God Eater

God Eater is like spoiled milk. It doesn't get any better with age. Now that this show is over, we can all breathe a sigh of relief when we clean that proverbial spot out of the refrigerator (our anime lists) that the fermenting cow squeezins are in the trash, and gone far far away from us. At this point in time, I think most people have blissfully forgotten about God Eater, so I'm going to dig this rotting corpse up out of its shallow grave and run it over with a dumptruck again. You tell me what's worse: a ripoff of an classic, or aripoff of an extremely successful ripoff of an old classic? I'll tell you what's worst still: a terrible ripoff of a ripoff of an old classic that shamelessly TRIES to be something new, but sticks to the conventions of its hack fraud origins, to its own failure. That's what we call God Eater. Seriously, this show is so bad that they halted it halfway through its run due to internal issues and poor reception- the rest aired more than 6 months later to a quiet death. I doubt anyone watched it then, either. Maybe besides me. Artwork and Animation: 7 I think most people (myself included) started this show because of interest in the company that produced it: ufotable. They're pretty well synonymous with "maximal animation budget", but Fate this is not. I do have to hand it to them for being different though. The art style looks like oil on canvas, then on top of very stylized and crisp backgrounds. Kind of like David Production's Jojo, but less comic book-like. A lot of people were expecting a Fate UBW level/ultrarealism looking, and were disappointed, but I was impressed with their choice to do something different. However... this is the only strength of the show. Sound and Voice Acting: 1 These cast members should be straight ashamed of themselves. Talk about phoning it in... this is a Central Park Media level BAD performance. Ultra generic angsty teen yelling and the absolute most bored sounding adults permeate this trash. In fact, it would have been better as a silent series, because then I wouldn't feel like my ear drums were being put into a wood chipper. Either that, or just play the Benny Hill Theme throughout the entire show, to accentuate how stupid it is. Story: -10 Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell you that God Eater is copying Attack On Titan. If I tell you "humanity lives inside a city with very tall walls, and are constantly under attack by monsters. They're defended by a group of people who aren't equipped to fight this massive threat. They suffer loss after loss, a lot of people die, and it seems hopeless, until a hero with new powers emerges and is able to fight back." What do you immediately think of? Moving on. Now that the show is actually complete- here's what happens: Nothing. It's nothing a but a mindless action vomit featuring overpowered, but conveniently weak at inopportune moments characters falling into the same traps every single episode. The "story" just serves as an excuse to put tits and teen angst on display with comically superpowered characters.This is undiluted, brainless schlock and nothing more. Characters: 1 Standard issue whiny, angst ridden, shonen protag and oversexualized Female companion who suffers mental breakdowns for half the show and turns into a sniveling pile of useless crap, and should have just died, but alas, twas not to be. The supporting cast is a ragtag group of apathetic losers. One super cool dude who smokes in every scene, because he has to show you how little he cares by smoking all the time, as everyone knows smoker characters are apathetic edgemasters. One is a "dark mysterious edgy past" character, and the other is total yawner of a woman, not even interesting enough for me to make a description of how boring she is. Enjoyment and Overall: 3 Since I gave the story a -10, the actual score is 0.6. Scoring it as low as possible with a 1 gives me a rating of 3. This show was actively offensive on many levels. The one scene I can clearly recall from the show, as I've scrubbed the rest of them from my memory, went like this: Protag and useless blubbering female go running around in circles trying to evade the monsters after they lose their weapons, since the chick decided to break down in the middle of a fight and refuse to keep living (should have left her to get eaten, tbh.). They are shown in a montage literally running up and down hills and around buildings, with this ultra dramatic music in the background. It was the most cringeworthy thing I have seen in a long time, and the only reason why anything about this show was memorable, just for how bad this was. I would encourage everyone who knows what I'm talking about to go back and mute the episode at that point, then play the Benny Hill theme on top of it and tell me it doesn't match up perfectly. For those who'd argue about my claim of Attack on Titan coming first: It's debatable which actually came first, God Eater Burst, the video game on which this anime was based, or Attack on Titan, as both came out at around the same time. AOT premiered in September of 2009, and God Eater Burst appeared in February of 2010. Naturally, games have development periods of generally at least a year, but novels and series have to have time to be written as well. But, we're going to call this anime a rip, because AOT came out 3 years ago, and this is 2016, Bob Saget! As always, come rage at me, or leave nice comments. I don't care.

