It’s only awesome when it makes Maka crazy.
I’ve never understood the use of black blood as a censoring device. Most of the time, the DVD cuts of the anime show that that’s all that’s been done to censor the violence. In my opinion changing the colour of the copious amounts of blood spewing from Makoto’s and/or Sekai’s body doesn’t really have the intended effect of making it more suitable for television. Just because it’s a different colour doesn’t mean people are going to mistake it for something else, thinking “wow, he sure had a lot of ink pouches on his stomach, chest and in his mouth.”
I mean, I understand the general idea behind the technique. Because people associate blood with the colour red, changing the colour means that it’s not as startling and to a certain extent dilutes the shock factor I even understand why it has to be black, considering the fact that any other colours would seem obtrusive or ridiculous in certain situations (holy shit, he be bleedin’ green jelly!). Unless it’s Dragonball Z, where half the show’s filled with aliens, but unfortunately that’s not the case for most anime (seriously, anime needs more aliens). That kind of brings me to my next “point”.
If you really wanted to censor the show, instead of making it mildly less gory, why not (as many censors do) use cut-away shots, place huge honking lines across half the screen, or just simply replace that footage altogether rather than being half-assed about it and making the blood a different colour? Or is this some sort of strange attempt to tantalise a small portion of otakus who simply have to see red blood spewing across their screens for an all authentic experience of a show? The Americans did it in their god awful terrible abomination of a localisation of the Z series so why not simply apply the same concept to the series of today, only with less suck?
But perhaps I should be thanking these censors who perhaps abhor their own job and should be grateful the fact that at the very least I can see characters who seem to be hellspawn born from the darkest pits of Hades bleeding all over the place rather than an inconveniently placed pipe, rail or shadow blocking the bloodiness in all its glory. Does this mean I have a strange fascination with blood? Perhaps. But at the very least I can thank ‘kitsune that I still hate Twilight.
Grand Punk Railroad 
I only trust Baka-Raptor to censor anything. When he censors, he does it in a manly way that you just shut up and like it.
What do I have to do with Twilight?
What?
Thank go— oh! Oh. I see. You’ve recognized me. Cool!
Indeed, the whole black blood thing doesn’t exactly accomplish much. I never gave censorship much thought, but looking at it objectively, I don’t see how changing the colour of the substance makes it any less objectionable in the eyes of some. I mean, you don’t see anyone “censoring” hentai with crazy colours and low-quality mosaics and showing it on TV, and I don’t think Mnemosyne would have been any less gruesome even if the blood were bright pink…
Having not read the manga, I didn’t realize they changed that aspect at all, and honestly, I don’t really think I care. I mean, to me, it’s still blood, and the only thing “special” about it is its particular properties. In that sense, the black blood distinguishes it from “real” blood, which is useful for clarity. Then again, if this is completely different from the original concept, I can see cause for complaint — is it?
We should go back to the Batman-style POW!
It might’ve worked well in School Days.
If it aired in Germany, it would have been green blood, where all the characters are actually robots.
I think part of the reason they settle on something like black blood is because they really do hate to censor it. In order to actually get it aired, they have to at least give the appearance that they tried to do something to make it less intense.
@ghostlightning
I sense a love of being a servile in that statement ^^.
@lolikitsune
^^bb
@ETERNAL
They would’ve had to add funny noises and slapstick too.
@Kiri
This wasn;t to do with any manga in particular, just a general statement on anime censorship. But if you were a fan of a manga where this occured, then you’d probably be annoyed. Then again, manga being black and white kind of takes away the whole reason for the argument…
@Baka-Raptor
STAB! STAB! QUELCH!
@Shin
Unless this is a reference to Blassreiter, I dunno what you sayin’.
@Emperor J
Then who are they actually trying to please? Bored housewives with nothing to do but make complaints to their local television station?
Well, it is a known fact that Germany is very sensitive towards graphic violence and have been known to go through great lengths in censorship, an example being this one game called Carmageddon which I believe was the first one to infamously receive such a treatment. As for anime examples, the only one I can think of is Naruto, where Zabuza’s sword handle was censored out entirely, along with all traces of blood.
tl;dr Blood in Soul Eater would have been green if it was aired in Germany.
@omisyth
They are trying to please the idea of a person who would complain and then lead some sort of protest against them. It’s much safer to go the horrible censorship route than it is to maintain artistic integrity of a scene. It’s pretty much unthinkable that a Japanese network could stand up for a show at this point considering the limited audience and potential loss of advertisers.
I actually wanted to see the blood that was spewing out of Makoto and Sekai. Once they showed me black ink, I facepalmed. Why not just ERASE the blood from the show? 😐
I’d rather see black blood than something with bars, off-angle shots, “please wait” screens or a number of other possible edits… At least they didn’t erase the blood and make sharp-pointed objects into jokes like Luffy’s fight with Krieg on 4Kid’s One Piece. That was just a insult!