Maria's transformation sequence this episode felt underwhelming to me.
Is anyone getting the impression that Elfnein coming up with the Ignite plan in such a short period of time seems a bit too convenient for the Symphogang? Smells like Trojan Horse.
Also, Alca-noise does make more sense than Arca-noise, given Carol's specialty, and Elfnein strongly implies that Carol's been alive for quite some time.
Senki Zesshou Symphogear
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
Only if you haven't been paying attention to how Hibiki puts on a mask whenever she's in a bind and has always been incredibly vague when something's eating at her, preferring to try and ignore it. Even little slice-of-life scenes have supported this. Say, GX episode 1, when they start talking about parents she leaps into the pool to change the subject. She's had problems since the very first season (note how in S1 she's almost constantly saying she must be cursed) but because they're far more subdued, especially compared to everyone else who are more open with complete strangers than Hibiki is even with some of her closest friends, she hasn't confronted her issues yet.Destiny_Gundam wrote:Personal trauma that gets made up as they go along
Also, keyword from S2:
Spoiler
The Concert Tragedy and the Tachibana Family
2 years prior to the start of Symphogear's main story, the specially classified disaster known as the Noise emerged in the middle of a public performance by Zwei Wing. Combining the numbers of spectators and staff, there were over 100,000 people present at the concert hall. The number of deceased or missing totaled 12,874, a terrible disaster. However despite the fact this occurred on such an unparalleled scale, the tragedy does not end there but continued on.
Of the 12,874 that died approximately 1/3 of them was due to the Noise. The others died as either the result of being crushed by the crowds attempting to flee, or by intense fighting that broke out between attendees trying to secure their escape. This information was published in weekly magazines and quickly set the stage for public opinion. Since the majority of deaths became attributed to other people, the survivors began to experience public bashing. Victims and bereaved families of the deceased also received reparation from the national treasury, and thus the public opinion turned into a harsh debate about one's self-responsibility. Although what had been published and announced in the press was accurate information, a lot of it had been modified to agitate people's emotions, glorifying certain aspects of the story. Using "righteousness" as their guide, many people took to the internet and began to spread their own opinion on the story.
It eventually broiled to the point where even those that were uninvolved or uninterested in the event had begun talking about it passionately, as it distracted them from other problems. Thoughtless slander was thrown around, supported by the majority as having "sound reasoning," not because they had deduced this themselves but rather "because everyone else was saying so." At this point the true nature of the tragedy was lost and had turned into something akin to a witch hunt from the middle ages, or the barbaric persecution of Nazis, fueled by some warped sense of "justice." The goodness of people and their ability to become emotionally attached had been twisted and changed into a drive to hunt down the survivors of the tragedy simply for the reason that "because they survived." Of course at this point there was a faction of individuals who held the opposite opinion, but the majority had already made up their minds and the wave of madness swallowed up any opposition.
Hibiki Tachibana's environment was greatly affected by this. One victim of the tragedy was a boy who attended the same middle school as Hibiki. He was the captain of the soccer team and had a very bright future ahead of himself as a student. Why he had died and Hibiki, who had no redeeming features worth mentioning, had lived was something used to torment her. It all started with a single student, a young girl who had been a fan of the boy, who lashed out at Hibiki yelling in hysterics. It wasn't long before it had consumed the entire school. But that was far from the extent of it.
The daughter of the president of a company that Hibiki's father did business with was also among the list of the deceased. At first her father was incredibly overjoyed that Hibiki had survived the ordeal, but it wasn't long before the news spread around and he found that his contract with the company had been rejected and was removed from the project. Having lost his sense of pride and unable to figure out how to cope with the situation, her father turned to alcohol which eventually led to yelling and even violence within the household. Originally her father had married into her mother's family, taking on her name, but one day on his way to work he intentionally went missing, abandoning the family altogether and never returned to the house again.
Be it at school or at home, Hibiki took on an immense amount of unreasonable torment and harassment. The young girl who puts all her efforts into helping others, is also a girl with a past that had been trampled on by those same people.
The darkness in people's hearts, born of a mutual misunderstanding. Having been exposed to this darkness more than most, Hibiki is still capable of believing in others. Surely this is because she knows that in the space between 2 people, there exists sunlight.
