This isn’t even my Finél form
(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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Will the real Finé please stand up?
Last episode ended with Dr. Ver throwing us a confusing reveal about Maria.
It’s unlikely Maria is actually Finé reincarnated, based on the information Symphogear has given us viewers so far. For reasons talked about last episode, Maria doesn’t fit Finé’s frame in any corner.
Dr. Ver’s reveal can’t be taken at face value. He deceived the heroes before, so he could be up to more tricks now. Besides, if Maria really did have Finé’s powers and memories, what would it gain Ver to tell the good guys that? Seems like something the terrorists would want to keep hidden until their mysterious Plan is complete.
I can’t say I like the idea of bringing Finé back. But, if anyone has to be Finé, then Mom or Dr. Ver seem more likely candidates. They’re better fits for Finé’s method of being the cruel mastermind type who lurks in the shadows and has others do the majority of their fighting for them.
It’s still early in the season. The anime has plenty of time to develop Maria being Finé as more believable to us. I can’t judge the anime’s handling of this plot point, yet. I just have to trust Symphogear knows what it’s doing. As we stand now, until we’re shown some evidence, I’ve gotta take it that Maria isn’t controlled by Finé’s consciousness and therefore isn’t Finé as we knew her. Not the way Dr. Ver claimed she is.
So, I ask again:
Will the real Finé please stand up?
We’re gonna have a problem.
There are other unknown horrors floating around to keep us ducking our heads in fright. Such as, what the terrorists’ Frontier project is, what their pet monster the Nephilim will do once it’s fully grown, what happened to Maria’s Gal Pal from the season prologue, Kirika and Shirabe’s implied shitty backstories, and Hibiki’s dark childhood flashback.
Forget all that pending trauma. I’m sure tonight’s episode will be BUNDLES OF FUN.
The new episode picks up where we left off. Maria having caught the Nephilim’s cage and dunking Tsubasa into the brine, while Hibiki and Chris hold Dr. Ver and the Staff of Solomon captive overlooking the drama.
Snoop Oni and the other Section 2 agents inside the submarine base flip out over Dr. Ver’s reveal.
Except, Maria isn’t leading the terrorist organization. Mom is the leader, and Dr. Ver seems likely to stage a coup of his own. But, Section 2 has no way of knowing that, as they haven’t met Mom. Maria is the charismatic public face and voice of the terrorists, so it’s no wonder they assume she holds the power.
The real power players, Mom and Dr. Ver, are lurking behind the curtain, waiting to show the true threat until their plan is ready. (Like Finé herself did. Just sayin’.)
Her return hits Snoop Oni hard. Ryouko was his longtime friend. He’s still busted up about Finé’s betrayal and finding out their friendship meant nothing to her, that Ryouko was just a shell for Finé.
He’s a lot like an older Hibiki, in that he wants to believe the best in people and in the world itself. Getting burned for it by Finé didn’t lessen his optimism.
Tsubasa grump-glares at Maria like a cat forced into a bath and plotting which pair of its owner’s shoes to vomit in as revenge.
From the bridge, Hibiki and Chris are shocked by what Dr. Ver told them. Hibiki flashes back to Finé’s parting words, when Finé told Hibiki to believe in herself.
Poor little Hamster is crushed by today’s turn of events. She really did believe Finé would change for the better in the next reincarnation. Hibiki still refers to Finé as Ryouko, just like Snoop Oni does, showing how she chooses to remember Finé by the good things Hibiki associated with Ryouko, not all the suffering Finé inflicted on Hibiki and her friends.
Hibiki, always one to express concern for others, asks what happened to the real Maria if Finé possessed her, just as Hibiki was the one to ask what happened to the real Ryouko.
Lies. Whether or not Maria actually is Finé, I bet Dr. Ver knows more than he’s letting on.
The camera closes in on Maria posing all dramatic atop her spear, cloak fluttering in the morning sea breeze, as she comes to the hilarious realization that despite all her big entrances, she has no clue what to do now. She’s stuck in the Stage 2: ???? phase of her plan for profit.
Girl’s in a quandary. Should she save Dr. Ver from being captured or something? She doesn’t like him, but he is technically her ally. She probably can’t just fuck off and leave his ass.
Even if Maria wants to save Ver, she can’t fight off Team Rainbow without Shirabe and Kirika as backup. Plus, Chris is still holding the Staff of Solomon she could use to summon Noise to aid them against Maria. And, Maria would have to do all of this one-handed, since she’s holding the Nephilim’s cage.
Tsubasa takes matters into her own hands. By which I mean Tsubasa whips out her sword and SURFS ATOP THE WATER ON HER ANKLE-BLADES STRAIGHT AT MARIA.
Damn it, Tsubasa. You’re letting Maria bait you. Tsubasa charging in on her own to get revenge is exactly the kind of thing that could screw our team over. They need to fight together to win.
Maria blocks Tsubasa’s attack with her cloak and sends Tsubasa flying back to land atop the ship.
Why in utter hell the anime named Tsubasa’s signature attack Azure Flash instead of naming it Tsunami is a missed opportunity I still haven’t forgiven two seasons in.
Maria smirks. She tosses the Nephilim’s cage up into the air… aaaand it’s gone.
Seriously, it’s gone, the cage literally just vanished into thin air with a magical sound effect. The heck? Did it, like, get teleported somewhere? The terrorists can do that? If all Maria did was make the cage invisible somehow, then it’ll just fall in the water and the Nephilim will drown.
No time to wonder about the Nephilim’s fate, as Maria’s hands are now free to fight Tsubasa directly. Maria leaps onto the ship’s deck in front of Tsubasa, wielding Gungnir’s spear. She tells Tsubasa she’ll Go Full Power and won’t hold back this time.
Really, Maria? This is your “next move on this board”? Even if you manage to defeat Tsubasa, you can’t fight off everybody else. And, you are literally standing atop Section 2’s base. How do you know they won’t just pop some agents up through the submarine’s manhole thingy and shoot you while you’re too occupied with Tsubasa to block the bullets? We know Finé’s Nehushtan armor could stop a bullet, but we haven’t seen if normal Gear is bulletproof by itself. I don’t think Finé wants to recycle another body so soon after taking it.
