GX's tagline is "Believe in justice and hold a determination to fist." In common American slang, "fist" as a verb means... something very, very different from what the creators probably intended. There's a similar case when Miku talks to Hibiki about her feelings, and refers to Hibiki as having "those fists I love, the gentlest fists in the world."
Carol's "But what about bondage?" line in XV got a lot of snickers - Though that may have been intentional innuendo.
Chris becomes this after her Heel–Face Turn. Her dere side tends towards this trope, between her shy attempts at socializing and habit of blushing when complimented. This is especially evident in G.
The OVAs do this immensely for Tsubasa and Maria.
Angst? What Angst?: Despite normally being the Hot-Blooded over-emotional one, Chris doesn't seem too broken up about Miku's supposed death in "The Origin of a Hero", even though Miku served as her Morality Pet in season one.
Ass Pull: In G, Maria abducts Miku on a whim from an exploding building and takes her hostage, only for her and Dr. Ver to somehow deduce she's Hibiki's best friend and that they can use Miku and Hibiki's personal relationship drama, which they're somehow privy to, to power the Shenshoujing Symphogear. Supplementary material — only available on the show's Japanese-language website — hints the Shenshoujing can read minds, so it's vaguely plausible (if overly convenient and never mentioned in the show) they know Miku's inner feelings, but the Contrived Coincidences required to put Miku in a Symphogear are not handled very gracefully.
Awesome Art: Though the animation starts out very shaky, the budget visibly improves with every season, leading to some downright stunning sequences by the time of XV.
Hibiki was rather divisive during the first season. While some viewers found her to be spirited and heroic, others generally considered her to be contrived and obnoxious. G improved her standing with consistent morals and general kickassery, but she falls back into this in GX, where her unwillingness to fight is brought to the forefront. Arguments were tossed around as to whether her angst is justified or simply just Wangst, and whether her reasons for hesitating make sense given her prior development or fly in the face of that development. In particular, her snapping at Maria and subsequent apology after the latter saves her from Garie are seen as either justified frustration bubbling to the surface at an unfortunate time, or just her being ungrateful and selfish. She still manages to be incredibly more badass as ever.
Pre-character development Tsubasa was often disliked for her Jerkass tendencies towards Hibiki, and though she has a good reasonfor acting as such, there are those who consider her behavior to be exaggerated and hurtful. Post-character development, she's far more well-liked, though a new point of contention has been made as of AXZ in regards to her lack of focus relative to the other five girls. Some believe this is detrimental as someone who was once one of the focal characters of the franchise has been relegated to a minor role while others think that her new position is justified as since she's already completed her development, she can be more effective at playing as The Mentor, passing along what she learned to the younger members of the cast.
Carol was generally seen as this in the days of GX; people tended to regard her as either the show's best villain, or its worst. Her design, songs, and voice work were all incredibly popular, but she suffered from very clumsily executed motives, a lack of significant personality besides being evil, and being a frustratingly Invincible Villain who committed some of the most heinous and destructive deeds in the entire franchise. XV fortunately managed to resolve some of this by giving her a Heel–Face Turn albeit with her still acting like a Token Evil Teammate (which actually works well), playing up her relationship with Elfnein, and ratcheting down her power somewhat.
For the XDU fans, Parallel Hibiki thanks to her Breakout Character status. "Lost Song" had her as the main character, "Shiden Matoishi Kyohei" had her become involved with Sharon's story (even though she was unrelated previously), and "Ashita no Hikari" was a particularly infamous case, as the event was promoted with Hibiki and Miku as the main focus (along with the new character Asuka)... only for Parallel Hibiki to suddenly show up in the story, taking Miku's place as one of the main stars. It was this event that finally let it set in. While Parallel Hibiki in her initial debut event was considered good, her post-development self is the major contention. Is she an interesting new take on the main character we're familiar with, being a good choice of a major character in XDU's story, or a boring character that we've spent way too much time on when we could see more development from the rest of the cast?
The Training Montage in episode 9 of Symphogear G. It comes right after The Reveal that Miku is alive, yet unlike Hibiki's training montage in season one that makes her into a better fighter, it doesn't serve any real purpose ... aside from allowing Genjuro and Hibiki to sing the theme from Police Story, of course.
The out-of-nowhere musical number about beef stroganoff in episode 3 of GX.
Many fans are divided as to whether G's penchant for over-the-top cliffhangers and plot twists improved the series and made it more fun, or whether it caused the story to collapse under its own weight.