2 years prior to the start of Symphogear's main story, the specially classified disaster known as the Noise emerged in the middle of a public performance by Zwei Wing. Combining the numbers of spectators and staff, there were over 100,000 people present at the concert hall. The number of deceased or missing totaled 12,874, a terrible disaster. However despite the fact this occurred on such an unparalleled scale, the tragedy does not end there but continued on.
Of the 12,874 that died approximately 1/3 of them was due to the Noise. The others died as either the result of being crushed by the crowds attempting to flee, or by intense fighting that broke out between attendees trying to secure their escape. This information was published in weekly magazines and quickly set the stage for public opinion. Since the majority of deaths became attributed to other people, the survivors began to experience public bashing. Victims and bereaved families of the deceased also received reparation from the national treasury, and thus the public opinion turned into a harsh debate about one's self-responsibility. Although what had been published and announced in the press was accurate information, a lot of it had been modified to agitate people's emotions, glorifying certain aspects of the story. Using "righteousness" as their guide, many people took to the internet and began to spread their own opinion on the story.
It eventually broiled to the point where even those that were uninvolved or uninterested in the event had begun talking about it passionately, as it distracted them from other problems. Thoughtless slander was thrown around, supported by the majority as having "sound reasoning," not because they had deduced this themselves but rather "because everyone else was saying so." At this point the true nature of the tragedy was lost and had turned into something akin to a witch hunt from the middle ages, or the barbaric persecution of Nazis, fueled by some warped sense of "justice." The goodness of people and their ability to become emotionally attached had been twisted and changed into a drive to hunt down the survivors of the tragedy simply for the reason that "because they survived." Of course at this point there was a faction of individuals who held the opposite opinion, but the majority had already made up their minds and the wave of madness swallowed up any opposition.
Hibiki Tachibana's environment was greatly affected by this. One victim of the tragedy was a boy who attended the same middle school as Hibiki. He was the captain of the soccer team and had a very bright future ahead of himself as a student. Why he had died and Hibiki, who had no redeeming features worth mentioning, had lived was something used to torment her. It all started with a single student, a young girl who had been a fan of the boy, who lashed out at Hibiki yelling in hysterics. It wasn't long before it had consumed the entire school. But that was far from the extent of it.
The daughter of the president of a company that Hibiki's father did business with was also among the list of the deceased. At first her father was incredibly overjoyed that Hibiki had survived the ordeal, but it wasn't long before the news spread around and he found that his contract with the company had been rejected and was removed from the project. Having lost his sense of pride and unable to figure out how to cope with the situation, her father turned to alcohol which eventually led to yelling and even violence within the household. Originally her father had married into her mother's family, taking on her name, but one day on his way to work he intentionally went missing, abandoning the family altogether and never returned to the house again.
Be it at school or at home, Hibiki took on an immense amount of unreasonable torment and harassment. The young girl who puts all her efforts into helping others, is also a girl with a past that had been trampled on by those same people.
The darkness in people's hearts, born of a mutual misunderstanding. Having been exposed to this darkness more than most, Hibiki is still capable of believing in others. Surely this is because she knows that in the space between 2 people, there exists sunlight.
It's clear that this season is AT LEAST going to touch on Hibiki's massive problems with inferiority, her father issues, and her having to face the consequences of holding onto an ideal of being able to talk things out all the time and think that'll be enough to make everyone happy.
THE WORLD IS NOT SQUARE
-
Destiny_Gundam
- Posts: 4914
- Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2006 12:36 pm
- Location: Canada, eh.
- Contact:
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
When I say made up as they go along, I meant between seasons. G reveals that Hibiki went through a lot after the Zwei Wing concert, but season one never hinted at such a thing. It's because the writers are going season by season, never knowing which will be the last. So when they give her a complete character arc in one season, they need to think up some new trauma for her to work through in the next.Raikoh wrote:Only if you haven't been paying attention to how Hibiki puts on a mask whenever she's in a bind and has always been incredibly vague when something's eating at her, preferring to try and ignore it. Even little slice-of-life scenes have supported this. Say, GX episode 1, when they start talking about parents she leaps into the pool to change the subject. She's had problems since the very first season (note how in S1 she's almost constantly saying she must be cursed) but because they're far more subdued, especially compared to everyone else who are more open with complete strangers than Hibiki is even with some of her closest friends, she hasn't confronted her issues yet.