Looks like Tsubasa isn’t the only one who lets herself get baited. Maria definitely seems like she wants to prove something to Tsubasa, both here and during their first fight, even at risk to herself.
Someone please just lock these two blade-heads in a sparring room together and leave them to sort out all their shit until they either kill each other or get married.
Maria grins in evil delight and meets Tsubasa strike for strike.
We get to hear Maria sing her battle song.
We heard part of it over the end credits of the first episode. But, I was still reeling from the spine-corkscrewing twists of that entire goddamn episode, so I didn’t realize at the time it was Maria’s battle song. Hearing this more energetic version now, set to the clash of their duel, just might make my face melt.
Maria uses her spear and cloak as weapons to brutal effect. Tsubasa, even with her unmatched sword skills, has a hard time keeping up. Tsubasa and the rest of Team Rainbow got fucked up last night by that red poison gas Dr. Ver exposed them to when they raided the terrorists’ hospital base. With Tsubasa’s Gear weakened by the poison, she may not be able to stand against Maria. Tsubasa could call for backup from the hamster and the jellyfish, but maybe Honor Demands she win this duel without the help of her friends.
Collateral damage from their fight starts leaving pocks all over the ship’s hull. Snoop Oni patches in on Tsubasa’s headset to yell, “Get Maria off the boat!” In other words, take your gayness elsewhere. The other agents tell us if this damage keeps up, the submarine won’t be able to submerge. It’ll be a sitting target.
Wow, the lyrics of Maria’s song include more baiting of Tsubasa’s pride to keep fighting. Tsubasa, she plays you like a piano.
But, huh, Tsubasa is sheathing her sword now? Tsubasa retracts her sword blade and puts the hilt away inside her armor’s cuisses. What, why would she… Does she need her hands free for somethi– OH MY GOD SHE’S GONNA DO THE THING.
SHE’S GONNA DO THE LEG THING
THERE IT IS
I will never get enough of watching these two drama queens go at it.
Tsubasa falls, clutching her knee. You can hear her drawing breath through her teeth from pain.
The combination of poisoned Gear and last night’s knee injury means Maria will definitely win this one, no matter how many of those handstand-leg-spinning-things Tsubasa puts out.
Oh sweet Hamster-Jesus save us, she’s going for a HEADSHOT.
Fuck targeting center mass, Chris wants to see some blood.
We rarely see Chris aim at anything. Her usual M.O. is to just spray bullets or missiles or crossbow bolts everywhere, and let the barrage reduce her enemies to smithereens.
The last time Chris dived in to save Tsubasa from Maria, a couple episodes ago, all Chris did was rain bullets at Maria and force her to shield with her cloak:
Tsubasa and Maria are no longer locked in tight combat atop the ship, so Chris could unload like she usually does without fear of hitting Tsubasa in the crossfire or sinking the ship itself. Plus, if Chris regained enough strength from her earlier wounds to make a headshot now, then she has enough strength for her normal missiles.
Chris is also still holding the Staff of Solomon. But no, Chris wants to kill Maria by her own hand, not summon Noise minions to do it for her.
Chris taking the time to aim a precision strike at Maria, with the camera even blinking in for a close-up of Chris lining up her sights, means this is definitely personal. Chris must believe Maria truly is Finé.
Calling herself a “white knight” as she prepares to shoot Maria is intriguing.
The first episode gave us bits of a chess motif going on beneath the other themes, with the white vs. black visuals, the oppositional symmetry of the two Symphogear teams, and Tsubasa and Maria’s singing duo being named the Queens of Music. If Tsubasa and Maria are the Queens, and Chris is now taking the Knight role, it adds an interesting spin.
A white knight is usually a symbol of purity and righteousness. Chris is pretty much the least pure member of Team Rainbow, considering she had to claw her way to redemption from her antagonist role. But, maybe that makes her feel more righteous, as if Chris feels she surpassed her enemies and now has the right to kill bad people who are in the way of her new good-guy goals. Killing Maria so that Tsubasa doesn’t lose this duel is the right thing to do from Chris’s perspective. Saving The Maiden is the white knight’s job, though we can hardly call Tsubasa a damsel here, hah.
The Knight is also the least straightforward chess piece in how it moves across the board. Attacking its enemies from unexpected directions and taking unconsidered angles to the whole Fight For Good thing does suit Chris’s ruthless style as the supportive but darkly unpredictable, violent member of the heroes’ team. Honestly, Chris is more like a Black Knight just wearing a White helm.
Speaking of attacks from unexpected directions, Chris gets interrupted before she can take that headshot at Maria. Sprite and Cherry Coke enter stage left, saving both Maria’s and Dr. Ver’s asses.
Last time, Maria boasted that she didn’t need Kirika and Shirabe’s help. Didn’t even thank them for saving her. I wonder if she’ll do the same today.
Symphogear spoils me with another battle song to enjoy. We get to hear Kirika’s song as she fights Chris, completing the set of all six girls’ songs.
While Kirika keeps Chris busy, Shirabe moves in on Hibiki. Shirabe launches sawblades at Hibiki as she…
…ROLLERBLADES?
DID SHE ALWAYS DO THAT? How did I not notice?? I just thought Shirabe had rounded clunky boots or something. I didn’t realize they were honest-to-god rollerblades like it’s frickin Xanadu. I mean, it fits her wheels/sawblades style, sure, but… wow. Shirabe the emo edgelord, preferred method of conveyance: pink wheelies.
Now we know Shirabe’s weakness. Uneven terrain.
Despite Shirabe hurling deadly blades at her, Hamster still doesn’t want to fight. Regardless of the attempted killings on both sides now, Hibiki is holding out for peace with the opposing team.
On Chris’s end, like Tsubasa she is still fucked up from her own Gear’s backfire last night caused by Dr. Ver’s red poison. Due to that, Chris is dispatched by Kirika pretty easily, losing the Staff in the process.
Ver thanks the soda girls for rescuing him.
Ouch. What’s more embarrassing, being saved by a rollerblading emo, or having said rollerblader then tell you she doesn’t give a damn about your narrow ass to begin with?
