Divine Gate Anime Review: A Convoluted Mess of an Adaptation

Divine Gate

Do you have a friend that manages to drag you along to do things you normally wouldn’t do or don’t want to do? There always seems to be one in every friend group, with their extroverted energy guiding many things. Whether the gang ends up somewhere positive or negative is another subject, because we are often led on by the sheer novelty of things. So today’s subject is an anime where a peculiar group of friends venture into worlds unknown.

Divine Gate is a 12-episode TV anime series that aired from the 8th of January until the 25th of March in Winter 2016. Funimation was granted the license, and Studio Pierrot brought it to life. Noriyuki Abe, who is well-known for his work on Bleach, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Black Butler: The Book of Circus, directed the anime.

Natsuko Takahashi was in charge of the series' composition and also wrote the episodes' 1-2, 6-7, and 11-12 scripts. Additional script writers included Daisuke Watanabe (episodes 4, 8, and 10) and Masahiro Okubo (episode 7). Cindy H. Yamauchi and Ichirou Uno created the character designs, while Takumi Ozawa composed the music. Yousuke Morita served as the sound director. The producing team consisted of Ryosuke Hagiwara, Takumi Kohama, and Motohiro Oda.

Being based on the original game, it features the genres of action, fantasy, and sci-fi. Each episode runs for a total of 23 minutes and received a rating of PG-13 for teenagers 13 years of age or older. Episode 1 of the series was previewed at a screening at TOHO Cinemas Shinjuku on the 26th of December 2015, while regular broadcasting began on the 8th of January 2016.

The “Divine Gate” is but a legend, a mere story told to young children and those alike. This tale speaks of the merging of the living world, heavens, and underworld in spectacular fashion. In such a supernatural mix of worlds, those who are known as "Adapters" are people born with unique elemental skills as a result of the union of their worlds.

Together, they created the potent "World Council," an elite group that regulates the chaos the Gate spreads. How? by simply disguising this legend as just another myth that storytellers spread. Meanwhile, the Adapters continue to train within a special academy run by the World Council itself, allowing it’s students to hone their supernatural gifts. This is where the series is set, focusing on a teenage boy named Aoto, who possesses exemplary water-based powers.

However, he carries a tragic past with him as well (very original, I know). His close friends, the extremely tenacious fire-based skill user Akane and the super-energetic wind-based ability user Midori, have successfully persuaded him to enroll in the prestigious academy, despite his numerous rejections of the offers. Now backed up by the World Council and its highly mysterious leader Arthur, the protagonists start seeking the Gate with the goal of uncovering the hidden truth.

The journey is not going to be very easy, though, because they must first unite and overcome their despair to have any hopes of reaching the end they want. At the same time, they must deal with some mischief behind the scenes as well!

If you have played the Divine Gate game, this anime will surely disappoint you. Whether you come in with some prior knowledge or not, it is an utter convoluted mess that involves way too many characters, worlds, and various storylines, all crammed into a mere 12 episodes.

The plot itself is full of irregular jumps; within the first half of the series, they try to cover Aoto’s introduction and his flashbacks, Akane’s flashbacks, entry into the school, Midori’s flashbacks, Christmas, Divine Gate mambo-jumbo, and the twist antagonist. There are many flashbacks in this show, and they take considerable screen time but are largely disconnected and left unresolved. As such, it should be no surprise that the pacing is awful, becoming an information dump before long.

To top it off, the dialogue is terrible, and their attempts at poetry are way too cringy. I found the jumps in the plot appalling because they carelessly jump between the episodes while giving little to no explanations as to what on earth is going on. At one point, you won’t even be able to tell what the characters are doing, why they’re doing so, or why you should even care. Even by the end, you won’t understand what this story was or what it was trying to do.

The conclusion is one huge cliffhanger that doesn’t solve anything, but I really don’t want a sequel for this show. From the way I see it, this game was never meant to be portrayed in anime format, and even if it was, it required much better execution or a longer runtime.

Like stated earlier, there are way too many characters in this series. Trying to squeeze them all into 12 episodes only makes you care less about all of them. The first 3 episodes attempt to make us care about the main trio by showing their backstories, but we aren’t given enough time to feel anything for them.

Midori is downright boring and annoying to watch, disputing the creators attempt to shove her backstory onto us. Akane, on the other hand, is an arrogant jerk that could do without any television program; it is as if he intentionally makes you despise the series even more. Aoto’s backstory is as generic as it can get, involving abuse by his parents and abandonment issues.

Moving on, forgettable exposition quickly dismisses Hikari, Yukari, and Ginzi before they have even received a proper introduction halfway through. Next up, a number of characters just straight up disappear with no proper explanation; it makes you wonder why they existed in the first place. Only Aoto gets a silver of character development, if you can call it that, which feels extremely forced and impactless.

Last but not least, the Knights of the Round Table were butchered beyond redemption, with only half of them actually showing up on screen. Even for the ones who showed up, we don’t get enough time to feel anything for them.

Overall, this entire department is forgettable. Character motivations play a huge part in any series, but here those reasons are either unclear, snore-inducing, or downright idiotic. As such, I found myself totally uninvested in all of them; there just aren’t any compelling or interesting characters here..

They push the fact that Aoto is the main character more than necessary, making the existence of his two friends completely unnecessary. Even worse is the fact that said protagonist is just another whiny, angsty brat with many family issues. I felt they were onto something with Loki and Arthur, but those expectations were shot down fast.

Arthur just wants to get to the Divine Gate and makes senseless decisions 24/7, while Loki wants to rebuild the world for yet another forgettable reason; he was the only character that was even remotely interesting to me. Perhaps the creators were trying to make the viewers care about the characters owing to their backstories, but they only make you annoyed at their very existence.

One of the few strengths of Divine Gate is the art and animation department, but everything else is bad enough to make it a flop. The action scenes are well-done, particularly the fight between Aoto and Samidare. The backgrounds and scenery look great too. I have no beef with the animation whatsoever; it was pretty good but not very consistent towards the end. The weak link was the character designs, which are severely degraded versions of what’s in the game, especially in the case of the Nordic Gods.

In the music and sound department, Divine Gate does a decent job. The opening theme "one-Me two-Hearts" by hitorie is very catchy and tough to skip, and the ending theme "CONTRAST" by vistlip is good too. The OSTs were honestly wasted on such a bad story and terrible characters because they were able to enhance very bland scenes on their merits alone. The voice acting is pretty solid too, but these talents are wasted on such dull characters.

Overall, Divine Gate is a complete and utter disappointment. It is perfectly justified to drop this series partway because it honestly goes nowhere. It will make no sense even if you are well-versed in the game, making things even worse for viewers who watch it without any prior knowledge.

This show could’ve been much better if they didn’t try to cram so much into just 12 episodes, but in the end, we just got a convoluted mess that nobody can derive enjoyment from. Simply continuing to view this is a chore because a group of agitated adolescents consistently consume far more than they can chew.

In the end, I still didn’t know what on earth the Divine Gate is or what it does, so enough said. The few moments I enjoyed were the fights, but even those fell off over time. This terrible mess of a story, boring and detestable characters, decent visuals, and okay-ish audio make for quite a painful watch, so I suggest you stay away.

One thing I do recommend is the opening theme, which is both memorable and thrilling; honestly, wasted on an awful show. Not recommended, unless you’ve played the game and really want to see for yourself what this adaptation is like. Actually, you’re better off playing the game!