What was shown is that Hibiki was tormented and her mother and grandmother suffered too. No mention was given to exactly why she was a target and her father was certainly never mentioned. His first mention was here in GX so it's not hard to think her daddy issues were invented solely for this season.Raikoh wrote:And yes, this WAS shown on screen, just not in this much detail.
You know, they really should have flashbacked more to berserk Hibiki to show that she was afraid of hurting people. That would have tied things together better, but instead it's more like "Why is she doubting all the good things she's done now?" Especially when she's confronted by Alca-Noise which aren't, ya know, people (she can be forgiven for treating the Autoscorers as people).
Well, she got over it fairly quickly which on the one hand is nice that they aren't dragging it out, but on the other if it was going to be so brief why do it at all?
"In the end, the world doesn't really need a Superman... Just a brave one."
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
No, the first mention was in the keywords of G. It wasn't said in the series proper because the exact details weren't highly relevant. The father part, however, now IS relevant and even then it's being handled in a more subdued manner, i.e. the short pool scene in GX episode 1. Besides, just because it wasn't in the keywords of S1 doesn't mean they didn't have the idea in their head - Hibiki being incredibly sensitive, having few friends, her "I must be cursed" catch phrase, and the like all hinted at the concert causing more trauma than it appeared to. Her character has always been heavily dependent on the Symphogear. It's what gives her confidence, because she feels that without it she is worthless. It's why she was belligerent towards Maria in ep. 4.Destiny_Gundam wrote:What was shown is that Hibiki was tormented and her mother and grandmother suffered too. No mention was given to exactly why she was a target and her father was certainly never mentioned. His first mention was here in GX so it's not hard to think her daddy issues were invented solely for this season.
She's never had a complete character arc since she hasn't really been CHALLENGED yet. The closest thing to an arc she's had involved her tension with Miku in the first season due to her not being open about when she's feeling distraught, and even that one ended with Hibiki not changing all that much. All of the main antagonists have somewhat conveniently allowed her ideals to get reinforced, or at least not directly challenged. Dr. Ver could not be reasoned with, but he was not a fighter and everything he had in his arsenal sans the Nephilim's later evolutions could barely get close to challenging the main trio. Carol and the Auto-Scorers seem to be intended as that challenge that Hibiki needs in order to have a character arc - overwhelmingly powerful opponents who have no qualms killing people, a goal that is [at this point] 100% malevolent, and who don't possess heroic virtues in any definition of the word.
And think a little deeper: Hibiki never opened with attacking. With Chris, Fine, the FIS girls, Miku, everyone. Her first move was always to try and talk and she fell back on defending herself, but that was NEVER what convinced them to listen to her. Plus, she hasn't thrown a punch at a living creature for six months so it's natural that she's gotten it into her head that the Symphogear is meant to protect, not attack. Bringing it up is necessary, since Hibiki finally getting over her problems is one of the central themes of GX, according to pre-release interviews, and her naive idealism is one of them.
Kaneko has historically written Wild Arms, i.e. RPGs where he has as much time as he needs to tell the story. He's used to making a rich setting with highly nuanced characters who all have an arc to them. Symphogear is no exception. It's true they didn't intend to get a second season, or a third, but that doesn't necessarily mean they didn't have their characters arranged fairly well before those, or at the very least if they're adding stuff it isn't just tacked on for no reason, it's that they're going deeper into some of the characters' more complicated traits (in Hibiki's case, her habit of ignoring her troubles and giving her loved ones a smile even when she's having big troubles). He's smart enough to tell that in an ANIME, though, some stuff needs to get cut for time. If you have nothing but exposition or characters navel-gazing for half the series instead of actually moving the story forward, that's bad show. The keywords help, especially for people's minor questions like "why do they shoot at the Noise?" or "what are the details of Zesshou?" but aren't necessary to get the gist of things.
THE WORLD IS NOT SQUARE
-
vrj_rrls_2015
- Posts: 15
- Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2015 7:31 am
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
When did Shirabe find the time to learn Yoyo tricks?
