Last time on God Eater we left off with 1st squad heading out to save Alisa from her plane, that was being attacked by a ton of Aragami. Lenka is still on thin ice and Lindow is not about to let him forget it before the mission. After all Lindow wants him to succeed, so he’s going to make sure that Lenka can prove himself to the higher-ups.
Now this episode we get a good look inside Alisa’s personality and maybe a peak at her back story. While she’s almost stoic while in combat, she doesn’t act that way when interacting with people. I like this because it shows that she’s smart enough to differentiate situations. It gets old when characters are just stoic all the time for no reason. She also has a very, either caring or dutiful personality towards people around her. After all, she prioritizes everyone else’s safety on the plane, even when she could have gone away with 1st squad if she wanted to. She also takes this opportunity to comment on how certain people aren’t looked at with value by the military. These feelings could mean that her family was abandoned by military forces and left to fend for themselves. Which would explain her sense of compassion and duty.
She fights almost with a sense of recklessness and instinct. For example, when she hops off the plane and is jumping from Aragami to Aragami slashing them open. I mean she’s literally nowhere near the plane but manages to get back on board every time. Clearly she either has insane skill or is gifted like Lenka. Speaking of Lenka, after Lindow spills the beans of him being a New-Type she gives off a little hint of Jealousy on her face. She may have a superiority complex and feels special in the fact that she’s so strong that everyone can depend on her. Having Lenka around may seem threatening.
Lenka on the other hand really proves himself in this episode. As opposed to earlier he is able to control his transformations very fluidly. Almost too fluidly considering he’s had little to no practice at all. This might contribute to Alisa’s jealousy seeing him accel too quickly. And just like Alisa he cares about the people more than the mission. Even at the expense of failing the mission and getting in even in more trouble, he decides to help Alisa protect the plane and its passengers. I’m starting to see signs of kindred spirits here, but I’ll have to wait to see them interact together to be sure. If they don’t get along very well, that’ll be a sure sign.
Now I have earlier complained about how even though the animation looks incredible in this show, they don’t seem to use it to their advantage. Up until now all the action scenes seemed basic and bland. But throw that out the window because the animation fucking rocked this episode. Very fluid characters moving in insane movements, camera pans alongside the action that you want to see, and awesome perspective shots with movement going on in the background. Even if the story doesn’t go anywhere I think the characters and the animation may be a reason in itself to keep watching God Eater.
Speaking of the story it’s getting really annoying with these black and white flashbacks. They pop at random times to explain things that are going on in real-time and it just seems lazy. Half the time I don’t care what’s going on in these scenes because I’m being taken out of a breathtaking action shot. This show needs to learn when and where to drop exposition on its viewer and maybe deliver it better. In not against the flashbacks, but when they pop up so abruptly it sort of ruins it for me. Like there’s a point where an Aragami evolves and is able to beckon other Aragami to fall in on itself. Then we get a flashback explaining what we just saw. Why did we need that? The scene earlier already explained that.
I mean there are times where exposition happens in the story that feels natural. Like when Alisa has run out of ammo and her God Arm devours an Aragami to recharge. This explain’s and foreshadows so much about the God Arm’s but feels natural and congruent with whats going on with the show. The same can be said near the end of the episode when they see the enormous Aragami in the distance. Now we know something about Aragami as well as the state the world is in. Even though they may have triumphed now there still is something out there that if it made a move they wouldn’t stand a chance.
So I can confidently say this was the best episode of God Eater yet. Sure there are still a few things that need to be worked out but the fun is still there and it doesn’t seem to be letting down anytime soon. All I can hope for is that God Eater doesn’t end up devouring itself when it gets to the actual plot of the show. Because no matter how good the animation and characters are, if the plot gets so far up its own ass that I can’t see sunlight anymore I might have to give up on it.
