Now an example of how to make good world building with a terrible idea.
Tsugumi discovers that she can turn into a weapon prompting an enrolment into Death Weapon Meister Academy. Unlike the original Soul Eater, it is explained that not everyone attending needs to be combat ready.
The school is divided into two classes, traditional Soul Eater focussed on the EAT class Especially Advantaged Talent while this season focusses on the NOT class Normally Overcome Target.
The difference is that the NOT class are only learning to control their powers and abilities not necessarily for the goal of becoming a hero, this is also a prequel so much of the original cast are relegated to extras bar the Thompson Sisters who are still adjusting to Death City and are still being recruited by Death the Kid.
Back to Tsugumi, she meets two meisters named Meme and Anya, one is a forgetful klutz whose goldfish memory gets old really fast while the other is a tsundere runaway princess with an obsession for commoners, the bulk of the show focusses on Tsugumi trying to overcome her fears and accept the new life she now has, while the other focusses on a witch possessing town's people to cause havoc for the academy reminding you that, oh yeah, this is the Soul Eater world.
Like I said at the start, it's really good for world building, making a solid ground work for a franchise that previously left things unexplained and answers questions a fan would ask, but using a moe school girl sitcom format really makes for a painful experience until Shaula Gorgon reminds you that you are watching Soul Eater, so they had you in the first half not gonna lie.
Dub is pretty cookie cutter; Soul Eater Not at best is a prototype for the main series and at worst a self insert trashy yuri fan fiction.
Final Verdict: Only watch if you really care to know how the Soul Eater world functions outside of the stylish combat action of the original, otherwise you can find much better school girl sitcoms in other anime.
I apologise for taking so long but my house move is taking alot out of me mentally, a few posts should get me going again.
75. Soul Eater
If Tim Burton did anime then he'd make something like this. A horror colour palette set to one of the best action shows of the 2000s.
74. Keijo!!!!
Made recently in a time you'd think no one would want it but it's booty and breast battles are so extreme you feel compelled to watch it just to see how absurd they can take this.
73. Yuri On Ice
At a time where male figure skating is dominated by the Japanese, anime is always there to lend a hand in boosting it's already high popularity, it has certainly made history.
72. Outlaw Star
One of the Toonami legends, a great sci-fi series with a well written plot and plenty of fun and interesting characters.
71. Full Metal Panic
While it does work better as a comedy, the fish out of water Souseke still delivers a great performance aided by some top notch animation and epic battles.
And as if by magic, here is the good list. Same rules, this applies to all villains in a given anime not just one individual.
Honorable Mentions
Rurouni Kenshin: Never seems to have bad villains but mostly forgettable.
Zoids Chaotic Century: One of my best memories of the show but I sadly forget what it was like being so long ago.
Strike Witches: They have the terrifying part down but nothing else.
10. One Piece
Shonen Jump villains didn't do well in these lists but One Piece saves them from being total outcasts; One Piece is one of only two anime to be able to successfully get away with goofy villains, the other being Ultimate Muscle.
9. Air Gear
The nature of Air Gear allows for some creative battles and villains, many of which maintain an air of mystery every time and don't leave you disappointed by the end result.
8. Pretty Cure
Never let the cutesy, goofy villains of Precure fool you, by the time you get to the finale of every season expect the stakes to be high and the fights to be intense, even the movies manage to pull this off. All this from a Magical Girl show but it's not the only one on this list.
7. Card Captor Sakura
You could argue that the cards aren't really villains but the trouble they cause are enough to be labeled as such, even when the ringmaster is revealed, the quality of the villains doesn't drop.
6. Sailor Moon
The major reason Sailor Moon holds up so well is that it has some bloody good villains. Many of my generation got chills from the Dr Tomoe arc, while many feel sorry for Beryl's main henchman as they die one after the other. And as ground breaking as Madoka Magica is, it doesn't have a patch on Sailor Moon.
5. Slayers & Lost Universe
Lina Inverse & Kain Blueriver can easily be billed as invincible but the villains in both shows can easily reduce both to their knees and very nearly destroy the world. That's a sign of good villains right there when an invincible hero is made to look weak.
4. Soul Eater
This anime really knew what it was doing with it's villains, psychologically terrifying both visually and mentally which compliments the art style very well.
3. Every Gundam Series except G Gundam
Gundam villains have always done a good job in making the heroes really scared of death and no hero has ever successfully claimed a convincing victory against them without losing important people along the way or even the hero themselves managing to stay in one piece mentally.
2. Neon Genesis Evangelion
Speaking of mentally crippling, every angel in Evangelion seems to cause extreme psychological trauma for the heroes in almost every fight. It's proof of how well the series holds up even after 20 years since the original.
1. Full Metal Alchemist
But if you want a good set of villains, come to Full Metal Alchemist. I'm of course referring to the Homunculus, the most ruthless villains to ever grace an anime, they are everything villains need to be: Terrifying, capable of worrying the good guys, defeated in an awesome way and just be a bad ass. Even more amazing is that they pull this off twice.
Did you ever want a series that shows you good action without any of the Shonen cliches interfering? Well look no further than Soul Eater.
Soul Eater is a Tim Burton-esque anime about trainee weapon meisters and their living Deathscythe weapons fighting against the likes of Kishin Demons and Witches all in the name of the Grim Reaper himself.
