The unending war of gods and eaters begins here...
"2071. The Far-East. The land of the violent "gods"."
The official tagline.
God Eater is an 13-episode anime adaptation of God Eater, which after two delays, began airing on July 12, 2015. The first nine episodes aired during the 2015 Summer season and the final four episodes were held off for 2016 Spring season.
Adapting the events of the first half of the original gamenote , the anime revolves around the rise of Lenka Utsugi, a vengeful young man who voluntarily enlists into the Fenrir Far-East Branch's elite group of God Eaters, all for the sole purpose of eradicating the Aragami for reasons far more complicated and tragic as it is dreadful for everyone involved...
The God Eater anime provides examples of:
- Adaptational Badass: ERIC. Going from getting killed just like that to going out by taking the hit for an injured Lenka.
- Adaptation Expansion: Alisa's journey to the Far East branch, complete with a rescue operation. In the air.
- The anime also greatly expands on the world, particularly how people outside of Fenrir's walls live and what life for the common man is like which were either only alluded to or never mentioned in the game.
- While never explicitly explained in the games, the third episode shows in great detail how God Arcs functions at the hands of God Eaters. Apart from having a visible gun trigger and digitized ammunition counter for its Gun Form, the transition from Gun Form to Blade Form to Predator Form and vice-versa is shown to be done via the God Arc's handlenote , as shown when Alisa and Lenka fights off the Aragami swarm atop of a flying plane.
- Always Chaotic Evil: The Aragami seems to be hellbent on killing and devouring every living thing possible. The Earth quickly turns into a desolate wasteland with just a few human strongholds holding out against it after a few years since its insurgence in 2050.
- Artistic License – Physics: Even if God Eaters have superhuman strength and agility, it should be impossible to fight on top of a plane as the main cast did in episode three. A plane that size would have to be moving at least 200 miles per hour for it to remain airborne. While their superhuman abilities can excuse their resistance to the lack of oxygen and how they didn't need goggles, unless God Eaters have the power to magnetically anchor their feet to the plane's fuselage, they should have gone flying.
- Battle in the Rain: The second half of the first episode has the Aragami horde managed to breach into the Outer Ghetto, endangering everyone else. This prompting Lenka to fetch his God Arc for combat for the first time.
- Also the Curb-Stomp Battle with the Dyaus Pita in Episode 5.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: Lenka's sister does this at the end of episode 11, when he refuses to leave her behind despite her badly infected foot preventing her from walking, and an impending Aragami attack. She cuts her own throat to force him to run. The Aragami appear to reach her just as she dies from the blood loss.
- Big Damn Heroes: A few occur:
- Lindow, Soma, and Sakuya rescuing Lenka and Eric in the first episode.
- Lindow, Sakuya, and Lenka rescuing Alisa in episode 3 when her transport plane is under attack by flying Aragami.
- Lindow saving Lenka and Alisa from an army of Aragami in Episode 6.
- Blood from the Mouth: Lenka's mother coughs up blood in episode 11, indicating she's caught an epidemic that's going around the shelter they're living at with other refugees. He ends up catching it as well, and unfortunately they only have one vial with the cure, so asks that it be used on him so he can live.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Compared to the video game it is adapted from (which at most only implied gore off-screen during its cutscenes and rarely showed blood), the anime is not shy about showing people get slashed, crushed, and devoured into bloody messes on-screen.
- Bottomless Magazines: Notably averted- the old-type God Arcs run out of ammunition early and often.
- The Cameo:
- Haruomi Makabe and Kate Laurie of God Eater 2, and Geese Crimson of Those Who Break Taboo light novel appeared alongside other God Eaters in episode 11.
- Shio, the Aragami girl, appears in the final episode bringing food to the surviving Lindow.
- Canon Foreigner:
- The unknown flying Aragamis that resemble both a Zygote and a Sariel which do not appear in games, even in later installments. This implied to be the middlemost evolution of a Zygote into the Sariel.
- The Dyaus Pita in the anime is different from those that appeared in the first four games. This Dyaus Pita is later introduced in Resurrection, with the original Dyaus Pitas are renamed as "Heavenly Father" and demoted as a Divine-type Varja variant.
- Chekhov's Skill: When Sakuya and the others fall underground after the stadium collapses, Lenka seems awfully familiar with such a scenario, and manages to use his past experience to save them. Episode 11's flashback shows that this very thing happened to him before he joined Fenrir, and luckily the Aragami didn't chase after him, allowing him time to explore and find an exit back to the surface.
