Have you tried… not being Gear?
(Read the full episode below, or click here for the list of other episodes)
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(The following is a re-upload of my original tumblr post. I’ve altered it in the following ways: fixed typos/grammar/punctuation, made image edits easier to read, clarified confusing sentences, streamlined extraneous content, and added stickers to nude scenes to comply with Blogspot policies. The rest of the original madness is preserved as-is.)
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The cat’s out of the bag.
After spending last episode neglecting Miku and even managing to make her think she was gonna get dumped for Tsubasa of all people, Hibiki was forced to finally reveal the secret to her girlfriend by Gearing up to save Miku from Chris’s attack.
Chris clicked a big fat red IGNORE button on Hibiki’s offer of friendship. Instead of obeying Topless’s orders to kidnap Hibiki, Chris instead tried to kill her.
This just might land Chris in a boatload of trouble with her mistress, considering her first failed attempt to kidnap Hibiki ended with Chris strapped to an electrocution device as punishment. Topless doesn’t seem a person who takes kindly to failure. We’ve already seen Chris get angry at her, talk back to her, and now openly disobey orders… Either Chris is going to be savagely punished back into obedience, or this will be what starts her true break from Topless.
Apart from having to deal with Chris, Hibiki’s main struggle this episode will be how in the hell to get Miku to accept the whole Honey-I’m-A-Magical-Girl thing, and what it will mean for both of them for Miku to now be part of that world.
Hibiki clearly looks well prepared to handle this new level of their relationship.
But it’s okay, because Miku took the news equally well.
Eesh. They need to have a read-aloud session with each other where they take turns discussing excerpts from that How to Be Honest with Yourself book Miku was looking at in the library last episode.
HAH – I didn’t notice until I was sorting the screencaps for last episode, but this book slid some foreshadowing right under my nose.
This library scene takes place right before the Great Plot Contrivance Of The Century where Miku just happened to look out the window and see Hibiki and Tsubasa chatting, making Miku think her Hamster was ditching her for Tsubasa…
Miku’s color-aspect is green, Tsubasa’s matches the bluish-purple square, and Hibiki is the blonde square caught between them. In addition to the relationship issues, in a broader sense Tsubasa represents the Symphogear-world while Miku represents the normal-world, with Hibiki symbolically caught between her obligation and desire for both, just barely scraping the edges of both realities. One of Hibiki’s main struggles throughout this story, as it always is for all super-powered or magical heroes, is going to be learning how to balance those two realities and create a stable, centered self who can exist in both worlds.
But, if we take the bluish-purple square to represent Chris rather than Tsubasa (since Chris’s whip-weapons are purple), then the foreshadowing takes on a more direct meaning in regards to Hibiki finally spilling her secret at the end of the episode, when she was forced to literally thrust herself between purple Chris and green Miku to protect Miku from an attack.
After Hibiki and Miku’s metaphorical punches to the heart, we ended the episode with a literal punch to the heart.
Hamster landed a Falcon Punch on Chris so hard it nearly shattered her opponent’s Gear. But, Chris won’t go down quite so easily. With Tsubasa still too injured to fight and Durandal locked up in the team’s base, Hibiki’s on her own against a very angry and very violent Chris.
Hamster’s probably glad for the distraction of fighting Chris at the moment, honestly. It might actually be less stressful for her than facing Miku right now.
Let’s watch and see how Hibiki manages to muck up her personal life up even further.
Shit, even the anime seems to want to avoid facing Miku right now. We only get a four-second setup and then dive straight into the OP, just to put the pain off for another 90 seconds like a kid refusing to rip off a band-aid.
The episode proper starts with our girls still in that secluded part of the park. Chris stumbles back into the fight after taking that hit, determined as ever to take Hamster down, although Hibiki’s power level even without Durandal surprises her.
Hibiki isn’t going much on the offensive, however. Chris interprets this as Hibiki not taking Chris’s attack seriously. In reality, Hibiki just wants to end the fight peacefully and make friends instead so she can, like, go trawl the bars with Chris and sing drunk karaoke together or something, so that when Hamster finally does come home to Miku that night she can just pass out on the couch and put the confrontation off until morning.