-
Destiny_Gundam
- Posts: 4914
- Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2006 12:36 pm
- Location: Canada, eh.
- Contact:
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
Nothing can stand up to the power of dubstep!
"In the end, the world doesn't really need a Superman... Just a brave one."
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
I found it hilarious, fitting icing on the cake that is the IGNITE suit design & colour scheme.Destiny_Gundam wrote:Nothing can stand up to the power of dubstep!
It also gave me Saints Row IV flashbacks.
Seriously though, I was expecting the writers to draw the trauma out until episode 7 for maximum cliffhanger, but Hibiki rides in on a missile & punches that in the face.
Given what happened in the episode, I wonder if Elfnein could've served as a spare battery for Carol.
Then again, if it worked that way, the dolls wouldn't have to exert so much effort in gathering memories from other people.
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
BINGE WATCHED!!!!
i knew i was spot on with that meaning i gave to GX!
GAYS EXTREME!!!!
seriously, the Yuri this season could rival Splash Star and DokiDoki's.
and they finally made more explicit Macross shoutots.(Overtech and Listen to my song!)
More HibiMiku please!
i knew i was spot on with that meaning i gave to GX!
GAYS EXTREME!!!!
seriously, the Yuri this season could rival Splash Star and DokiDoki's.
and they finally made more explicit Macross shoutots.(Overtech and Listen to my song!)
More HibiMiku please!
MOOK: ITS A YURI FANBOY!
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
In hindsight, the issue was already up in the air a few episodes back, but the whole bit with Mr. Deadbeat Loser Extra at the end pretty much came out of left field for me.
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
It's narrative convenience but without narrative convenience we don't have a plot.
I'm hoping they do more with Bikkidad outside of him being a completely unrepentant and unforgivable jerk since it's the easiest thing in the world to demonize and not interesting in the least.
I'm hoping they do more with Bikkidad outside of him being a completely unrepentant and unforgivable jerk since it's the easiest thing in the world to demonize and not interesting in the least.
THE WORLD IS NOT SQUARE
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
I'm looking forward to a point where the fate of the world boils down to a slapfight between TOP DAD and LAST ACTION HERO.
-
Destiny_Gundam
- Posts: 4914
- Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2006 12:36 pm
- Location: Canada, eh.
- Contact:
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
Damn, it's gonna be a long wait until Carol's single is released, isn't it?
"In the end, the world doesn't really need a Superman... Just a brave one."
-
Destiny_Gundam
- Posts: 4914
- Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2006 12:36 pm
- Location: Canada, eh.
- Contact:
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
Been a long time coming, but G is finally up at Crunchyroll!
"In the end, the world doesn't really need a Superman... Just a brave one."
-
Destiny_Gundam
- Posts: 4914
- Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2006 12:36 pm
- Location: Canada, eh.
- Contact:
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
So, this season... really, compared to G it was a disappointment. It's far from being awful, but G was just so much better in pretty much every regard from the transformation scenes, to the songs, to the finale.
I'd say the biggest knock against GX is the character stuff. I realise that since each season isn't made with the next in mind they make stuff up as they go along (G's reveal of Hibiki's bullying wasn't even hinted at in season 1, for example) but it still stands out.
Hibiki's dad is an example of that since he was never mentioned in show until this season so it comes across as the creators going "Hm, we need a confict for Hibiki this season... I know! Let's give her daddy issues!" Apparently they had the exact same conversation when it came to Tsubasa.
But overall the plotlines themselves did work. They tied in Tsubasa's issues into her whole "be a sword" thing she went through after Kanade's death and we got to see a side of Hibiki we couldn't see otherwise.
Maria probably comes off the best development wise, since she's still working through what happened in G. Shirabe and Kirika should have had similar issues, but they only touched on that in episode 12, instead having them fight over a stupid reason.
They did help Chris quite a bit, though. Whereas the other characters deal with stuff rooted in their past, Chris has to deal with a new concept: being a senpai and looking out for others. Sadly this was only touched upon a few times.
Of course the worst thing was Hibiki's whole "can't fight" thing which I've gone on about before. Thankfully it didn't last long.