As of GX the fanbase is divided as to whether the heavily episodic nature of Episodes 7-10 are giving characters (especially the FIS girls) development that they sorely missed in G or if they're making the show too predictable and stifling everyone's development by cramming them into glorified Monster of the Week plots.
GX was also contentious due to its running theme of dad-related angst, with a large amount of screentime devoted to Hibiki dealing with her exasperatingly terrible father. Many people felt this was incongruous, or even sexist, given that the first two seasons were focused on definitely-not-gay women warriors and cheesy-yet-epic musical action-fantasy. GX was still popular enough to get two more seasons, so this clearly didn't bother everyone; but in AXZ, the creators may have taken note of the backlash, so Hibiki's dad is Put on a Bus, while Tsubasa's dad returned as an extra ally behind-the-scenes without touching the parental issues again.
Seeing Finé's plans go down the drain and suffering a bout of Villainous Breakdown at the end of the first season is extremely satisfying, especially due to how smug and condescending she was to everyone else beforehand.
Ver's Oh, Crap! reaction when Genjurō reveals that he has no intentions of killing Ver and will leave him to rot in prison, thus denying Ver the satisfaction of a "heroic death", during G was also satisfying.
Shem-ha killing Noble Red in the ninth episode of XV was also well-deserved as Noble Red, especially Millaarc, committed many deplorable actions while under the employ of Fudo Kazanari. In the same vein, seeing Fudo Kazanari's plans go haywire is this as he tried to control Shem-ha only to fail due to Noble Red's interference, and then him getting arrested, condemned spend the remainder of his life as a miserable failure behind bars.
Contested Sequel: GX is beloved by many fans - but just as many are baffled at its popularity. Common criticisms include unlikeable antagonists that the show nevertheless tries to portray in a sympathetic light, bad fights with focus given to power level wank and one sided curbstomps over decent choreography, most of the cast being useless and barely doing anything outside of their focus episodes, pacing issues and a noticeable increase in fanservice compared to the past two seasons.
Common Knowledge: The Superb Songs were fansubbed as "Swan Songs." Combining that with Kanade's death, many believed that it was a Death or Glory Attack. However, while they do heavy damage back to the users, Superb Songs don't necessarily mean death. Kanade died because of her low compatibility and because she didn't take LiNKER that day. Serena died from falling debris, not the Superb Song.
Hibiki x Kanade. There is a good reason why some people ship them together and it is not just because of the first and only time that they interact. It's not until XDU where the two interact for an extended period of time and even then, it's an alternate universe Kanade.
There's also some Kanade/Serena shippers out there, despite the fact that the two have never met in canon. The only thing they really have in common is their Death by Origin Story (for Tsubasa or Hibiki and Maria respectively). It's usually seen discussed alongside Tsubasa/Maria. Kanade and Serena, much like the above example with Hibiki and Kanade, don't properly interact with each other until XDU.
Hibiki x ...Hibiki. Specifically, quite a few fans (mostly from Japan) are quite fond of shipping Hibiki with her parallel self from XDU. They've never actually met in Parallel Hibiki's debut event, but did meet for LOST SONG, which caused the shippers to rejoice. It doesn't help that Parallel Hibiki's new form combines her Elekleid with Prime Hibiki's Gungnir.
Cult Classic: Despite being small in the west, the fanbase is very passionate. This is the opposite in Japan, where with each season, it became bigger and bigger to the point of being the in the 10 highest grossing anime series for the whole year in terms of Disc sales of their respective airings on TV.
The majority of the fans who watched the first season found the sequel to be superior after a few episodes had aired, due to the increased action, an antagonist group that is around since the beginning and comprised of well-developed anti-villains... and compounding them is Dr. Ver as the Big Bad. In fact, it's seen as so much better the Blu-ray sales for the first volume were more than double of that of the blu-ray sales of the first season.
Really, each subsequent season can be seen as being better than the previous one. GX proved to be more popular than the first two seasons for the new songs, more action-packed scenes, and dangerous villains, to the point where there had been even more preorders for it than other series that launched in the same season. AXZ then arguably managed to surpass that by combining the classic Symphogear staples (e.g. amazing songs and fast-paced action) with more consistent character writing, villains who were as humane as they were dangerous, and corrections to some of the problems fans had with GX had as mentioned in Author's Saving Throw above.