Hibiki again tries to appeal to Chris’s rational side (Chris has a rational side?), even calling her “Chris-chan” after Chris lets her name slip.
Chris takes the offer about as well as anybody in this show takes anything.
Chris doesn’t believe Hibiki’s attempt at friendship, accusing her lying.
Again with the covered/shaded eyes for this particular piece of dialogue, reflecting her shaded-over outlook on life. Chris has been abused, lied to, manipulated, and mistreated for years. It is nigh-on impossible for her at this juncture to believe Hamster is being genuine.
Chris hurls herself at Hibiki again, but her Gear is too damaged from the earlier hit to do much. So, Chris decides to… get a new one?
That’s Chris’s activation phrase? That’s practically mundane compared to the others we’ve seen so far. I was expecting something at least as ridiculous as “Notto disu shitto agen”…
…or even just a “FUS RO DAH!”
Wait, what? I thought her Gear was called Nehushtan, what’s this Ichaival? And how/why is she carrying two Gears? That’s like Batman ripping off his black armor to reveal Superman’s suit beneath it. Actually, never mind, that’s probably happened in the comics at some point.
For that matter, if Chris had a second Relic this whole time, why hasn’t she used it before? She’s already been defeated twice: once by Tsubasa’s Climax Song and once by Hibiki using Durandal, but now she decides to play her trump card over a grudge match in the park?
Back at the base, Snoop Oni and the crew are monitoring the battle, and they detect the new energy signature for Ichaival.
The bad guys stole two Relics from the good guys? Come on now, team, that’s just lax. In the words of Oscar Wilde, “To lose one Relic may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” Isn’t there a Find My Relic app or something you can download?
Chris transforms into her new Gear, and like everything else in her life this only pisses her off further, as it required her to… sing.
Look at the shock and disappointment in the poor hamster’s eyes. So much for the karaoke bar plan.
Also, I see Chris has made the bold stylistic choice to swap from underboob to cleavage window. Very fashionable this spring, I hear.
Freshly Geared up in an outfit that’s Red Like Her Rage, Chris attacks again. Even her battle song is angry. Full of taunts, mockery, and her resentment toward other Symphogear wielders.
With Nehushtan’s spiky whips gone, her new Ichaival weapon is a crossbow… that turns into quad-wielding Gatling guns?
Fuckin RAD, MAN
Chris shoots a relentless onslaught of explosive bullets at Hibiki, practically setting the whole park on fire in a storm of fury. I went back and timed it, and she fires 4 guns for 23 seconds, which by a certain Russian fellow’s calculations means the entire barrage must’ve cost approximately 3,066,664 dollars.
Yeesh, no wonder Topless won’t let Chris use this Gear too often. Paying for it must be a nightmare even for someone rich enough to own a lakeside mansion. Must be why Topless goes nude half the time. No room in the budget for clothes.
After that devastating attack, Chris thinks she must’ve done Hibiki in for sure this time. But, lo and behold…
Wow, Tsubasa, you haven’t made an overly dramatic entrance in like three episodes. Making up for lost time, I see.
(Also, my goodness, compensating for something with that massive sword, darling?)
Daddy Longlegs here managed to drag herself out of the hospital to come hold off Chris’s attack, but she’s still not at full health. On Hibiki’s end, Chris’s three-million-dollar babies took quite a bit out of her, so Hibiki isn’t at her peak, either. They need to work together if they want to beat Chris.
I’m pretty impressed with Tsubasa! This is massive for her. Not only is she admitting her weakness instead of blazing forward full speed ahead until she crashes like she normally would, she’s also asking for someone else’s help instead of insisting on going it alone like she’s been doing since the first episode:
It’s a sign of Tsubasa’s growing respect for Hibiki, that she trusts the other girl to guard her back in a real fight. That heart-to-heart these two had in the hospital last episode left a deep impression, it seems.
Considering we’re at the halfway point of the season, the remaining half of the season will probably solidify their bond even further, until they are proven allies. And then, just knowing Symphogear’s love of inflicting pain, I’m sure it will take great delight in inevitably tearing these two apart again once they become friends, because we can’t have nice things in this anime.
