At this point in time, I think most people have blissfully forgotten about God Eater, so I'm going to dig this rotting corpse up out of its shallow grave and run it over with a dumptruck again.
You tell me what's worse: a ripoff of an classic, or a ripoff of an extremely successful ripoff of an old classic?
I'll tell you what's worst still: a terrible ripoff of a ripoff of an old classic that shamelessly TRIES to be something new, but sticks to the conventions of its hack fraud origins, to its own failure.
That's what we call God Eater.
Seriously, this show is so bad that they halted it halfway through its run due to internal issues and poor reception- the rest aired more than 6 months later to a quiet death. I doubt anyone watched it then, either. Maybe besides me.
Artwork and Animation: 7
I think most people (myself included) started this show because of interest in the company that produced it: ufotable. They're pretty well synonymous with "maximal animation budget", but Fate this is not.
I do have to hand it to them for being different though. The art style looks like oil on canvas, then on top of very stylized and crisp backgrounds. Kind of like David Production's Jojo, but less comic book-like. A lot of people were expecting a Fate UBW level/ultrarealism looking, and were disappointed, but I was impressed with their choice to do something different.
However... this is the only strength of the show.
Sound and Voice Acting: 1
These cast members should be straight ashamed of themselves. Talk about phoning it in... this is a Central Park Media level BAD performance. Ultra generic angsty teen yelling and the absolute most bored sounding adults permeate this trash. In fact, it would have been better as a silent series, because then I wouldn't feel like my ear drums were being put into a wood chipper. Either that, or just play the Benny Hill Theme throughout the entire show, to accentuate how stupid it is.
Story: -10
Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell you that God Eater is copying Attack On Titan. If I tell you "humanity lives inside a city with very tall walls, and are constantly under attack by monsters. They're defended by a group of people who aren't equipped to fight this massive threat. They suffer loss after loss, a lot of people die, and it seems hopeless, until a hero with new powers emerges and is able to fight back."
What do you immediately think of?
Moving on.
Now that the show is actually complete- here's what happens:
Nothing. It's nothing a but a mindless action vomit featuring overpowered, but conveniently weak at inopportune moments characters falling into the same traps every single episode. The "story" just serves as an excuse to put tits and teen angst on display with comically superpowered characters.This is undiluted, brainless schlock and nothing more.
Characters: 1
Standard issue whiny, angst ridden, shonen protag and oversexualized Female companion who suffers mental breakdowns for half the show and turns into a sniveling pile of useless crap, and should have just died, but alas, twas not to be.
The supporting cast is a ragtag group of apathetic losers. One super cool dude who smokes in every scene, because he has to show you how little he cares by smoking all the time, as everyone knows smoker characters are apathetic edgemasters. One is a "dark mysterious edgy past" character, and the other is total yawner of a woman, not even interesting enough for me to make a description of how boring she is.
Enjoyment and Overall: 3
Since I gave the story a -10, the actual score is 0.6. Scoring it as low as possible with a 1 gives me a rating of 3.
This show was actively offensive on many levels. The one scene I can clearly recall from the show, as I've scrubbed the rest of them from my memory, went like this:
Protag and useless blubbering female go running around in circles trying to evade the monsters after they lose their weapons, since the chick decided to break down in the middle of a fight and refuse to keep living (should have left her to get eaten, tbh.). They are shown in a montage literally running up and down hills and around buildings, with this ultra dramatic music in the background. It was the most cringeworthy thing I have seen in a long time, and the only reason why anything about this show was memorable, just for how bad this was.
I would encourage everyone who knows what I'm talking about to go back and mute the episode at that point, then play the Benny Hill theme on top of it and tell me it doesn't match up perfectly.
For those who'd argue about my claim of Attack on Titan coming first:
It's debatable which actually came first, God Eater Burst, the video game on which this anime was based, or Attack on Titan, as both came out at around the same time. AOT premiered in September of 2009, and God Eater Burst appeared in February of 2010. Naturally, games have development periods of generally at least a year, but novels and series have to have time to be written as well.
But, we're going to call this anime a rip, because AOT came out 3 years ago, and this is 2016, Bob Saget!
As always, come rage at me, or leave nice comments. I don't care.
