God Eater

Episode 9

I watch science-fiction fantasy shows like God Eater in order to escape the real world for a while. So when the show has an airing schedule this erratic, it absolutely affects my enjoyment. It's impossible to look at episode 9 and judge it purely for its standalone content—its context in our world must also be examined. As an episode, this week's installment is fairly strong, with beautiful imagery, new exposition, and a powerful message. As the final episode of God Eater until an unspecified time “this winter”, it has left me cold.

Many God Eater episodes are titled after the individual god eaters themselves, but that's not always an indication that they will be strongly featured in the episode. Case in point: last week's episode was named after Sakuya, but turned out to be all about Lenka. Soma fans will be glad to know that the aloof God Eater's namesake episode really is about his backstory. For a long time, Soma has been limited to playing the tough guy trope to quickly familiarize him with the audience. Unfortunately, this character-building episode simply turns him into a more complex archetype—a tough guy with a secret, warm-hearted exterior. God Eater hasn't dedicated itself to creating unique characters, so viewers probably weren't expecting anything better. The show did deliver on more relevant audience expectations with a new wrinkle in the origin story of this world's human-engineered apocalypse. As the child of two scientists, Soma is intrinsically connected to the events of the past. His mother, the scientist Aisha, died in childbirth while conducting some risky sounding experiments in utero, designed to make Soma a killing machine. She succeeded, with some unintended consequences. There's a theme in this episode about passing the buck to the next generation (the scientists did it, Major Anamiya is doing it, and Lenka encourages Soma to do it), and for some reason it's glorified as a good thing. If you've lost hope, this episode says, try to train somebody who still has hope to do the job. Pray they get it done before they see what you've seen—that the situation really is hopeless.

“Have you ever seen an Aragami being born?” Major Anamiya asks Lenka. Soma's own birth is paralleled with the births of these monsters in an expertly crafted metaphor. Like the Aragami, Soma's birth is successful thanks to this trio of hapless scientists. Like the Aragami, Soma is seen as a harbinger of death, and it's no wonder Soma sees himself that way too. Through God Eater's usual heavy-handed dialogue, Lenka attempts to undo years of trauma with one well-timed quip during a life-or-death situation. “You didn't kill your Mom. You were a harbinger of hope!" he says, quoting the flashback almost exactly. The moment is ruined when Soma almost accidentally kills Lenka (oops), but it's not like he knew Lenka was currently dying from a cancer that manifests as a psychedelic bruise on his wrist! For two episodes now, we've been left on the cliffhanger that Lenka is very close to death. Naturally his main character armor will keep him safe, but at what cost? We don't get to find out until winter.

That's the problem with this episode of God Eater. It's the last one we're getting for a while, the latest in a long line of delayed episodes, nonchalantly ramping up its plot even though I won't remember a thing by the time we get to our next installment. Some of the show's more fascinating plot points are already starting to become hazy. Is anyone going to remember what the Bias Factor does by the time episode 10 comes out? Does anyone still remember what the ampules do? God Eater worked hard to pack in plot points while eschewing both the opening and ending theme, but I'm still going to have to go back and rewatch the previous episodes before the winter episodes come out.

When God Eater eventually comes out on Blu-Ray, any new viewers who find this review in the archives may be confused by its negativity. After all, God Eater is a beautiful show that expresses its message through powerful visuals rather than words. However, a lot goes into the making of a positive anime experience, and timeliness is important. When a weekly TV show is stretched out to bi-weekly, monthly, or worse, it loses a lot of its steam and a lot of its charm.

Rating: C

God Eater is currently streaming on Daisuki.