---..." Justin says. Izuna being written with the characters for "lightning" and "web/network". Yes, I know that this is the second time that we've seen this ability in action and no, I still don't know what exactly Ohkubo is trying to reference when he labels the attack "izuna" because that is definitely not how the kanji would normally be read so it is definitely supposed to be a pun of some kind but fucked if I can figure it out.
"But I haven't run out of blades yet..." Justin says.
So we get a couple more panels of Stein managing to dodge all of the guillotines that keep erupting out of the ground.
"Be careful, Stein!" Marie says. "Justin is a deathscythe who fights with killing intent..." Um, don't they all usually do that? "Who knows what kind of tricks he might have up his sleeve..."
"The longer a meister uses that izuna ability, the more a toll it takes on his body!" Justin shouts. "Go ahead and keep using it as looooong as you want!!" He grins. "The moment that you feel yourself running out of breath, you're already finished."
"You're using these cheap traps just to stall for time until you can tire me out?" Stein says. His eyes are bunny rabbit ears. "I won't stop, you know." His eyes are bunny ears.
Stein charges straight toward Justin. "You couldn't even cut off the flapping tails of my lab coat!"
COURAGE PUNCH!!!
Actually it's more like Stein just thrust Marie RIGHT INTO JUSTIN'S CHEST which, of course, sends Justin flying.
Marie is left smoking from the encounter, and Stein's eyes are still bunny ears. "I drove all of Stein's wavelength straight into you," Marie tells Justin. "Now it's time for you to purge all of your sins."
Justin starts bubbling. Ew. And then he starts hacking up great big gobs of gooey blood.
"Looks like you managed to prevent your entire body from exploding," Stein says. His eyes are bunny ears. "For the moment, that is. It's only a matter of time now." His eyes are bunny ears. "Justin. You're already dead." His eyes are bunny ears.
"Hu hu hu," Justin laughs, blood dripping from his mouth. "Interesting... Will your izuna ability fade away first, or will I die first...?" Justin starts transforming all over the place. "I will use my body to protect Kishin-sama until my very last breath."
I dunno, Justin, I think your minutes are numbered now. I mean, your face might be on fire and all, but Stein? His eyes are bunny ears.
Game over, man. Game over.
Meanwhile, on the moon's nose!
Sid is a booger on the moon's nose.
More importantly, he's a booger with a pretty good vantage point in terms of watching the rest of the battle play out on a part of the moon that is still far, far below him. "Keep fighting, Shibusen!!"
Then he goes about his business. "Can you hear me, Azusa? I'm about to enter the moon's interior through this nostril and begin searching for the Kishin."
Sid turns around. Clay and Akane are there. "Akane. Clay. You two stay here. If I don't come back, assume that I'm dead."
"Roger that. And be careful."
Meanwhile, down below!
Spirit is effortlessly kicking ass.
Meanwhile, somewhere else!
Kaguya is very, very exposed. And all of the clowns around her are very, very dead.
"Now that I've gotten rid of the rest of the kishin's soldiers," Kid gloats, "the only one left is you."
Kaguya grins. "Did you perhaps think that this was the sole extent of Kishin-sama's army or my chaste virtue?"
She laughs maniacally as an enormous army of shadows erupts from the ground behind her. "Ketaketaketake!" Her laughs eventually morph into "Taketaketaketake!" which is also written with the character for "bamboo" (which is read as "take"). Because Kaguya-hime, that's why.
"There is no end to Kishin-sama's insanity," Kaguya says. "It's nayuta." Nayuta being written with the characters for "10 to the 72nd power" (yes this is a real thing) but also being a pun on the nayutake species of bamboo, which apparently has a nearly unkillable root system that can generate new shoots like something out of a horror movie, although for the moment my Google-fu is failing to provide me with any scientific resources to verify that fact save for an entry on "Simon Bamboo" on the CreationWiki and I personally refuse to count that site as a "scientific" resource.
Yes, I had to actually look at part of the CreationWiki in order to write this recap. The things I go through to translate your puns, Ohkubo.
I feel like I need a shower now.
Anywhoo, back to recapping.
"It doesn't matter how many of us die," Kaguya goes on, "Kishin-sama can spend us like water." Okay, so, this is a pun that I've translated really badly but I give up. Kaguya is making a play on "a rich man spends money like water" only implying that the kishin is spending soldiers instead of money. Yeah, it... It actually sounds a lot more eloquent in Japanese than it does when I try to explain it in English. Boo.
