Mild Spoiler Warning

There are a few things mentioned that spoil a few minor parts of the plot.

God Eater looks like a standard post-apocalyptic monster hunting anime. Humanity is nearly wiped out by monsters called Aragami, survivors hide behind walls, and soldiers wield giant biomechanical weapons made from the monsters themselves. It's a bleak setup, but the show handles it surprisingly well.

Ufotable did the animation, and it looks incredible. The flashback sequences are particularly striking. They use grayscale with just a few selective color pops, like Lenka's eyes or hair, to draw your focus right to the emotional weight of the scene. The show handles its lore better than most of the other animes I've seen, too. Instead of stopping everything for a massive lore-dump episode, the history trickles in naturally. You have to pick up on visual cues, like realizing Soma and Aisha are linked by their skin color. It grounds the timeline. Unlike shows where the apocalypse has been dragging on for centuries, the disaster in God Eater feels recent. The end of the world is literally measured in the character's lifetime.

Then there's Lenka Utsugi. He could have been just another screaming shonen protagonist, but he actually feels grounded. Because he comes from outside the walled city, his resolve is pure. He just wants to protect people and kill Aragami. His family died horribly, and that loss forged a harsh philosophy. There's no point in praying when there is no God. He doesn't just brood over this, he uses that harsh reality to snap other characters out of their delusions when they're in panic.

This brings us to Alisa. It's easy to look at her lewd outfit and write her off as fanservice, but she actually has the most compelling arc in the show. She has severe, entirely justified PTSD. Watching her confront her literal demons, the Dyaus Pita, is brutal. Her manipulation in the finale felt weird and kind of pointless to the overall plot, but her personal conclusion is deeply satisfying. She finally accepts her past and leans on her new team instead of letting her trauma define her.

I give the anime as a whole a 7/10. But why does this get a 7/10? The ending. Or rather, the lack of one.

God Eater suffers from the classic "buy the video game to see the rest" adaptation curse. It just stops right when the narrative peaks. If you want to see Lenka step up as a leader, which season two would have been perfect for, you have to buy the games. That's incredibly frustrating if you're just here for the anime and had no idea it was essentially a giant commercial.

I'd still give it a 7/10. It's beautiful to look at, handles character arcs remarkably well (until it doesn't), and builds a smart world. I will probably play the game series to see where the story goes.