Soul Eater Not! - Episode 5 Discussion / Poll

[Kairin]

Welcome to the discussion thread for Soul Eater Not!, Episode 5.

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[Random Wanderer]

SQUEEE!! Jackie and Kim are so cute together!

Sure it's not love, Jackie. You keep telling yourself that.

So, finally the revelation of something that folks who only watched the Soul Eater anime wouldn't know: Kim is an actual witch, hiding at DWMA. Because her magic is healing, she isn't prey to the destructive nature inherent to witches, and she couldn't fit in in their world. So she ran away and hid among the witches' enemies, trying to be someone else, not letting anyone get close to her, always afraid of what would happen to her if she was discovered. Finding someone who could know her secret and still protect her... there are no words for much of a relief that must have been to her.

Random trvia: all witches seem to have some sort of animal that are analogous to. Medusa and Arachnea from Soul Eater had snakes and spiders, respectively. The new villain, judging from her hair and apparent use of poison, is probably scorpions. Kim is a Tanuki. Any time they've shown a raccoon in the eyecatch, it's been a reference to her.

In other news, it appears that the plot is still moving slowly behind the SoL. Keep your eyes open for it.

Liz and Patty + Death the Kid next week.

[Clarste]

Frankly I don't think this episode works too well on its own. It essentially relies on the context of the parent series, specifically the manga, to have any meaning. They tried to explain it a bit by showing her briefly parallel to the evil witch of the story, but there simply isn't enough context for comparing how they're the same or different. Well, I guess that could happen later in the story when the evil witch becomes more important, but I get the feeling that this is the end of her story as far as this spin-off is concerned. Looks like we're moving on to the Thompson sisters next episode.

[Flower]

Well, well - on the whole this ep was okay, but I kinda felt that the aspect of getting Jackie and Kim together was a little too drawn out ... the ending part of it was fine and all.

We got to find out that Jackie was a lantern, among other things (aka a weapon) and that Kim will be her meister now. Also got to see more of the series' main antagonist/witch, who seems to have a thing for scorpions and a nasty chip on her shoulder....

[R.LocK]

Well, where's option "It's so cute I'm dying"? I don't see one...

[Flower]

Originally Posted by R.LocK

Well, where's option "It's so cute I'm dying"? I don't see one...

Voting 10 of 10?

[R.LocK]

Originally Posted by Flower

Voting 10 of 10?

Not enough!

[Sol Falling]

The direction kinda fell apart in this episode, not to mention the animation. Oh well, I guess. That's what you're gonna get for a mid-season episode in a budget anime series. At least the opening dream sequence they added looked decent and was somewhat 'interesting', lol.

[Om Nerabdator]

yeah 10 out of 10 for the new scene ^^

BD version of this ep should be interesting

[Myssa Rei]

Oh wow, that addition to the beginning, it changes the context to much of Kim and Jacqueline's interactions over the episode COMPLETELY. XD

[ReddyRedWolf]

Goodness this is shoujo manga.

On one side Ox on the other Jackie. Kim is Tsun towards Ox but Jakie manged to bring out the Dere in her.

He'll definitely have to step up.

Tsugumi has Anya and Meme but Akane came out of nowhere and can possibly sweep Tsugumi off her feet if he wanted to.

Het vs Yuri basically.

[Chosen_Hero]

10 is not enough, quick someone add more options to the poll. Now I understand that there are people out there that are sad that this isn't like the main Soul Eater series but, when you have yuri like this (brongs a tear to my eye :') ) it makes up for the lack of action, at least in my opinion.

[Slayerx]

Frankly I don't think this episode works too well on its own. It essentially relies on the context of the parent series, specifically the manga, to have any meaning.

Ya that's kinda true... I mean they did a bit to try and make a mystery out of Kim being a witch, but they didn't really go far enough with it. If you read the manga you would have known about her being a witch and thus not be surprised by the revelation, but if you only watched the anime, then this would be news. Considering how the people watching this series would most likely be those who watched the previous anime, it would have been wise for the anime team to handle Kim's reveal a bit more delicately. Make it FEEL like the earth shattering revelation that its supposed to be; the direction could have been A LOT better.