Good question. Can the terrorists’ teleportation or invisibility trick Maria used to make the Nephilim’s cage disappear also work on the Symphogear wielders themselves? If they have that kind of power, we’re at a huge disadvantage.
The agents inside the sub realize the terrorists must have some way of jamming our scanners for the waveforms created by Symphogears and other Relic-derived technology, therefore the good guys couldn’t detect the approach of Team Black even when Geared up.
Makes sense, with Finé supposedly back in town. No one knows ancient technology better than Finé. If she invented Symphogears and single-handedly built a giant particle cannon right under everyone’s noses, then she could invent all sorts of useful tricks, from an invisibility machine to a scanner-jammer.
On the sub’s deck, Tsubasa isn’t doing too well. She shrugged off Hibiki’s fist through her chest once in the past…
…but now, a knee injury has her down for the count.
Tsubasa may not have lost quite yet. Maria’s cloak hides the fact she took a nasty cut from Tsubasa during their fight.
Maria’s a performer through and through, so she won’t let on that Tsubasa landed a hit on her. Especially after Maria was so loudly confident at the start of their fight. Maria’s displays of vulnerability are always quickly covered up by her bravado. Her concealing cloak is for more than just show. It’s a defense mechanism in more than one way.
Tsubasa is slowly recovering from last night’s poison. Maria, on the other hand, is losing strength.
Why is Maria’s power output dropping? She didn’t inhale any of the poison like Team Rainbow did.
Mom speaks into Maria’s headset.
She doesn’t say anything about recovering Dr. Ver, hah. Like Shirabe, Mom obviously doesn’t care to save him for his own sake.
The camera doesn’t reveal to us where Mom is sitting, but the audio makes it clear she’s piloting a helicopter, which would answer Hibiki’s earlier question of where Team Black came from. It wouldn’t answer how no one heard a helicopter approach. Even stealth choppers make a lot of noise.
Explains where the Nephilim’s cage went. Maria threw the cage upward and it became invisible, but she probably threw it up into the helicopter’s bay, and the helicopter itself is what’s invisible.
Maria is upset at Mom’s order to retreat. Getting your gay duel interrupted would ruffle anyone’s feathers.
TIME LIMIT? Maria’s Gungnir Gear has a TIME LIMIT? That’s why her power is dropping?
Tsubasa is shocked by this, and wonders if Maria uses the same dangerous medical drug procedures that Kanade underwent to get attuned to the original Gungnir.
Ah, happy memories.
Speaking of happy memories, Tsubasa flashes back to Kanade’s body disintegrating in her arms as Tsubasa cries over her corpse. Thanks a fuck-bunch for reminding us of that, Symphogear. Still painful a season later.
Maria didn’t have a time limit the first time she and Tsubasa fought. I suppose Maria didn’t use her spear that time, only her cloak. Must be summoning Gungnir’s spear that drains all that energy from her.
No wonder Maria resorts to using her cloak for offense as well as defense. This is a surprising and clever turn of events on the anime’s part. Revealing Maria’s limitations with her Gear and tying it in with her “cloaked”/deceitful nature we’ve seen in previous episodes… except, now we realize the cloak she’s so fond of concealing herself with is also a necessity for her to make it through a battle.
I’ve said this before, but the anime’s handling of Maria as a mysterious and layered character has been really interestingly done so far.
EXCEPT THAT, BUT WE’RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT RIGHT NOW OKAY
Also, so much for Maria boasting about her Gear in her first fight with Tsubasa.
None of the other Symphogears we’ve seen has a time limit. Not even Hibiki’s version of Gungnir. Maybe Maria and Kanade aren’t so opposite as I thought. Or, maybe Gungnir is just a high difficulty Relic to master, and Hibiki bypasses that difficulty due to her Gungnir being part of her body.
I feel bad for Maria. All fired up to lay into Tsubasa with all she’s got, then their one-on-one encounter gets cut short by Maria’s lack of stamina in finishing too early. How embarrassing.
I hope we never hear a Climax Song from Maria. Not because I worry about seeing her hurt, but because I know I won’t be able to restrain the “Climaxing too soon” jokes. Simply avoiding the “I can’t play anymore my mom says I have to come home now” opportunity right now is killing me.
Maria retreats onto…
…Whoa, yeah, there’s the invisible helicopter speculated about earlier. I was wrong about their aircraft being a helicopter. It’s got a chopper’s rotors, which is what made that distinctive helicopter sound effect we heard with Mom. But, now that we can see it, it looks more like a modified Osprey or some other type of VTOL plane instead of a regular chopper. Pretty kick-ass ride all around!
Still baffled how no one heard the damn thing hovering above them. Invisibility doesn’t make something soundless, nor stop it blowing wind everywhere.
Maybe the plane’s invisibility is actually, I dunno, reality-phasing of some kind. But, if the Osprey is phased out of reality, how did Maria throw the Nephilim’s cage into it? Wouldn’t the cage have just passed through the plane, like a ghost walking through a closed door, so to speak? And, if the plane doesn’t disturb the air enough to cause wind while it’s invisible, how does it fly to begin with? Moving the air around to generate lift is how aircraft do their thing.
Maybe the plane phases in and out of reality whenever it wants. Like how the Noise are from another dimension and therefore can choose to be incorporeal enough to fade through walls, but also corporeal enough to knock over buildings.
It doesn’t matter. Ms. Frizzle has a magic school bus, and Maria’s Mom has a magic tilt-rotor plane. She just does. Good enough explanation for me.
Could be karma from their first battle, when Team Black was so busy ganging up on Tsubasa that they didn’t hear Hibiki and Chris’s helicopter right over their heads.
Up on the bridge overlooking the plane and the submarine, Hibiki supports the injured Chris. The good guys have soundly lost this battle. Tsubasa and Chris were wounded, Dr. Ver was rescued from their captivity, and worst of all, the terrorists got the Staff back and can once again wreak havoc by using it to summon Noise to kill more people.
Hibiki knows how screwed her team is right now. She asks the soda girls what they and the other terrorists are trying to accomplish with all these awful things.