Suddenly, Kaguya gasps!
"As soon as you heard the word 'water' you started imagining me taking a bath, didn't you? You're shameless!! Your lechery has no bounds, does it?! Stop thinking about me that way!!"
Meanwhile, clowns!
Oh hey look it's another White Rabbit.
Oh hey look it's more boobs.
Oh hey look they're combining to form a giant clown-monster.
Oh hey look Kid is totally unimpressed by this.
"Don't you see?" Kaguya says. "Our eternal permanence! Our infinite army!" She does the laugh-turning-into-bamboo thing again.
"Ooookay..." Kid says. "Up until now, I've been letting you live because I hoped that you'd reveal the kishin's exact location." Or because, you know, he couldn't kill her despite trying really, really hard the past few chapters. Nice lie, Kid. "But that reason's gone now. This is what I learned from Granny... to go all out."
Which apparently means transforming into his Insanity version.
DASH! is my new favorite sound effect in this manga.
"We're going all out, too!" Deng declares.
Deng's meister still doesn't have a name, does he?
"And we'll take care of that big monster!" Djinn declares. He and Zubaydah attack the clown-monster. "The Tower!!"
And then they make a TOWER MONSTER which procedes to grapple with the CLOWN MONSTER because WHY THE FUCK NOT.
"Blind Ivy!!"
These next few pages are very, very silly.
And now Kid has to deal with flying clowns attacking him. "Kid-kun, here they come!"
"Got it." But right now I don't have Maka's wavelength to support me... So I can't use this Insanity form much longer...
Meanwhile, on the moon's nose!
Aw, shit. It's these losers again.
"LET'S GET INSIDE THIS GODDAMN FUCKING MOON ALREADY!!" Noah screams at nobody in particular.
Waffles is blushing like a schoolgirl and practically has stars in his eyes. "Yes, yes!! The kishin belongs to Noah-sama!!"
Suddenly, Clay and Akane! "Who are you guys...?" Akane asks.
"AND WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE?!" Noah snarls right back at them.
To be continued in next month's issue, available 2/10! With color pages!!
Also, Soul Eater volume 21 will be released on 2/22, so we will get a cover reveal next month!! Yay!!
Also, Stein's eyes are bunny ears.
And this month's chapter of Soul Eater is very, very silly.
You know, there are times when Soul Eater is deliberately funny, and there are times when it's just plain unintentionally hilarious. This chapter is definitely an example of the latter. This whole chapter. This whole fucking chapter.
Here, let me spoil everything above the cut: Stein's eyeballs turn into bunny ears, Spirit makes a sword pun, Spirit tells another man to "use his body," clowns explode, Justin makes a French Revolution pun, Ohkubo makes an electricity pun, Sid misses an opportunity for a booger pun, Kaguya makes a bamboo pun, Kaguya makes a Buddhist bamboo pun, Kaguya makes another bamboo pun, a gigantic tower-monster fights a gigantic clown-monster, there are some Arabian Nights puns that are too obscure for even my Google-fu to dig up a explanation for, Waffles is openly turned on by ALL OF THE YELLING, and throughout this entire mess not one character - not ONE character - makes a single penis joke.
Where the hell is Black Star when we need him?
Also I am not kidding about any of the preceding paragraph, that is a 100% completely accurate summary of the entire chapter, minus a few unimportant details.
But hey, if you still want to read the detailed version of this recap, then here we go.
So we open with Stein tearing the wrapping paper and ribbons off a present. What is it? What is it? What could be inside?
Clown face.
It's stars!
Clown face.
It's stars!
STARS AND SPARKLES HOT DAMN DO WE LOVE SOME TWINKLY STARS AND SPARKLES!!!
Only what Stein sees as ribbons and glitter are actually blood and guts spraying everywhere.
Spirit, watching this, is Very Concerned. Also, Stein's eyes appear to have turned into bunny ears. That is also somewhat disturbing.
"He removed his Insanity Limiter..." Spirit says. Wait, this thing exists and he was wearing one? "Talk about a double-edged sword..." Oh it is far too late in the game to be making that particular pun, Mr. Albarn. "And Marie's healing wavelength won't be enough to hold him back forever..."