Come to think of it, Kim healing Anya's wound the other episode actually kinda contradicts the original series. Namely that soul sensitive miesters like Maka can detect nearby witches, but Witches can hide their power by sealing their magic. For Kim to use her magic she would have to release the seal which would set off every soul sensitive person in Death City. She might be able to pull a stunt like that in middle of the city(where she could put her seal back on before anyone found her), but if she did that in the girls' dormitory the DWMA would know there was a witch on campus.

Oh wow, that addition to the beginning, it changes the context to much of Kim and Jacqueline's interactions over the episode COMPLETELY. XD

The soul eater not manga also had a yuri vibe between them. The dream sequence just removed any subtly that might have existed


That being said

Spoiler:

[edit] fixed

[Random Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Slayerx

Come to think of it, Kim healing Anya's wound the other episode actually kinda contradicts the original series. Namely that soul sensitive miesters like Maka can detect nearby witches, but Witches can hide their power by sealing their magic. For Kim to use her magic she would have to release the seal which would set off every soul sensitive person in Death City. She might be able to pull a stunt like that in middle of the city(where she could put her seal back on before anyone found her), but if she did that in the girls' dormitory the DWMA would know there was a witch on campus.

It doesn't exactly send up a beacon. Most people weren't particularly perceptive before Medusa started being an active threat, because they were the ones hunting witches, rather than the other way around. Since witches weren't considered a real threat yet, people didn't develop their senses as well as they could have in order to detect them. At this point even Maka hasn't even figured out soul perception at all yet, and hers is more powerful than anyone else's. If nobody was looking for witches at that point, odds are nobody would have seen her.

That being said

Spoiler:

That's all that really matters about this episode

Try those without hotlinking, because all we see is a "no hotlinking" message from Random Curiosity.

[Slayerx]

Originally Posted by Random Wanderer

It doesn't exactly send up a beacon. Most people weren't particularly perceptive before Medusa started being an active threat, because they were the ones hunting witches, rather than the other way around. Since witches weren't considered a real threat yet, people didn't develop their senses as well as they could have in order to detect them. At this point even Maka hasn't even figured out soul perception at all yet, and hers is more powerful than anyone else's. If nobody was looking for witches at that point, odds are nobody would have seen her.

Witches have been considered a threat for the past 800 years; that is why the DWMA started hunting them in the first place. Hunting witches is one of the primary functions of the DWMA, and that means knowing how to track them down; developing their soul perception. Witches developed their soul protection ability to counter the DWMA's more perceptive members who could track them down; its only in more recent years/decades that witches figured out how to hide themselves. A the sudden presence of a witch DOES send up a figurative beacon to the sensitives; As we saw in the previous series, when a witch releases their soul protect in the middle of the city, sensitives like Stein and Maka notice it instantly and knew where it was coming from; they can even tell how many witches are nearby. Soul perception wouldn't be very useful for tracking witches if they could tell where they were. In this early series, maka herself might not have developed her perception all that much, but that's only because she's young and still learning... older miesters like Stein however would have developed their perception years ago.

Try those without hotlinking, because all we see is a "no hotlinking" message from Random Curiosity.

Done

[Random Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Slayerx

Witches have been considered a threat for the past 800 years; that is why the DWMA started hunting them in the first place. Hunting witches is one of the primary functions of the DWMA, and that means knowing how to track them down; developing their soul perception. Witches developed their soul protection ability to counter the DWMA's more perceptive members who could track them down; its only in more recent years/decades that witches figured out how to hide themselves. A the sudden presence of a witch DOES send up a figurative beacon to the sensitives; As we saw in the previous series, when a witch releases their soul protect in the middle of the city, sensitives like Stein and Maka notice it instantly and knew where it was coming from; they can even tell how many witches are nearby. Soul perception wouldn't be very useful for tracking witches if they could tell where they were. In this early series, maka herself might not have developed her perception all that much, but that's only because she's young and still learning... older miesters like Stein however would have developed their perception years ago.

Right, but at this point they aren't looking. "There aren't any witches in Death City" after all. Leaving that aside,

Spoiler for manga information:

there was a pair of witches who were outed along with Kim, who were working as spies right in the middle of Death City, and who were regularly using magic in secret to report on what they discovered and so on.

No matter what you say, it's fairly plain that a certain amount of magic could be used in Death City without anyone catching it. Medusa and underlings showed up fairly regularly in the city, and as long as they weren't flashy and no one was specifically looking for them, nothing they did attracted attention.