XV seems to have topped the pile, owing to its climactic nature, high-quality animation, and revitalizing of older ideas in the franchise. It even briefly cracked the top 100 on MyAnimeList, when previous seasons struggled in the four-digit range.
Fanfic Fuel: The Gjallarhorn relic, introduced in XDU, allows any crossover and alternate universe a writer can think of.
Due to his sheer badassery and that one costume he used in the training montage end, Genjuro is affectionally called Akuma.
In Japan, fans refer to him as "OTONA" which means "adult". Yes, it's all written in capital Latin letters.
Tsubasa is a sword. Or Setsuna. Back in season 1 and G she was also called Sakimori ("sentinel").
Chris's song Makyu Ichaival has her repeatedly singing "zenbu", so fans have often taken to referring to her as Zenbu.
On a side note, some fans also combined this Zenbu with boobs becoming "Zenboobs." The reason was that her Symphogear shows her ample boobs off as well as visibly the biggest bust (although canonically Maria has larger bust (96 vs 90), but downplayed due to height differences).
Since she has blonde hair and her Symphogear outfit resembles that of a witch, Kirika is known by some fans as Dark Magician Girl (or DMG for short). She's also known as DESS, due to her Verbal Tic.
Both Shirabe's relatively serious nature and weapon have earned her the nickname Buzzkill. Certain Image Boards also call her Jii~, after a well-known gif of her staring at the camera.
Because they're almost always seen together, some fans have taken to referring to both Kirika and Shirabe as DMJii, a combined pun on their individual nicknames listed above.
After Maria spent most of G out of the action due to angst, she picked up the Detractor Nickname of Useless or Useless Tentacle Woman (the latter due to her hair looking like tentacles).
Nastassja, due to her name being difficult to spell/pronounce, is usually just called Mom or Ma'am as she's called in-series, but she's also called Wheels sometimes.
He is also nicknamed Dr. Sugita, in reference to his voice actor
Before GX even started airing, Carol had already been nicknamed ZUN girl or simply "the Touhou", for her frilly outfit and large hat. Following her appearance in XV and the surge in popularity she subsequently received, she is now hailed as the season's "MVP" not unlike Android 17, another character who returned after a long absence to much acclaim.
Fans on the wiki gave the nickname "Airgetlam" for Serena's and later Maria's gear. This is based largely on a piece of information on an official source naming the gear 'The Silver Gear'. The name being a nod to Wild ARMs 2 is also speculated. Confirmed by Maria's activation song at the end of G.
Hibiki's father, since being officially introduced, has generally come to be known as Top Dad (mainly due to being an awful dad and for being introduced as a Dirty Coward and a loser). given, as bad as he is, he's the least horrible father of any of the weilders, the nickname was less ironic by the end of XV.
Symphogay for the series itself in some circles, due to the large amount of ship tease and close relationships between the girls, with at least two pairs hinted as being more or less "official" (read: heavily teased). Apparently, even the seiyuu of the characters have commented on it.
The alternate Hibiki in XDU event "A Light That Pierces the Clouds," is called "EdgeBikki" because of how much she acts like an edgy Anti-Hero. Japanese fans tend to call her "Gure Hibiki", as a pun on her usual grey hoodie and a japanese word that means roughly "to become a delinquent".
As of now, Hibiki now officially has her own fan nickname outside of "Bikki": Hamster.
Yumi, Kuriyo and Shiori are collectively referred to as the "Stroganettes" or "Beef Stroganoff Trio," solely for the Beef Stroganoff song in GX.
Fan-Preferred Couple: In a show full of Les Yay (with a fandom that's generally in the camp of Het Is Ew), there is actually a single heterosexual pairing that's generally agreed upon in the fandom: Sakuya Fujitaka and Aoi Tomosato. The two of them almost always seen together, have a Vitriolic Best Buds relationship that's explored a bit more in a few of the OVAs and a few Memorias in XDU together.
Fridge Brilliance: If the Noise are behind most monsters in legends, maybe people accidentally fused with relics gave birth to werewolf tales?
Friendly Fandoms: You'll notice a lot of these ended up having official collaborations in XDU.
The Fuuto P.I. anime adaptation having several staff members that worked on Symphogear caused quite a few fans to celebrate. The Super-Deformed shorts at the end of the episodes having a very similar style to the Shinai OVAs only helped things even more.