What in contoured brass pasties are you talking about? You two want to protect people, so you joined a terrorist organization that murders people? Shirabe turned her nose up at saving Ver, but she did save him, and he’s personally responsible for a lot of deaths already. And yet, Shirabe is the one who told Hibiki this when they met:
DOES THE WHOOSHING SOUND OF YOUR ROLLERBLADES BLOCK OUT YOUR OWN RATIONALITY, SHIRABE?
I’m eager for the anime to show us more about these two girls. What are Cherry Coke and Sprite trying to protect, and how do they believe Mom’s evil plan, whatever that may be, will accomplish this? Kirika last episode made it sound like joining the terrorists was a burden they had to bear to achieve their goals. The girls probably do have good intentions, buried under all the violence.
We don’t know the backstory on Kirika and Shirabe, but whatever it was that led them to becoming terrorists, I have the slow-wilting feeling that watching it is going to Really Suck. All the other Symphogear wielders in this show seem to have an at least partially shitty past, so why leave these two out?
The Osprey throws down some cables for the girls so they can grab Dr. Ver and Get To Da Choppa. They nyoom off, and the Osprey flies away.
Chris refuses to just let those scumbags go. Especially not after her failure to keep hold of the Staff. Our white knight breaks free of Hibiki’s arms and musters up the strength for one last shot at the retreating plane.
HOLY SHIT HER ICHAIVAL GEAR HAS AN UNLOCKABLE SNIPER MODE
Yikes, Chris’s headset even drops down sniper goggles that cover her eyes in an eerie echo of her old Nehushtan mask.
Oh no, Chris, don’t fall back into your old self! Watching Team Rainbow splinter apart after they worked so hard to build the ties between them would wrench my chest open with a pair of rib shears.
The Osprey slips into invisibility mode and escapes before Chris can take the shot.
I’m not sure if I should be disappointed or relieved by this. Probably relieved, but more for the sake of Chris’s continued redemption than for the safety of the terrorists.
We cut to Mom as she pilots the plane and shows viewers she has a Relic fragment powering the magical invisibility. That Relic fragment looks like the type that could be crafted into a Symphogear amulet. I wonder if that means whichever girl wields that Gear could turn invisible whenever she wanted.
The bad guys won this battle. But, they’ve lost every base they’ve occupied. Mom’s van, the abandoned hospital… How long are they gonna keep this Osprey before that gets wrecked, too? What does Mom’s insurance credit score look like?
Mom starts coughing.
Uh oh… Mom has a chronic case of Anime Disease. Damn. She doesn’t wear the classic braid-over-the-shoulder hairstyle, but I guess just being a mother marks her for death in any anime. Seems she doesn’t have much time left. This lends even more urgency to her bringing about her mysterious Plan before she dies.
In the plane’s bay, Kirika clobbers Dr. Ver around.
She’s pissed he let Team Rainbow invade their hospital base and drive them out. The terrorists are being run to ground like prey.
Maria – wearing her One-Sock outfit from episode 1 again oh god, my creases need to be ironed just from looking at it – tells Kirika to stop. Not because Maria cares about Ver, because honestly no one seems to and I can’t blame them, but because roughing him up won’t do any good.
I almost feel sorry for Dr. Ver. Then I remember he’s an unrepentant murderer, and I lose sympathy for him again.
Maria’s restraint here shows us another difference between her and Finé, personality-wise. Finé violently took out her anger on people when things didn’t go her way.
That headache of a reveal Dr. Ver left us with last episode hasn’t gotten any clearer. Why the heck is Maria supposed to be possessed by Finé, when she doesn’t display any of Finé’s personality? And why the heck-er is no one on this plane strapped in? Everyone is walking around smoothly and not rolling about like apples in a bathtub as their plane flies. A plane that small wouldn’t offer the same stability a passenger jet would. Magic plane has its own gravity base, too, I suppose.
Mom links in on the screen to talk to her crew.
What did they feed the Nephilim? Will any meat do, or does it need special food? It was drooling at the chance to eat Team Rainbow last night.
Dr. Ver looks pointedly at Team Black’s Relic amulets. Oh shit, does the Nephilim eat Relics? Must be why it was after the heroes last night. It wanted to eat them for their Gear.
Aboard The Good Ship Yuri, our heroes sit on deck looking forlorn.
They lost the Staff of Solomon again, they lost a fight to a rollerblader, they couldn’t catch the Nephilim, and now they have the traumatizing knowledge that Finé is back. Forecast is not looking good.
At least they’re together. They don’t blame each other for failures, like we saw the terrorists do just now. Hibiki, Chris, and Tsubasa are sitting side by side to comfort each other in the misery. They aren’t speaking any dialogue right now, but their teamwork through good times and bad is put on display with just this simple shot.
Snoop Oni climbs up through the, like, manhole thing, to talk to his daughter figures. (Seriously, what do you call that sideways hobbit door on top of a submarine? Just a hatch? Okay then.)
Hamster admits to him how crushed she is by Finé coming back and causing more suffering for them. Even after all the pain Finé caused, Hibiki wants to believe Finé could’ve become a good person if she tried.
Hibiki says she truly thought she and Finé forged some kind of “connection” in Finé’s last moments. The pure sadness in Hibiki’s voice is making my ears fold in.
Classic Snoop Oni. If all your problems can’t be solved by punching, you aren’t punching hard enough.
And there’s classic Hibiki to match.
This scene atop the ship shows another major difference between the agency and the terrorists. Look at what Mom says to her girls right after the battle:
Rather, look at what Mom doesn’t say:
I’m trying to remember if we’ve ever heard Mom ask her girls if they’re okay. There was that prologue flashback where Mom saved Maria from a collapsing building. Since then… uh, not many blips on the Support Your Kid Like A Goddamn Adult radar.
Even though Mom is always present through Maria’s headset to give orders in battle, never once have we heard Mom use this connection to speak words of comfort or encourage her daughter when Maria is full of doubt during a fight.
Maria is struggling with doubts, under all that bravado she puts up. We viewers know this from the little moments of vulnerability Maria’s shown us and Tsubasa. Maybe Mom is too obsessed with her Plan to notice her daughter needs her. Maybe Maria cloaks herself even from her mom. I wonder if Maria will admit to Mom that she took that cut from Tsubasa in the fight.
The only time I remember Mom encouraging Maria thus far, was telling Maria to be willing to kill her own fans held hostage at Maria and Tsubasa’s concert.