We join lead protagonist Maka Albarn and her partner Soul Eater as she hunts for the witches soul to make Soul Eater into a proper Deathscythe fit for the reaper. The same goes for Black Star and his partner Tsubaki along with Death the Kid and the Thompson Sisters.
But their lessons at the Deathmeister academy get disrupted by the Witch Medusa as she plots to revive the Kishin Asura, so it's up to the Academy students to stop her while also fighting off other Witches, a Werewolf, a Swordsman and Crona the ambiguously gendered emo kid with black blood and a scary weapon named Ragnarok.
Now this does sound like a plot of any Shonen series but the execution of the show is well done; this is mainly helped by the very stylish art style, awesome music and well choreographed fight scenes. With all this you kind of forget that the majority of the cast are all rejects from other anime. Allow me to expand.
Watching these characters it becomes immediately obvious where they take their inspirations from. Maka reminds me of Witch Hunter Robin, Black Star reminds me of Naruto, Death the Kid is the spitting image of XXXHolic's Kimihiro Watanuki, Soul Eater looks like the forbidden love child of Dead Leaves and the Gorillaz while the Thompson Sisters could easily walk into Burst Angel no problem. Only Tsubaki seems to escape the comparisons. The supporting cast does slightly better with original designs at least but they aren't nearly as strong as the main cast.
Quite early on we meet the unoriginally named teacher Dr Stein, and while at first he seems awesome through his battles and eccentric personality but after a while he just gets annoying, this is true for a lot of the supporting cast as they seem to fade into one dimensional characters rather quick and this is where the show starts showing it's cracks as well.
For a series with enough source material for a long runner, it tends to rush things an awful lot come part two. New characters are introduced out of the blue both enemy and ally with nothing much to work from other than names. The end result is a taped together mess which ends in quite a let down come last episode.
Final Verdict: It's definitely worth picking up but random pacing in part two really messes with the story far too much. Nevertheless its art style and action really save it from being generic.
I have now earned myself the title of "Master of Lists" so I shall present to you another top ten list going into more obscure territory with Top 10 Flawed Species. Rules this time cannot include human evolutions such as Newtypes or clones or mutant creations; human shape aliens are allowed. Lets begin.
10. Sea Kings from One Piece
They look impressive and show off the potential of Eichiro Oda's creative mind but their role in the series are often background art or as punching bags for the pirates.
9. Living Weapons from Soul Eater & Elemental Gelade
One lot act as a Deathscythe for humans the other act as special jewel weapons for humans but both sets are only as powerful as it's wielder, however if said weapon remains unused for so long you get this.
Yeah you wouldn't want Excalibur.
8. All Sea Life from Mermaid Melody Pichi pfft pfft *Gargles water* Pichi Pitch
So how do these Mermaids fight? They sing pop songs. How do enemy Mercreatures fight? They sing pop songs. The main mascot companion character is a penguin in a sailor suit, I wouldn't want any of these mermaids defending my seas from danger.
7. Elves from Those Who Hunt Elves
In an attempt to defeat an evil being, Celsia accidentally summons three humans and a tank into the Elf World and in an attempt to send them back, screws up the spell and it ends up tattooed to sexy elf women but then it's revealed that the original spell is merging the Elf World & Human World. So through constant screwing up you've doomed our world as opposed to your own world. *Claps* Well done.
6. Echidnas from Sonic X
Seeing as Sonic X follows the Sonic Adventure plot line it makes sense to put Echidnas on this list. In a silly attempt to seize power from the Emeralds, the Echidnas get destroyed by the water monster Chaos, after a few other incidents, Knuckles ends up the last Echidna and ends up playing guard duty to the Master Emerald. Other versions make things more clear but in Anime land we've only got this to work with.
5. Porvoras from King of Bandits Jing
A cute little fuzzy creature that looks like it would sell lots of toys ends up exploding in spectacular fashion when aggravated or hurt. Makes it all the more tragic when you see them get used as dynamite.
4. Digimon from Digimon
I did some research on this and found that the Digital World can't seem to function without human help. The three main Digimon types are Data, Vaccine & Virus but whoever made the Digital World was as lazy as Microsoft were when releasing Windows Vista. It's biggest flaw is the fact that the Viruses always take control of the World and needs humans to destroy them much like we do with Anti-Virus software....I totally just exposed the whole plot of Digimon.
3. Saiyans from Dragonballz
The great warrior race are often judged as primitive and if you look at their origins you'd be right. Strangely enough, if not for Goku having trained on Earth as a Martial Artist, Vegeta would never have gotten to Super Saiyan level, as the main factors of a Saiyan getting stronger are Moonlight and being beaten to death but mostly being beaten to death. It never occurred to them that you can train to get stronger.
2. Vanillite & Evolutions from Pokemon
It's a Pokemon in a shape of an ice cream. I've got nothing, although an interesting question to blow your mind for you.
If you're a Vegetarian and you eat a plant Pokemon, would you still be a Vegetarian?
1. Magical Creatures from Pretty Cure
Tell me if you've heard this plot before. Magical Creature from another world arrives in our world followed by a monster who has conquered said world, the little creature needs your help and the young girl who finds you agrees to this; in doing so you transform her into a Magical Girl complete with Magical Item, poofy dress and impossible hair. You then fight a bunch of monsters for 50 episodes, sometimes with a few other girls, you then defeat the big boss and then the Magical Creatures leave and depending on the series, wipes the girl's memory clean so as not to give her several years of psychiatry well into Adulthood. I'm starting to think Kyubey was being nice compared to other Magical Creatures.