Ever wanted to go to an anime fantasy world and see what it’s like? Maybe that thought should be put on-hold for a show like God Eater. In this series, it’s a world that most people probably wouldn’t want to visit. Why? Because it takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where mysterious monsters known as the Aragami exists and they aren’t exactly there to make friends with humans. Based on a video game, God Eater strikes to me as a peculiar series that really needed to hook the audience. The type of hook should be something that would keep the audience at the edge oftheir seat. But what does it really accomplish? A rather messy start that doesn’t exactly leave strong impressions. In essence, God Eater (based on the game, God Eater Burst) is more about the action and less about constructive storytelling on most parts. Consisting of 13 episodes, the series seemingly has promise in the beginning. Despite not being very original in its premise, it still has a way to be unique. In the beginning, we have Utsugi Lenka, a man who is part of the Fenrir, a group dedicated to fighting the Aragami. Among his group, there are also others with reasons to fight beyond just survival. Furthermore, the show makes it clear that in order to fight against Aragami, they would need special weapons. As such, God Arcs are created that are made from the cells of the Aragami. They are weapons, each unique in design and powers, to fight against them. Basically, this sets the story in motion with the war between humans and Aragami. Now, God Eater’s characters are somewhat diverse. We got guys like Lindow who has leadership skills, Alisha with her repulsive yet secluded nature, the brains of the team like Sakuya, or powerhouse fighter Souma Schickal. Whatever the case, the main characters are all banded together with a common purpose – to destroy the Aragami. What some people may not realize is why they are fighting until the story unravels more about more about their past. And to be quite honest, it’s not really that special to look at. Or rather, it’s tragic with cases like Lenka and Alisha. So much so, the show often highlights their emotions on the battlefield when confronted with Aragami. Does this type of storytelling really work? In some ways yes, but other ways feels less welcoming. It also gives a very Attack on Titanish feel if you make a parallel comparison. But God Eater isn’t Attack on Titan. It’s more about surviving because the Aragami has already destroyed much of the world. I have not played the original game before but the story to me feels flat. Yes, it does have some nice buildup but the pacing itself feels strange. The Aragami are also too one dimensional as antagonists with lack of characterization. The main characters and their relationships are hardly worth noteworthy either. Lenka is the type of guy that seems to do what he wants even if it puts himself or others at risk. The first few episodes establishes this when he nearly gets himself killed. Throughout the show, Lenka forges some relationships with others but most of them seems to go nowhere. His relationship with Alisha seems rocky while on a professional level, Sakuya and Lindow seems to see him more like a rookie. His relationship with others does improve a bit later though. In the meantime, the series also makes it clear that there’s no room for lighthearted episodes. It’s filled with utter despair and as such, expect more of emotional drama more than anything else. Romance isn’t something that will ever bloom either considering circumstances in their world. Instead, it feels like the main cast are more like an awkward family that slowly and slowly feels a connection with one another. Despite the generic storytelling, God Eater does a decent job to make sure crucial plot holes are filled. These include the essence of the Aragami, the experimental plans from behind the scenes, or character pasts that shapes who they are in the present. Furthermore, the show has some pretty neat action combined with a stellar soundtrack. It makes the show feel credible when we see how they fight the Aragami in this apocalyptic world, a place that seems to be almost extinct of life. The world fiction in God Eater may also not feel very intriguing but it stays true to the premise, being that it’s desolate and easily gives the feel of a moody story. The technical art style of God Eater is very ufotable-like with their style. Most of the character designs and Aragami are crafted with CGI animation. In addition, the action is fused with a lot of violence to illustrate the dark horrors of their world. However, I do have to say that it’s easy to get used to. Furthermore, the God Arcs has a distinctive look that makes them look diverse. In essence, artwork for God Eater has an intense feel to it. Soundtrack is even more intense once you get attached to the style of this God Eater adaptation. Theme song performances has a variety of style that blends between moody, charismatic, and intensified by the action. Furthermore, I think the character voice mannerism deserves some praise especially with how they adapt with such a tragic world. In retrospect, characters shows the desire of their fighting spirit through their voice mannerism in the face of danger. Or at times, there’s also fear that is expressed by the talent of the voices. God Eater is really a hit or miss show. It starts off with the tragic feeling of a dark story, transits into the fight for survival, and then littered with emotions. The show capitalizes on creating a tragic feel by background storytelling and some characterization. But for all it’s worth, the show itself feels more like a game rather than anime. The action, while stellar, is mere popcorn entertainment. Furthermore, the series constructs its story with weird pacing. So in retrospect, take the show as a grain of salt for what it is. Because in the end, God Eater isn’t that special.