The villains were pretty good as villains. The autoscorers weren't much as characters, but that's fine because their whole purpose was to get destroyed to achieve Carol's objective. Carol herself was a strong foe who planned well and while her anger is understandable they don't force us to see her as sympathetic.
It was still good over all with some pretty impressive fight scenes and the expected amount of heart. However I think perhaps it's running out of steam at this point. I'll be back for season 4 for sure, but I'll have a bit more caution in my optimism.
But if they really wanted to have Glorious Break be the main song, why didn't they just make it the opening? They only tossed in Exterminate at the end there.
I'd say the biggest knock against GX is the character stuff. I realise that since each season isn't made with the next in mind they make stuff up as they go along (G's reveal of Hibiki's bullying wasn't even hinted at in season 1, for example) but it still stands out.
Hibiki's dad is an example of that since he was never mentioned in show until this season so it comes across as the creators going "Hm, we need a confict for Hibiki this season... I know! Let's give her daddy issues!" Apparently they had the exact same conversation when it came to Tsubasa.
But overall the plotlines themselves did work. They tied in Tsubasa's issues into her whole "be a sword" thing she went through after Kanade's death and we got to see a side of Hibiki we couldn't see otherwise.
Maria probably comes off the best development wise, since she's still working through what happened in G. Shirabe and Kirika should have had similar issues, but they only touched on that in episode 12, instead having them fight over a stupid reason.
They did help Chris quite a bit, though. Whereas the other characters deal with stuff rooted in their past, Chris has to deal with a new concept: being a senpai and looking out for others. Sadly this was only touched upon a few times.
Of course the worst thing was Hibiki's whole "can't fight" thing which I've gone on about before. Thankfully it didn't last long.
The villains were pretty good as villains. The autoscorers weren't much as characters, but that's fine because their whole purpose was to get destroyed to achieve Carol's objective. Carol herself was a strong foe who planned well and while her anger is understandable they don't force us to see her as sympathetic.
It was still good over all with some pretty impressive fight scenes and the expected amount of heart. However I think perhaps it's running out of steam at this point. I'll be back for season 4 for sure, but I'll have a bit more caution in my optimism.
But if they really wanted to have Glorious Break be the main song, why didn't they just make it the opening? They only tossed in Exterminate at the end there.
"In the end, the world doesn't really need a Superman... Just a brave one."
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
Honestly, in terms of production and quality pretty much all of the things I've said about Build Fighters Try can apply to GX. Also I can see a ton of parallels with Nanoha Force, which in general is a bad sign. Spoilering for longpost.
Overall it's not a terrible anime, although it certainly is one of the anime I've enjoyed the least of the season. It's just when a franchise I loved so much produces a C- anime I'll hate it much more than when I watch a much worse anime not connected to anything I like.
Spoiler
I noticed that they dramatically reduced the number of animators (presumably for Aquarion and Macross? I don't know) which resulted in none of the fights coming close to the amazing choreography of the first season or the high-octane energy of G. Just look at how much talking and close-ups in the average fight scene as well as how long individual shots last. The fights, particularly in the finale, ended up being a contest of who has the biggest stick. Blame it on episode 7 causing a lot of drama in the studio if you want, but the fact is that GX has the largest majority of off-model animation, and probably the simplest storyboards of the franchise to date. It's why I said it reminds me of Try - compare the fights in GX with that of the previous seasons and the impression I get is not dissimilar to how I feel about the fights in Try compared to Build Fighters.
None of the drama was really invented for this season, outside Chris', since it's all background details that have been around in keywords for a long time. Well, the exact details of Tsubasa's family situation haven't been in keywords but Kaneko has gone on record that Fudou was an evil man all the way back in season 1. While they all had decent ideas behind them, there was no single story arc that was unquestionably executed competently, and I hate how Tsubasa has devolved back into a codependent character who needs to be told that her father saying he wants her to follow her dreams is a sign that he doesn't hate her. Hibiki's flawed ideals haven't been addressed at all, but at least she's moving forward in her development and actually learning how to talk to people and is working past her habit of putting on a fake smile when she's hurting.
