Soul Eater NOT!, Vol. 1

ソウルイーターノット! [Soul Eater NOT!] #1

by Atsushi Ohkubo

Ding-dong! DEAD-dong! Class is about to begin, and you don't want to be late on your first day of school! Join Tsugumi Harudori in the NOT class at Death Weapon Meister Academy, a school dedicated to training transforming Weapons like Tsugumi and the Meisters who will wield them. Many NOT (Normally Overcome Target) students aspire to join the elite EAT (Especially Advantaged Talent) class, but it may take Tsugumi some time to find her confidence-and a partner-at this crazy school!

Genres: Manga, Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Comics, Shonen, Supernatural, Young Adult

208 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 2011

About the author

OHKUBO Atsushi

Atsushi Ōkubo ( 大久保篤), also romanized as Atsushi Ohkubo, is a Japanese manga author and fantasy artist known for his work on the manga series Soul Eater, which has been adapted into an anime. Okubo worked as an assistant under Rando Ayamine, on the manga series Get Backers. He also created artwork for various cards for the Lord of Vermillion game.

Atsushi Ōkubo was not a model student and was more attracted to drawing than to learning. At the age of 20, after finishing studies at a manga school where he met Rando Ayamine, the author of Get Backers, he became Rando Ayamine's assistant for two years. Finally, he won a competition at Square Enix's Gangan magazine with his first manga series B.Ichi and it was published for four volumes. After the end of his last manga, he created Soul Eater, still for Square Enix's Gangan magazine, which brought him worldwide success.

Reviews

[Ian Morando · Rating 2 out of 5]

Me aburrió y me pareció poco interesante. Las pibas se me hicieron simpáticas, pero no lo suficiente como para seguir leyendo un spin-off slice of life la verdad.

[Camille Kuth · Rating 4 out of 5]

i feel like this is better than the anime, or maybe i am biased cause i really hate the anime

[Chitsuki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Soul Eater's main series so I tried out this sequel/spin-off. What I personally like about the main series was all the drama, fight scenes, hilarious adventures but this series is WAY too shoujo, WAY too pink and rather different from the main series. I read the first 2 chapters of this and I gave up. I can't really like this series after the halloweenish, badass, humorous main series. I would rather recommend you read this series first if you have these same 'Cannot accept the shoujo genre after the main series' disease.

[Avril Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really nice spin-off of one of my favorite anime: Soul Eater. It's really funny and the characters are not that bad. It's more like Soul Eater with moe added to it.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

This looks like it is going to be a really cute series!

[MoonStar · Rating 4 out of 5]

is it like the original show "Soul Eater"? No. BUT... Is it good? YES! the art is stunning, especially the backgrounds! and I think *personally* that the characters are really cute- It is also really wholesome, and I love it for that :] Overall, 7/10 pretty good :D

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

koncowki sie takiej nie spodziewalam jakby COOO

[Kat (Lost in Neverland) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This takes place around the same time the regular Soul Eater manga takes place, except it follows different main characters.
Every once and a while though, you'd see your old favorites (Maka, Soul, Black Star, Kim, Ox, etc. No Kid for this volume though. :( ) and that was a nice touch.

I really enjoyed this manga, but the artwork was extremely poor. However, Atsushi Ohkubo is known to have crappy artwork, so I ignored it.
If you love Soul Eater, pick up this charming spin-off series.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this. The characters are interesting and the storyline was good for the first one.

[bella · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first read this in middle school and for years have been an avid defender of it.

Don’t get me wrong, I still am, but now reading this as a college student I can definitely see issues that little twelve year old me didn’t. Mainly the weird sexualization of the young characters. While sadly common in this sort of media, is still *weird* nonetheless. And some little comments here and there that make a person go “hm…”

But nostalgia still riddles my brain and I still find it a cute, relatively light-hearted read. I only started rereading it because I finally managed to find the first volume again (I initially read the first volume at my local library, and then bought the rest of the series) and wanted to go back in time for a little bit.

Though I did reread this while on a car ride with my mom and grandma next to me, and well…that certainly was an experience.

[Drucilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review is for the entire series (5 vol.). So besides the disproportional amount of fan service, I thought this was a pretty good series. The characters were varied and the story was fun. Surprisingly, it was actually a great companion series. It's a prequel, which works really well, and gives the reader a better understanding of DWMA and certain events in Soul Eater. It also brings in characters and situations from the original series. But the things from the original series don't overpower it. Ohkubo does a wonderful job of balancing both; pleasing fans of both the original series and this spin-off. Maybe not such a good job on the fan service, though.

[pau]

I’ve bought this book in 2021 and I just read it today for the first time. I didn’t know that this was a spinoff lmao.

The book is good, nothing big, I bet you’ll forget about it in an hour, but it’s a light and entertaining comic when you are reading it.

The main characters are nice I guess.

Since o haven’t read the original story I don’t really know how I should feel about this series, so that’s why I’m not giving it a rating.