Stay classy, Mom.
Snoop Oni is a far more supportive parental figure. I’m convinced his physical form is actually 70% motivational speech made flesh, as he fricken booms encouragement and Bruce Lee quotes at his girls any chance he gets. It’s hard to balance the right amount of caring without being too restraining of the young people under your guidance. Snoop Oni pulls it off.
Later, Snoop Oni gets a video call from Defense Minister Noodles.
They have a chat. Not about the dangers of a high sodium diet, about the terrorists. Noodles confirms his earlier suspicion that they’re from America. These “Finé” terrorists used to be part of the American government’s organization to research Relics, the same group Dr. Ver worked with before he betrayed them and stole the Staff for himself.
I’m going to call this government group the FISt because… Do I really need to explain the because?
Noodles tells us some researchers broke off from FISt and secretly formed a terrorist organization which they named “Finé”, and this is the origin of the current bad guys we’re facing.
Noodles and Snoop Oni speculate this terrorist group was created a while ago, when the real Finé collaborated with those American commandos last season, and this must be why the terrorists named their organization after her. Because they were such good teammates, weren’t they.
Exactly how many people are in this terrorist organization? Finé killed all those commandos last season. From what we’ve seen, the terrorists come to the grand total of Mom + Dr. Ver + Team Black. They must have support staff out there that supply their Osprey and stuff, but the main group seems to be these five blitz bunnies.
I sure hope so. Because right now, the terrorists look like a mess. They made a big public spectacle at the concert to tell the world they exist, then they did nothing to follow up, then they lost their base to Section 2, then they had a major information leak with Dr. Ver revealing the terrorists’ secret weapons like the anti-Symphogear poison gas and the Nephilim and the reincarnated Finé, and now the terrorists are reduced to a domestic sitcom taking place on a plane where a single mom tries to manage three daughters, one scary dog, and the creepy uncle in a lab coat. For the terrorists’ sake, this all better be part of some master plan we aren’t seeing yet.
Oh wait, we lost to these chuckle-heads today, didn’t we. Damn it.
We key shift over to Team Rainbow’s school.
Oh hey, it’s festival time! The school bustles happily with a mix of students, their families, and visitors all enjoying the booths.
LET’S SEE WHAT DISASTER ENSUES
Nice, are we getting a Hibiki and Miku scene? I was lamenting last episode that they haven’t had much screen time together this season.
“This Isn’t an Anime” girl, a.k.a. TIA-chan, is putting on a performance in the festival’s music competition. Miku takes Hibiki’s hand gayly and leads her off to go watch.
Yeah. Thanks, Miku. For providing us with some gayness that doesn’t involve sharp weaponry or busting up each other’s knee joints. Or FISting.
After Hibiki and Miku leave, we catch sight of…
…OH MY GOD I’M NOT SURE WHAT’S FUNNIER, that Kirika and Shirabe sneaked into the festival at all, or that their “disguises” consist of nothing but hipster glasses over their usual outfits. They might as well sit on each other’s shoulders in a trench coat and try to sneak into an R-rated movie, that’s how unconvincing these disguises are.
I wonder what the soda girls are doing here. All the good guys’ weapons and databases and such are on the submarine. There is nothing at the school the terrorists would need to…
…Oh hell. They’re gonna steal Team Rainbow’s Relic amulets to feed the Nephilim, aren’t they?
NOT IN MY HOUSE
At least Hibiki doesn’t wear a Relic like her friends, since Gungnir is embedded in her body, so it can’t be removed. Wait that is worse, they could just feed her whole body to the monster. Good grief.
In the school auditorium, Hibiki and Miku take seats to watch TIA-chan and her friends perform their song on stage for all the students and visitors. The performers dress up in cosplay to sing from their favorite anime.
Really. We’re doing this again, after last season.
The announcer tells the gathered audience that whoever wins the festival singing championship will get one wish from the student council. TIA-chan tells everyone in the auditorium her wish would be to start an anime club at the school.
Let me get this straight… TIA-chan always says Symphogear isn’t an anime, because in her universe Symphogear isn’t an anime, because Symphogear the anime is her universe. But, she loves anime so much that she cosplays and sings from one, but that particular anime doesn’t actually exist in our universe, because it was made up for this show. But, that anime exists in her universe, even though TIA-chan exists in an anime itself, which she still maintains is Not An Anime, and oh god I can feel reality sliding off my face, Who Are You People And Where Is My Horse.
TIA-chan and her friends put their hearts into the performance. Everyone in the auditorium enjoys it, including Hibiki and Miku.
Don’t worry, Miku, I’m sure nothing will go wrong ever and Hibiki will have no reason to be sad at all haha carve my tombstone already, Symphogear, I’m not gonna make it through a whole season of this.
Outside, Shirabe and Kirika wander the festival grounds.
Living a terrorist life, not having a home, getting run out of the few places they do manage to stay in, constantly fighting others… These girls probably don’t get to have fun often. My heart twinges for them. Whatever horrors they faced in their past that shoved them down the road of becoming antagonists, I really hope they eventually get a redemption arc like Chris did. If the soda girls can figure out better ways of “protecting justice” than working with people like Mom and Dr. Ver, I think there’s hope for them.
It’s reassuring to know that even on the run, the terrorists still keep such a well-stocked repository of clear-lens disguise glasses that the soda girls were able to go in and each select a pair that matches their exact color scheme.
Kirika is bubbling with a Girls Just Wanna Have Fun attitude, which does not amuse the disapproving, ever-serious Shirabe.
Shirabe reminds her partner they’re here to carry out a mission, not have fun. Kirika playfully pulls out a festival map and makes an excuse that enjoying themselves at the booths counts as part of their mission.
Shirabe is unimpressed by Kirika’s cute antics.
They flash back to their mission briefing aboard the Osprey.
Jesus H. Christ, Maria.
We saw earlier that The Sock from episode 1 is back, but now we get our first-ever view of Maria’s… I hesitate to call them “boots”. The closest I can approximate is, “Scarpin heels with detached lace-up leather greaves,” which sounds like something that would be outlawed by at least four U.N. Conventions. What I would pay to see the custom shoe-maker’s face when Maria waltzed into their store and commissioned these to be made for her.
