- Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24
- Audio Codec: Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0, English Dolby TrueHD 5.1
- Subtitles: English
- Rating: TV-14
- Region: A (Region-Locked)
- Discs: 3 (3 x Blu-ray)
- Studio: Funimation
- Blu-ray Release Date: August 9, 2011
- List Price: $69.98
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Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Series
[Rating:4.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
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The Series
[Rating:4.5/5]
From the Japanese manga written and illustrated by Atsushi Okubo comes this 51 episode anime series. In the first 27 episodes, released on Blu-ray as Soul Eater: The Meister Collection the story begins set in the fictional Death City, Nevada, where the Grim Reaper has set up the DWMA (Death Weapon Meister Academy). It’s a school to train young weapons meisters and their weapons, (humans who transfigure into weapons), to fight against evil forces that steal the souls of innocent humans.
At the center of the story is Maka Alabarn and her weapon Soul. Soul, transforms into a scythe and his bond with Maka relies on their “soul wavelength resonance” maintaining balance. Other students at the academy include Black Star and his weapon Tsubaki, and Lord Death, the Grim Reaper’s son himself, Death, the Kid and his two weapons Liz and Patty. Like Maka and Soul, each of these meisters is partnered with the weapon whose soul they best resonate with.
They must all collect the souls of 99 evil creatures plus one witch in order to turn their weapon into one of the Reaper’s personal Death Scythes in the fight to maintain balance in the world. The more innocent human souls a weapons meister consumes, they risk becoming a Kishin, the ultimate evil, and spreading madness throughout the world Therefore, consuming innocent human souls is strictly forbidden. It is for this reason that the DWMA was founded – to prevent such a thing and to keep the balance.
But, Maka, Soul and the rest of the DWMA crew are soon thrust into a battle against the forces of evil – a powerful witch named Medusa, an escaped werewolf who is immortal, and Crona, a young meister whose weapon resides within him and whose black blood is the key to the unthinkable, creating another Kishin. Will the young weapon meisters, their partners and their professors at the DWMA have the strength to save Death City and the world?
Here, in Soul Eater: The Weapon Collection, episodes 28 through 51, the bound between Maka and Soul grows ever stronger as Soul’s power grows, but he is drawn ever closer to the darkness that is within him, a result of the events of the first 27 episodes. The students of the DWMA face treacherous times as the ancient witch Arachne returns to entrap the school and the world in her evil web of wickedness.
Soul Eater: The Weapon Collection continues on with the series’ great sense of humor and over-the-top action that is seamlessly blended into an eye-popping adventure ride of juicy animation. An altogether strong anime series worth repeated watches.
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
This is an HD native transfer and as such the 1080p AVC transfer of Soul Eater:The Weapon Collection is clean, shows good detail around the line art and little in the way of video noise. There is still a bit of aliasing in the image that pops up sporadically, but I’ve reassessed just how much this affects the overall image quality and visual enjoyment and marked this collection up a half-point over my review of the previous set.
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
The audio remains the same between this release and the previous Meister Collection release, as one would expect. Both the Japanese 2.0 and English 5.1 tracks are provided in lossless Dolby TrueHD. Both have their own strengths, but there are subtle differences between the two. The Japanese 2.0 stereo mix has a wide soundstage with clean dialogue and strong panning. The midrange retains the same punchiness and deep lows for a 2.0 mix. The differences in the 5.1 mix are obviously in the use of the surround channels for discrete panning of sound effects, a bigger ambient sound due to the use of atmospheric sound effects and reverberation through a wider array of channels, as well as more robust low frequencies through use of the LFE. There is also more use of reverberation in the English mix on dialogue, particularly during moments when characters’ inner thoughts are being vocalized. The Japanese mix presents this dialogue more upfront and drier, with a few other little differences.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
The two audio commentaries are really the strongest supplements offered up here. Everything else on offer is the usual rehash and promotional material.
The supplements provided with this release are:
Disc 1:
- Episode 30 Commentary
Disc 2
- Episode 44 Commentary
Disc 3
- Soul Eater Late Show – Episodes 28 – 51
- Textless Opening Song – Resonance
- Textless Closing Song – Papermoon
- Textless Closing Song – Bakusou Yumeuta
- Trailers
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:4/5]
Soul Eater is excellent fun, great humor, and beautiful animation in a wild anime series. The Blu-ray release is a great bit of home theatre entertainment as well. Highly recommended.
Additional Screen Captures
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[amazon-product align=”right”]B004WCSMEI[/amazon-product]
BestBuy.com:
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Series
[Rating:4.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2.5/5]
