Spoiler Rating: Moderate
Soul Eater, this anime is decidedly underrated, and for myself unexpectedly influential. The series took me by surprise, it really did, if simply for how little I had heard of it. One day, while browsing anidb.net to stay ahead of the anime curve I found an intriguing image buried amongst a hundred other forgettable titles. The art and character designs looked decent, the story at least mildly interesting, and I had nothing else of note to watch so I took a chance. (See image above.) I downloaded a fansubbed copy as (although I didn't realize right away) the series was still being actively released. Little did I know that I would be embarking on a title that would set a new precedent for my watching habits and embed itself as a signature series in my mind.
Soul Eater came into my life during a time period I like to call my "Golden Age of Anime", a term slightly inspired by the obsessive amounts of Civilization 4 I played at the time. That time period was also a relatively low point in my life in which anime was one of my few joys and passtimes that distracted me enough to, at least temporarily, forget about a myriad number of problems that made me feel as though my life was burning to the ground around me. So it was a time of outstanding anime, terrible life circumstances, and copious procrastination that helped shape many of my early impressions of Soul Eater. I was living in a house with some of my best friends from High School at the time too, so I generally always had someone looking over my shoulder during a series. I shared a room since I was less likely to care if awoken (if I wake up at all, I'm a heavy sleeper so I'm told) or for that matter go on homicidal sprees. Watching anime became a communal activity that, usually, eventually drew in everyone. That said, Soul Eater started out as a solitary activity strangely enough.
