God Eater

Episode 7

God Eater is such a beautiful show that when the plot is lacking, the contrast is immediately noticeable. This episode ruined some interesting world-building and character development with the introduction of a Deus Ex Machina that sloppily shortcuts to a resolution.

This episode begins when Lindow and his shell-shocked New Types make their way to a human haven. The written description on Daisuki calls this place the Asyl or Asylum, though neither word is used in the episode itself. I guess this is something I'm missing out on since I haven't played the game, which makes me wonder how much else I'm not getting. Here, we encounter the people turned away from Fenrir and discover that Lindow is basically responsible for their survival. He's been smuggling equipment from Fenrir to help them out.

Much of this episode is about Lenka and Lindow, with Alisa relegated to a background role while she deals with her PTSD. I hope you don't hate Alisa yet, though I can understand why her current story arc would start to get grating. When the show resists having her bounce right back, the story displays devotion to real character growth. When the Aragami attacks, Alisa is alone and naked in the bath, her physical state matching how she feels internally. I thought it was strange for there to be a convenient wardrobe for her to hide in, but it allows for a neat visual effect to parallel Alisa's childhood trauma.

Of course an Aragami shows up in the Asylum, though it's a little too convenient that it waited until the God Eaters came to town first. If Lindow and Lenka hadn't been there, there's no doubt the whole place would have been wiped out. We're made to believe that the place has some defenses in the tree-shaped Aragami that attack invading monsters, but they're no match for the Vajra that are common enough to appear in nearly every episode. It's inspiring when Lenka relies on the villagers to defeat the Aragami together, and it's also not very realistic that they'd be able to survive without his help. “You're a God Eater, do something! Don't desert us again,” says one of the villagers that Lenka's group kicked out of Fenrir. Ouch, maybe not the right thing to say to the guy who is trying to save your butts.

The major innovation of this episode is the ampules, some kind of liquid orange Aragami core that seems to repel Aragami when it's injected into them. I'm not sure if these will be explained later, because right now I'm a little confused. If they really are Aragami core like I'm theorizing, wouldn't they be expensive and rare and difficult for Lindow to smuggle out of Fenrir in such large quantities? On the other hand, if they're cheap, why aren't these Aragami repellents being distributed to the average citizen? We wouldn't need God Eaters if everybody had some anti-Aragami in a can.

The ampules were a bit convenient, but that's nothing compared to Lenka's instant evolution during a life-or-death Vajra battle. His God Eater, pronounced dead by Alisa last episode, is alive and kicking, all because he "believed in it." If you ask me, it seemed like he believed in it pretty strongly while fighting the Vajra in episode 5 too, and while he was defending Alisa in episode 6. One of the things that made prior episodes so powerful is that they didn't shortcut Lenka's growth when it was convenient. This showed us how helpless humanity is against the Aragami. This time, Lenka is suddenly superpowered just because he believes? It's another part of this episode that feels a little too convenient. That's why I'm so sympathetic to Alisa's situation, which seems like a more relatable reaction to the trauma of defeat. I'm not saying that a show about defeating giant monsters with a personalized weapon has to be realistic, I'm just saying there should be plot-driven reasoning to explain why stuff happens, not just magic.

As usual, it's the beauty of the execution that wins me over, when the sun is filtering through the ultra-realistic clouds and the show's sweet electronic soundtrack takes center stage. Perhaps I'm being overly harsh, and perhaps everything that I think is a Deus Ex Machina is actually explained in-depth elsewhere in the God Eater canon. Still, I'd just like for there to be some consistency in what God Eaters can and cannot do.

Rating: B-

God Eater is currently streaming on Daisuki.

Lauren writes about anime and journalism at Otaku Journalist.