And then Spirit notices that there's a clown sneaking up behind him.
"Use me!!" Spirit literally jumps right into the hands of a nameless Shibusen grunt.
"Mr. Deathscythe!"
Grunt just starts wildly swinging but hey it's cool because Spirit is apparently competent enough for the both of them. As in, competent enough to wipe out most of the Clown army encircling them in one swing.
"Amazing..." The grunt seems impressed.
"Well, it was your wavelength that provided the radius of that attack," Spirit says.
"Senpai's speciality is how easily he can read and control his meister's wavelength," Stein explains. His eyes are bunny ears. "You'd think that would make him more popular with the ladies, though." His eyes are bunny ears. Also I do not understand the logic behind how Stein got from Point A to Point B but who the fuck cares his eyes are bunny ears.
"At least he's still himself enough to want to lecture everybody..." Marie observes.
Meanwhile, Spirit is jumping from grunt to grunt, helping them fight the clowns. Also things are blowing up and Stein is ripping clowns apart and holy shit did SPIRIT just cause that explosion?!
Justin is unhappy with this turn of events and chooses to express himself by making an EPIC GRUMPY FACE. "Fine then. If they insist on brawling about all over Kishin-sama's peaceful resting place, then I'll give them a reason to thrash about to their heart's content..."
And then he sinks his arms into the ground.
"SCHMIDT!!"
That's probably a reference to Tobias Schmidt, designer of the guillotine that was most popularly used at the height of the French Revolution.
"Uh-oh," Stein says, realizing that he is now surrounded by guillotines. His eyes are still bunny ears.
"Too slow!" Justin exclaims.
The Shibusen soldiers scream as they're ripped apart.
But Stein is too fast for the guillotine blades.
"Too fast!!" Justin gasps.
Stein runs right through a tunnel of guillotines toward Justin. Somehow he manages to run faster than the guillotine blades can drop. A moment later, the reason is revealed: Stein is clutching Marie's weapon form in his hand.
"As expected of Marie-san's izuna ability---..." Justin says. Izuna being written with the characters for "lightning" and "web/network". Yes, I know that this is the second time that we've seen this ability in action and no, I still don't know what exactly Ohkubo is trying to reference when he labels the attack "izuna" because that is definitely not how the kanji would normally be read so it is definitely supposed to be a pun of some kind but fucked if I can figure it out.
"But I haven't run out of blades yet..." Justin says.
So we get a couple more panels of Stein managing to dodge all of the guillotines that keep erupting out of the ground.
"Be careful, Stein!" Marie says. "Justin is a deathscythe who fights with killing intent..." Um, don't they all usually do that? "Who knows what kind of tricks he might have up his sleeve..."
"The longer a meister uses that izuna ability, the more a toll it takes on his body!" Justin shouts. "Go ahead and keep using it as looooong as you want!!" He grins. "The moment that you feel yourself running out of breath, you're already finished."
"You're using these cheap traps just to stall for time until you can tire me out?" Stein says. His eyes are bunny rabbit ears. "I won't stop, you know." His eyes are bunny ears.
Stein charges straight toward Justin. "You couldn't even cut off the flapping tails of my lab coat!"
COURAGE PUNCH!!!
Actually it's more like Stein just thrust Marie RIGHT INTO JUSTIN'S CHEST which, of course, sends Justin flying.
Marie is left smoking from the encounter, and Stein's eyes are still bunny ears. "I drove all of Stein's wavelength straight into you," Marie tells Justin. "Now it's time for you to purge all of your sins."
Justin starts bubbling. Ew. And then he starts hacking up great big gobs of gooey blood.
"Looks like you managed to prevent your entire body from exploding," Stein says. His eyes are bunny ears. "For the moment, that is. It's only a matter of time now." His eyes are bunny ears. "Justin. You're already dead." His eyes are bunny ears.
"Hu hu hu," Justin laughs, blood dripping from his mouth. "Interesting... Will your izuna ability fade away first, or will I die first...?" Justin starts transforming all over the place. "I will use my body to protect Kishin-sama until my very last breath."
I dunno, Justin, I think your minutes are numbered now. I mean, your face might be on fire and all, but Stein? His eyes are bunny ears.
Game over, man. Game over.
Meanwhile, on the moon's nose!
Sid is a booger on the moon's nose.
