Less Than Divine: "God Eater" Review

Genre: Action, Futuristic

Lenka Utsugi - A New-Type God-Eater

Humanity On the Verge of Extinction. Monsters Infiltrating Their Last Bastions of Hope. Sound Familiar?

"God Eater" by Ufotable animation studio, probably best known for "Fate/Zero" and "Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works", has a titanic familiarity to it. Somewhere between "Attack on Titan" and "Neon Genesis Evangelion", "God Eater" was born.

And yet, thus far the new action-based anime has fallen short of those anime which it seems to mimic in many ways.

Lenka Utsugi is a survivor from the badlands, a world outside the protective walls of human strongholds. His motivation for living: to kill the Aragami, a race of bakemono evolved from powerful cells with the ability to adapt rapidly. The only way to fight the Aragami is with the help of weapons crafted from the very same Oracle Cells from which the beasts were derived.

After displaying great promise and prowess in battle against the Aragami, Lenka is adopted into the dwindling military force surviving in Japan. Other strongholds exist around the world, but travel and transport are dangerous and difficult.

Of course, Lenka's innate skills translate into the ability to use a highly sophisticated God Arc weapon known as a New-Type. His weapon is somewhat similar to a Final Fantasy VIII gunblade in that it can act as a sword and shoot, but the whole build-up to this revelation seems trite and forced, as does Lenka's fighting skill growth.

So much about this anime seems forced or rushed. And the characters themselves are ubiquitous tropes which we have seen time and again in anime throughout history. While the show itself seems to be somewhat like "Attack on Titan" on the outside, it lacks the gradual characterization and development that draws you into the bakemono bloodlust which Eren Jaeger develops. At the same time, there is a clear similarity in the upcoming relationship between Lenka Utsugi and another Russian, female New-Type user, Alisa Illinichina Amiella, to "Neon Genesis Evangelion".

What this anime lacks in smoothness, cohesion, characterization, storytelling, and fun, it tries to make up with clunky action, ominous flashbacks, and mimicry of the anime canon. Unfortunately, these steps were not enough to make the show any more interesting.

I will likely continue to waste my time on it, but I wouldn't recommend that anyone else does.

Rating: 0.5 out of 5

+ Lindow Amamiya, coolest of the cool

- Poor action sequences

- Forgettable protagonist

- Subpar animation

- Boring backstories and development