Tsubasa draws a more modestly sized sword – because a girl really only needs so much length, the rest is just for show – and now these three girls decide to Let’s Go Just Me And You, Let’s Go Just One On Two.
Tsubasa doesn’t go for the kill, however. She’s not as much a pacifist as Hamster, but she’d still rather avoid killing another human if possible. In a more pragmatic sense, Tsubasa knows the agency needs Chris alive so they can interrogate her about that second stolen Relic, Ichaival. Tsubasa reveals Ichaival was stolen ten years ago, long before Nehushtan’s theft at the concert two years ago.
Chris is outnumbered, but our heroes seem to have forgotten that she has the power to summon Noise to aid her in battle.
A bunch of Noise swoop down on them from the sky. Imagine if J.R.R. Tolkien hated his characters, and the Hobbits were saved by giant purple flying hammerhead shark monsters instead of eagles.
But wait, huh? The Noise are attacking Chris instead of the other girls?
I guess Chris wasn’t the one who summoned them, then?
…There’s only one other scumbag we’ve seen with the ability to summon Noise….
Hibiki dives in, intercepting a Noise attack with her own body before it strikes Chris. Injured, Hibiki falls toward Chris, who awkwardly takes the hurt, brave little Hamster into her arms like when someone hands you a baby you didn’t fucking ask to hold but goddammit you can’t drop the little fella now that you’ve got them.
Chris is staggered by Hibiki’s action. This may be the first time in ages, possibly ever, that someone has done something genuinely kind for her, especially at harm to themselves. Chris clearly has no idea how to handle this, so she resorts to more anger.
Chris hasn’t yet gotten the message that Hamster-Jesus really does want to convert her into an ally rather than an enemy. Hibiki has done nothing but extend a hand in friendship, where Chris is used to seeing people’s fists. Hibiki will definitely be Chris’s personal sponsor on the Run for Redemption marathon, and it’ll be fun to see Hibiki cheer Chris on through her character arc.
Buuuut, back onto the subject of who exactly summoned those Noise… Topless sleazes onto the scene, in her big floppy Del Mar hat again, also wearing dark shades.
I’m still thinking this character is just Dr. Perv, so maybe this outfit is to hide her identity from Hibiki and Tsubasa, who would recognize Ryouko if they saw her. Also, I guess the whole Noise-summoning ability is tied only to Nehushtan’s weapon that she’s holding, not the other girls’ Relics.
(Can any intact Relic do this? Can Durandal do this?? Will Hibiki summon a massive army of Noise to aid her in the great Final Battle against the apocalypse?? More importantly, will I be able to handle that level of gnarly-ness should it occur???)
Topless gives Chris a typical villainous You Have Failed Me For The Last Time speech. Chris angrily (honestly, Chris seems to do everything “angrily”) pushes the injured Hibiki toward Tsubasa, who catches her, because everybody deserves a turn cuddling the poor wounded Hamster and posing dramatically for screenshots that I want to get tattooed on the inside of my eyelids so I can look at them forever they are just that perfect in being exactly everything I want out of an anime.
If someone asks me what it means to be a lesbian, I am just going to send them the above picture. If I could get this image spray-painted on the side of my home without getting evicted, I guarantee you I would do it.
We gotta push that sheer crystallized awesomeness aside for a second though, because plot is still happening.
Chris sass-backs to Topless, telling her that Chris still fully intends to “stop the wars” even without the Relics.
What? Stop what “wars”? The human vs Noise war, or just wars in general, like the one that killed Chris’s family? And what “curse”? The curse of the ages-old Noise attacks? The curse of humans being shitbags to each other? The curse of the mummy’s tomb? The curse of the broken loading bar that freezes at 90% completion and then crashes your entire browser? What in the world is Chris talking about?
Is that what Chris’s “wish” to Topless was, to end some curse? And how will the world return to “being one”? Does Topless truly want some type of metamorphosis/rebirth of the world with her butterfly symbolism like I was speculating about a few episodes back, where she intends to somehow create a new world order according to her own desire?
Topless only sighs at Chris’s protests.
That’s right, we already know she’s set her eyes on a new target, a minion who’ll prove a much more powerful tool than Chris…
Chris takes the breakup well.
