Now let me be the first to admit that I was pumped for this. I saw the PVs, I liked the art of the phone game and fanboyed at the fact that HITORIE was doing the opening song. And who could blame me for feeling this way? I wasn't expecting a lot but I was expecting something. Lo and behold, the first episode was one huge edgefest. And from then on, I stopped caring. So why am I writing this review? Basically, to inform you, the potential viewer, to stay the fuck away.
Let's start with the story. In its premiere, Divine Gate introduces us to a world of... I have no fucking idea. And that, right there, ladies and gents, is the biggest problem of Divine Gate. In a fantasy type story, it's mandatory that you explain the way your world works in a smooth and organized way, having important information matter to the viewer and giving the details early on without going through an infodump and most series do this through good use of exposition, much like Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and even Sword Art Online. Divine Gate explains diddly-fucking-squat. I can't call the world building anything because there is none in the first place! They show us all these neat aspects but put zero effort into explaining what they are, how they work or why we should give a fuck in the first place! And the results? Plot holes as far as the eye can see! The story takes all different kinds of directions that constantly create these subplots that ultimately amount to nothing. To give an example, this is what the usual Divine Gate episode boils down to:
- Characters are doing something
- Characters are suddenly doing something else
- Several second shot of some aspect of the world we've never seen before nor will we ever see again
- Back to doing the characters being ass
- Something bad happens
- Resolved with shitty action
- Several minutes of edgy dialogue
- Characters being ass again
- Roll credits
On the topic of the characters, they all suck ass. Let's start off with our beloved main character who can out edge even the roughest square in the galaxy, Aoto. While he is your stereotypical emo kid with a darker than darkness itself past, the creators decided they wanted to make him worse by making him probably the edgiest character in the entire season. How edgy you ask? Throughout episode, we're shown him eating only cold food so someone found the reason why. And the answer? Drumrolls please!!--------- "Just like your cold heart, you can only eat cold food". Yes, it was even better than you could ever possibly imagine! Thanks to this new discovery, scientists everywhere decided to add an entirely new shape into the world of geometry called the Aotogon, consisting of an infinite amount of refined edges only possible in a fucking anime. The rest of the cast were stereotypical and awfully one-note with piss-poor development and just as shitty dialogue, including edgy fire-user, edgy staff-user, edgy-trio no one cares about, edgy-round knights, edgy-male saber, edgy- evil clown, edgy-deities, edgy-top hat, edgy-dad, edgy-brother, edgy-BFF and fucking Santa Claus.
Now I have a bad habit of writing reviews for shitty series that just happen to have good art and animation, but not in Divine Gate. Studio Pierrot has proved time and time again just how shitty they've been doing the past few years. Ever since Naruto saw its end, the quality of animation and direction deteriorated and this is has never been more evident in this show. The CGI looks terribly dated and unpleasing to the eye as were the colors that didn't have a good sense of contrast. The animation itself is fuzzy, glitchy and makes for some pretty bad action sequences and this is mostly the fault of the direction which didn't stand out at all and was sub-par at best. The score is overall unmemorable save for a few piano pieces that are stuck in my head at the moment that I may forget very soon.
We're finally boiled down to the question, does Divine Gate have any merits? Yes, it does. And that was with the opening song, HITORIE's One Me Two Hearts. If I had to choose the best opening of the season, it was definitely this. It sucks the viewer right into the series through some decent imagery before going right into the chorus with a huge BOOM! "NEE! SONO KOKORO KAISHITE YO, TOBIRA WO AKETE SHIMAU KARA!". Not a reason to watch, but is still worthy of acknowledgement.
So did I enjoy Divine Gate?
...Meh. It's easy to stop caring about the series and just laugh at everything bad about it. It may make you want to stop living but I can assure you, this show can only go so far.
Overall, shitty world building, shitty characters and pretty bad production has earned this series a 3/10. I do not recommend this series to anyone unless you're a masochist or if Konosuba wasn't funny enough for you.