Ver lays out the plan to steal Team Rainbow’s Relics to feed the Nephilim.
Shirabe is adamant that Maria not be the one to carry out this mission.
Oh.
Ohh.
Ohhh.
That… that clears up a ton. Thanks a million, Shirabe! I’m almost willing to forgive you the Hello Kitty roller skates. Almost.
I’m so relieved. This reveal just folded so much of that piled laundry cluttering this episode. So, Maria isn’t Finé re-awakened like Ver told us she was. Not yet, at least. No wonder I was confused at the end of last episode:
If Finé is awake, Finé is the one in control of her host’s body. In all the time we spent with Finé last season, there was no indication to viewers it could be any other way. Season 1’s established rules might need some creative amendments to make a development like this episode’s ending be believable to the audience.”
^ Turns out, I was wrong and that’s exactly what’s happening here. Finé is dormant in Maria. This doesn’t fit with what we saw during Ryouko’s possession.
Here’s how the butterfly herself explained possession last season, when she said she…
Shortly after, when we’re shown Ryouko being possessed, it’s presented as a single event, a traumatic snap in the mind. Not a gradual process where the soul is slowly taken over, like what Shirabe tells us is happening to Maria.
It’s fair game for Ver to lie to us viewers, as his character is an established deceiver. But, these abrupt rule amendments aren’t as well handled. I’m not a fan of structuring the reveal this way. The anime withheld necessary new information from viewers that Finé’s possession could be a gradual process, which goes against what the anime showed us previously. The purpose of this withholding was to make Ver’s reveal more shocking. But, the reveal ended up confusing rather than shocking, because again, we didn’t have the necessary information to believe what he was saying. The feeling I was left with on finishing last episode wasn’t, “That was a fascinating twist,” it was, “That twist doesn’t make sense, so I don’t think it’s true.”
I can’t judge Symphogear’s handling of this development until the end of the season when we have all the information. Bringing Finé back could turn out genius, for all I know! Symphogear’s greatest strength is its character structuring. But, from where we are now, this particular development could have been presented to viewers more cohesively.
Because of this misleading of us, I’m now doubtful of how true future reveals will be. After all, there’s no more reason to believe Shirabe’s version than to believe Ver’s. I’m inclined to believe her over him, but we haven’t been shown evidence either way. Due to that one misleading reveal, all new important information any character tells us rather than shows us, is now suspect.
Next time some Big Reveal happens, I’m going to be too busy wondering if I’m being tricked by the anime instead of appreciating the reveal on its own value. I hope one shocking cliffhanger at the end of last episode was worth viewers’ trust, anime.
If we decide to believe Shirabe’s version, then what Finé called the “aufwachen waveform”, the musical sound produced by Symphogears and other activated Relics, is how Finé is slowly taking over Maria.
Tsubasa singing to her Ame no Habakiri Relic years ago is what accidentally woke Finé to possess Ryouko. So, Maria singing to her Gungnir must be what lets Finé seep in a little more each time she uses her Gear. But, hearing anyone sing to any nearby Relic would cause Finé to take hold… So, does Maria have to fucking cover her ears whenever her teammates sing their activation phrases for their own Gear?
Makes Maria’s choice of hairstyle even more bizarre than it already was. Pointed ears like cats’ are shaped to funnel sounds into the ear to hear better. If Maria’s soul literally depends her blocking out certain sounds, she should have Princess Leia buns or something covering her ears, instead of the pointed cat shape on her head.
…Sometimes I look back on sentences I’ve typed and wonder if I will ever be the same.
Shirabe doesn’t seem like she’s lying, unlike Dr. Ver. But, Shirabe could just be well-intentioned mistaken. Even if we take her explanation, there are plenty of questions left for the anime to expand on.
If Finé isn’t awake yet, I wonder how the other terrorists know she’s inside Maria at all. Finé said her hosts gain her “memories and abilities”. Does that mean Maria has some but not all of Finé’s characteristics? Or, does she get zero until Finé fully overtakes her?
I really hope it’s the latter. For reasons talked about last episode, Maria having Finé’s memories and personality makes Maria’s relationships with all the other characters mouth-twisting levels of unpleasant.
I don’t know whether Relic-scanners or other tech can pick up the presence of Finé in someone’s genes. Maybe Maria blurted out or did something that even she couldn’t explain where it came from, and that’s what prompted Mom or Dr. Ver to investigate the cause. What if Maria can even hear Finé’s thoughts at times?
If that’s true, then how terrifying must that have been for Maria, to hear a stranger speaking with her voice or looking through her eyes. Then later to have the news broken to her of, “Hey, guess what! Turns out, you’re descended from an ancient evil super-being who is now inside your head, and you can’t escape. She is slowly consuming your mind, gnawing away at your soul until there will be nothing left of you as a person, and your empty shell of a body will be used as a tool for her to wreak untold suffering upon countless innocents. Enjoy your last few months of sanity as you wonder if the voices in your head are your own fears or just the growing screams of the monster devouring you.”
It’s a mercy that Ryouko’s mind was destroyed by Finé instantly. Having to fight off the corruption inch by inch like Maria, and know in your bones that you’re slowly losing ground, might be worse.
Is Finé’s takeover of Maria’s soul inevitable? Or, is there still hope for her and her lone sock? Maria Eve as a character struggles with balancing her name’s mythological themes of Purity and Corruption. I hope Maria can find enough purity of heart to defeat Finé’s creeping corruption.
One of the themes of this anime is not fighting alone, is letting others share your burden so you can all triumph together. It’s how Team Rainbow defeated Finé the first time around. If Maria and the rest of Team Black can join hands with the heroes, maybe together they can find a way to defeat Finé once more, before she steals another life.
Heck, maybe Finé really will be a good person this time around, just like Hibiki wanted! If Finé isn’t awake yet, we don’t know her intentions yet. Maybe she’ll agree to something like sharing the body with Maria, instead of consuming her. Finé might allow Maria to use Finé’s knowledge and powers to help save the world, instead of trying to end it. If anyone could talk Maria out of her “let’s destroy this shitty world” mentality, it’d be someone like Finé, who went through the exact same mentality before (hopefully) realizing her mistake. Dammit, I don’t care if it’s unlikely, I just want Hamster’s faith in this shitlord to not be wasted, okay. Just this one time.