[Christine Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cute spin-off to the OG series! We get to see the old characters pop up in this new story about two meisters and one weapon (don’t say it)

I read volumes one and two, the first 5 chapters were cute intro but the next 5 fell flat until the end Omg that cliffhanger got me. Might keep reading but probably not since I’m a failure at finishing series. what can I say

[☽ Jess ☕️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Je ne connais pas la série de base, mais ce spin off est plutôt sympa. L’idée que certaines personnes sont des armes démoniaques est originale. Je suis plutôt intriguée par les événements et curieuse de la suite.

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aww this was the cute start to an interesting (but slightly off the wall) story arc idea. I really liked the proliferation of WLW love in this volume and also the artwork. Again, *drool* — there are so many good manga artists out there! Delicate pen and ink work is so gorgeous!

[Lava P · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is one of my top five favorite books. The plot was so entertaining I didn't want to put it down. I loved all of the characters personalities. If you want to read this book I recommend you watch/read "Soul eater" then this book.

[Allie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fun! I really liked it.

I found out when I went to post this that this is a companion story to Soul Eater. Oops! I haven't read that. But regardless, I really liked this.

[Rachel Teferet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as good as the actual series, and I thought the art was kind of weak :-( won’t be reading the rest of the spinoff series!

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interested in reading more. Love these new characters in the Soul Eater world.

[cia sunshine ☭ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Only read the copies I had because they were taking up space, and I have the goal to read every book on my shelves. I don’t know why I even own these or where these came from, but I hated it.

[Myrna ♡]

Apparently this is a spinoff 💀 didnt realize that .. maybe now I’ll read the og series idk

[georgiaotaku · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5* I mean�� it was okay. I have them all so I’ll read them but I don’t see the point of this series.

[Mikey The Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Characters are charming, setting is semi interesting, story so far is slow, not sure I’ll continue this one but art was decent as well.

[Allison · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the first manga I've ever read and I thought that it was just okay? I didn't realize it was a spin-off when I picked it up so maybe that had something to do with it?

[Laya · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a great book!!

[Natalia · Rating 3 out of 5]

XDD

[Scott Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too shojo for me. Seemed well enough done, but definitely not my kind of thing.

[M · Rating 2 out of 5]

Es como la versión slice-of-life de Soul Eater, la historia de 3 chicas yendo a la escuela. Si bien están guay todos los paneles de peleas, tampoco es que la historia sea un shonen de lucha en su totalidad, y tampoco tiene el tono cómico de Soul Eater. Los personajes que más destacan son Akane y Cray porque precisamente son los que toman la parte más dinámica, cosa que le hace flaco favor a las 3 protagonistas por no estar llevando la voz cantante en ningún momento. (Y bueno, los miles de chistes de tetas con Meme, pero siendo Ohkubo es algo que era de esperar)

[Alicja Kaczorowska · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5/5

[Theresa ♫ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alright, this is my first review from my iPhone's goodread's app!

You know...the same app that updates the wrong status to the wrong book at the worst of times...T_T For this review, I hope for the best!

Anyway, if this does end up being a pretty lengthy review, it just proves that I handled all the ninjetic typing over an iPhone screen. (Keyboards are way more comfortable!)

Anyway...Soul Eater NOT...


My dearies, I started Soul Eater (the anime) not too long ago. IT WAS AWESOME!!! It ranks as #3 on my favorite anime list! (After Lovely Complex and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.)
And...I love Soul Eater (the character with white hair). GAAAAAAAAAH he's so ninja.
The anime is just really awesome. TOTALLY RECOMMENDED FOR THOSE WHO LIKE THINGS LIKE NARUTO...and Bleach...and anything else thats action-like.

Anyway, after all that action you get from Soul Eater...you get a series that's NOT Soul Eater...that's like a total GIRLY VERSION!!!


I got this copy from my local library. I zipped through it. And through the whole thing, I was like...WHAT THE HECK IS THIS?!
If you've read or watched the original Soul Eater before, you'd notice that this version is way different. It seems more shoujo. Even the cover is pink.

The main girl in this series...Tsu...(forgot her name. DERP) is a weapon that can't really control how she transforms, so she's at the academy to train so that she can control it and live a normal life.
I mean if she doesn't learn how, one day, shed probably suddenly just shift into weapon form and it'd probably scare people!!

So this is pretty interesting. It starts at the beginning when she first arrives at the academy. Unlike the original Soul Eater where on the first sight of the main characters, they're already all ninja-trained and HOOOOOYAAAH!

Overall...this story is a little girlier, and it's probably because there's more girls, and more pink...It's so different from Soul Eater! And...T_T I sorta miss Soul Eater. There was a crossover with Maka and Soul Eater in this series, but...this series isn't based on them anymore, so...NOOOOOOO I don't think Maka and Soul Eater will make big appearances in this manga.
I was so focused on Maka and Soul that I couldn't even remember the main girl's name...(sigh).

But I should probably finish watching the anime before I continue reading Soul Eater NOT.


3 stars. It was okay, yeah. Interesting idea. New characters. The art's cute.
But I did honestly find myself skimming through a little of it.

If you've finished Soul Eater (wait, it's still ongoing, isn't it?) and you want more, give NOT a try.


Heeeeh!! Boring review! I'll stick to computer/keyboard reviews.