God Eater (Review)
You’ve Already Seen God Eater. You Just Don’t Know It.
Once more I’m here to tell you that anime based on video games tend to suck. This time I’m referencing the 2017 series God Eater. It’s based on the game series from Shift, and because of that, it’s not a series with the most compelling plot. Instead, it seems to fall back on elements from a lot of other anime, most notably Attack On Titan. In fact, the similarities are actually pretty staggering. That being said, God Eater might rip off one of the better anime series of the past decade, but it is essentially simply a pale imitation of it.
God Eater takes place in the not too distant future were rampaging monsters known as Aragami have forced civilization to move to giant walled cities for safety. Enter Lenka Utsugi (Robbie Daymond) an orphan from outside the walled city that simply hates all Aragami and wants to kill them all any way possible. The thing is that he’s a total noob and needs plenty of training in order to achieve his dream. Luckily, the series is eager to give him plenty of growth opportunities over its 13 episodes and soon he’s kicking ass and taking names thanks to the tutelage of an experienced Aragami killer named Lindow Amamia (Kyle Hebert). Of course, I’m sure anime fans all think that this sounds a little familiar, but I already mentioned why.
One of God Eater’s greatest weaknesses is that none of the characters are specifically interesting. Don’t get me wrong, studio Ufotable comes up with some memorable character designs that are very Final Fantasy-esque, which makes them look very cool in an impractical sort of way. However, the attention to detail doesn’t extend beyond aesthetics. While the series does try to dive into the back story of a few of the characters, the 12 episode run doesn’t really allow it to give the characters the attention they deserve. Of course, the main character Lenka has a mysterious past that’s slowly revealed throughout the first season, but it’s more a catalog of past events rather than an exploration of who they really are as a person. In fact, Lenka is actually pretty bland when it comes to his personality.
Like the character design, the overall animation of God Eater is beautiful. The series uses traditional animation for the background and human characters but switches to CGI when it comes to the Aragami. This gives them a very unnatural look that makes them seem even more monstrous when they attack the world around them. The animation used for them is a bit clunky at times though, but that’s probably because most of them are four-legged creatures hopping around and swiping at their enemies. On the other hand, humans are incredibly fluid which is to be expected since many of them use giant swords in battle. A few use guns, but even then they’re often running for cover from the giant monsters they’re doing battle with. Despite the fact that I wasn’t entirely sold on the premise or the characters, the animation kept me sticking around just to see what sort of awesome action sequences would come next.
God Eater is a series that feels as though it had a lot of latent potential to it. However, it races to do too much over its short 12 episode run. After all, it intends to establish not only a bizarre future world filled with monsters that have put humanity on its last legs, but it also tries to show how that world came about through a number of flashbacks. That alone would be a lot to take in, but it also tries to include breakneck growth for the hero as he goes from a total noob to a squad leader who might just be humanities last hope for survival. Toss in peripheral characters and pretty soon God eater is struggling to maintain its focus and give certain aspects of the show the attention it deserves. Another season could have remedied this, but instead, it rushes too much and a lot of “surprises” come out of nowhere and feel shoehorned in.
While I wasn’t necessarily impressed with God Eater it’s by no means one of the worst series I’ve seen. Instead, I would call it a painfully mediocre anime that tries to cash in on cliches and tropes in the hopes that it can simply ride off those. While the animation is impressive, it chooses to focus too much on superficial aspects instead of investing in a solid plot. Because of this, I say it’s a series that you can take or leave. It’s a quick watch for those who might be fans of the games it’s based on, but anyone looking for a good series to escape from reality with will probably find God Eater sorely lacking.