[Slayerx]

Originally Posted by Random Wanderer

Right, but at this point they aren't looking. "There aren't any witches in Death City" after all. Leaving that aside,

Spoiler for manga information:

there was a pair of witches who were outed along with Kim, who were working as spies right in the middle of Death City, and who were regularly using magic in secret to report on what they discovered and so on.

No matter what you say, it's fairly plain that a certain amount of magic could be used in Death City without anyone catching it. Medusa and underlings showed up fairly regularly in the city, and as long as they weren't flashy and no one was specifically looking for them, nothing they did attracted attention.

First, The DWMA(which the witches would love to destroy) would have pretty poor security if they didn't keep a watch out for witches around their city. Second, as this episode pointed out, the DWMA actually DOES suspect their is a witch activity in the city involving the "traitors". And Third, sensitives don't need to be "looking" to sense a witch. Soul perception is a sixth sense; if a witch pops up and a sensitive is within range they will feel it.

In the original series, The first time they encounter Medusa as a witch was in Italy; they had no reason to think she was active in Death city. When Eruka and Mizune dropped their soul protect to attack Medusa, it took everyone by surprise. Maka was not "looking" for witches, she just sensed the two as soon as they popped up.

Spoiler:

I do not recall it ever being said that those two witches used magic to make their reports

Medusa and her underlings showed up often, but they never used any magic; they mostly observed or delivered verbal messages(eruka even needed to set up a radio so that medusa could talk to crona). Eruka even pointed out that its impossible for witches to use magic while under soul protection. Medusa alone found a loophole to this as she developed her pet snakes ahead of time which do her bidding without her needing to use any magic.

Kim does not have such a loop hole. She could get away with healing the dog since she could drop her protection to cast one spell and they put her protection back on before anyone showed up, but using her magic in the dormitories would be far to risky.

[Random Wanderer]

You are correct: I misremembered the effectiveness of soul perception when Eruka and Mizune attacked Medusa. However...

Originally Posted by Slayerx

In the original series, The first time they encounter Medusa as a witch was in Italy; they had no reason to think she was active in Death city. When Eruka and Mizune dropped their soul protect to attack Medusa, it took everyone by surprise. Maka was not "looking" for witches, she just sensed the two as soon as they popped up.

A magical fight in the middle of the city, and who showed up in response to it? A grand total of two people: Maka and Stein. Think about what those two are doing in the present of the NOT timeline. Maka hasn't developed her soul perception, so she wouldn't notice a thing. Stein is still off in his own laboratory only vaguely affiliated with the school, doing dissections and autopsies and other experiments that involving cutting up bodies. It took an order from Shinigami-sama to get him involved in the students' lessons, and the threat of a new kishin being born to become directly involved in missions and the ongoing plot. That's all in the future. As of right now, even if he did sense Kim, he simply wouldn't care.

That's all the people with soul perception strong enough to pick up on Kim, aside from possibly Shinigami-sama himself, who is in his mirror-dimension, and thus probably isn't sensing much of anything from Death City.

Kim does not have such a loop hole. She could get away with healing the dog since she could drop her protection to cast one spell and they put her protection back on before anyone showed up, but using her magic in the dormitories would be far to risky.

Maybe, maybe not. The dorms are still out in the city, not on the school grounds. We also don't know who else was there at the time, aside from the people we saw. The teachers would be the biggest danger to Kim, but there's no reason for any of them to have been near the dorms. We have no evidence that any of the other students have developed soul perception at all at this point, and the fact that no one picked up on her seems to strongly argue that none of them have done so.

Spoiler:

I do not recall it ever being said that those two witches used magic to make their reports

Spoiler:

They reported through a crystal ball. I suppose it's possible they didn't have to remove Soul Protect in order to use it. I'm going to have to hunt through the chapters some more, because I thought I remembered seeing it at another point than just right before they were captured...

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by Random Wanderer

That's all the people with soul perception strong enough to pick up on Kim, aside from possibly Shinigami-sama himself, who is in his mirror-dimension, and thus probably isn't sensing much of anything from Death City.

BJ (the manga version of him) is also a Meister who's good at soul perception. Although he wouldn't be in town at this point.