- Cliffhanger: How Episode 5 ends. Sakuya's entire team is unable to defeat the Dyaus Pita, and near the end, Lenka can just barely escape a very short distance away with a severely wounded Alisa. They're only saved because the Dyaus Pita causes the ground they were on to collapse, causing all of them to fall into a river.
- Conspicuous CG: Many of the Aragami fall into this trope by using 3D renders that contrast with the hand-drawn human characters and backgrounds, especially larger ones like the Vajra and Dyaus Pita. This is only partially disguised through use of textures and other visual effects.
- Cool vs. Awesome: Basically the fights with Dyaus Pita after 1st Unit's initial encounter, which ended poorly for the heroes. A notable moment occurs when Lindow goes 1-on-1 against it.
- Crapsack World: The Earth turns into this after the Aragami show up, and kill just about everything around them.
- Curbstomp Battle:
- The first fight against the Dyaus Pita. And pretty much any battle where the Aragami are in without a God Eater or their weapon present.
- Dyaus Pita gets a taste of this in the final episode after Lenka attaches one of its razor sharp wingtips to his broken God Arc, and this time around has no problem cutting into it.
- Death by Origin Story: Both Lenka's family and Alisa's parents are killed before they became God Eaters. Alisa's was killed by Dyaus Pita, who devoured her parents in front of her eyes while she was hiding in a wardrobe dresser. Lenka's mother dies of an illness, but both his father and sister end up dying to Aragami, which only fuels his desire to kill every last one of them.
- Dies Wide Open: Happens in episode 11 to Lenka's sister Iroha after she kills herself to get him to escape.
- Disney Villain Death: In Episode 5, presumably, the Dyaus Pita goes down along with Lenka and Alisa as the land bridge the Dayus Pita collapses and sending them all plummeting to a river below. While Lenka and Alisa are revealed to be alive, the Dyaus Pita's fate is unknown until it appears again for the remainder of the last few episodes.
- Doomed Hometown: Lenka's backstory is revealed during episode 11, where he's found as an abandoned baby by a family who failed the test to get into Fenrir's base. They try to raise him as a normal family member, but a testing kit that Lindow leaves behind tests positive on Lenka, making him eligible to be a God Eater. After some Aragami attacks the shelter they were hiding in, his father has Lenka and his sister run away on a motorbike. Unfortunately, she gets cut by an Aragami during the escape, and her foot also gets crushed and infected, so she's unable to walk after a few days. She then has slashes her own throat so that he wouldn't pointlessly die trying to save her from the Aragami.
- The Dreaded: Dyaus Pita when it makes its appearance in episode 5. Lenka and the others along with some civilians are surrounded by several Vajra, with no easy way to break out. Dyaus Pita then immediately jumps in and kills the Vajra one by one. Aside from being much larger than the Vajra, it also emanates a black aura and its behavior is so unusual that even veteran Aragami hunter Sakuya says she's never seen anything like it. It then goes on to deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle to the team.
- Eaten Alive: Several civilians suffer this fate throughout the show, though some are lucky enough to be killed before this happens to them.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Aragami in a nutshell.
- Dyaus Pita. Not only is it larger than the already huge Vajra, it also seems to kill other Aragami, behavior that even veteran God Eater Sakuya has never encountered before. It's also deadly, and easily stomps Lenka and the others during their fights with it.
- Evil Laugh: The Dyaus Pita communicates with a rather distorted, childish sounding laugh when it appears in Episode 5.
- Faking the Dead: The 1st Unit sees the Dyaus Pita with a God Arc device in its mouth in episode 13. The team assumes that Lindow was killed, and many of them go into an Unstoppable Rage moment. At the end, a person's shadow is briefly seen on a ledge overseeing where Soma was at. Later, that same shadowy figure dumps canned food on the ground, and is seen smoking, heavily implying to be Lindow. He likely did this to draw attention away from the refugee village he secretly set up for people who were denied entry into Fenrir's base.
- Foreshadowing: In the credits of Episode One, as well as in the opening, Lindow tosses Lenka something the viewer can't see. This foreshadows the fact Lindow's leadership of the 1st Unit will be passed onto Lenka following his disappearance.
- It's the compass he took off of Lenka when he was imprisoned in episode 2.
- Fanservice: With a few characters having big breast and Alisa, mentioned below, a Stripperiffic outfit combined with "special" camera angles equals to lots of boob-shots.
- Freudian Excuse: While there's nothing illogical about disliking the Aragami in this setting, Lenka is amongst the few people known to have survived outside of the safe zones long enough to make it to one, and is implied to have gone through a lot before making it to the East Asian safe zone.
