Divergence Eve | A Disappointing Sci-Fi Anime Misfire

Divergence Eve

Have you ever gazed up at the night sky and wondered, “What is out there?”. Many of us have, but the answers are either too complicated or unknown most of the time. On a few occasions, we would find some answers, but they didn’t end up being as magical as we imagined them to be.

On even fewer occasions, the answers mystified us beyond comparison as well. In the future, space travel will become more and more normalized, but right now, it’s still nice to look up and wonder to yourself. So let’s take a look at another anime that looked to the stars.

“Divergence Eve” is a 13-episode TV anime series that aired from the 2nd of July until the 24th of September in summer 2003. Studio Radix brought it to life, and Media Factory, Imagica, and KlockWorx produced it with a license from ADV Films and Sentai Filmworks.

The main staff behind it included Takumi Tsukumo as series creator, Carl Macek (English) as producer, on-screen and ADR director, Manabu Nakamura as assistant producer, Hiroshi Negishi as director, and Kouji Tsujitani as sound director.

It featured the genres of adventure, drama, and sci-fi, alongside the themes of mecha, military, and space, garnering a rating of R+ for its mild nudity. Each episode ran for a total of 24 minutes.

This is an original series that earned a sequel titled “Divergence Eve 2: Misaki Chronicles," which also ran for a total of 13 episodes from the 3rd of January until the 27th of March in winter 2004. While it featured the same genres and themes, its rating remained at PG-13 for teenagers 13 years of age or older.

Divergence Eve is set in the fictional future of the 24th century, where intergalactic space travel has indeed become a reality and is not a rare feat anymore. Out there in the endless cosmos, one of the very first outposts in space is the “WATCHER'S NEST," which is an inflation hole drive portal.

Instead of delving into what exactly that is, more emphasis is put on how this thing has recently come under attack, which is a big problem for the main characters in this show. Who is causing the problem? Some mysterious force known as “GHOUL"—that"is all we know at first. Thus, a group of young and budding female cadets get assigned to this portal to remedy the situation.

Little do these girls know that they are actually getting thrown into a hornet's nest of troubles as they go about finalizing their training to become elite pilots in the Seraphim Squadron. None of them expected it, so how will they overcome this conundrum?

The story is set around a group of voluptuous women, for a number of fanservice reasons, and one flat Android. After getting briefed about their mission, they are sent into their Mechas in order to fight off some heavy-CG monsters. One of the main characters, Misaki, is seen inside a mechanical pod with a bunch of cables while simultaneously being on the battlefield. After that, we are bombarded with CG monsters fighting, and it all ends in explosions.

From a viewer's point of view, you are given little to no idea of what is going on and start wondering if you’ve missed an episode or whole season before this. There’s definitely so much going on from the onset, and we are just thrown into the mayhem with little explanation.

In the very next episode, the tale goes back in time to when the four cadets were first sent to a high-tech space station to become a part of an elite military force. Misaki, Luxandra, and Kiri are supposedly the potential replacements for the station’s retiring commander, for whatever reason, and we spend the remainder of the episodes trying to catch up to the events of the first episode, all except the last one.

Divergence Eve follows a non-linear pattern of storytelling. Features of a great non-linear story are the not-so-obvious hints weaving things together, building tension, compelling narratives, and being able to cover more ground. But by putting the finale in the events right before the finale in the first episode, Divergence Eve destructively rids the show of any and all tension.

The only other mystery in the series is Misaki’s unorthodox power, which a bunch of shady scientists are super interested in, but thanks to the first episode, we already know it has something to do with her turning into a CG monster herself. As such, the plot becomes very boring and predictable because we know certain things will happen in a certain way in order to make the events of the first episode a reality.

The best examples are Misaki surviving and staying with the team when things could have gone another way a number of times, but we all know she ain’t going anywhere. It’s a given that all her friends will survive too, because we see them in battle in the first episode. There was one character who didn’t make it; the show tried to evoke some emotions, but they already spoiled their deaths in the first episode, so it doesn’t matter. In the end, you end up feeling nothing other than the utter staleness of this fiasco.

To make matters worse, the pacing is god-awful. There are moments where nothing important happens but seems to drag on forever; a number of completely pointless flashbacks repeating things we already know well; and spoon-feeding completely obvious information. This is not an anime with hundreds of episodes, but the creators seem to think most viewers are idiots with short-term memory loss.

The ending is terrible too, so there’s really nothing more to be said about the story department. This show definitely had potential, but the execution was horrible enough to bring it all crashing down.

The character department is as much of a mess as the story. All of the main characters embody typical anime tropes, lacking in originality, likable personalities, and development. They aren’t horrible enough to bring down the show on their own, but they are just boring and predictable.

That said, none of them are detestable either. The first episode reveals the character's death, rendering it completely meaningless and making it difficult for viewers to care about someone who will pass away. After this, all the screen time and effort put into the character is just spilt milk, and they receive no development either.

As for the supporting characters, they aren’t even worth mentioning because they are ever-so-forgettable and have little to no effect. Character interactions are pretty stale too, and there are obvious hints that some of the girls have romantic feelings for each other. I mean, these girls spend almost all their time with each other, so there’s no room for straight relationships anyway.

In the art and animation department, Divergence Eve suffers from pretty bad CG, which looks like it came from a very old console game. They don’t use it everywhere, but it’s abundant in the monsters, action scenes, and high-tech stuff, where you can feel just how awkward, stiff, blocky, and bad it all looks.

The rest uses normal animation and is fairly okay, but there’s nothing great about it. The other major issue is the shameless fan service that goes further than it ever needs to, made possible by female characters with ridiculous proportions. So yes, the character designs are pretty bad unless you’re a fan of huge chests and needle-thin waists on bodies that look like they have no organs within.

In the Sounds and Music department, I have to give props to the voice actors. They were all talented professionals, managing to bring out the best in their characters, but unfortunately, there’s so little to work with here. The sheer genericness of the characters wasted their hard work. As for music, it was all-around mid. The theme is "Nine Inch Nails" by Yousuke Houga, and the ending is "Pump Up!" by Nao Nagasawa, both of which were okay at best. The OSTs are easily forgettable and did little for the already-stale scenes.

Overall, Divergence Eve is a waste of your precious time. It fails at being a good action series, despite having some solid ideas at its core, and ends up having missed its potential. The execution ruined almost everything, and the creators didn’t use what they had to make this show any more interesting. The story is impactless, the characters are boring, the artwork is highly subjective, the audio is forgettable, and the viewers feel nothing watching this (besides maybe the fanservice).

It could’ve been much better if they just opted for a linear storyline that didn’t spoil the whole series on its own, but it is what it is. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not one of the worst out there, but it has nothing good to offer either. Not recommended, unless you really want to give it a go for some reason. It might be acceptable to watch if you simply turn off your mind and stare incoherently, as we all occasionally desire to do.