There is a god.
Impression
I’m so happy the loli is safe!
I thought she’d been left to die! Why didn’t anyone tell me about this? I would have watched the episode much sooner! And she even played a vital role in saving the village, too. Truly, a miracle of the universe.
In all seriousness, I think this episode did more harm than good to the overall story. If I’m going to be honest, we don’t have time for this. It was announced today that God Eater would be ending at Episode 9 – all the ‘extra’ recap episodes are apparently going to count as part of its one-cour length, and starting next season its timeslot will be given to Comet Lucifer. I don’t know if that means we’ll be getting more episodes separately or in the future, but either way this is a huge embarrassment, plain and simple. So Episodes 1-4 gave us the exposition to the story and introduced all the characters, and Episodes 5-7 focused on a single hunt gone wrong. Where’s the actual plot? If this was a two-cour series I would have been full of praise for this episode, honest. In fact, this arc in general has been exciting. But it means nothing at all if it’s ending in two episodes with numerous plot threads left ignored. What did this episode achieve? It followed up on the previous minor plot point about survivors being left outside Fenrir to die. What about AEGIS? What about the flashbacks with Johannes and how they led to the present-day catastrophe? What about all the undeveloped characters, not least of all Lenka himself? What about Alisa?
If we ignore the wider context and look at this episode on its own, it was a pretty good one. I didn’t even know that Aragami ate trees, but it kind of makes sense given that all the landscapes we’ve seen are barren. I initially thought all the trees were some sort of barrier that repelled Aragami, and in practice that’s what they serve as – or else, a human settlement complete with clean water, nice living conditions and lots of space would never have managed to flourish. In fact, I’m happy the loli managed to end up here instead of in Fenrir – this looks like a far nicer place. My next thought was that Lindow should just cultivate a small forest around the Far East branch to serve as a line of defence – but if the trees are Aragami then I can see why Fenrir would never approve, and why he has to do it in secret. I was actually surprised Lindow had enough of a heart to go out of his way to steal supplies and help them out – he seemed like someone who would comply with orders above all else, so this is actually pretty cool of him.
I don’t know how it is in the video game, but this would have been a great chance for some Alisa development. It was cute that she looked all indignant when Lindow told her to stay put and take a bath or something, but if it’s this bad without her pills I can see why – maybe it was the fact that the situation this week triggered a direct flashback to back when her parents were killed. She even managed to find a closet somehow and hid herself in it. I was also unimpressed at how Lenka was told to be a shounen protagonist and ‘believe’ in his Jinki, so I was really glad that it didn’t magically restore itself because he trusted with all his heart that it would save him or anything like that. If the stuff in those capsules hurt Aragami and feed the trees (which hurt Aragami), there’s a damn good chance that it would power his Jinki (which hurt Aragami). It was a lot more believable than if it had restored on its own – and it was temporary, too. Also, the soundtrack was cool. The Alisa fanservice wasn’t bad either.
I’m really hoping that what people are thinking as far as the remaining episodes being streamed will happen ;_;