- Greater Need Than Mine: In episode 11, Lenka's mother is sick with a plague going around their building. They manage to find some medicine, but are attacked by Aragami so unfortunately only manage to bring back enough medicine for one person. He then ends up falling ill as well, and his mother insists that he be given the medicine since he could live much longer. He survives, but his mother dies shortly afterwards.
- "Hell, Yes!" Moment: Sakuya, Alisa, Soma, and Kota are taken down by Dyaus Pita in episode 13 after Lenka's God Arc breaks again. However, they all begin laughing, and Soma asks if it knows why they're having such an odd reaction. Dyaus Pita turns around only to find Lenka behind him, having attached one of is razor wingtips to his God Arc. He easily cuts through Dyaus Pita with it, and dishes out a Curb-Stomp Battle on it.
- Heroic BSoD: Alisa suffers from traumatic flashbacks shortly after losing to the Dyaus Pita. She's so traumatized that she's unable to do anything useful for the next two episodes, requiring Lenka and Lindow to do what they can to save the villagers and themselves against some Aragami.
- Hope Spot: A few happen throughout the show:
- A few are given to Lenka during their first encounter with the Dyaus Pita in episode 5. The scene even plays out similarly to the first episode, where he barely manages to activate his God Arc. Unfortunately every single thing he does is easily countered by the Dyaus Pita. It hits him before he can launch a sneak attack, then breaks his sword, then impales him, and when it looks like he's got a shot at activating his God Arc, it just simply destroys that too. The most he's able to do towards the end is hobble away while carrying an injured Alisa a short distance, but the Dyaus Pita sees them and starts running after them. By that point, all he can do is utter "God", and is only saved because they were near a natural rocky bridge which collapses when the Dyaus Pita lands in front of them.
- Episode 11 has its share as well. The civilians raid a nearby clinic and manage to secure a lot of medicine, but almost everyone who goes is wiped out, so only a tiny fraction of it is brought back. Later, they find out Lenka tests positive for Fenrir's test, but his adopted father and sister choose not to go because they want to keep the family together. And later Lenka's attempt to save his father and sister are cut short by both the Aragami, and his sister taking her own life so that she wouldn't give him a reason to stay behind and also be killed.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Lenka has to be taught by Sakuya how to shoot his gun and in addition, didn't know how to switch between gun and blade mode of his God Arc. Justified in that he's barely begun training, and decides to go out to where some Aragami were because he was the only person close enough to fight off the Aragami until the elite units could reach the area.
- It Can Think: The Dyaus Pita was shown many times to be able to think. Doing things such as using specific ways to attack in order to counter various tactics, come up with tactics on it's own (such as corrupting the Aragami Trees to have them attack it's enemies) and even show emotions (shown when it smiles and laughs).
- Knight of Cerebus: Much like its video game counterpart, as soon as the Dyaus Pita is introduced, things take a turn for the darker. In addition to being one of the more lethal Aragami, as soon as it appears, it devours the Vajra, slaughters civilians in seconds, and even manages to temporary stun Sakuya and Kota, destroys Lenka's God Arc, and presumably kill Lenka and Alisa.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Upon finally encountering the Dyaus Pita, Alisa chews on her drugs and charges at the Aragami. It promptly defeats her.
- Let's You and Him Fight: When Lenka and Alisa first meet in Episode 3.
- Muggle: Many civilians have no special powers, and unfortunately are unable to enter the Fenrir base as a result. Some of them manage to hide and survive, but most are presumably killed by the Aragami since they're out in the open and have no defense against them.
- No One Gets Left Behind: Episode One of the anime, Lenka refuses to leave behind the guy who tells him to get away so he can live.
- Alisa won't abandon the civilians on the transport plane being attacked by Aragami.
- Lindow didn't abandon the civilians Fenrir turned away.
- Lenka tries this with his father and later his sister, but unfortunately both of them are unable to be saved. His father is trapped underneath some rubble which Lenka and Iroha are unable to get off before some Aragami show up. And later his sister's foot gets infected so badly from an Aragami attack that she's unable to walk, so she forces him to leave her by slashing her own throat.
- Oh, Crap!: Dyaus Pita has this reaction in episode 13, after it realizes that Lenka was standing behind it, and had connected one of its wingtips to his God Arc, enabling him to cut through it easily.
- Power Copying: How Lenka gets the hang of his new-type god arc in episode 3. Alisa seems perturbed at this.
- The Promise: Lenka's mother makes his father and Iroha do whatever they can to help him survive in the flashback during episode 11.