Likewise, several fans tend to be fans of Yuki Yuna is a Hero due to them both having Hot-Blooded, manly protagonists who punch things (like Gods) while living to protect their Ambiguously Lesbian best friends. When XDU announced a collaboration event, there was much rejoicing.
There are quite a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh! fans as well, due to sharing the same director as well as themes related to The Power of Friendship.
In "Protector's Song", Ryouko slyly says that once Hibiki and Miku hear her legendary tales of romance, they won't be able to sleep at night. Well, she's correct, but not in the way the giddy girls expect. Her love is directly responsible for everything bad that happens in the series, like inventing the Shenshoujing Symphogear that allows Shem-Ha to manifest inside Miku.
Maria and Serena would not be out of place in our world, considering they would be born and grow up in a war-torn Ukraine in the early 2020s. On a lighter note, people have made jokes and even images of Maria supporting the Ukrainian Army.
Initially, Garie was dismissed as the most boring Autoscorer due to her lackluster design. Then she actually leapt into action and quickly became a fan-favorite.
This isn't the first timeVanessa is in a series where there's a squadron of transforming heroes. To add a bit of hilarity, the Gokaigers have the same color schemes as the Symphogears (Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Pink and Silver). This reached a new level of hilarity when the Mashin Sentai Kiramager crossover was announced, because the Kiramagers have the same colors as well, not to mention Carol, Dr. Ver and Sakuya having roles in Kiramager.
When Miku first hears the word "Kadingir", she remarks that internet searches only turn up game walkthroughs. Four years later, Doom (2016) came out. Now, most of the top search results for "Kadingir" are indeed in reference to its level "Kadingir Sanctum".
In season one, Hibiki calls Miku her sunshine but Miku counters that Hibiki is the sun. Then, in season two, Hibiki's fusion with the Gungnir fragments advances to the point she becomes a living nuclear reactor, meaning she literally is a sun, and furthermore Miku tries her hardest to stop Hibiki from fighting because it'll make her explode, like a sun.
Some fans assumed that the Downer Beginning was just a Troll and that Hibiki is still alive. Some even thought of it already at the very beginning. Boy, they were right!
In season 2, Maria isn't Fine's reincarnation. Also, for all of Ver's seemingly Well-Intentioned Extremist propaganda of 'saving humanity from the Moon's fall'... he just lied his ass off, he just wants to save his own butt and the rest die for his amusement!
The first two Big Bads, Finé and Dr. Ver are well received by the fans. Even though they don't fit the Magnificent Bastard category, their hammy portrayal and their manipulative abilities have caused the fanbase to like them or to hate them. Especially Dr. Ver is considered as an over-the-top villain, being much crazier than Finé herself, even though Dr. Ver is a weakling compared to her. It helps that he's voiced by Tomokazu Sugita, who delivers a fantastic performance despite Ver being different from his normal roles.
Micha, the last of the Auto-Scorers to appear, was receiving attention online before her official debut in the show. Her shark teeth and manic behavior in the OP may (or may not) have had something to do with that. Garie has also built a dedicated following due to her smug, sarcastic personality and amusing facial expressions. It probably helps that in the first four episodes of GX, she has been the most prominent of the Auto-Scorers following her introduction.
Memetic Badass: Good lord, Genjuro. The fact that he nearly beat Finé on his own, and beat all six of the girls while transformed is reason enough, but he also shares a voice with Ryoma Nagare, one of the original hot-blooded mecha protags.
Noble Red in XV, due to being the weakest overall villain squad in the series, constantly being trounced by everyone they fight when they don't use dirty tactics. Their unceremonious death and subsequent revival as perfect monsters at the hands of Shem-Ha have done little to help this, as while they have become significantly more powerful in combat, it was in a way that completely gutted their original goal to become human.
Carol became something of one in the XDU community, namely due to the sheer amount of time it took for her to become a playable character. To put it into perspective, before Carol became playable in September 2019 (right after Symphogear XV aired its final episode), she was mostly relegated to a boss enemy and the occasional appearance event cards while characters like Finé, Genjuro, Dr. Ver, the Alchemist trio, Adam, and Ogawa were playable. The two year gap between the game's launch and her return spawned several running jokes of Carol trying and failing to make her way into the game while other, more minor characters do, all the while complaining about her lack of relevance since GX.
Kanade in fan works tends to be an absolutely chaotic character (near Memetic Badass levels) that's The Tease to all of her friends. Several of them also tend to make her a Lovable Sex Maniac.