*SOME SPOILERS FOR GOD EATER* Whew. I'm glad I wasn't there during the massive delays... Ah, God Eater. An anime adaptation of a video game. I haven't played the game, but from what I've gathered, it didn't recover much criticism in terms of being an adaptation as much as being a story. Ufotable's attempt at a 3D mixed with 2D action anime, and an interesting beast (intentional joke) if I do say so myself. What originally started back in the Summer of 2015 kept getting delays that lasted until episode 9 in the Fall season, before announcing a delay so big, it only finished airing this season(Spring 2016). Well, was it worth the delay, or did it get devoured by the fangs of failure? Let's find out, shall we? STORY: 5/10 An unspecifically long time ago, three scientists discovered a type of cell that caused small phenomena. Soon, an outbreak would occur involving new beasts seemingly intent on wiping out mankind, nature, and effectively, all known life, before eliminating itself and Earth, causing everything to reset. A few years later, after some backstory, Lenka arrives at Fenrir as a God Eater. A person filled with genes that allow usage of living weapons designed to counter this new species knows as the Aragami. These God Eaters are trained to venture out into the outer territories of the wall (and outside maybe) in order to counter these invading threats that bring mankind to near extinction. If this sounds similar to Attack on Titan, then good. You've caught on. Also, I like how they try to interweave the present to the past that gets relevant to the situations at hand, even if there are some notable problems regarding the sanity of Fenrir despite them normally being portrayed as solace only the gifted are allowed to make it into. Also, I like how they portray how harsh the reality of only certain types of individuals being able for combat aka a decent mean of living and survival as intermission between fights can be. Unfortunately, towards the end, they try to amp up the weapons in ridiculous fashion and handwave why they should, only to fail at making a compelling finale, and when the true antagonists get revealed, they lack a decent motivation for their messed up plans. The story is nothing special, but with the final episode, the scenarios that should've killed the main protagonist but somehow didn't, how certain things involving the weapons were allowed to happen starting with episode 7, and how little finality the ending had by only resolving one minor issue and completely sequel baiting with nothing to get truly hyped about, the story doesn't hold up all that well, like at all. Plus, there were at least two moments where the main lead should've died or at least have been rendered useless for a long period of time, but somehow were toughed out simply due to him being a main lead. CHARACTERS: 6/10 Leanka is a decent protagonist with a level headed, kind yet somewhat reckless, and kill them all/protect everyone mentality. Unfortunately, the show DOES put him in situations where he either should have died, or shouldn't have had much repercussion. His backstory wasn't all that impressive aside from the last 4 minutes of it, and he never really develops. Nobody does. With such a short runtime, we can only flesh some of them out, like with Alisa and her traumatizing backstory and Soma with his sad and honestly unfortunate life, even if both of them start off unkind. The other God Eaters are handled alright, even without being fleshed out or developed much. The researchers were nicely done, up until we realize that one of them, namely Johannes, is the true antagonist of the series with no good reason. Even still, our God Eaters were overall pleasant, like with Alisa's past catching up to her in brutally realistic fashion, or Rindou being a charismatic and badass leader with a good eye for suspicion and a positive effect on Leanka's backstory at one point. Basically, they're all underdeveloped but all around, relatively decent. ART: 8/10 The artstyle Ufotable did was exemplary given the unique artstyle, even with some minor oddities here and there. The artstyle for the characters, backgrounds, God Arc weapons, and attacks are incredible, especially given the fact that they are different that Uoftable normally does with say, the Fate/ series. The weapons look pretty slick though. Most of the fights were well done too, even if the final fight and one of the moments in episode 3 got incomprehensible at points. Unfortunately, the Aragami end up holding it back from a high 9 or low 10. These monsters were entirely CG and they weren't integrated all that well. Some of the designs are downright terrible. Who thought that a mutated Jango Fett's Slave 1 was a good idea? It's a shame that they weren't as good as everything