Topless waves her magical glowing blue hand, tosses some more Noise at Tsubasa to cover her escape, then flutters off into the sunset. Chris, despite having been quite thoroughly dumped, runs after her, calling out her name. Tsubasa, having to care for the injured Hibiki and still rather injured herself, can’t pursue them.
Back at the base, Snoop Oni and his agents were able to identify Chris based on the recording they got of the battle. It turns out she’s not exactly a new face.
If Chris was a former Symphogear candidate for the agency, that might be how Chris met Dr. Perv. Since Ryouko is both the medical doctor for the team and the inventor of the Gears, she’s the one who evaluates all the new Symphogear girls’ suitability and coaches them in accessing the Relics, like we saw during Kanade’s backstory.
If Chris showed up as a candidate but was ultimately rejected, Ryouko could’ve easily swooped in and scooped Chris up to keep as a secret henchman. Hell, maybe Ryouko even sabotaged Chris’s evaluations, deliberately making it so the agency wouldn’t choose Chris even though she has enough power, so that Ryouko could keep that power for herself.
There’s someone else on the screens at the base…
OH FUCK ME
They did it, they actually did it. The MIBs grabbed Miku. Pain train arriving at the station, right on schedule.
Normally, the agents just make people sign consent forms promising to keep the secret once they witness the Symphogear girls in action, right? I’m not sure why they’d go the extra mile and escort Miku to the base. They likely already know she’s Hibiki’s roommate, so maybe they think they must take extra measures to ensure Miku doesn’t spill the secret. Hoo boy, they better watch their step here…
I don’t think the agents are gonna mistreat Miku, since the agency has been presented as mostly good folks so far. But, I lowkey want Hamster to assume the worst once she realizes Miku is in captivity, lose it and go Frothing Berserker, and Hulk-smash the base up until they let her girlfriend go. On the other hand, I dunno if my poor heart can handle any more Protective Heroic Lesbian Badassery today.
This base-escorting thing will put even worse strain on Hibiki and Miku’s relationship and their need to find some kind of acceptance for the whole Symphogear issue. What the two of them need is quiet alone time to talk honestly and sort things out, not an interrogation surrounded by government agents.
It doesn’t look like they’re letting Hibiki see Miku just yet though, as we cut to Hibiki getting an after-battle checkup with DON’T FUCKING TOUCH MY HAMSTER YOU STAINED SHAMWOW
It’s so jarring to see Ryouko interacting with Hibiki and the other characters as normal, when the audience knows she’s secretly a traitor. But then, why would the other characters know anything is amiss?
It’s not as if Dr. Perv is walking around wearing big neon lights that say “Look: weird person right here!!” like houses that keep their Christmas lights up way too long and for fuck’s sake Dad it’s February everyone on this street thinks we’re insane just take the goddamn lights down already you are a 61-year-old toddler who loves bright things omfg I can’t even drive to work in the morning without awkwardly avoiding eye contact with the neighbors.
What was I talking about? Right, Hamster’s checkup. Her injuries are minor, and she’s more worried about what’s happening to Miku elsewhere in the base. Ryouko tries to reassure her.
Ehhh… I’m still a little nervous. If all the agents had to do was tell Miku to keep her mouth shut, why did they bring her all the way to the base? This anime has trained me to assume the worst in any situation. Will it really be as clean-cut as Miku just getting a talking to and then put on the elevator back up to the school so she can go back to her and Hibiki’s dorm?
Snoop Oni and the agents are worried over today’s developments, since they now have to deal with two stolen Relics, one shady villainess with a plan they know nothing about and who can summon Noise, one Durandal they now have to keep extra safe in their base, one angry former Symphogear candidate, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Dr. Perv breezes in to tell the crew to buck up, because their own two Symphogear girls are gonna be fine.
Why do I feel like this image of Ryouko flanked by Hibiki and Tsubasa like henchmen is going to become horrifyingly painful in retrospect, someday? As I said, Symphogear has trained me well. Pavlov trained dogs to salivate at the ring of a bell, and Symphogear has trained me to raise my hackles and bark at every new development.
Surprisingly, Tsubasa has good things to report regarding Hibiki’s performance in the battle.
