God Eater 07-09 [INTERMISSION]
The terrifying future of bodybuilding birdmen.
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…I had this joke written out about a “most delayed anime award” regarding God Eater, Kizumonogatari and Kekkai Sensen, but that was made irrelevant with the announcement of the Kizumonogatari film trilogy and the last episode of Kekkai airing on October 3rd. …Anyways, God Eater will have the rest of the episodes airing in the winter. Oh well. I tried. Now on to the (late) last review of summer. |
Well, things happened, Lenka was led to a city where life isn’t too terrible for the non God Eaters, and regular human beings proved that they’re also capable of doing useful things without fancy giant living swords. Yay for the resilience of humanity! I guess Lenka’s sword isn’t entirely dead either, and it wasn’t that his sword sucked, but that his body was just too awesome for it, so it broke. He’s also too awesome for his own body too, so he’s going to die pretty soon. Despite my tone here, Lenka is alright as a protagonist still. He’s not ridiculously overpowered compared to everyone and not a one man show. He still needed Lindow’s advice to push him forward.
Plus the whole inevitable death thing really sucks for him.
Though now with the anime following the game’s plot of Lenka eventually becoming a leader for his team, he suddenly seemed to gain excellent skills at commanding people in battle. I guess this progression makes sense, since he needs good command skills to become leader in the first place, but at the same time, this is coming right after he had his ass kicked completely by the Pita. I guess his tactics in the village were a sign of this and there’s not really room for a montage of training, but it still seemed kind of sudden and he never really showed any signs of being good at tactics (and seemed to have a “let’s save everyone and run in head first!” mentality in the first few episodes). Oh well, he’s now leader material. I guess he matured somewhere in here. Plus maybe this just feels abrupt because there were so many gaps between episodes, so things really didn’t seem to flow well.
Some of the other team members were looked in to as well. Alisa is obviously still having issues (plus a shady doctor), Lindow is looking into suspicious things that the higher ups don’t like, and Soma is the first God Eater of sorts. It’s nice that they’re fleshing out the other characters now since that gives the team more behind it than just a bunch of people in impractical clothing who fight monsters.
I feel like a fault of the anime is that it tends to explain things just a little too late. Like Lenka’s injury and high compatibility where we sat for a few episodes wondering why Erik died in the first few episodes from far less than what Lenka ever suffered. Or for the people watching this without ever touching the game, the general state of the world went pretty unexplained for the first few episodes. It’s nice that they didn’t spend episodes on nothing but exposition, but at the same time, a lot of people seem to go by the 3 episode test and they’re less likely to stick around if they have no idea what’s going on. There needs to be a balance, and this probably didn’t do that for most people.
Instead, Madhouse opted for trying to the audience want to do the characters.
Then there’s how they just never explained things in the anime that the game just lets you know right away. Lenka asked why the Aragami haven’t eaten the trees yet, but the anime never explained Aragami eating habits in the first place. They just seemed to assume that people would know that Aragami eat everything and that’s why everywhere is just one big wasteland. But I guess the withholding of information also works in reverse, where the game never explained that the Aragami literally pop out of the earth. The game also never went into how the apocalypse happened in the first place.
At least this wasn’t Chaos Dragon…? Though honestly speaking, God Eater isn’t that terrible. It’s just… average, despite the production behind it. Maybe I would view this better (maybe more people would too) if it had aired more frequently with less delays. I mean, it looked pretty good throughout the whole run so far, and the storyline/setting is much more coherent now than it was at the beginning of the anime. Plus it’s adding more perspective than the game ever gave, which is really nice to see from a game to anime production. I feel like that doesn’t happen very often. It’s just unfortunate that Madhouse had Unlimited Budget Works come out just a while ago, so they’ve probably been busy with that and not giving God Eater the attention they could have.
About Karakuri
University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
To preempt the resident bracelet complainer: That is what happens when you cannot take off the bracelet. Necrosis. He is going to lose that arm.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
DAMN! That explains everything so perfectly. …But he’s not even voiced by Yuki Kaji!
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Never trust anything people say you’re supposed to have on you for the rest of your life.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Yes, God Eater is average but it’s a hell of a lot better than the smoldering trash that is Chaos Dragon. No grand story to tell but at least the former was enough to pass as a decent means of killing time.
The biggest problem series had to deal with was irregular episode delays. Already it wasn’t popular to begin with but the delays further turned away anyone who had little interest. By the time those remaining episodes arrive, about 90%, maybe more, of the population will most likely have forgotten about this series.
I was happy to see the refugees who were pushed out of Fenrir were able to find shelter. However, it’s looking to be a short lived dream for them now that the town’s cover is blown. The risk of incoming occupation is moderate but I hope nothing drastic happens.
Soma’s backstory was somewhat insightful. I guess it’s earned him some sympathy since for the most part, he’s been rubbing me the wrong way with his lone wolf, condescending attitude. But when you’re unjustly being labeled some harbinger of death, I guess it’s only natural to want to distance yourself. His mother raised her own death flag, though. Easy to tell she’d die the moment she volunteered for the experiment.
Now that Lenka’s condition is known, it’s a wonder why he isn’t taken for testing. From what’s said, what’s happening to him is unprecedented. If one has that kind of affliction, there’s no reason to believe it won’t occur with future God Eaters.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Hahaha God Eater is lucky that it came out the same time as Chaos Dragon. The winner of “worst anime” was pretty clear there.
Hmm, yeah that was a pretty big turn off regarding the anime. It definitely put me off at least.
Yeah, I was expecting something awful to happen to the kid after the carnage in the previous episodes. Hopefully nothing happens, but maybe Fenrir will take away their means of defence or something, screwing everyone over. It’s not like they’re doing anything wrong by living there, but Lindow stealing supplies for their defence trees probably isn’t looked on kindly.
Hmm, that is a good point about Lenka. Though he is needed for the plot (and becoming a new leader), so it’s not like they could…
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1557 comments
I agree with you Karakuri on Lenka’s leadership role. Based on the OP I assumed eventually he would take numero uno God Eater position. Rindou has already been sidelined from the main action, and now a friendly-fire death flag has been raised. Only that it didn’t feel natural, just because he nearly lost his god arc and he had familiarity with a collapsed building, all of a sudden he’s leadership material?
My biggest problem is the characters, in that how they’re presented I just don’t really feel attached to anyone. The suspense isn’t there either, even though we know Johannes is planning something that no one else on the base is anticipating (except maybe Rindou and the doctor). I feel very detached from the whole thing, that I’m as likely to reach for the popcorn and chat as watch the screen.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Yeah, I thought it just kind of seemed… sudden. I’m sure he’ll be great from now on but I would have enjoyed to see him ease into the role a bit more gradually.
Ah, that’s a big problem too. Though from the game, I don’t think I was ever overly attached to any of them either from the story alone. It was more “hey, they’re useful on missions! I’ll just do every mission with them when I can”.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1557 comments
I think I have a tendency to build my own backstory with characters and create my own attachments in games. That happened to some extent with Fire Emblem (I created my own ideas of relationships between the cast), and definitely with the Disgaea series. I had a whole command structure and related workings for all the characters I created, and their own personality quirks which would guide how I would use the characters.
I don’t have a PS4, but I’m looking forward to doing the same with Final Fantasy Type-0 ^^
I just wish they would put some more effort to making me root for any of the characters. And I also wish the flashbacks would stop being so random and just an excuse to drop hints of the story here and there.