Soul Eaters’ style exerts a strange fascination over me. Not the setting, which is currently somewhat ambiguous - lacking any sense of geography or organisation, but the cast. If I look at my desktop I find Maka leering out at me with a perverse menace, her coattails spiralling away absurdly. I find this image mildly hypnotic. I appear to have been sucked in.

Maka is a triumph of basic design, achieving coolness unlimited, without absurd forced attempts at originality. Bandy legs and pigtails, mini-skirt and long coat, big gloves, colossal scythe - a combination that spells out victory. But it isn’t just the looks, the real source of her stylistic appeal is the writing, though I don’t mean the character writing.

I don’t know if Maka would feel the same if it weren’t for the impact of the opening minutes of Soul Eater. That Tim Burton style has never been quite so massively appealing to me as it clearly is to some people. But there’s no better way to win somebody over than with a pure display of verve.

A few words delivered, then pure spiralling motion - a lavishly realised super-fight. A masterpiece of shonen exuberence, in a genre where instant classics are the only real kind. Suddenly Maka becomes the new definition of awesome, her image tied to that moment, the show imbuing the design with extra style. And lo and behold Soul Eater has at its disposal someone cool to throw into later episodes, to make the next action kick even better.

I’d be inclined to say that character in general is completely reliant on plotting. A great character isn’t just a believable combination of characteristics, those elements are only compelling in so far as they are effectively deployed. There are characters I can relate to more easily than others, but I’ll only do so if they work within the context of their world. The storytelling gives the character templates meaning - any great character is a sign of good writing.

So far Soul Eater has good writing without any great characters - just take Maka. The show has done more to emphasise her style than her personality, which is just beginning to be established - in keeping with a genre with light development. She’s the workmanlike soul, she offers us father hate, Soul buoying her up when she’s down, and the Resonance of the Souls (Oouuuahhhhhh!!!). We’ve seen her a few times now, and her character is just beginning to be built up, but she’s a fully developed example of liquid cool.

I guess my point is that the second I see a piece of design appear in the show, my reaction to it is already being conditioned by the writer. Like with Stein, another simple but decent piece of artwork, made excellent by his role in the plot (slapstick, but also monstrous). He’s not been made sympathetic, or realistic. He isn’t a great character, but the beginnings of his character fill this neat template with meaning - rounding out his style.

Lest I forget, 5 episodes in, basically nothing has happened. Three episodes of meet the family, then a double-ep introducing Stein, bringing Death the Kid to Shibusen, and explaining Soul Eaters’s power mechanics. Soul Eater is still explaining itself, the plot proper hasn’t got going - few things have weight or significance, everything is fun and stylish.

To contrast it with Kurenai, each episode there is structured around showing the characters to the full. Action shows can’t do that, telling character moments can’t be so common, but well-plotted action sequences reinforce the aesthetics. It’s immediate fun, and it’s also creating an ever-growing array of stylish things, expanding its arsenal week by week. Soul Eater takes your death gods, and makes them cool again. Nobody exactly needed to do that. But it’s been done, and so another shiny pleasure is granted to the world.

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