Honestly, I don't even think that SnK is first in this genre. It goes much further in the history of anime, like... 80s. All those huge aliens and mecha fighting, you know. There's basically nothing original about the Evangelion premise, right?
But what do all these stories have in common? We enjoy them! We enjoy those innocent children, who symbolize the future of humankind, fighting strange unknown evil, which is growing every day, causing everyone to fall into despair. That's why the number of those "generic" anime series keeps growing. And God Eater is doing a good job.
As soon as you get over the unoriginality, you will start to enjoy those little differences. There is nice story developement that even explains some of the past events. The main hero is not a complete good-for-nothing, he has some previous life experience (which reminds me a bit of Terra Formars and I do like that type of character). The amount of despair is... delightful. Well executed violence. Nothing is black and white, or more like: everything is dark. You are left wondering after every episode whether are there any chances of humanity surviving. Even the morally strong protagonists have major character flaws. Even the biggest hopes will be stained with bloody disillusion.
People here praise the animation. For me, it was one of the weakest aspects. It is undoubtedly well done, but it just feels weird to me. Distracting. Very CGI-like. One of those animes where you watch first episode and think: wait, is this... video game adaptation? Looks like it.
Anyway. If you can't get enough of action sci-fi shounen genre, go ahead and watch this! If you're looking for deep, thoughtful stories with delicately designed personalities and unusual enviroment, go search somewhere else.
