Divine Gate Episode 1: [Endless Rain][First Impressions]

Let’s continue our Tour of the new titles of the Winter season 2016 shall we ?

This time : Divine Gate

Meet with Prozac, a blond emo boy who look like the depressing version of the guy from Dinosaur King.

Prozac is silently walking under the rain while the narrator says existentialist and really depressing stuff. Honestly, the beginning of this show is really depressing. I thought I was watching a  Independent movie in black and white on the sequels of the first World War on orphans.

” The droplet trickling down his cheek flows into the boy’s heart, and while that may create a ripple, it will never become his tears.”

 

GOSH KILL ME ALREADY

Now, you’re not wondering anymore why I ironically named the guy Prozac, everything about him is depressing and Drama heavy.

So Prozac is taking the tram, still looking like a dead rat, to go home I guess. However, Jean-Jacques, a random guy with anger management issues, has also decided to take this tram and starts spreading flames and burning innocent people. Jean-Jacques starts talking about the “Divine Gate” that apparently would call ” true ability users” and accomplish their wishes. Also, a long time ago, three worlds merged into one, creating six abilities.  Six abilities, like the elements ? Like Earth ,Wind and Fire ? Do they “Boogie Wonderland” too ? Lol, I’m so funny.

Jean-Jacques thinks that the Divine gate is real and that he’s the chosen one. But that still doesn’t explain why he’s burning people on a tram. OH WELL

The two main characters ( Prozac will join the gang later on) are also on the Tram and want to help stopping Jean-Jacques but Prozac is quicker and put Jean-Jacques KO with his amazing water abilities. That’s at this moment that the main characters, Red-Natsu and Green-Staff girl arrive. I don’t really understand why nor how but the Green-Staff Girl’s phone generate a zone where they are all transported to. But that’s not really relevant because Prozac escapes quite easily. Apparently, Prozac doesn’t have a “driver” and that’s a problem to Red Natsu who’s real name is Akane, because obviously, he has red hair, and the name of Natsu was already taken sooo: Akane

But more importantly, Prozac is subject to flashbacks and ghost apparitions. Indeed, a strange little boy with white hair who is obviously not human likes to appear quite often in front of Prozac and also likes to tell him incomprehensible stuff about the “gate”.

” A rain will not fall forever, but after that day, the rain never stopped falling on your heart”

God, that looks like the kind of stuff that I used to put in my philosophy dissertations in High school. No wonder I got great grades, this shit is incomprehensible

While Prozac is busy being Prozac, Akane and Green Staff Girl return to the World Council’s Academy where they are treated like heroes for stopping Jean-Jacques’s bullshit in the tramcar. They learn from the cheap version of Monokuma called Metabon, that Prozac was actually helping them and was the one who stopped Jean-Jacques. They all agree on saying that Prozac looks like an emo though.

A kind of council is held in a big depressing building where we learn that Jean-Jacques was actually a “Demon that came to Terrastia two years ago for a contract job and also an adapter”. Okay so apparently, there are 3 worlds: Hellistia with Demons, Terrastia with Humans and Celestia with Fairies. That’s a lot of information in a short amount of time if you ask me…

OH ? you’re wondering about Prozac ?

Well, Prozac is silently eating his ice-ramen alone while his classmates are talking behind his back. Apparently Prozac was a neglected child and was involved into his parent’s death.

BUT WITH HAVE NO TIME FOR THAT! cuz we are back at the World Council where Akane and the Green girl are meeting with their masters. Since Akane has red hair and his master is throwing Fire Balls at him, I guess he’s a “adapter” of the fire. As for the green girl, well, she’s green sooo, plant power ?

OOh, my bad, my bad, Jean-Pascal, my personal assistant for the season just told me that her power is wind. Thanks J-P you’re awesome.

BUT I STILL DON’T KNOW HER NAME! wait, I’ll pause the episode and go check on the Wiki…. there you go… ooooh. Well I guess it makes sense since she’s green… her name is Midori. Original right ?

