It’s Death the Kid’s first day of school at SWMU, but before he heads there, he makes sure those toilet papers were folded properly! This causes him to be three hours late to SWMU, where Black Star and Soul Eater are awaiting his arrival. Not to be outdone in the bigness category, Black Star challenges Death the Kid to see who would be numbah one big man on campus, and Soul Eater gets dragged into the battle to help his hyperactive friend. Unfortunately, Death the Kid proves to be too much to handle as he is quite a bit faster, stronger, and more synced than the two, and even more unfortunate for Black Star, his lack of soul syncing with Soul Eater leaves him unable to wield Soul Eater in scythe mode. On the sidelines, Dr. Stein, Tsubaki, and Maka watched the inevitable as Death the Kid went into resonator mode and KOed Black Star and Soul Eater with his death cannon. But Black Star and Soul Eater managed to snag a moral victory as Soul Eater sliced a bit of Death the Kid’s hair in one of his scythe attacks, leaving Kid’s hair asymmetric and KOed for the count upon realizing it.
So we pretty much established that when he’s focused, Death the Kid is a force to be reckoned with, even though Black Star and Soul Eater were doomed to fail from the start. It was actually nice to see that even though they argue a lot, Maka and Soul Eater are very close with each other, and on the other hand, you had to feel bad for Tsubaki for being ditched by Black Star. She comes to try and help him up after the battle, but Black Star ignores her and continues to babble about how awesome he is. I hope Black Star at tries to grow up and tone down his attitude a bit as the episodes continue. He should take some notes from Soul Eater, who is confident in his abilities, but plays it cool like the other side of the pillow.
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Black Star needs a proper beatdown to teach him some humility. I’m surprised Soul Eater can tolerate him, let alone cooperate with him!
Love sun!
Sadly he only grows up for like 1 arc then goes back to being like Naruto until eventually he has to like take a “break” from school because he’s just so f*cking annoying to everyone. He’s like my least favorite character at this point
From the manga, it seems like Black Star will pretty much remain as annoying as he is right now. He is basically Naruto-lite. I wouldn’t even say he grows during that one arc; he’s simply slightly less annoying. Tsubaki’s patience is legendary.
Must watch … I’m always late when the subs come out! XD
Just a quick follow-up to Kabitzin’s comment that Black Star is “Naruto-lite” — I think that one can extend the comparison to the other two protagonists (i.e.:
Black Star = Naruto (overconfident)
Death the Kid = Sasuke (talented)
Maka = Sakura (minimal screen time T_T)
However, having said that, I totally second the general annoyance about Black Star. One thing that Naruto consistently demonstrated was envy for Sasuke’s skills, which made for a great story, but Black Star doesn’t seem to show any real desire to become stronger (no awesome training scenes T_T), or any of the angst that makes most shonen series awesome (NEED MOAR POWAH!!)
@ dm, I’m not seeing comparison to Sasuke with Kid or, Sakura with Maka at all.
Maka gets more screen time than either of the other two in the entire series, and being talented doesn’t mean you Sasuke.
At your second point I think the biggest difference bewteen B*S and Naruto is that B*S actually has talent and doesn’t win his on luck, but he lets get to his head.
I loved how one of the sisters (credit goes to the seiyuu as well) said “firing!” just before Death the Kid pulled the trigger on his cannons.
@ Iron Maw
Hmm, point taken — maybe it’s too strong to say that Sasuke = Kid or Sakura = Maka. But it’s impossible to deny the similarities between “Soul Eater” and “Naruto”. Posit the fact that both titles prominently center on a group of three individuals (Kid / Maka / Black Star vs. Sasuke / Sakura / Naruto) that team up to take out adverseries (Zabuza vs. Dr. Stein). Additionally, the protagonists from either title are primarily students, be it at a ninja academy or a school of magic.
There’s tons of other similarities — the concept of ‘chakra’ from Naruto is analogous to Soul Eater’s ’spirit energy’, and the role of the female protagonist is mainly one of a spectator, instead of an active participant (yes, Maka does have a considerable amount of screen time, but in this episode, she’s relegated to standing on the sidelines, just like Sakura).
Looking back, it’s uncanny to see just how close the two titles are, compared to say, Bleach or Air Gear or One Piece, which are all firmly in the shonen category, but use vastly different thematic elements. Just to give my two cents, I’d say that Soul Eater is definitely a derivative work, and seems to be a rather poor imitation of Naruto.
@dm
I have to disgaree,In first three are 7 main characters, two the only characetr shows any similiarites to anyone in Naruto is B*S, three the situation with Dr. Stein and Zabuza, one being a major character throughout the story, and other one nothing more than a minor villian who mostly had no impact on the story.
The only other thing the SE shares with Naruto are a school and super powers, which hundreds of animes and fiction in general has had. SR doesn’t even work the same way Chakra does especially because this is one of main reasons the parther system of Soul Eater exist. Mission based school structure wasn’t invented by Naruto either.
Also Maka is the protag episode 1, 4, 5 as well as the upcoming arc all deal with her, nothing like that ever happenend with Sakura who has basicially no background. B*S and Kid do get some Arcs to themselves, but neither are as proiment as she is, just because she isn’t the focus for some eps doesn’t change that. Your comparsion of Maka and Sakura boils down to them being female.
Franky, any of the tries you’ve mention between SE and Naruto are superfacial at best.
@Iron Maw
Good points, good points.
It’s still only episode 6 (of 26? 52?) so perhaps it’s too early to compare “Naruto” to “Soul Eater”. We’ll just have to wait and see if future episodes make the comparison stronger or weaker
I can definitely see the parallels between the two series, which comes as no surprise since that particular cast dynamic is fairly typical in shounen series. Whether or not Soul Eater apes Naruto specifically is up for debate, but there’s no denying that it is cast in the classic shounen mold.
This epi was pure gangstaness! I loved how Black Star closed his hair to stop the bleeding!
I’m sure its been mentioned many times, but Patty’s laugh is amazing! XD It definitely pwns Maka’s voice!
Not only is Black Star similar to Naruto, but he sort of reminds me how I act when playing Super Smash Bros Brawl… ok, I seriously gotta stop mentioning that game… its obvious I won’t find any smash #s here
hey, any idea who’s playing the song on 07:00 of this episode
@ fan: Not sure, we’ll have to wait till the soundtrack comes out, but who knows when that will happen (hint: it’ll be awhile)! I’d say be patient, and search Google when some time passes.
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This show seems to put different elements of different shows into one. I have been able to see similarities between this show and FLCL, Bleach and Naruto. It seems to combine a story of Bleach and Naruto with the strangeness of FLCL. Overall, I find this show to be quite entertaining.(Especially for the time I will wait for the next Episode of Code Geass R2 (Damn them and their taking off new episodes for an entire week… o_o)) Ah yes, anyone notice Death the Kid’s voice is that of Light Yagami? XD Wonder if he’ll be doing any dramatic laughing this time…?
how can you compare black star to naruto they dont have similar plots one is about ninjas and the other is about soul eaters… you could compare black star to bleach but not naruto and about the characters if you pay attention all animes have similar characters almost all adventure animes have 1. a cool guy that every guy wants to e him and all the ladies want to f*** him
2. the hero that makes everything possible
3. the over confident guy
4. the evil guy
5. the hot chick that everybody wants to hump
6 lead lady
7. the strongest guy
and so on so to compare naruto to black star IMO is stupid