I think a more reasonable explanation that's not "Stein doesn't care yet" though is that her magic is touch-range only. Since none of it ever leaves her body, she can keep in inside the range of soul protect, unlike more offensive magic. Soul Protect is literally just a barrier that prevent magic waves from leaking out so this explanation make sense to me.

Even though I just made it up.

[Slayerx]

Originally Posted by Random Wanderer

You are correct: I misremembered the effectiveness of soul perception when Eruka and Mizune attacked Medusa. However...



A magical fight in the middle of the city, and who showed up in response to it? A grand total of two people: Maka and Stein. Think about what those two are doing in the present of the NOT timeline. Maka hasn't developed her soul perception, so she wouldn't notice a thing. Stein is still off in his own laboratory only vaguely affiliated with the school, doing dissections and autopsies and other experiments that involving cutting up bodies. It took an order from Shinigami-sama to get him involved in the students' lessons, and the threat of a new kishin being born to become directly involved in missions and the ongoing plot. That's all in the future. As of right now, even if he did sense Kim, he simply wouldn't care.

That's all the people with soul perception strong enough to pick up on Kim, aside from possibly Shinigami-sama himself, who is in his mirror-dimension, and thus probably isn't sensing much of anything from Death City.

Actually that kind of calls to attention something i didn't like about the first soul eater series; both the anime and manga did a VERY poor job of fleshing out its world. We get just enough information to follow the story but a lot of details about the DWMA is never explained to us. The author only includes what we need for the plot and nothing else.

for example

Spoiler for rant:

-why does eating a cat soul instead of a witch's soul force maka and soul to forfeit the 99 souls they collected?
-The school has dozens of students but we never see any of them do anything
-Sid and Nygus are the only teachers that we see before Stein and the other death scythes show up
-Why isn't Nygus working towards becoming a death Scythe?
-We are told that the DWMA has multiple branches all over the world, but never told what they do. Why are they sending the students to far away places like Italy and Egypt to deal with criminals when they could send someone from a nearby branch?
-How do the meisters travel? Maka is sent all the way to italy which is thousands of miles away, and yet Stein and her dad show up just in time to save her... if they use normal transportation then that would mean Stein and Spirit knew maka might be in trouble like 15 hours before she ran into crona. And wouldn't it have been more efficient to have contacted the european branch and have them send someone?
-During the battle of the brew, the DWMA puts together an entire army to fight, but we are not told where this army came from(they didn't look like students from the school)
-We are told about all of the current death scythes, but some of their meisters are missing. I guess its implied that either BJ or Stein was marie's partner, but who was Azusa's partner? And heck, we never do get to meet Maka's mother.
-There is A LOT we don't know about Shimigami's original crew of warriors
-Really... it just goes on and on like this

And to make this relevant to your point; why was maka and Stein the only one's who showed up? Are maka and Stein really the ONLY two people in the DWMA that have any soul percpetion or is this another case of the Author only giving us what we NEED to know? As in we don't need to know about the random NPC's in the DWMA that might have soul perception and thus the author did not have them show up; they were unimportant to the plot, so the author did not include them (just like all the above examples). Maka and Stein were the only one's important to the plot, so they are the only one's that show up.

There are some pretty big flaws in the writing of Soul Eater.

you could offer speculation to these points; but that's all they are, speculation... The author himself did not provide us the answers. The author providing us the answers is an important part of world building

This is actually something that makes me interested in Soul Eater Not; Its a chance for the author to flesh out the world, which he failed to do in the previous series. Several of the questions i raised in my rant have actually been given some kind of answer. For instance, Soul eater Not is where we are first told that the DWMA acts as an official world police force. We are also told that most of the students are part of the NOT class which does not have the same responsibilities as the Miesters. Perhaps this means that Nygus and Sid were part of the NOT class, and that explains why she was never made into a death scythe, and thus just became teachers after they graduated.

Seeing the DWMA get more fleshed out is what I hope to see more of in Soul Eater Not. Though I doubt they'll answer every question could raise(unless they can teleport, wouldn't it make more sence to have the students focus on nearby threats in the states and leave foreign criminals to the other branches?). That, and some fun times with the characters I came to enjoy, especially the ones who didn't get enough panel time like Kim and Jackie.