Soul Eater NOT!

A lot of reviewers (many of whom have only read the first one or two chapters) write about this series like it's a silly slice of life comedy set in the world of Soul Eater. And that's not... *untrue*. However, this manga also has some plot beats that are pretty heavy! Characters get hurt and struggle. If you want an experience that's perfectly light and happy, you're not going to get that here. ...On the other hand, if you want an experience that's gritty, psychological, and dark, you're... also not going to get that here. So what on earth's the deal with Soul Eater NOT!?This is a series that was being written at the same time as the OG Soul Eater. The characters in Soul Eater are part of Death Weapon Academy's elite EAT class, training to become heroes who defeat witches and so on, but the characters in Soul Eater NOT! are part of, you guessed it, the NOT class, where they're really just training to live in the regular world. Soul Eater NOT!, then, provides a bit of a layperson's perspective on what living in Death City is like. Most of that perspective is meant to be funny (one of my favorite bits is around how the characters in NOT! see Liz and Patty). For my money, the humor is pretty consistently successful. Even in Soul Eater proper, there's a good sense of comedy, and it's awesome to get more of that in this series. With that said, on top of the regular Soul Eater NOT! chapters, there's also "Soul Eater JOT!," little one- or two-page scenes into the lives of characters, and these can be funny, but there's... a lot of them, and I often found myself wishing that we could just have regular chapters. With that said, there is a heavier plot going on, sometimes in the background and occasionally in the foreground. The main character gets capital-T Traumatized on a couple different occasions! A fun gimmick turns out to have a dark origin, someone dies in a really brutal way. Does that succeed? Eh... not really, in my opinion. The digressions into more serious beats often feel more the result of the writers getting bored. The central struggle of the protagonist (to pick a partner between the two main characters) doesn't really have that much to do with the antagonist and their goals, for instance. A lot of the twists that happen in the last handful of chapters are actually pretty well foreshadowed, but I often wasn't sure what the point of including them was. Still, it's not by any means unreadable. When the plot gets darker, it's in the same way that Soul Eater gets dark, so even if it doesn't make a ton of sense, it's usually still pretty cool. That's the broad strokes of the story and tone discussed, but what about the characters? The main characters of Soul Eater are basically irrelevant in NOT! (which I kind of appreciate). Maka shows up once or twice, but after her the most relevant member of Soul Eater's cast are, like, Liz and Patty, which I really enjoyed. As for the new characters, they're a mixed bag! Some of them aren't very well utilized and don't really have an arc, while others have pathos out the wazoo. But the worst a character ever gets is forgettable, they're never that obnoxious, and the rest of the cast is really fun and endearing. I sometimes struggled with the fanservice (come on... these characters are like... 14.... we don't need to see them naked.....) but the dynamic between the main three characters is pretty strong and sets up well for a lot of funny bits! There's also a well-written lesbian relationship! I dunno, I think that's pretty neat. All in all, I think Soul Eater NOT! is... okay! It's not going to knock your socks off, but the characters are all enjoyable and it's funny when it needs to be. There are serious moments, and I'm not always thrilled with how they're handled, but when I looked at the manga as a whole I was happy to have read it. Just keep in mind that it's not (NOT!) trying to be like Soul Eater, and you'll have a good time.