The character interactions are nonexistent. They tossed three new characters into the main protagonist's side, but most of the characters only ended up interacting with one character. I'm willing to bet that they're going to shove all that stuff to the Zesshoushinais, but that doesn't fix the problems they had here. It leads to weird moments where you have Shirabe and Tsubasa standing next to each other like they're friends in the finale when they never said two words to each other. Chris, Genjuro, Shirabe, and Miku all have practically no screentime, and there's not much screentime for Hibiki for half the season or Kirika. It really makes me wonder what the heck was actually being accomplished in the series and the answer is a whole lotta Maria. Maria's become Kaneko's favorite and it shows, because she's taken up the role of mentor, guide, and leader as opposed to other characters where it'd fit better. She's unquestionably treated as being in the right all the time, as well. FIS fight in episode 12 was all about Maria, Kirika and Shirabe were just there. I was neutral to her in G, liked her in Zesshoushinai, but GX has kinda ruined the character for me with how much heaps of praise Kaneko has tossed onto Maria.
The plot was a big mass of nothingness. Episodes 2 to 10 are all Carol's scheme getting set up. None of the main characters had a chance to actually be proactive, they're all just pawns moving perfectly into place when they really should've seen better. It didn't have any surprises like Fine's plan nor did it have both sides being competent like FIS in G. With the overall theme, it also makes the ending feel ridiculously forced when we're expected to see someone who has killed millions, if not billions of people without a shred of remorse as being sympathetic.
Music is kind of all over the place. I love some of the songs like Little Miracle, Okitegami, Bayonet Charge and [of course] Radiant Force but am ambivalent to other songs like Beyond the BLADE, Arigatou, and G-Beat, and while my opinion has sweetened, Trust Heart is clearly the weakest Chris song in the whole franchise. A lot of the songs have instrumentals that completely overshadow the singer, particularly on the back end with tracks like Airgetlam and Dur Dabla where I never have gotten the urge to listen to the vocal version because the off-vocal is much better. There are a few BGM tracks that sound great, particularly Micha's theme, but some of them feel out of place (like all the whistling tracks tossed in just because Kaneko wants more Wild Arms references) and the lack of slow instrumental mixes of character songs like they did in previous seasons is noticeable. Also the finale having a grand total of zero new songs is really disappointing.
The new characters are a mixed bag. Micha and Garie are the only ones I enjoyed seeing on screen, Leiur was okay once her personality became more apparent, but Phara, Elfnein, and Carol are all extremely boring. I might connect it on the performances given, particularly Minase who doesn't feel like she's fully immersing herself in the role and chews the scenery way too much, she's not a terrible actress but there is a lot of room for improvement. On the other hand, Kayano's performance, and her singing, have gotten much better than in G (and there was nothing wrong with her in G). According to Hikasa, voice acting for GX was a lot more exhausting and hard to get passionate about whereas she said she was always excited to perform in G.
The writers and animators had way too much pandering in this season and it hurt the series in my opinion. Making some sex jokes is fine, but keep them where appropriate. Here they tossed out a ton of innuendo in action scenes where we're supposed to be taking things seriously, and they were more focused on pushing yuri ships than they were on actually developing good character interaction. Tsubasa and Maria had the lion's share of screentime and yet they don't have an interesting and fun dynamic, their scenes feel very awkward and forced. Seriously, compare those scenes with the approximately seven minutes of Tsubasa and Kanade scenes and the Kanade ones will win out every time.
None of the drama was really invented for this season, outside Chris', since it's all background details that have been around in keywords for a long time. Well, the exact details of Tsubasa's family situation haven't been in keywords but Kaneko has gone on record that Fudou was an evil man all the way back in season 1. While they all had decent ideas behind them, there was no single story arc that was unquestionably executed competently, and I hate how Tsubasa has devolved back into a codependent character who needs to be told that her father saying he wants her to follow her dreams is a sign that he doesn't hate her. Hibiki's flawed ideals haven't been addressed at all, but at least she's moving forward in her development and actually learning how to talk to people and is working past her habit of putting on a fake smile when she's hurting.