I still don’t see why Dr. Ver revealed Finé’s reincarnation to Hibiki and the rest. Maria sure didn’t consent to that, considering every appearance so far she has tried to stay Cloaked about herself. What does it gain the terrorists for Section 2 to know they have the real Finé with them? Just for intimidation, maybe? Team Rainbow and Snoop Oni were pretty disheartened when they found out Finé was back to haunt them.
This could be a diversion. If the agency knows Finé is back, they’ll assume she wants to build another Kadingir, which would distract them from whatever the terrorists are really up to. Ver is definitely plotting something by revealing all this. Something that will probably fuck over the other terrorists as much as it fucks over our team.
On the Osprey, Team Black and Dr. Ver continue to plan how to steal Team Rainbow’s Symphogears to feed the Nephilim.
Wow, Finé’s leitmotif even plays during this scene. Haven’t heard that song in a long time. This is a great nod to the first season, and soothes some of my doubts about the whole Finé 2.0 deal.
Shirabe and Kirika insist they should be the ones to undertake this mission, to spare Maria exposing herself to more of Finé’s corruption by using Gungnir. Maria is touched by their loyalty to her.
I’m surprised Kirika and Shirabe care so much for Maria. Not that we’ve ever seen Maria mistreat them or anything, but she hasn’t been friendly to them before now, always aloof even while she fights (or showers) alongside them. I think she’s only shared, like, three lines of dialogue with them. This may even be the first time we’ve seen Maria make eye contact with them.
I hope we get to see more of the relationship between these characters. Learning what inspired Kirika and Shirabe to protect Maria, and whether she will return their loyalty someday, would be interesting.
Back in the present, Kirika and Shirabe see Tsubasa walking around campus during the festival. Tsubasa’s had a couple days to recover from her knee injury and poison, and is now back at full HP.
Shirabe rhino-stomps toward Tsubasa, but Kirika snatches her back behind the tree before they can be seen.
Good thing Kirika made that map earlier. Looks like she and Shirabe took a turn down the wrong street.
What am I saying. That’s definitely the right street for this anime.
Hah, good luck you little sugars. You’re asking for a sword through the eye. Even Maria in all her sapphic majesty couldn’t fully take down Tsubasa.
While the soda girls lurk, Chris dashes onto the scene. She bumps into Tsubasa, knocking herself and Tsubasa on their asses. This is the second time Chris has done this, and Tsubasa is increasingly frustrated. Probably not the “getting swept off your feet” most people hope for.
Cherry Coke and Sprite have both Relic-stealing targets in one place, but it’ll be nearly impossible to take them on directly. Also, a battle at the school while this crowded festival is happening would create a lot of civilian casualties. I’m unsure how willing Shirabe and Kirika are to kill bystanders.
Chris tries to run away again, but her classmates catch up to her. They rope her into…
HOOO BOY
This is either going to be a wonderful, heart-warming scene, or a scene that scours all feeling nerves out from under my skin into wiggly gray tendrils of pain.
Hibiki and Miku are shocked to see Chris come on stage to perform in the music competition TIA-chan and her friends sang in earlier.
Tsubasa joins Hibiki and Miku in the audience, and together they watch Chris sing.
Poor Chris looks nervous as hell, getting shoved out there in front of the whole school. Who wouldn’t be? Chris’s classmates cheer encouragement at her from behind the stage curtain.
Chris sings shyly at first, but her voice gains strength. She sings about how she once thought her life empty and hopeless, then how her life changed when she met people who care about her. She doesn’t mention Hibiki and the rest by name, but it’s clear she’s singing to thank them and their love for her.
This song is Symphogear teaching me about a different kind of pain. After all the wretched suffering it puts us through each episode, it’s moments like this that I persevere for. Moments where characters wash all the fucking muck off their souls and realize how far they’ve come, and how it was the people who lived the misery with them that helped them make it through. I’m pained and joyous at the same time.
DO NOT
As Chris sings, her jellyfish tentacles waving in a nonexistent indoor wind, the anime intercuts with flashbacks of when she first joined the school. She avoided her classmates at first, but they gradually drew her in with their friendship. She even blushes and hides her face when they notice how much she enjoys singing with them.
Looks like their school choir books are in Latin? “Ut gaudium important,” it says… I wonder what that means.
End me.
You know what, no, never let this moment end.
OH CHRIS, THEY ALREADY HAVE
THEY ALREADY HAVE
Kirika and Shirabe crept into the auditorium to watch. Like everyone else, they’re entranced by Chris’s song.
They didn’t bother changing their clothes from their recognizable outfits. Considering the terrorists had to flee their hospital base and leave everything behind, maybe they don’t have a change of clothes. Maybe Team Black will be stuck in the same outfits for the rest of the season.
Greaaaaat.
The end credits play over Chris’s performance, leaving us at the close of an episode feeling hopeful for once.
Chris’s redemption arc was completed last season. Her song here shows that finding a sense of belonging, a place to call home, is another journey entirely.
Chris used to hate singing.
To her, singing was only a weapon to activate her Symphogear to use for violence. Singing was also a cruel reminder of her parents’ deaths, as they were the ones who first tried to teach her that music has the power to bring people together and change the world.
Learning to unhate songs also meant learning to unhate the part of herself that was trapped by her own violence. Finding a place to call home is what will keep Chris on the side of redemption, because now she has people who love her that she wants to protect. That’s what home is – home isn’t just a place to call home, it’s people to come home to.
Chris concludes her song about finding her home, looking more peaceful than she ever has. Pretty near tears of happiness. Me, not her.
The camera slowly zooms out to a warm, shimmering shot of the auditorium as flowers bloom with new beginnings, and everyone claps and cheers for Chris. Bravo, Symphogear.
Well, that was a nice episode.
A… nice…
…episode…
WHAT MISERY ARE YOU GOING TO PACK INTO THE LAST 32 SECONDS, SYMPHOGEAR?
Chris sweeps the competition with her amazing song. The announcer asks if anyone in the auditorium wants to challenge Chris’s championship.