While Miku in the OVAs was already a step up from her canon self in affection, many fan works play up her thirst and attraction to Hibiki to unbelivable levels.
Following the revelation that the adult parallel Serena in XDU likes to drink beer after training, it is not uncommon for her to be portrayed in fan art as a Hard-Drinking Party Girl despite her disposition otherwise being very reserved.
Kirika and Shirabe both climb onto the Moe bandwagon during Season 2.
Chris also counts, especially from Season 2 onward.
Carol in GX, with her short stature and Cute Witch attire is definitely this, to the point where some find it hard to take her seriously as a villain.
Not to mention Elfnein, being an even cuter and innocent version of Carol.
Elsa is the youngest member of Noble Red and is a cute werewolf girl with a Verbal Tic who acts cordially even to her enemies. People liken her more to a distressed puppy than a serious threat, even after her Mid-Season Upgrade.
Moment of Awesome: It's clear that everything in this series was made to be as over-the-top as possible for the Magical Girl Warrior genre, from the badass fight scenes (coupled with Awesome Music) to the utterly depraved villains, as well as the ludicrous Narm Charm moments.
So how do you think Ver can top Fine in terms of being utterly despicable? Well, a good starter sign of skirting the line would be when he fetches Noises on passing by kids just because they were looking at him fetching Noises to US soldiers with a smile on his face. If that wasn't enough, then forcefully injecting Psycho Serum to Kirika and Shirabe and tells them to use the Swan Song (which would mean death for them) while acting like an Entitled Bastard despite their pains and dangers of getting injected with them would be him crossing the line. Kidnapping and brainwashing Miku into giving her a Symphogear form? Now that's leaping faaaar away and deeper from the horizon, accompanied with the biggest "WOO-HOO!" you can ever imagine. He's still waving and taking another leap when he sends Nastassja off to the moon, killing her, because she's trying to avert the damage he's caused, this is also the final push for Maria to finally have enough with bearing with him and deciding to kill him.
Carol may well be trying to top Ver in season 3. Rather than explain herself or her position to Hibiki, when the latter finds her at the site of a major fire and voices her intention to come to her aid, she blasts the latter with energy cyclones, to try to force her to fight, purely for the purpose of stripping away her Symphogear, which is well known to be her sole means of life support. When attacking Hibiki directly doesn't work, she sends her Autoscorers to attack anyone near Hibiki to try to provoke her. After forcing Hibiki to fight by directly threatening Miku, an unarmed civilian, she then only defeats Hibiki because Hibiki was fighting Autoscorers two on one, but that still is not enough. While Hibiki is comatose, Carol sends all the Autoscorers out to destroy the power supply to the hospitals where Hibiki might be. And lastly when Shirabe and Kirika come out to protect the Medical bay where Hibiki is staying, Carol doesn't just order her Autoscorers to disable the girls' Symphogear, but explicitly tells them to "do whatever [they] want" because the girls are "uninteresting." Oh, and that Freudian Excuse? Turns out those people are long dead, as in dead for centuries, and Carol's desire to "kill a miracle" by dissecting the planet has nothing to do with her father's dying wish, as she originally claimed. If that doesn't convince you, then Episode 12 would instead: After Elfnein translates that her father's true wish is to forgive the world and that is the true key of understanding the world like what alchemy was meant to be... Carol instead just flat out refuse to honor that, choosing to still hate the world for killing her father and goes on ahead anyway with her attempts to destroy the world for nothing but self-indulged vengeance.
Millaarc in episode 2 of XV, first she raids a concert by Tsubasa and Maria releasing hundreds of Alca-Noise on the unsuspecting civilains, killing 70,000, giving callbacks to Episode 1 of the first series, but then she brutally kills one fan, a child, right in front of an already disturbed Tsubasa. Just to make it worse, more than a few fans think the victim was the little girl Hibiki rescued in episode 1 of the first series. This was Millaarc's Establishing Character Moment and she already crossed the horizon. Following this, later episodes' attempts to give her sympathetic traits have had variable effect on viewers.
Honestly, Fudou probably crossed that line long before the series began by raping his own daughter-in-law to produce Tsubasa, then turning Tsubasa into a lab rat for most of her life and a Symphogear user against her will.
The attack name splashes during more serious moments (like Tsubasa using Shadow Weaving on a berserk Hibiki in Season 1) can really kill the tension and mood.