Praise Zeus, that was above and beyond what Hamster or I expected. Back Hibiki up? Tsubasa, you’re still the veteran here and Hibiki still needs your guidance. She’s not yet ready to take up the leader’s mantle. Even so, this is a solid step forward for the two of them. Now that Chris exists to shoulder some of the angst-bunny role in this anime, maybe Tsubasa can begin to thaw a little.
Dr. Perv interrupts by getting her Perv on with an invasive poke to Hamster’s breast, where the Gungnir scar lies. Dr. Perv tells Hibiki and the rest that during the checkup, she saw that the shards of Gungnir in Hibiki’s chest are “merging” with Hibiki’s body in ways they previously haven’t been.
Yeah well, that might also be where this shit comes from:
Yikes, this whole “merging” thing does not sound good. I don’t know if all Relics are inherently corrupt or if it’s only Gungnir that carries the Frothing Berserker curse, but “merging” with an ancient magical blood-fury relic stone of power never ends well. Has no one in the agency ever played any of the Diablo games?
Unless, Hibiki is simply so Pure Of Heart that it cleanses Gungnir. She is Hamster-Jesus, after all.
Night falls, sweeping us up to Hibiki and Miku’s dorm. Whew, I guess they really did just talk to Miku and let her go?
Hamster’s hesitant to even cross the doorway. It’s just the the three of them alone together now: Miku, Hibiki, and the giant whopping pile of shit left by the elephant in the room they are both avoiding.
Hibiki doesn’t know where to begin. Miku brushes her off curtly, deliberately not looking at her, instead reading some magazine about cats. Miku says the people at the base already explained the main stuff to her, and therefore:
Ouch. This is an extremely bad sign. Not “I don’t want to talk about it” or “I have nothing to say”, but “I have nothing to hear.” Miku is stopping the conversation before it even starts. She’s completely closed herself off to Hibiki. Once someone shuts you out, whether it’s a family member or friend or romantic partner, getting them to open back up to you is like trying to crack a nut open. You’re more likely to shatter the thing into pieces trying than you are to succeed.
Miku probably isn’t even chiefly upset about almost getting killed or finding out her girlfriend has magical powers. It’s probably the fact Hibiki kept all of that a secret that’s eating at her. She’s lost a lot of trust in Hibiki, and goddamn if that ain’t the death knell of many formerly solid relationships.
Miku snaps at Hibiki, calling her a liar, and I honestly had to pause the episode for a moment. Not to take screencaps or type, just to wince and gather my breath for the Category 5 shitstorm we’re about to be pelted with.
UGGGHHHG SPARE ME SYMPHOGEAR DO SOMETHING ELSE
WAIT I CHANGED MY MIND GO BACK TO HIBIKI AND MIKU THIS MIGHT BE WORSE
Symphogear, ever one to prolong the pain, cuts away to a scene of Chris wandering the park in the moonlight, still broken over Topless cutting ties with her. Chris is without direction in her life.
It would’ve been better for Chris if she severed her connection to Topless of her own will once she realized Topless wasn’t worth it. The fact that Topless was the one who dumped her means Chris still has a lot to sort out before she realizes her own mistakes. But it’s okay, the important symbolic first step has already been taken now that Chris no longer wears Nehushtan – for better or for worse, Chris’s mask has been removed. She’s now ready to see the world with her own eyes, unfogged by the villain’s power over her. I’m sure Hibiki can step into the vacuum and provide Chris with some much-needed good influence.
Chris also lets us in on what her “wish” to Topless was.
So, Chris’s goal this whole time was to stop killers from killing people… by preemptively killing people herself?
Your approach to solving problems is to just wipe out everybody? Chris, have you ever heard the expression, “You created a desert and called it peace”?
Chris stumbles across two crying kids. Why these kids are roaming the park alone after dark I have no idea, didn’t they hear that someone’s been blowing the fuck out of parks in the area with millions of dollars’ worth of explosive bullets? Stellar parenting right there.
Oh, never mind, turns out they are actually looking for their parents, or their dad at least, who they got lost from earlier.
Chris is torn between 1) being a Big Tuff Girl and just smacking the annoying kids, or 2) letting her deeply-buried good side come out and protecting someone weak and in need of help like she once was as a child.
