Why black blood suit Soul is peak character design: an in-depth analysis🖤
Soul Eater and its art direction fascinated me in many ways, but the one part that stood out to me the most was definitely everything about the black room. Having a degree in art and self teaching myself for years on storytelling through visuals, i can finally put into words why Soul in the suit is not only my favourite design in all of SE, but one of my favourite character designs of all time!
Artstyle of the media is not really something people frequently bring up, when talking about individual looks of characters, but i think its a crucial thing to discuss. Distinct art direction not only helps the work to stand out amongst the sea of other media, but can elevate or break a design.
Soul Eater has a very recognisable visual identity.
Theres a huge focus on distinct solid shapes instead of deliberate detailing, which makes character designs have recognisable silhouettes, clear shape language and simple yet striking colour palletes. These guide viewers eyes to most important parts of a body.
Each at least somewhat major character also have unique and distinct facial features, showcasing different personalities through more than outfits and body types. They especially get to shine when characters get emotional in one way or another - both manga and the anime adaptation are very expressive, and that really brings characters to life.
Looking at all this in regards to Soul specifically, he embodies these elements strongly: though his body shape and clothing elements aren't particularly eye catching, a unique hairstyle makes his silhouette recognisable amongst his fellow SE characters, and aspects of SE artstyle such as strong shapes, shortened, smaller torso, lanky limbs with enlarged, distinct shoe wear and hands, help to identify him next to characters from many other different media.
Through the silhouette especially it is clearly seen, that his primary shape is triangle. And it is not only visible through the spiky hair, but it is his shark teeth, his eye shape and a cutout of his suit.
In shape language, triangles are representing energy, danger, sharp intellect, unpredictability, and are more oftenly used for villains - that is why Medusa shares rectangular motiv with Soul, and they both happen to oppose Maka with her round, circle based features representing softness, friendliness, unity, peace - triangles and circles are opposites.
It is not the only shape i see in his design tho. Under certain circumstances his eyes appear sharp, but for the most part they have more of a square shape, which makes his gaze, and through that his vibe give a sense of reliability, security, complacency - says a lot about his character, huh?
And what says even more, are the colours. His usual attires go through plenty of colour combos, but the black suit sticks strictly to black, red and white (not including the skin tone). Interesting how these are also shades of his own weapon counter part - when Soul is in his mind space, he is the most connected to his weapon self.
But whats more interesting, is what do these represent? On surface level, my dumb aah for years couldn't connect the dots that the outfit is literally his own blood: natural human red, and artificial demonic black. Black suit mostly covering the red shirt underneath is signifying black blood overwhelming normal one at the moment.
And on a deeper level, what i actually been overanalyzing for years, is how these colours perfectly represent Soul's character
Red - his passion for art, love he feels towards people he's close to, his will power and determination to never let his own demons overwhelm him and cause harm all around. On the bad side, it could mean all his best qualities turning into worst, if he would choose the path of madness: passion turning into obsession, love and self sacrificial tendencies turning into dominance over others for his own gain, determination being put to complete whatever evil, selfish goal he sat up until he succeeds.
Black - his stoicism, stability and protection he serves to others, his reliability, his inner strength, his discipline. Its also some of his saddest qualities: extremely closed off nature, his long term depression, his cynicism. Black is also colour of sophistication and elegance, which definitely connects Soul to his upbringing and environments of his original home.
In a combo these two colours represent drama and danger - Soul is definitely dramatic when it comes to music, and the feats his piano can be used for is a menace to whoever he consideres to be an enemy.
Jazz music is also heavily associates itself with reds and blacks, helping to reference Souls interests and background even more.
What about the white of his hair and stripes? White is a colour of purity that Soul provides with help of Makas abilities, scorching out madness with music. It’s a balance Soul finds between his fears, insecurities and strengths. Its a hope he is to others and to himself: its always stood out to me how brightly his hair shines between overwhelming blacks and reds of the room, symbolising how he is his own light amongst the dark. On the dimmer side, white could represent his disinterest in a lot of things in life and coldness, that his avoidant attachment style might make him and whoever is trying to find a way to his heart feel.
Colours can also have vastly different meanings, depending on customs of different peoples from all over the world. Considering that SE is a japanese work of art, it makes the most sense to look into meanings of its culture. I'll leave these definitions i was able to find here, to speak for themselves (since my essay is already kinda long)
https://en.japantravel.com/blog/symbolic-colors-in-japan/61005
One of the last points i want to make, is to compare Souls suit to Makas dress - a duo is supposed to look good together, right? Having both outfits be primarily black is an easy way to unite them colour pallete and aesthetics wise. I already mentioned earlier, how these two have opposing shapes motif, creating great dynamic - Makas flowy dress, bow on the back and ribbons in the hair contrast with Souls sturdy suit folds and edges. Their eye and hair colours create just as much of a contrast, as the shapes do: Makas earthly, natural, positive in vibes green and blonde are drastically opposed by Souls dramatic white and red clash, both fighting for dominance over making his colour pallete feel cold or hot.
While Maka has more detailing to her, being her shoe lace, frills of the dress, the bow and the ribbons, Soul makes up for it in colour - notice how Maka has no red on her to reflect her weapons shirt? That's a perfect detail to represent their change in power dynamic - Soul is the one leading during their dance, Soul is the one to stay sane and be ready to pull the stop lever, when his partner succumbs to madness entirely, Soul is the one to guide everyone, Maka included, whenever he performs any kind of maneuever with his piano. Red is a colour of dominance and leadership.
And at last, a few points i want to mention, that weren't big enough to have their own dedicated sections
- I think the suit having stripes is a perfect amount of detailing to make the fit visually catchy just enough. And they are balncing out the hair colour, that would be a sole splash of white in the look otherwise and drag viewers attention to itself too much
- In my opinion this look is at its best, when Soul is depicted with a distinctly tan skin colour - it divides his hair, eyebrows and eyeballs with different tonal value in-between, and adds nice spalsh of yellowish shade to a design as a whole: yellows drives really well with black, red and white
- I wasn't able to find anything specific in terms of jazz fashion being referenced in the suit, but i can tell you that its general aesthetic matches the kind of stuff musicians were performing in during the 20th century - photographs of Thelonious Monk specifically, shown him playing while wearing pretty similar looking suits
This variation of Souls design fascinates me in a way of how it combines visual storytelling, amazing colour theory, great shape language while staying very simple. I will never get enough of it, honestly.
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