Series: Soul Eater: Part Four
Release date: 27th December 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 271 mins
Director: Takuya Igarashi
Starring: Chiaki Omigawa, Kouki Uchiyama, Akeno Watanabe, Emiri Katou, Houko Kuwashima
Genre: Anime
Studio: Manga
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
The Matrix. Bergman, Burton, Dali, Lynch. The Cabinet Of Doctor Caligari. X Men. Pokemon. Deposit ingredients into a cartoon cauldron. Stir. Simmer for 51 episodes. Serve with a generous J-pop garnish. Whaddayougot? Soul Eater.
Concluding the series, Part 4 follows a questing band of young bloods from a specialist academy of the arcane: the DWMA.
The Death Meister Weapon Academy – mentored by none other than the reaper himself – tutors the plucky punks, who are divided into fighters – ‘meisters’ – and their partners, who morph into weapons. The curriculum serves fittingly macabre ends. Culling a specified number of souls enhances the weapons, transforming them into a death scythe – traditional armament of their headmaster. Each pupil boasts potent, yet inchoate powers, which must be disciplined until they attain mastery. For their unique abilities may soon be called upon.
Episode 40 depicts a world on the cusp of disaster. Evil witch Arachne plots to amplify the madness of an ancient demon, Asura, submitting the population to his infectious lunacy. Death and the DWMA attempt to intervene, but must also contend with the wiles of Arachne’s devious sister, Medusa.
Hypnotically converting a DWMA tutor, Dr Frank Stein, to her cause, Medusa watches from the sidelines as Arachne and Death’s henchmen enter a grim endgame – poised to conquer the weakened survivors.
Appalled by Death’s apparent pact with the serpentine sorceress, disaffected students Black Star, Death The Kid and Maka threaten to turn against their benefactor. But the bony patriarch has a (cunning) plan and, locating Arachne’s base, press-gangs the malcontents into action. The master’s apprentices offer the last, best hope of salvation, but can they overwhelm the might of Asura, a living god?
Adapted from a hugely successful manga series devised by Atsushi Okubo, Soul Eater is a sprawling opus which exuberantly flaunts its inspiration. Fusing fragments of myth, filmic and literary lore into a rich, dayglo mosaic, this is kleptomaniac post modernism delivered at breathless pace.
Okubo has stated that his primary visual sources are David Lynch and Tim Burton, and it’s the latter’s work that provides the most explicit precedent. Soul Eater’s landscape is a vision of candy-coloured expressionism, summoning the foreboding iconography of Sleepy Hollow, only to repaint it with the garish tint of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Death City (home of the DWMA) is a deranged gothic folly - a skull encrusted fortress bristling with conical towers that would do Jack Skellington proud. With a nod to Magritte, Death’s chamber is surreally vaulted by azure sky, its windows impossibly built into the air itself. Arachne’s lair is equally impressive – a futuristic, cobwebby boudoir cum-Frankenstein’s lab, customised for world domination. Architecture, in this uncanny parallel world, becomes a projection of the self.
Characters are frequently overwhelmed by their mysterious surrounds. Lost in fog shrouded netherworlds, forebodingly gnarled forests, and disoriented by endless corridors, external landscapes bear the imprint of mental trauma. A cracked mirror: for broken minds.
Anarchic and daring, this stylisation is most flamboyant when it enters a totally subjective mode. A succession of unsettling dream sequences brilliantly showcase expressionist technique, Dr Stein’s warped hallucinations and incarceration in a Twin Peaks-esque ‘red room’ notably eerie examples. As he succumbs to Medusa’s evil machinations, Stein’s environs are redrawn, the witch’s control symbolised by an omnipresent arrow motif. Visualising an apparently Freudian, symbolic logic, a lurid nightmare sees him tempted by forbidden fruit, and ending up as the subject of a fatal dissection which will reveal his “true flesh.” Fragmentary glimpses into Asura’s damaged mind – revealing a flickering purgatory of flames and ashen corpses – even seem to glimpse hell itself. But – in line with the offbeat tone – the malevolent gloom is offset by a lysergic palette. Crimson clouds dash overhead, and the screen frequently erupts into iridescent fireworks as its cast engage in spectacular duels.
Ostensibly a fantasy romp, Soul Eater plays fast and loose with the format, abruptly shifting tone as fluidly as its eclectic visual style. Thematics here – establishment vs. anarchy, and necessity of teamwork – are oft trite. Equally, the plot mechanics – comprising separate quests for magical weapons, high level intrigue and spectacular bouts of occult whoop-ass – are unremarkable. Adopting a playfully irreverent disregard for these formalities, Soul Eater frequently goes AWOL on bizarre digressions which jarringly puncture narrative momentum.
Ominous confrontations are dramatically established then undermined, as when Death’s amoral bargaining with Medusa turns into a comic skit about “pumpkin pants.” Characters devolve into super deformed parodies, subverting their brooding with zany absurdity. Despite this, the series maintains a thrilling tempo, masterfully shifting dramatic gears. Plentiful bouts of magical combat punctuate talky scheming, as our battling brats clash with an outrageous gallery of rogues. Lumbering golems, genocidal clown-bots, and a crawling citadel are foes which inventively splice genre motifs into a bizarre magic-mecha fusion.
To placate traditionalists, there’s even an apprentice swordsman, Black Star, whose turbocharged braggadocio culminates in an old school martial showdown with the ronin Mifune. But, even mano-a-mano, there’s always time for cod philosophical discourse. It’s not merely physical supremacy that is asserted – but also an explicit personal code. Black Star’s deadly mastery of the blade is, it seems, pyrrhic, if he wields it angrily, succumbing to the “demon” that lurks within. Needless to say, this is existentialism at the level of The Empire Strikes Back, rather than Sartre.
For all its pyrotechnic razzle-dazzle and glossy irony, Soul Eater is a traditional moral fable, with some alarmingly banal wisdom tucked in the tail. Equally haggard is its knowingly rampant pop-cultural pillage. Little is novel here, but, synthesised with vim and flair, the series makes for a splendidly beguiling jaunt into the beyond. DJO
No comments:
Post a Comment