GOD EATER – 13 (Fin)

Like GATE, GOD EATER finally concludes on a satisfying, action-packed note, with only a few loose ends left outstanding and all of the big stuff put together. One day, by Pita or some other incident, Lindow was going to die, and the unit was going to lose their captain. Which meant someone had to replace him, and that person is Lenka. This is the episode where he fully grasps what it means to lead, not that he has not choice but to do so.

Soma, Alisa, and particularly Sakuya flail around in outrage, but Lenka remains calm, centers everyone, reminds them of Lindow’s orders, and carry them out. Soma goes underwater to destroy the Aragami lure, leaving only Pita to contend with.

Of course, Pita is a pretty freakin’ tall order, but with the five remaining members of the unit all working together, maybe they can harass him into enough of a state of confusion to land a fatal blow on him.

As with everything on GOD EATER, this is extremely hard and brutal. Everyone gets tossed around and loses, if we’re honest, unacceptable amounts of blood for people still conscious. But these aren’t ordinary people, they’re God Eaters, and Lenka, their leader, presses the attack once all his friends have been disabled.

When they can no longer move from their injuries, he keeps fighting, surviving, protecting them. He takes the hope both his family and Lindow (also his family, at this point) entrusted him to radiate for the benefit of others, and the impossible is made possible: on perhaps the last layer of his onion-like god arc, Lenka goes into overdrive, slices Pita up, and shatters his core.

After that, it’s confirmed that Fenrir’s ultimate objective—completing Aegis—is only a cover for the real—and far less ambitious—Project Ark, which is little more than an Earth Escape Rocket, able to fit at most one thousand souls.

My belief in this is that the cream of Fenrir will be among those with tickets on that rocket, which will shoot into space and whose occupants will wait out the apocalypse, returning when everything has been reset. But without the hope Aegis provides, the ark rocket isn’t possible.

Johannes had Lindow taken out because Lindow was trying to hold on to what humanity had left on Earth, while he had given up on the world that is and made plans for a new one, judging the Aragami nothing but monsters that will consume one another after consuming every last human, if allowed to.

Dr. Sakaki has the opposite theory; that this is just a rough stage in the evolution of Aragami. Eventually, they’ll gain intellect (which we clearly see in Pita, though he’s pretty damn evil and inhuman) and, with communication, coexistence with humans might be possible.

It’s a dream Johannes doesn’t believe humanity has time to wait to come to fruition, and he may be right, but I also know that a thousand humans don’t make for the most diverse gene pool. Human extinction may be inevitable.

But enough dark talk: while Johannes and Sakaki debate whether Man will become God or God will become Man, all Lenka, Alisa, and the other God Eaters are concerned about is keeping hope alive and protecting each other and what they have, here and now.

Lenka is now the new captain, and his orders are the same as his predecessor (who may still be out there somewhere): Don’t die. If your life is threatened, run and hide. And, one day, destroy it.

GOD EATER – 12

One thing you can always be certain of in GOD EATER: things will not work out the way people hope. The best-laid plans, be they made with good or bad intentions, inevitably turn to ash in this harsh world. Heck, the show itself couldn’t even air its last four episodes in the season it meant to.

The only thing that’s really worked out so far is that Lenka’s family was successful in keeping him alive and instilling in him a desire to survive and become strong so he can protect everyone still alive (which unfortunately does not include that family).

But he does have something of a new family in his unit, and when its “father” Lindow is in a tough spot, Lenka is there, and thanks to Licca, so is his rad new god arc, which cuts through the Aragami like butter, be it slashing or blasting.

But Operation Asteroid remains a big mess, as one of the luring devices has been sabotaged by an inside hacking source Tsubaki learns is Alisa’s personal doctor. So when Alisa arrives along with Sakuya, Soma, and that other guy, it’s nice to see the gang reunited, but I knew the happy feeling wouldn’t last becase A) Alisa is a ticking time bomb and B) the Pita Aragami isn’t going to be defeated this week.

Sure enough, the evil doc says a few trigger words into Alisa’s earbud, and she starts firing wildly. However, she doesn’t hurt anyone, and when Sakuya tries to slap her out of whatever is going on with her, the earbud falls out, and the doc’s plan is foiled.