What the hell is that song that plays when Ryouko shows up at the disaster zone in "No Shadows in the Sunlight"? It's some hyperactive, madcap nonsense that sounds like it belongs in a show for grade schoolers — including a slide whistle — right after a devastating monster attack capped off by a cathartic emotional moment between Hibiki and Miku.
For the narm and the charm, special mention goes to Finé/Ryoko's Engrish. For extra charm, Miyuki Sawashiro is actually pretty good at speaking English, meaning she turned in such a Narm-tastic performance on purpose. The absolute pinnacle has to be this gem from "What Only Clasped Hands Can Create":
Finé: "So jeh* "just"die, dirty US-scum monieeees* "monkeys". It's just a childish ONN-kull-sum* "Uncle Sam", who hasn't even looked at the depth of ... BLACK ART."
Ver's manic facial expressions are either funny or disgusting.
The poses of the Auto-Scorers are either funny or weird.
One True Pairing: Hibiki and Miku since the first season and Shirabe and Kirika since G. Tsubasa and Maria almost crosses this thanks to their moments together in GX.
Aoi Yūki's casting drew some criticism (such as the Anime News Network review) for her singing abilities — or lack thereof. In fact, the Something Awful thread, in its introductory paragraph describing the show to readers, states: "[T]here's a wide variety of music to enjoy, sung by an all-star cast of famous singers. And Aoi Yuuki, who is there."
Refrain from Assuming: Carol's Villain Song from GX is called Senkin ・ Daurdablanote Massacre Harp ・ Daurdabla, but it's common to find fans who refer to it as "Genocide & Genocide", after its very memorable refrain.
Hibiki nearly became The Scrappy because of her poor performance during the first four episodes. Episode 5 rescued her, and the second season increased her popularity.
Maria finally getting over her indecisiveness and getting stuff done in the finale improved her status among viewers. GX improved her standing as she became more decisive and her battling of the Auto-Scorers despite the disadvantage, especially after she manages to beat Garie solo with a new Gear, in IGNITE mode, after failing to activate it at least once.
Kirika had been fairly divisive during the last few episode of G, but becmae a lot more popular after her Big Damn Heroes moment in the third episode of GX, rescuing Chris despite the risk to her body caused by transforming without LiNKER.
Hibiki's father is likely the most hated character of GX, for reasons detailed in The Scrappy below. His sole appearance after GX, in XV episode 9, is generally considered to be okay. He's shown as not having quite gained an unearned reconciliation with the rest of Hibiki's family and admits that he isn't a good dad, but he manages to reconnect with his daughter again, and both seem to officially bury the hatchet, reminding her the very words he taught her, "Heiki Hecchara" and she bounces back from her loss of Miku to Shem-Ha thanks to him.
The Autoscorers were derided as being an Invincible Villain team during GX's run, with their obvious Thanatos Gambit robbing the heroes of any sense of victory against them. Their return in XV sees them put in a legitimately desperate situation for a change, while giving them sympathetic moments and their more flavorful personalities from the Zesshoushinai omake episodes.
Carol, though not an outright scrappy as mentioned in Base-Breaking Character above, was still regarded as the weakest antagonist in the series. Her return in XV did wonders to elevate her status by bringing her power in line with the rest of the cast without sacrificing the aspects of her that were already well-received, developing her relationship with Elfnein, realigning her motivations in a way that fits the plot, having a host of awesome moments where she singlehandedly turns the tide to the heroes' side, and being the person that gets Hibiki to finally admit her feelings for Miku. Coupled with her long-awaited playable appearance in XDU as mentioned in Memetic Loser above, and it's no wonder that she has since amassed a following rivaling that of the six Symphogear users.
The Scrappy: Hibiki's father, who abandoned his family after the concert disaster in Season 1, makes his first in-person appearance in the show in GX. In his first shared scene with Hibiki, he not only refuses to apologize, but asks for her help in trying to get him back with Hibiki's mother, and at the end of the conversation leaves Hibiki with the lunch bill. He comes off as so loathsome and obnoxiously selfish that his helpful contributions in the final battle of the season were seen as too little, too late, and Hibiki's decision to forgive him in the end very much comes off as unearned. That said, his appearance later in the series is considered okay.
The opening scene of Season 3 also qualifies, for showcasing the show's crazy-awesome tendencies. It's usually the go-to scene of Symphogear fans for convincing someone to watch the show.
