The Official MSBS Anime Review: God Eater

Over the course of Aniplex's August Lucky 7, up until this anime review, I have only reviewed two anime series produced by the animation studio ufotable: Fate/Zero and the 2014-2015 TV series Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works. Being established in 2000 by former employees of TMS Entertainment through its subsidiary Telecom Animation Film and located in Nakano, Tokyo Prefecture, ufotable has been able to produce a wide variety of some great anime in just less than 2 decades, appealing to both the mainstream audience and small subcultures that have grown a cult following over some of their projects. Happy people of TheTopTens, I write this on the 26th of August in the year 2016, as I begin my sixth anime review for Aniplex's August Lucky 7. Having endured staying up late many nights lasting as long as 3:00 PM and beyond in the morning in an attempt to complete this marathon of anime reviews before the start of my year as a junior, now I will review the anime series God Eater. For this anime review, I will only focus on the 13 episodes of said series itself, not taking into consideration the prologue special that came six years before the debut of God Eater (though, by coincidence, the prologue special canonically actually also takes place six years before the events of God Eater as well). Now, let's move out, team.

God Eater is set in the year 2071, where creatures known as Aragami have evolved and adapted to become immune to conventional weaponry, pushing humanity to the brink of extinction as they terrorize the land and scavenge for human prey within their range. With urban civilization left in ruins as the human race is slowly being destroyed day by day, an organization named Fenrir was created in an attempt to help save all of humanity, utilizing the use of special human beings called God Eaters, who have been infused with Oracle cells in order to be able to wield unconventional weapons that go by the name of God Arcs, which are the only weapons capable of defeating the Aragami. In the anime series God Eater, main protagonist Lenka Utsugi just so happens to be one of these God Eaters, being classified as a New-Type, giving him the ability to transform his God Arc into a sword and a gun. With this, Lenka Utsugi must now master using his God Arc and work alongside his allies in his determination to kill every last Aragami there is on the face of the planet in order to save the human race.

NOW BEGINNING ANALYSIS OF ANIMATION, ART, AND MUSIC. If you recall, I said that the animation studio behind God Eater's animation production was ufotable. Now while I didn't like the animation at first and thought that it wasn't as good as the animation for Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works, I actually grew used to it and found it to be perfect for matching up with the series' tone and atmosphere. And if there's one thing that I liked the most about God Eater, it would be the spot where it really shines: its action. Oh my God, the action sequences and fighting scenes in God Eater were all basically eye candy for me! Trust me, if the first thing that you look for in an anime series is its action, God Eater will definitely have lots of it. I also want to give two big thumbs up for the CGI utilized in God Eater, specifically on the CGI models of the Aragami, since they looked very realistic, a trait that I've come to expect from ufotable themselves. Oh, and in God Eater, it absolutely showed no fear in showing off tons of gore and blood throughout the series run, kind of like how Akame ga Kill! was very explicit with depicting bloodshed in its own series. Everyone lusts for a good old blood shower once in a while, don't we all? Moving on, as for the art of God Eater, it's actually pretty legit and solid. It seemed that ufotable really gave it their all for the art of God Eater, whether it be the detailed backgrounds of the post-apocalyptic wastelands of what were once grand skyscrapers reduced to rubble or the trademark claymation character designs. If that wasn't enough, I even read on Wikipedia that ufotable used hand-drawn animation over CGI to animate the God Arcs, which is quite astounding considering you would expect all of God Eater to be animated by CGI. Once again, ufotable manages to create a boundary between executing both traditional and computer animation in an anime series targeted towards the mainstream. Finally, I would like to give some praise to the opening and ending songs of God Eater along with its OST as well. Feed A by OLDCODEX was a pretty badass opening song with its rock and roll riffs and auto-tuned vocals of the waging war between the God Eaters and the savage Aragami. Meanwhile, Kouhai Chi by Go Shiina feat. naomi was quite a serene and beautiful ending song, contrasting with Feed A in terms of how Kouhai Chi brought a feeling of peace and harmony while Feed A gave a sense of fighting a mass evil in the midst of chaos and loss of hope. Then there's the ending song for episode 5 called Human After All by GHOST ORACLE DRIVE feat. BiSH, which felt very gloomy and heavy-handed to listen to, especially since it went along well with how the episode concluded. As for the OST, only one word can describe it: awesome. I was listening to a few of the soundtracks on YouTube on my smartphone while riding in a car with my family on our way to the mall when I found some soundtracks that really stood out to me and became my favorites in the entire series. Some of them include Maintain Maintain, Have You Ever Seen, and Sunday in case you wanted me to name a few. To put this in one sentence, the animation, art, and music for God Eater are great, mate.