 Their masters ask them to convince Prozac to join the World Council’s Academy since he’s a powerful water ” adapter”. They’ve actually already sent a water fairy to make him join but she failed to convince him. However Prozac accepted to meet with Arthur, the chief of the Organisation, I assume. Arthur asks him to join this Academy and even offers him a “Driver”. But Prozac refuses and leave. Because even if he has no reasons whatsoever to refuse, saying” yes” is just too meeeeh, not depressing enough. Akane and Midori also try to convince him to join but, emo one day, emo for ever, Prozac prefers to be alone.

After that, we finally learn why Prozac is so depressing. Actually, he had a brother who might have been gifted with a lot of power and who was the favorite child of his parents. Oh, not the favorite child like he had the right to have chocolate cake while Prozac only had the right to eat raisin bread, no, not that kind of favorite. Prozac did not have the right to live in the house and was staying in a caban without any lights nor furniture in the garden. Yeah… Pretty tough uh… And the worst part is that his brother was coming to see him and to say bullshit like ” I can save you but I won’t “… JEEEZ I HOPE YOU DIE ¨PROZAC’S BROTHER!

Then the Arthur guy opens a door called the “Holy gate” and there’s fire and destruction somewhere… Sorry, I don’t really know what happened…

Oh also, I forgot to mention: Prozac’s real name is Aoto. But Prozac fits him better.

Charibo’s Thoughts :

OOOOk  Sooo. I’m not really sure why I watched this… As you may or may not have noticed, I’m not the biggest fan of generic shounen on this planet. However I was quite curious. When I heard that this show was based on a popular mobile phone game I got interested in checking out the first episode to see, you know, what it was all about.

So my feelings about this are quite conflicted. It’s an okay first episode but honestly, none of what I saw made me go ” wahou, this is going to be great”. This show sure has its own universe and a lot, really, a lot of characters but I highly doubt they will have the chance to develop them. There was so many informations in the first episode that I’m not even sure if I understood everything correctly. Even the end of the episode doesn’t make any sense to me. During the whole time they kept talking about the “Divine Gate” and then, without any explanation, the Arthur Guy decides to open the “Holy gate”…  Apparently that’s not the same gate… Everything felt a little bit rushed but since the anime will only be 12 episodes long, they didn’t have any other choices but to rush the exposition sequence to focus more on the plot development later on. Well, actually it’s more what I’m hoping for.

But yeah, the plot seems heavy, there’s the whole Prozac’s background story thing, the search for the Divine gate, Arthur opening the “Holy gate”, the “Driver” thing, the little Creepy kid version of Nai from Karneval and all the stuff about the different races and abilities. That’s a lot, really.

As for the characters, well nothing much really. Akane seems like an okay main character to me, I like his personality, although a bit common buuut, that’s just me I like cheerful/tsundere-ish red guys… so yeah. I have nothing to say about Midori. She’s nice, she’s not annoying and her and Akane are a great Duo. But you’re wondering, what do I think of Prozac?

PROZAC Ô, PROZAC

Everything about him makes me want to end my life right now. He’s just so depressing. He put me, in a single episode, at the same level of despair than I was when I finished watching Bokurano. YEAH, that level of despair. I really wonder why he didn’t kill himself before. I think to fully “appreciate” the character I’ll have to wait a few more episodes when he’s going to be a part of the gang and starts opening to the others. Because for now, he’s just the “look at me I’m deep and tortured” kind of character.

However, I was pleasantly surprised by the Opening that I really, really like. It’s catchy, dynamic and made me want to watch a few more episodes to see the fights, because they look cool. The song is also different from what I was expecting for that kind of show. I don’t have any complains on the Art Style, it’s not amazing but I like it. Still, I don’t know if I’m the best person to cover this one, I usually don’t like that type of show so it was only natural for me to not being “moved” by the plot or anything.

Probability of watching : I’ll go with the 3 episode rule for this one

Probability of blogging :  MEEEEEEEEH….