Senki Zesshou Symphogear

GOD I DON'T WANT IT TO BE OVER.

So our final Opening-named Attack is: Ultimate Lesbian Cooldown Hug.

• Symphogears + Carol teaming up with their own song is amazing.
• CAROL-CHAN. Sacrificing herself once more, but having finally solved her father's request.
• I legit squealed out loud when Miku's transformation song started, and she joined them. Anyone else notice how her Gear looks like a wedding dress, with the massive "skirt" and veil?
• 7 Symphogears, 7 melodies to rewrite the will of the gods.
• Shem-ha's defeat ultimately being as simple as her accepting Hibiki and Miku's reasoning. It was simple and yet....so very on-point for the message of the series.
• Nice call-back to the beginning of the series, with Miku's narration.
• AND THEN THEY KISSED. You know that's what happened as soon as the screen went dark!

I've had it pointed out to me twice already that it looks like a wedding dress, yeah. Bridal Miku.

It really is the best thing that in the end the crazy vengeance plan was stopped by... an insistence that it wasn't needed and love instead. Also the perfect counterpoint to the sheer amount of negativity that's been around this season; people constantly predicting that either or both of Hibiki or Miku would have to die etc.

It will never not be strange how such an optimistic series also has an insane body count.

Works with Optimism in them don't always have to have no deaths, though.

Optimistic works also tend to not have a near once a season case of hundreds of people dying in one spot in a single orgy of violence, though.

You have a point. Its probably a byproduct of the first season when it didn't really know what it wanted to to be at first.

Can't believe Dr. Ver managed to worm his way out of hell one last time at the very last minute.

Edited by Moth13 on Sep 28th 2019 at 8:04:04 AM

Hey, he died actually being a hero, cut him some slack for showing up there.

Also I am dumb:

Fine reincarnated using her descendants. Shirabe, Kirika, and Maria were said to be selected because they were descendants of Fine. Maria is Enki's descendant, allowing her to wield the gear created from his arm.

So that means Enki and Fine had at least one child before the whole Tower of Babel/Curse of Baal incident?

I just realized this and now I feel silly.

Edited by harostar on Sep 28th 2019 at 11:13:01 AM

Great finale, although I was a tiny bit worried at the start before the tension ramped up and the animation too. .

So just the tiniest bit of plausible deniability with the Hibiki and Miku confession, but I'm still really happy. Very much Korra vibes really.

I am however a little disappointed Kimi Dake Ni never played, because aside from breaking the trend, I really love that song.

But Metanoia is another one I really like, so its not all bad.

Also the return of Ghost!Ver.

EDIT: Hibiki is less dense than we thought too!

Edited by 32ndfreeze on Sep 28th 2019 at 9:48:16 PM

Kimi Dake Ni did play... it was the piano instrumental over the post-credits scenes. Also, yes, Hibiki IS less dense, it only took her five seasons rather than forever.

Alternatively, it took 3 seasons after getting cured of the Curse.

Oh I missed that, probably because I was listening for the first few notes.

I liked how that was a plot point, with Miku sort of hoping things would just work out. Before realizing she needed to make the effort to reach Hibiki with her feelings.

I like that Hibiki, in the entirety of Symphogear, chose to act selfishly exactly once.

So apparently the Annunaki included the most important, the "seven gods who decree fate": An, Enlil, Enki, Ninhursag, Nanna, Utu, and Inanna.

So there we go. Seven Gods, so seven songs, seven Symphogears.

I could see the other five appearing in a Strikers esque sequel series if we get one.

Hell, a few of their silhouettes were shown in AXZ, so who knows.

The Final hype chart to end all the hype charts.◊

Not the best fight, but decent for the amount of time they had

Shem-Ha having altruistic intentions is an interesting idea that probably should have been examined in more depth. Which is to say, any amount of depth

Miku gets to keep her gear this time! Now that the series is over

How does Fine have a ghost? They literally killed her soul

Shem-Ha gets her post-defeat turn as a good guy early, which I supposed I approve of. Weird that Adam never came back, especially since the events of this season were exactly what he was trying to stop

Okay, that was cute enough that I can't actually be angry that we did not, strictly speaking, get a confession

So, this was easily the best Symphogear season. A bit over-crowded with ideas, over-reliant on the viewer remembering previous seasons, and a lot of plot threads had under-whelming payoffs, but still a very fun ride with great action and interesting concepts. ...And I have difficulty recommending it since the only other season I consider anywhere on it's level is G. Oh well

Yeah as far as hype goes the fight against Adam was much better, even if the hug resolution makes sense.

And I knew it was coming but cutting off right before the confession bummed me out.

Really? I thought G was easily the worst season.

Edited by Moth13 on Sep 28th 2019 at 1:00:59 PM

Depends on what you're looking for, I guess. G does have the lowest amount of spectacle, but the writing is fairly decent, and without the weird pacing and tonal issues of the first season

I thought GX was the worst season.

From what I've heard most people find TOS, G or GX to be thier least favorite season. But it depends on what you enjoy about the show.

I'd say G is the worst season because of the whole "the writers are in two minds about what they want to do" mess with that having consequent pacing issues and a sort of yo-yo of "now for something dark and edgy!" and then "no, undoing that!". I'd rank them XV > AXZ > GX > S1/G

With S1 mostly being down there because the production values were far worse.

Season 1-3 each have their flaws.

Season 1 had no budget for its visuals.

Season 2 had way too many cliffhangers and quite a bit of Idiot Plot going on.

Season 3 had a bunch of dully predictable episodic content in the gaps between its start, mid-season climax, and finale.

Seasons 4 and 5 are more of a happy medium. Excellent visuals, and neither too episodic nor too cliffhangery. However IMO their antagonists and music aren't quite as fun as past seasons.

Adam fought with a hat and used his own arm as a sword. Plus his design.

Probably the best single antagonist in the series on those grounds.

Adam is great, but Saint Germain, Prelati, and Cagliostro are a big step down from Carol's Autoscorers. And Tiki is just plain bad.

Edited by justinkal on Sep 29th 2019 at 11:56:39 AM

I preferred the alchemists to the Autoscorers since they got their own motivations. Lack of Jojo's poses is sad, though... but I'm pretty sure Tiki is meant to be annoying.

Also, Cagliostro got the best line in the series bar none, I can't fault her for that (or Aoi Shōta for voicing her).