else in the show's art department, since that aside, this series looks exceptional. SOUND: 7/10* *SUBJECT TO CHANGE IF A DUB COMES OUT* The OP is rather cool and fitting for such a harsh world like God Eater. It's definitely a rockin' and catchy track too. The ED, I'd rather plain and weak. The track called Human After All by GHOST ORACLE DRIVE is a nice emotional piece, even if it is the only track in God Eater that's truly worth remembering. A lot of songs were done with auto tune vocalist, and don't really stand out or sound that good to be honest. Auto tune isn't one type of music I enjoy, with a few exceptions, like say, Paresyte OP. The rest of the OST was merely decent as well. ENJOYMENT: 7/10 This may not have been a truly great or spectacular series, but it was an enjoyable one nonetheless. The action was mostly solid, and the visuals of the characters and weapons were a big factor in that. The last 4 moments of episode 10 aka the end of Leanka's backstory mixed with a good montage of inspiration for his confirmation of his decision, were also satisfying. Overall, I found it to be a solidly fun time, and the first two episodes in particular made me have some good hope for the series, even if it didn't entirely fulfill them. OVERALL: 6/10 RAW SCORE: 64/100 Overall, God Eater was a decent action show with a nice artstyle, some ok leads, and some nice moments of somberness and fleshing out. However, the CG usage for the Aragami, and the final episode, as well as the other problems mentioned above, cut it far too short of being all that good. If you want some decent action with a sleek art style and don't require a whole lot else, then this is a great show for you. However, for those who want that extra mile, this may not be all that satisfying. With that said, I bid you adieu.

This review will contain minor spoilers since I can't fully discuss some characters without mentioning certain things about them. As somebody who played the God Eater game, I was very excited when it got an anime adaption. I had always felt that the story would translate very well to an anime and that the Aragami fights would be really fun to watch animated. So, was this the masterpiece that I hoped for or was it the disaster that I feared? Well, it was somewhere in the middle. There was more good than bad actually, but because of my disappointment with the show compared to myexpectations, I'll start with the bad. The biggest issue with God Eater is Lenka. Let's make it clear from the start that I feel Lenka single-handedly knocked a couple of points off of the show's rating. The original game did not have a true protagonist. The protagonist was simply a player-created avatar that served one purpose: give the player someone to play as alongside the rest of the characters. Ufotable's decision to create a true protagonist would not have been quite as bad had they not made Lenka so boring. He's bland. He's an Eren clone. He has no personality. His seiyuu is very uninteresting to listen to. He gets inexplicably stronger as the show goes on as well rises through the ranks for seemingly no reason. He was just a bad decision all around. Ufotable would have been much better served just rolling with a collective group of characters (Lindow, Soma, Kota, Alisa, and Sakuya) all being co-protagonists if Lenka was the best they could do for creating their own protagonist. Speaking of those other characters, none of them were properly developed in the anime. Lenka steals way too much screen time (and largely boring screen time at that- though I did like his flashback episode quite a bit) from them. Soma is one of the most complex characters in the game. He's unpleasant up front and doesn't like working with others, but he has a real soft side to him. The reason he doesn't working with others is that they so often die and he's tired of it. On top of that, the guy is part Aragami. The anime touches on his past only a little bit, and doesn't give him nearly the screen time he gets in the game. A lot of this is due to a certain character not being introduced in the anime much to the dismay of fans of the game as she is a very important character. She was essentially responsible for about 70% of Soma's character development, which explains why he feels like such an unfinished product in the anime. It was hinted at during the last couple of minutes though that this character may be introduced in season 2 if there ever is one, so maybe that will happen hopefully. Alisa is also very complex but her development is rushed way too fast. She has pretty bad PTSD, and they do a good job covering that intially, but how the PTSD affects episodes 9 and onward was not handled correctly at all. She deserved to be fleshed out more but it just didn't happen. It felt like they