We’re really doing this? We’re really gonna have a cute little side-quest interlude where our waffling bad guy in the midst of her personal turmoil takes a break from her drama and helps some random children find their dad? Is she gonna save the polar bears too while she’s at it?
…Or are the three of them going to find the dad’s corpse out there in the park, riddled with stray bullets from someone’s battle earlier, with Chris realizing she has orphaned another child and become all that she hates?
Hahahhaa I want to get off this ride
Symphogear deigns to have mercy on my poor soul, however, and this cheery little interlude actually is a cheery little interlude. Astounding.
Chris even holds the little girl’s hand as they search the city for the kids’ dad. Chris hums absently. The little girl asks her about the humming, but Chris catches herself and puts her RAAAAAGE persona back on and again claims that she hates songs.
Ow, Chris goes hard. Poor girl hasn’t realized yet that she breaks everything she touches because she’s broken inside. Once we get all redeemed up in here and Chris finds her center, she’ll learn that she can use her power-songs for good, and then she’ll realize it wasn’t battle songs she hated after all, just the part of herself that was trapped by them. Maybe she’ll even start to like singing, and Hibiki can take her to those karaoke bars, after all!
They find the kids’ dad safe and sound, thankfully. Chris is a little envious of the happy family. She asks how they get along so well.
You hear that, Chris? You can make up with people, you don’t have to kill their asses. Go make up with Hibiki, you can be friends just like she offered, Hamster-Jesus forgives all! GO MAKE UP WITH HER RIGHT NOW AND SAVE HER FROM HER GIRLFRIEND’S FURY TONIGHT.
Unless, Chris decides to go make up with Topless instead, and we get a scene of Chris standing outside the lake mansion holding a boombox up over her head playing, “Baby please take me back.”
Welp, now that that little side-quest is completed and Chris got some minor bonus exp and a reputation gain with the local faction, it’s time to get back to the pain.
Even the framing of this shot screams pain. The camera does this more-than-full-frame pan from right to left, emphasizing the distance between these two, how they aren’t even on the same “screen”/page, anymore.
Hibiki fidgets awkwardly. Miku continues to ignore her, instead choosing to keep reading that magazine about cats, because apparently that’s the only kind of pussy Miku will be seeing for a while.
Oh my god, Hibiki, you are going about this completely wrong.
She doesn’t need to listen to you right now. Miku’s already told you she’s not willing to hear anything. What you need to do is listen to her, and let her pour out all that confusion and anger and betrayal she’s feeling over this issue. You two can’t move forward until Miku gets that out.
Yeesh, Miku even does the equivalent of sleeping on the couch by choosing to use their normally empty second bunk. The thing is so vacant it’s outright curtained off. They probably just use it for storage space, considering they always sleep together on the top bunk. Heck, that may be where those cardboard boxes on the left came from. Miku was so pissed, she hauled boxes out of the empty bed so she wouldn’t have to sleep next to Hibiki.
Hibiki tries to apologize again. Miku’s not budging. You can’t apologize your way back into someone’s trust. The poor Hamster can only stare sadly at a photograph of her and Miku and realize they have a long way to go to get back to where they were before.
After that poisoned fucking cupcake of a scene, we flutter over to Dr. Perv in her lab at the base. She monologues about the Symphogears and the limits of their power.
Ryouko tells us that since a Relic’s power can’t function on its own and must be channeled in the form of Gear wielded by a human, that human’s body sets the limits on the Gear’s power. Relics are capable of outputting more power, but this isn’t reliable, because channeling that much power puts so much strain on the wielder that it kills her (like Kanade’s Climax Song and Tsubasa’s attempted Climax Song) and therefore renders all that power unusable.
Oh-kayyyy… things are becoming clearer.
This must be what Ryouko wants Hibiki for. So it was Hibiki’s “special condition” that made her valuable. Hibiki has no gap between herself and Gungnir, since Gungnir is embedded in her body. This means Hibiki can handle more strain from the Relic and survive outputting much more power than other Symphogear girls, hence why she was able to activate Durandal and wield it without burning herself to cinders.