More importantly, he's a booger with a pretty good vantage point in terms of watching the rest of the battle play out on a part of the moon that is still far, far below him. "Keep fighting, Shibusen!!"
Then he goes about his business. "Can you hear me, Azusa? I'm about to enter the moon's interior through this nostril and begin searching for the Kishin."
Sid turns around. Clay and Akane are there. "Akane. Clay. You two stay here. If I don't come back, assume that I'm dead."
"Roger that. And be careful."
Meanwhile, down below!
Spirit is effortlessly kicking ass.
Meanwhile, somewhere else!
Kaguya is very, very exposed. And all of the clowns around her are very, very dead.
"Now that I've gotten rid of the rest of the kishin's soldiers," Kid gloats, "the only one left is you."
Kaguya grins. "Did you perhaps think that this was the sole extent of Kishin-sama's army or my chaste virtue?"
She laughs maniacally as an enormous army of shadows erupts from the ground behind her. "Ketaketaketake!" Her laughs eventually morph into "Taketaketaketake!" which is also written with the character for "bamboo" (which is read as "take"). Because Kaguya-hime, that's why.
"There is no end to Kishin-sama's insanity," Kaguya says. "It's nayuta." Nayuta being written with the characters for "10 to the 72nd power" (yes this is a real thing) but also being a pun on the nayutake species of bamboo, which apparently has a nearly unkillable root system that can generate new shoots like something out of a horror movie, although for the moment my Google-fu is failing to provide me with any scientific resources to verify that fact save for an entry on "Simon Bamboo" on the CreationWiki and I personally refuse to count that site as a "scientific" resource.
Yes, I had to actually look at part of the CreationWiki in order to write this recap. The things I go through to translate your puns, Ohkubo.
I feel like I need a shower now.
Anywhoo, back to recapping.
"It doesn't matter how many of us die," Kaguya goes on, "Kishin-sama can spend us like water." Okay, so, this is a pun that I've translated really badly but I give up. Kaguya is making a play on "a rich man spends money like water" only implying that the kishin is spending soldiers instead of money. Yeah, it... It actually sounds a lot more eloquent in Japanese than it does when I try to explain it in English. Boo.
Suddenly, Kaguya gasps!
"As soon as you heard the word 'water' you started imagining me taking a bath, didn't you? You're shameless!! Your lechery has no bounds, does it?! Stop thinking about me that way!!"
Meanwhile, clowns!
Oh hey look it's another White Rabbit.
Oh hey look it's more boobs.
Oh hey look they're combining to form a giant clown-monster.
Oh hey look Kid is totally unimpressed by this.
"Don't you see?" Kaguya says. "Our eternal permanence! Our infinite army!" She does the laugh-turning-into-bamboo thing again.
"Ooookay..." Kid says. "Up until now, I've been letting you live because I hoped that you'd reveal the kishin's exact location." Or because, you know, he couldn't kill her despite trying really, really hard the past few chapters. Nice lie, Kid. "But that reason's gone now. This is what I learned from Granny... to go all out."
Which apparently means transforming into his Insanity version.
DASH! is my new favorite sound effect in this manga.
"We're going all out, too!" Deng declares.
Deng's meister still doesn't have a name, does he?
"And we'll take care of that big monster!" Djinn declares. He and Zubaydah attack the clown-monster. "The Tower!!"
And then they make a TOWER MONSTER which procedes to grapple with the CLOWN MONSTER because WHY THE FUCK NOT.
"Blind Ivy!!"
These next few pages are very, very silly.
And now Kid has to deal with flying clowns attacking him. "Kid-kun, here they come!"
"Got it." But right now I don't have Maka's wavelength to support me... So I can't use this Insanity form much longer...
Meanwhile, on the moon's nose!
Aw, shit. It's these losers again.
"LET'S GET INSIDE THIS GODDAMN FUCKING MOON ALREADY!!" Noah screams at nobody in particular.
Waffles is blushing like a schoolgirl and practically has stars in his eyes. "Yes, yes!! The kishin belongs to Noah-sama!!"
Suddenly, Clay and Akane! "Who are you guys...?" Akane asks.
"AND WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE?!" Noah snarls right back at them.
To be continued in next month's issue, available 2/10! With color pages!!
Also, Soul Eater volume 21 will be released on 2/22, so we will get a cover reveal next month!! Yay!!
Also, Stein's eyes are bunny ears.