By Atsushi Ohkubo. Released in Japan by Square Enix, serialized in the magazine Shonen Gangan. Released in North America by Yen Press.

There’s a lot not going on in Soul Eater at the moment. The author is still setting up his world, so what we see here is a lot of short fights and ‘school’ stuff. I’ll be honest, it doesn’t really grab me. I find the storyline typical shonen, with the souls merely an added frisson. Likewise, the lead characters to date have done little to make me like them, and Black*Star and Soul can be actively irritating at times.

There is, at least, some humor to tide things over, though it tends to be of the goofy and stupid variety. Not surprising in a manga like this. Much as I don’t really like them, the two boys’ attempt to team up was not only funny but over very quickly, thus preserving the joke. And the relationship between Dr. Stein and Maka’s father is gleefully perverse and twisted.

However, there’s one big reason that you may want to read this title, and that’s the art. Note that I would not call the art great by itself. However, the combination of style, backgrounds and world gives Soul Eater a feel that is very hard to find in the shonen world. It’s almost art deco at times, filtered through a corpse-like lens. The insanely grinning constellations, the spike-drenched buildings, the bizarre accessories… I want to find out more about them. Not because of the story, per se, but because they simply LOOK interesting. It’s Soul Eater’s main selling point.

If this sounds like a weak recommendation, that’s because it is. Any manga where art is more interesting than character and plot is going to run into trouble. But Soul Eater was not exactly aiming high, anyway. It’s a shonen romp, filled with serious fights and goofy fights, and the occasional morbidity (nice to see a shonen series not afraid to kill people off, though I suspect the leads will have immunity). It’s meant to look cool to teenage boys, and thanks to its style, I think it succeeds. I’m not sure if I’ll keep up with it forever, but it’s earned my taking a look at a third volume.