ANALYSIS OF ANIMATION, ART, AND MUSIC COMPLETE. NOW BEGINNING ANALYSIS OF STORY. Alright, so I'm going to explain this as short as possible since there isn't much to say. As this is a 13-episode television anime series, there aren't really any official arcs to name in this anime, though the anime does focus on what life in God Eater is like, such as Lenka's resolve to wipe out every Aragami there is on Earth, exterminating Aragami while evacuating civilians to safety, and even a subplot involving a special Aragami which eventually grows into a major conflict later on in the anime. In addition, the anime does utilize flashbacks a lot, which all did their job of being relevant to the characters who had the flashbacks. There's also a lot of tension and suspense in God Eater, because you never know what is going to happen next, whether it be if a character is going to die or if our heroes are either going to succeed or fail with their given objective. But I think the one thing I liked the most about God Eater's story was Lenka's character development. I really liked how he started as a weak underdog at first, but grew stronger over time as he would eventually evolve into one of Fenrir's greatest defenders of humanity and become a natural leader. While there were other characters such as Alisa Illinichina Amiella and Soma Schicksal who received some character development as well, no character's development stood out as much as that of Lenka's character development.

ANALYSIS OF STORY COMPLETE. NOW BEGINNING ANALYSIS OF CHARACTERS. To start off, we have our main protagonist Lenka. Kind but determined and ambitious to take out the Aragami and make a better world for humanity, though cliche, Lenka's personality is admirable. Speaking of cliche, many people have been comparing God Eater to Attack on Titan due to them both having similar premises and protagonists. However, that doesn't mean God Eater is necessarily a ripoff of Attack on Titan, because I'm pretty sure we can all agree that stories about monsters threatening the existence of humans has been done many times. Anyways, Lenka is actually pretty great for a protagonist for the God Eater anime, considering that the canonical protagonist of most of the God Eater games named Yu Kannagi is known to not actually have a personality of his own due to just being an insert character for the player who plays as him in the games. Moving on, there's Alisa, who is one of Lenka's allies in God Eater, acting with the intention of being the strongest New-Type God Eater there is and preferring to get things done on her own. However, as the series progresses, parts of her back story mixed with character development along the way are shown. So I'm pretty glad she's not just a character in God Eater for the purpose of fanservice, because I know how most people nowadays are tired of trends like that. Then there's characters such as Soma, a young man possessing a hard exterior who has a tragic past that still haunts him in the present, Lindow Amamiya, who is perhaps the most badass character I've ever seen in the entire anime considering he can get the job done without fear, and Kota Fujiki, who is an optimistic teenager who is good friends with Lenka and can be considered as being an occasional comic relief character for God Eater. Now while I wouldn't be quick to nominate the characters of God Eater for Best Anime Character Cast of the Year, for what they are, the characters aren't that bad and are actually pretty decent.

ANALYSIS OF CHARACTERS COMPLETE. NOW BEGINNING ANALYSIS OF FLAWS. God Eater isn't bad, but I'm afraid I did have a few major problems with the anime. First, I often felt like the plot was too slow-paced at times, so I would usually find myself occasionally getting bored while watching the series during said times. Second, while characters such as Lenka, Alisa, and Soma received proper character development throughout God Eater, I can't really say the same for other characters such as Sakuya Tachibana, since in this case, she could have had her own character development, but was never really looked upon once it was presented the first time. Finally, by series' end, while the anime was able to give an epic resolution to a recurring main conflict, it also opened up a lot of new plot details and answers, most of which were never expanded upon, as God Eater ended on a cliffhanger.

ANALYSIS OF FLAWS COMPLETE. NOW BEGINNING CONCLUSION. For an anime based off a video game series for the purpose of celebrating the franchise's fifth anniversary, God Eater could become the next Tales of Symphonia The Animation in the making (after all, ufotable also did animation production of many TV series and OVA series from the Tales series). In reference to a title of a YouTube video relating to God Eater, God Eater truly is the darkest anime of 2015. Though it isn't exactly a perfect anime series (as much as I hate to admit it, no animation studio is perfect, not even ufotable), God Eater has just about all the things everyone likes in an anime. Its action-packed action, rad music, invigorating plot that will have you begging for more, and characters you shouldn't take for granted are all enough to make this series great. With newer anime series being produced by ufotable such as Tales of Zestiria the X, I'm positive ufotable will continue to be an excellent animation studio. So in the meantime, I really hope they release a second season of God Eater. YOU CAN DO IT, UFOTABLE! I KNOW YOU CAN! So now I end this anime review by giving my final score for God Eater:

8.0 out of 10.0 stars

Next anime review: The Official MSBS Anime Review: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Until then, peace!

Comments

Good review, I'll read the next one. - Skullkid755

GREAT REVIEW - visitor