- Say Your Prayers: Despite Lenka saying in Episode 2 that he no longer believes in prayers, in Episode 5, before the land bridge collapses with Lenka, Alisa, and the Dyaus Pita, the last thing Lenka does before they fall into the river is pray to God.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!:
- In Episode One of the anime, as soon as Lenka realizes there's no one to send to defend the Aragami invasion, he run out of the room, steals his God Arc, and runs out to battle.
- Deconstructed as Lenka spends almost the entirety of Episode Two in a jail cell. The only reason he's allowed out is that Lindow wants him on the team.
- Later on, Alisa refuses to go with the team sent to rescue her and even attacks Lenka when under the impression that he'd forcefully take her away because she doesn't want to abandon the civilians on the plane with her.
- Lenka starts issuing commands in episode eight after the God Eaters are surrounded by Aragami and fall underground when the floor collapses. At first there's confusion as Tsubaki issues contradicting orders to them, but eventually she relents and lets Lenka give out the orders. He manages to save them when he has them do a pincer attack on the Aragami, and helps them find an exit.
- Slashed Throat: One occurs during episode 11, when Lenka's sister Iroha does this to herself after her infected foot prevents her from escaping some Aragami. Lenka is forced to leave her behind, but survives as a result.
- Slasher Smile: The Dyaus Pita sports this.
- Super-Persistent Predator: Episode 6 shows us Dyaus Pita tracking the scent of and nearly spotting Lenka and Alisa.
- The Stinger: Episode 5 ends with a flashback involving Sakaki, Johannes, and Aisha, and the U.S. Army asking for Johannes's help in dealing with mutated animal-like organisms.
- Stripperiffic: Alisa's outfit consists of a midriff-baring top that doesn't quite manage to button over her breasts, and an equally short pleated skirt over thigh-high boots.
- Takes One to Kill One: The God Arcs are wielded only by a user injected with Aragami DNA.
- Team Power Walk: Lenka, Lindow, and Alisa coolly walk together in Episode 3.
- Took A Level In Bad Ass: Though he faces many setbacks, Lenka gradually starts to become a more competent God Eater. In episode 8, he even takes command briefly after the original plan goes awry. Thanks to his orders, the God Eaters manage to kill all the Aragami chasing after them, and all of them survive. Tsubaki even congratulates him for saving them all.
- Unflinching Walk: Part of Lindow's introduction in Episode One. He simply walks in a straight line while having a smoke, smashing any Aragami that come a little too close to him.
- Wham Episode:
- Episode 5, where the Dyaus Pita appears.
- Episode 11 reveals Lenka's back story, where he was found abandoned as a baby, and later the time he spent on the outside before joining Fenrir, and why he wants to kill Aragami so badly.
- When Trees Attack: In episode 7, Lindow escorts Lenka and Alisa to a village that seems to have been mostly untouched by the Aragami. Lenka is warned not to touch any of the trees, which don't seem like normal ones due to some orangish hue. He finds out later when a random Aragami brushes up against one, and the trees quickly attacks and kills it. Unfortunately some larger ones show up later, and the tree's attacks fail to penetrate its hull.
- Whole Episode Flashback: Episode 11 basically focuses entirely on Lenka's time before he joins Fenrir. He was found abandoned as a baby, taken in by a family that failed Fenrir's test, and later is found to be compatible. Unfortunately his adopted father and sister both die before they can make it back to Fenrir's base with him, which adds to Lenka's desire to kill all the Aragami.
- The Worf Effect: The Dyaus Pita is one of the most lethal Aragami that the team has encountered throughout the series in Episode 5.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Lenka tells Soma this in episode 9, after learning that his mother died giving birth to him, and being feared by others because of his reputation. However, Lenka tells him that his mother instilled hope into him so that he could someday destroy the Aragami threat. Or if not him, then he should pass that hope onto someone else first. Soma manages to overcome his doubt and saves the MacGuffin device from being destroyed by the Aragami.
- You Are in Command Now: Lenka is put into command temporarily in episode 8 after Sakuya's team falls underground due to a floor collapse. He successfully manages to get them to bait the Aragami into a trap and eliminate them, and ensuring that everyone survived.
- Your Days Are Numbered: It is revealed that Lenka's God Arc's Oracle cells are consuming his body, and should he continue to use his God Arc, he will die.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: During Operation Meteorite, Aragami are inexplicably drawn towards a region away from where the God Eaters were baiting them at. Lenka and the others find out where the attraction device is and destroys it. It turns out to be Alisa's doctor, who was under secret orders from Johannes to kill Lindow for setting up the village. After his mission is accomplished, he's killed by an Aragami hidden underneath Fenrir's base, which is heavily implied to be what's left of Aisha, one of the original researchers into the Aragami.