Hoooooly sweet cinnabon Dr. Perv keeps a stalker shrine in her lab covered in taped-up pictures of Hibiki this is so unclean…
Good fucking grief. Does Dr. Perv jerk off to these or something? How did she even get some of these pictures? Like, there are ones from inside Snoop Oni’s house and Hibiki eating in restaurants and even some of her sleeping oh my god I need a shower this pretty butterfly woman just transformed into one of those giant scary moths that latches onto your window screen in the night and watches you unblinking.
Great hells, is that Hibiki’s chest?? Last time we saw an x-ray of her chest, there was just a smattering of little potato-chip-crumbs of tiny triangular shards of Gungnir in her chest. Now, it looks like one of those scare-tactic slides they used to play in school to warn you about the dangers of smoking.
Has Gungnir’s corruption really spread so far? Will it spread further? What will this mean for our brave little Hamster?
Dr. Perv speculates to herself that if true melding between human and Relic is really possible, then:
What the gibbering jabberwocky.
The Custodian? Is that some kind of god? And who are the Lulu Amel? It sounds like some fancy European perfume I’d never be able to afford. Is it another term for the Symphogear girls?
Okay, so based on this vague-loguing, it seems Ryouko does want a “destruction of the current world / rebirth of a new one” type deal, after all. But, it also seems she has a broader plan still, such as altering destiny or changing the laws of reality set down by some god-figure. Does she plan to rule this new world once she creates it, with Hibiki and other fully-merged Relic/Symphogears serving her?
Questions abound. But, I can’t expect the show to present the answers right away, we’ve still got a lot of anime left to watch. Symphogear has taken a good pace on the questions-to-answers ratio. The show answered some questions, like about Chris’s motivation and background, and now it gives us more to chew on, like what exactly Ryouko and Topless are trying to bring about. We’ll have to wait and see how things develop from here.
At school the following day, Hibiki is struggling, unable to pay attention in class or enjoy her lunch, since Miku is giving her the cold shoulder and refusing to speak with her or acknowledge her at all.
Their classmates notice there’s a problem, considering Hibiki and Miku are usually utterly disgusting in their perfect adorable couple-ness.
Oh look, it’s that “this isn’t an anime” girl yet again. This is what, the third or fourth time she’s put a dent in the fourth wall?
Miku just can’t take it anymore. She dashes from the cafeteria. Hibiki runs after her, following her all the way up to the roof.
Why do so many scenes in anime take place on a school roof? Back when I was young, we sure as hell weren’t allowed on the school roof. Even the classrooms were locked when they weren’t being used. Maybe schools are less strict in Japan. Or maybe the roof is just a spot that represents isolation and solitude, above and apart from the rest of the world, like Hibiki and Miku currently are now with their Symphogear issue. It’s an empty solitude, with only the open sky for background, compared to the more intimate solitude of putting these two back in their cozy dorm together. Plus, on the roof you can animate the character’s hair gently blowing in the breeze, and who doesn’t love to see that, I mean really.
Hamster apologizes to Miku once more, because maybe it’ll work the 1,000,000th time you try it. She admits that it was wrong of her to keep a secret from Miku after Miku promised not to keep any secrets from her.
I don’t know what else Hamster can do at this point. It’s now up to Miku to decide whether to forgive her and try to put that mirror back together. These two have been through a lot together, even scraping the edges of death. Their relationship is strong enough to endure this, right? Right? PLEASE.
Welp, there it is.
There it fucking is.
Miku broke up with Hibiki.
Miku broke up with Hibiki.
To hell with every last one of you soggy bagels who told me this was a fluffy ship. Go sit on a fence post and swivel.
BECAUSE YOU’RE IN A SADISTIC ANIME, FLUFFY CHEEKS
WE WERE LIED TO
The camera pulls away, and I can’t tell if the broken sobbing I’m hearing right now is coming from Hibiki or me.
One ED and several tissues later, we get a post-credits scene back at Topless’s mansion.
She’s on the phone again with her American co-conspirators, criticizing their sloppy work on the political assassinations.