The character interactions are nonexistent. They tossed three new characters into the main protagonist's side, but most of the characters only ended up interacting with one character. I'm willing to bet that they're going to shove all that stuff to the Zesshoushinais, but that doesn't fix the problems they had here. It leads to weird moments where you have Shirabe and Tsubasa standing next to each other like they're friends in the finale when they never said two words to each other. Chris, Genjuro, Shirabe, and Miku all have practically no screentime, and there's not much screentime for Hibiki for half the season or Kirika. It really makes me wonder what the heck was actually being accomplished in the series and the answer is a whole lotta Maria. Maria's become Kaneko's favorite and it shows, because she's taken up the role of mentor, guide, and leader as opposed to other characters where it'd fit better. She's unquestionably treated as being in the right all the time, as well. FIS fight in episode 12 was all about Maria, Kirika and Shirabe were just there. I was neutral to her in G, liked her in Zesshoushinai, but GX has kinda ruined the character for me with how much heaps of praise Kaneko has tossed onto Maria.
The plot was a big mass of nothingness. Episodes 2 to 10 are all Carol's scheme getting set up. None of the main characters had a chance to actually be proactive, they're all just pawns moving perfectly into place when they really should've seen better. It didn't have any surprises like Fine's plan nor did it have both sides being competent like FIS in G. With the overall theme, it also makes the ending feel ridiculously forced when we're expected to see someone who has killed millions, if not billions of people without a shred of remorse as being sympathetic.
Music is kind of all over the place. I love some of the songs like Little Miracle, Okitegami, Bayonet Charge and [of course] Radiant Force but am ambivalent to other songs like Beyond the BLADE, Arigatou, and G-Beat, and while my opinion has sweetened, Trust Heart is clearly the weakest Chris song in the whole franchise. A lot of the songs have instrumentals that completely overshadow the singer, particularly on the back end with tracks like Airgetlam and Dur Dabla where I never have gotten the urge to listen to the vocal version because the off-vocal is much better. There are a few BGM tracks that sound great, particularly Micha's theme, but some of them feel out of place (like all the whistling tracks tossed in just because Kaneko wants more Wild Arms references) and the lack of slow instrumental mixes of character songs like they did in previous seasons is noticeable. Also the finale having a grand total of zero new songs is really disappointing.
The new characters are a mixed bag. Micha and Garie are the only ones I enjoyed seeing on screen, Leiur was okay once her personality became more apparent, but Phara, Elfnein, and Carol are all extremely boring. I might connect it on the performances given, particularly Minase who doesn't feel like she's fully immersing herself in the role and chews the scenery way too much, she's not a terrible actress but there is a lot of room for improvement. On the other hand, Kayano's performance, and her singing, have gotten much better than in G (and there was nothing wrong with her in G). According to Hikasa, voice acting for GX was a lot more exhausting and hard to get passionate about whereas she said she was always excited to perform in G.
The writers and animators had way too much pandering in this season and it hurt the series in my opinion. Making some sex jokes is fine, but keep them where appropriate. Here they tossed out a ton of innuendo in action scenes where we're supposed to be taking things seriously, and they were more focused on pushing yuri ships than they were on actually developing good character interaction. Tsubasa and Maria had the lion's share of screentime and yet they don't have an interesting and fun dynamic, their scenes feel very awkward and forced. Seriously, compare those scenes with the approximately seven minutes of Tsubasa and Kanade scenes and the Kanade ones will win out every time.
THE WORLD IS NOT SQUARE
Re: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
one of my favorite scenes from the final episode
http://i.imgur.com/FoqDNa7.gif
YURI POWERED DOCKING!!!
i'm satisfied with GX. for i can be a simple man sometimes. XD
at the very least we didn't get a complete cast changeover like StrikerS.
question is where will the series go from here? a movie is fine. that sequel hook made me think that i'd be government vs Symphogears. mass production Syphogears are also fine.(guessing that the no new gear user applies only to GX.)
http://i.imgur.com/FoqDNa7.gif
YURI POWERED DOCKING!!!
i'm satisfied with GX. for i can be a simple man sometimes. XD
at the very least we didn't get a complete cast changeover like StrikerS.
question is where will the series go from here? a movie is fine. that sequel hook made me think that i'd be government vs Symphogears. mass production Syphogears are also fine.(guessing that the no new gear user applies only to GX.)
MOOK: ITS A YURI FANBOY!