focused too much on the PTSD itself instead of the consequences of it. Sure, they hammered home the point that she's basically crazy, but nothing too bad really happens because of it. It pretty much got swept under the rug in the last few episodes when it should not have. Sakuya and Kota are nothing special, and they weren't handled too improperly. I feel they did the best job with Kota out of all the characters. He got a lot of screen time and they did a good job with his character overall. Sakuya could have been more developed (they barely touched on her past with Lindow), but she is a pretty bland character to begin with so no big complaints. Lindow was actually handled very well, so I won't write a lot about him. He got the most screen time next to Lenka so it was hard to mess him up. The story for the God Eater game is also very good, with 2 main "halves" to it. The anime only covers about 25% of the game in total- or half of the first half if that redundancy doesn't bother you. I'm not going to bitch about them not adapting the entire story because I understand that wasn't possible in 13 episodes. Still, I would have liked for them to handle what they did adapt better. It seemed like the major plot points were either rushed or dragged out- there was no middle ground really. I was very happy with the way that episode 13 ended though as there were multiple hints at the rest of the game's story. Who knows whether it will eventually be adapted, but it was satisfying to see them acknowledge the later events and lay the groundwork for a possible second season. For all my bitching about Lenka and how he took so much important screen time away from the rest of the show, it overall was not bad. The story was still solid overall even though they could have done a better job. The flashbacks featuring Johannes and Paylor were a welcome addition that the game did not feature. They were overused, but they served the purpose of providing background for the creation of the Aragami. They didn't do a very good job of explaining exactly what God Eaters are and what their powers are, but they made up for it by giving an excellent backstory for the Aragami apocalypse. The animation is also extremely fluid and makes the fights more entertaining. Overall, the fights were disappointing simply because they weren't quite as action-packed as expected. Maybe it's just my personal bias as someone who played the game but the Aragami just went down way too easily most of the time. But even though the fights were underwhelming, they were nicely animated at least. The art is also not bad, although I feel it is unnecessary. Ufotable did the prologue OVA for the game as well as all cinematic cutscenes in the game, and they looked just fine. There was no reason to use such a unique and somewhat lazy art style when they had animated the title before with a much cleaner-looking art style. The character designs suffered the most from this. It looks good overall (especially the environments which look great) but it had its problems. Also, I didn't think the CGI Aragami looked too great either but they weren't terrible. People who are not fans of CGI will likely be put off by the Aragami though. Great soundtrack overall. It was very nice to hear songs from the game like "Of God and Man" during flashbacks and "No Way Back" during the final episode. It's a shame that "Over the Clouds" couldn't be used as that is the iconic song of the game, but the rest of the soundtrack was good enough to make up for it. The voice-acting cast is also stellar with the exception of Lenka. Lindow especially stood above the rest with Soma a close second despite his lack of screen time. Even though I was disappointed overall with the anime adaption, it was still an enjoyable watch. Though a lot of the game is still left not adapted and the characters were underdeveloped compared to in the game, it was still a solid 7. It would have been an 8 without Lenka, but he simply stole too much screen time from the rest of the characters as well as the overall plot. I'll say it again; the game had no "true" protagonist outside of a player-created avatar. Ufotable messed up trying to create a protagonist for the anime series. Other than that it was solid and I'm honestly just happy that it did indeed get an anime adaptation. Story: 6 Art: 7 Sound: 9 Character: 5. The roster is actually pretty good but too many of the characters were left underdeveloped and thus hurt the score. Enjoyment: 8. I still enjoyed it despite the fact it did not live up to my expectations. Fun to watch for anyone who is an action or post-apocalyptic fan. Overall: 7. If a second season ever occurs, I feel it will be much better. I doubt it will happen though after they had so much trouble with the first season.