Her conversation is interrupted when…
CHRIS HONEY YOU SHOULDA TRIED THE BOOMBOX OPTION FIRST
Chris comes a-ragin’, lashing out at Topless for abandoning her after mistreating her so long. Chris has been fully aware this whole time that her connection to Topless is very unhealthy. Chris was so hurt and scared of being on her own that she put up with the mistreatment. But, now that Topless has cast her aside, Chris doesn’t know how to cope with her reality. So, Chris does what Chris does best, and resorts to anger.
You and me both, Chris.
(In the background, you can hear the guy on the phone going, “Hello? Hello? Hellooo?” and it’s cracking me up in the middle of this serious scene.)
Why do Topless’s eyes look different? Last episode, they were purple and kinda flat and hollow-looking. Now, they’re yellow with a vertical pupil-slit that evokes a feline or reptilian look. Reptilian eyes usually mark a character as ancient and/or evil. ...It’s looking more and more like Topless isn’t fully human.
Topless has Had Enough. She uses her magic blue hand to shoot Noise at Chris, calling Chris useless.
Topless transforms into an ultra blinged-out version of Nehushtan, having taken it back after Chris’s multiple failures and leaving Chris with Ichaival, instead.
Okay wow, I was wrong about Topless not being a full-on Symphogear girl. She clearly is an even more powerful one than the others, if she was able to Throw Some Glitter Make It Rain and turn Nehushtan shiny golden rather than the white version Chris used.
I hadn’t noticed when Chris wore it, but this Gear fits Topless’s butterfly theme. The spiky shoulder-whips frame her torso like a butterfly’s wings, and the headgear’s shape is similar to insectoid eyes and feelers.
In her new armor she claims is indestructible, Topless advances on Chris. The last shot of this happy, fun, cheerful episode is Topless leveling her weapon at Chris, ready to make the final strike, while Chris can only scream a curse.
My thoughts exactly.
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Things became clearer in this episode, while simultaneously becoming murkier. Like when you haven’t cleaned your windshield wipers in a while and all they do when you turn them on is re-arrange the smears of dirt on your windshield instead of actually wiping it, like yeah thanks that’s exactly what I needed to see the road safely.
I have no idea what Topless/Ryouko’s deal is with the Custodian and the Lulu Amel. Maybe the Lulu Amel are the nonhuman race that Topless belongs to? If she’s some reptilian ancient, maybe she’s part of the ancient race who first crafted Relics, and that’s how she knows their workings so intimately and can utilize their power to a greater extent than the human girls can.
If Topless isn’t human, maybe Dr. Perv isn’t, either. I was thinking these two were the same physical body, but maybe Ryouko is some kind of flesh-golem remotely controlled by Topless. It’s also possible Ryouko was a human woman once, and is now being possessed by Topless’s magic.
If Topless is a possessor, maybe she wants to use Hibiki as her next host body, once Gungnir has fully spread throughout Hibiki. A fully-corrupted Hibiki-Gungnir merger might be what this “Kadingir” is, unless it’s just a more general term for “my evil plan”.
I don’t understand any of this yet.
This episode gave us two breakups. Topless and Chris are a lost cause, but Miku and Hibiki will get back together at some point. They have to. But, just what awfulness will happen to the two of them between then and now?
Speaking of Gungnir’s corruption, this whole utterly-heart-gnawing-to-watch breakup thing will make that worse. If love is the only force strong enough to keep Hibiki from succumbing to the corruption and slipping permanently into Frothing Berserker mode, what will Hibiki do now that she no longer has Miku’s love and support with her? It’s possible Miku won’t forgive Hibiki until it’s too late, after the latter’s death, and maybe that’s why we saw Miku weeping over Hibiki’s grave in the first episode.
HEY LOOK, I REMEMBERED THOSE COLORED FORESHADOWING SQUARES AGAIN, THEY’RE BACK TO DELIVER MORE PAIN
Dr. Perv’s color is purple, right? (Like her purple butterfly symbol.) If Ryouko intends to allow Hibiki to fall to corruption and then steal Hibiki away to serve as her personal weapon, in that case the only thing drawing Hamster back to the light will be the green Miku’s loving influence. Our little yellow Hamster’s soul will be caught in a tug-of-war between these two forces, and we can only hope the Power Of Love will triumph.
Sheesh, the times ahead of us are sounding pretty grim.
I need something to cheer me up.
That’ll do.
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