Unlike the others, Chris doesn't get a solidified partner by the end of the series. Once again, it's a One True Threesome battle between either her with Hibiki/Miku or Tsubasa/Maria.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Unfortunately, due to the rather short episodes per season, the girls don't really get significant interactions with each other outside of their respective pairings. AXZ slightly fixed this via the switch-up partway into the season, but we get minimal time outside from a focus episode each. XDU tries to rectify this with the memorias, but they don't hit as hard since it has the budget of a mobile game compared to an anime. Arguably, the biggest offender for this is Hibiki and Tsubasa, who get a lot of moments in Season 1 (and arguably a few in G), but their relationship is borderline nonexistent until the endgame of XV.
Too Cool to Live: Kanade. Being voiced by Minami Takayama, part of TWO-MIX, and being the partner of Tsubasa in singing, not to mention being a lively Action Girl and Cool Big Sis while the plot demands characters like her to sing a lot? Of course she had to be killed off early lest she blew up the show's budget by merely existing.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Noble Red in general, but particularly Millaarc. The show paints them as tragic reluctant villains whose actions are motivated by their desire to be human again and to not be treated as monsters. However, the events episode 2 of XV in which Millaarc massacres an entire concert hall of innocent people with Alca-Noise, capped off with her gleefully killing a little girl right in front of Tsubasa, left the group as a whole losing pretty much any sympathy they may have garnered. Even the reveal that their numerous terrorist attacks were due to Fudou essentially holding a gun to their heads does little to mitigate the backlash against them as Millaarc's sadistic joy and lack of remorse for her actions makes it practically impossible to excuse her for Just Following Orders. That being said, this trope is downplayed in the case of Elsa, due to her being the youngest member, as well as being the only one who doesn't behave like a Card-Carrying Villain.
The Un Twist: The twist that Ryouko is Fine is so obvious the show doesn't even bother to do a surprise reveal. Episode 10 just begins with the character in question sitting in the middle of the villain's lair in a flat medium shot with no pomp and circumstance whatsoever.
Values Dissonance: One of the biggest issues many Western fans have is how neglectful parenting is forgiven. However, unlike in America, where child abuse and neglect called out and considered wrong, Japan's views are completely different. In Japan (and most Asian countries), parental respect is highly valued. As a result, the fault is always with the child and the parents are always considered to be "trying their best." Children are expected to forgive their parents no matter what or they'd be considered "bad children."
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The series is classified as shonen, since the manga was serialized in a shonen magazine and the anime aired on Kids' Station in Japan, and it's quite a colorful and positive series with a cheerful protagonist. There are a few risque fanservice moments, but it's nothing too bad. And then you get to scenes like Tsubasa or Serena using their Swan Songs. But it doesn't stop there. Chris and the F.I.S.'s backstories are quite dark (Chris being orphaned, trafficked around as a slave, with implications of rape, while Maria came from a war-torn country before joining Shirabe and Kirika and being experimented on at young ages), and then Tsubasa reveals her family lineage, causing quite a few fans to share Maria's disgust. Not to mention how as the animation improved, so did quite a few of the gore scenes, being far more detailed and bloody to the point they're a far cry from Hibiki's injury back in Season 1.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: During transformation sequences, a random splice of words flow in the background. In most cases, they're faux German, except for maybe a few. During Kanade's transformation, for example, the word "ziggurat" flows for a short moment before the cut. Strange how The Other Wiki notes that none of the shrines on them were saved.
Hibiki is hit VERY hard by the Woobie stick in GX. While her backstory was already hinted at in G, it's only in GX that we see just how hard her backstory and experiences contribute to her being a Stepford Smiler that's too close to the edge. She loses it twice big-time in GX - once when Maria is forced to fight on her behalf and another when she runs into her estranged father.
This crosses into Tear Jerker territory when the other Symphogear users want to help and comfort her but can't because they don't know what it's like to have stable family relationships. Tsubasa's dad consistently treated her as a tool of the Kazanari family (and her mom is completely absent from the story), Chris's parents died when she was young, and the F.I.S. Children don't have any relatives to speak of, with Maria losing her younger sister years prior to the events of G.
And then there's Tsubasa herself. The show just seems to enjoy torturing her, making her the honing point for any sort of suffering that's available, especially if the episode focuses on her. And then came XV, pretty much setting it in stone that her life is just the absolute worst.
Chris hovers between being a standard Woobie and a Jerkass Woobie due to her coarse personality, but given her Dark and Troubled Past it's hard not to feel bad for her either way.
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