Alisa reverts to her useless crying state, but Lenka manages to talk her out of it, trying his hand at field psychiatry. The results are favorable, as Alisa snaps out of her funk and returns to usefulness, but it’s a little dubious that Lenka’s words about toughness and inner strength could cause such an abrupt change in the behavior of such a scarred and unstable mind.

Once everyone is freed from the berserk trees, Lenka leads everyone to the dam town to take out the luring device and protect the people there, which Sakuya didn’t know existed until now. Lindow will stay behind and duel the Pita, but predictably, it goes pear-shaped in a hurry, as this particular Aragami possesses a keen intellect and ability to counter any tactics the wounded Lindow throws at him.

After the obligatory flashback to a younger Johannes attempting (but obviously failing) to commit suicide, overcome as he is by the loss of the mother of his child. The child remains as a painful reminder of what he cost, but Dr. Sakaki suggests that he wasn’t able to kill himself for a reason: that he was meant to stay on this world and try to save it before Aragami consume everything and reset the world.

The results of that plan are still pending, but Lindow wasn’t able to delay Pita long, and the last we see of him, his bloody arc arm is hanging out of Pita’s mouth. I honestly don’t know how they’re going to take this guy out, which should make the final episode interesting.

GOD EATER – 11

It’s not often a late-coming backstory outshines the present-day narrative it’s interrupting, but that’s what happened with GOD EATER. That being said now that we’re back in the present, everything Lenka says and does carries new weight, not that we know where he comes from. We’ve broken through his shell just as we did with Alisa.

Speaking of sisters, we also see how lucky Lindow is to still have his in Tsubaki, and the two share a nice moment in the house they grew up in. As for Alisa, she returns the team apparently none the worse for wear, but having a distinctly un-Alisa-like artificial chipper-ness to her. Was she hypnotized simply to save her from her crippling memories, for for a more sinister purpose? Probably still the latter.

But the core of this episode is the commencement of the ambitious Operation Meteorite, which involves God Eaters of all types from all over the world. While calling out the order of battle, Lindow has his sister make a slight adjustment: he’ll take the front line with Team One, while Lenka (whose God Arc isn’t quite ready yet) will monitor and command the team from the forward base camp. Lenka has proven he can lead, after all, and he’s totally fine with the arrangement.

The night before the operation starts, he has dinner with Kouta and his mom and sister’s, again driving home the family Lenka once but no longer has, and the need/desire for some kind of occasional substitute. If he couldn’t save his own family (because they saved him first), then he’ll just have to save other families, like Kouta’s or the Amamiyas.

Now that Lenka knows the path he should—wishes to—walk, he feels he no longer needs the compass Lindow gave him a few years ago when they first met. But Lindow has him keep it. Even if he already knows his way, it’s up to him to give it to someone who doesn’t, just as Lindow did.

Once the battle starts, Lenka isn’t angry or restless about not joining the front lines; after all, there’s not much he can do without a God Arc. Instead, he takes instantly to command with a steady confidence and competence that’s visualized nicely by the neatly symmetrical framing of him in the CIC. As for the Meteorite weapons, they pack a impressive opening punch against the amassing Vajra-type Aragami.

Both before and during the operation, Johannes von Schicksal has had little on his mind beyond the flashback to the exceedingly difficult birth of Souma, which resulted not just in Aisha’s death, but the death of everyone in the room. Only Johannes survived the explosion of oracle cells, protect, to his surprise, by a charm which has circuitry embedded in it that repels the cells. In the present, he activates a device that has the opposite effect—luring many of the Aragami towards the dam village. Why he’s doing so, and acting without telling anyone below him, only he knows.

However, it may have something to do with the fact Lindow kept the town a secret. When Lindow sees where the Aragami are headed, he goes off on his own (though after getting the okay from Tsubaki and Lenka). When they lose his signal, the only God Eater who can get to him in a reasonable amount of time is, you guessed it, Lenka.

Tsubaki sends him to help Lindow, and Licca and Sakaki finish up his arc just in time to deliver it to him on the way. Now that we know where he got his short cloak from, it’s a lot more meaningful to see him don it on his very badass, purposeful way out of the CIC. Time to see what his new God Arc can do. And lurking not far away is Pita, the Aragami Alisa has sworn to kill.