God fucking dammit.
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WE WERE HAVING SUCH A GOOD TIME, SYMPHOGEAR
You couldn’t just let us off with a happy ending for once, could you.
Wretched fucking anime.
We spent a lot of time with Kirika and Shirabe this episode. I hoped the anime would take this opportunity to give us their backstories, but no word on that yet. All we can infer is that it was Bad, Real Bad, and that’s what influenced these girls to join the villains.
The anime is confusing me on how seriously we’re supposed to take Sprite and Cherry Coke as villains. On one hand, they’re adorable goofballs with a cute dynamic together. Just a couple youngsters struggling with forces larger than either of them, trying to do what they think is right amid all the chaos.
On the other hand, the anime presents them as vicious fighters who willingly work for a terrorist organization which has murdered a lot of people. Shirabe has no qualms about resorting to violence against people in her way, and we saw Kirika savage Dr. Ver like it was as effortless as crumpling a tissue. Even the visuals in the ending shot paint them as sinister, using a tensely tight, low angle with above-lit shadows on their faces.
They were shiny-eyed with admiration listening to Chris’s moving song. But now, they want to kick Chris’s ass? Are they bluffing when they say they’ll challenge Chris? A Symphogear battle in a packed auditorium would create a ton of dead civilians.
Chris literally just got done singing about how happy she is to be around these people. No way she’ll let the soda pair hurt any of them. Kirika and Shirabe might demand Chris hand over her Relic in exchange for her fellow students’ safety.
Tsubasa and Hibiki are also in the auditorium and could join the fight. It’s still a classified secret that Chris, Tsubasa, and Hibiki are Symphogear wielders, although some students already know due to being present during Finé’s assault on the old school. The soda pair could threaten to expose Team Rainbow’s identities if they don’t hand over their Relics.
Maybe this won’t end in violence. We can hope! Maybe Kirika and Shirabe will “challenge” Chris simply by trying to out-sing her on the stage, and claim Chris’s Relic as their prize for winning the festival championship.
Haha yeah, that’s totally what’s gonna happen, I can see it now. The soda pair will do a nice song and dance, Kirika will do that gay holding move again…
…everyone will clap, they’ll shake hands with Chris and become friends over their shared love of music, all the Symphogear wielders will go out for fro-yo together afterward and laugh, no one will get hurt, and no hearts will be broken, certainly not mine no indeed haha this is a happy show about cute colorful lesbian schoolgirls.
Who am I kidding. Of course Symphogear will choose the path of most misery. All I can wish for is that everyone survives the confrontation next episode.
Seeing Kirika and Shirabe sing together would be fun, actually. We haven’t had a proper duet since…
…Yeahhhh that duet ended well.
Maria and Tsubasa truly out-gayed themselves this episode. Every time they’re on screen together, I can’t tell Fight from Foreplay.
Tsubasa continues to let Maria bait her into rushing headlong into battle. Tsubasa’s got a huge score to settle with Maria for the betrayal at their joint concert and the emotional damage it caused her.
If Tsubasa believes Dr. Ver that Maria is Finé reincarnate, that must add to Tsubasa’s desire for vengeance.
Tsubasa isn’t the only one who lets pride get the better of her. Maria goads Tsubasa into these fights, going so far as grinning while they trade blows, even though Maria knows using a Symphogear is allowing Finé to take her over.
But, maybe it’s not pride on Maria’s part.
Maybe it’s guilt.
We don’t know what kind of Anime Disease is killing Mom, but it could be related to injuries she took shielding babby-Maria from the collapsing building in the season prologue.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Maria feels she owes it to her mom to throw her utmost into helping Mom bring about her terrorist goals, even if doing so is slowly grinding Maria’s soul into sawdust. Maria may also feel she owes it to her unknown Gal Pal, who was implied to have died in that same scene. Similar to how Tsubasa was crippled with undeserved guilt after Kanade’s death.
What does surprise me is that Mom still allows, even encourages, Maria to wield a Symphogear, when Mom knows each time Maria does it’s opening her to more of Finé’s corruption. Cold, man. Cold. Is Mom really so obsessed with her terrorist plan that she doesn’t see what it’s doing to Maria?
Each episode so far has revealed Mom to be a shittier and shittier parent. If this keeps up, by the end of the season she’ll reach Precia Testarossa levels of bad mother. It’s all the more upsetting because Mom does occasionally show moments of caring for Maria, just not enough. I want redemption arcs for the three girls of Team Black, but honestly, I also really want to see Mom redeem herself by showing some genuine love for Maria.
As for Ver… fuck, I don’t even know about Ver. Well, I gave Finé a chance (for all the good it did), so I can root for his redemption, too. No one is beyond saving… right?
…Right???
Mom is about to take the far right exit from life’s highway – and she’s the type to cross at least four lanes without indicating because fuck everyone else on the road – so maybe knowing she’s about to die makes Mom not care as much about Maria’s wellbeing.
The knowledge that she’s dying should make her care more. Maria is the legacy Mom is leaving behind. Maria is going to have to face the world on her own. Mom should be spending this final stage of her life helping Maria grow into an adult. If knowing your own death approaches doesn’t motivate you to spend more time loving your kid, then maybe there really isn’t hope for Mom’s redemption.
Just as the soda girls might have good intentions buried under all their villainy, maybe Mom does, as well. Maybe Mom is this obsessed with her Plan because she thinks accomplishing it will be better for Maria in the long run, better for the whole world maybe. Maybe Mom believes her Plan will even cure her Anime Disease somehow.
I hope there comes a day when Mom realizes no destination is worth losing the people most important to her along the way. At this rate, Maria might not be around to see Mom’s plans come about. Maria may be completely lost to Finé by that time, and then how will Mom cope with the knowledge that Maria’s end was partially caused by Mom influencing her to wield a Symphogear.
The terrorists had to abandon their hospital base this episode. Hopefully, Section 2 can search it and find information left behind about the terrorists’ plans or something.
I remain hesitant to believe what this episode told us, that Finé is slowly re-awakening in Maria. I’m kinda grumpy about Finé being brought back at all, though I know that’s petty of me. Bringing her back just doesn’t clink with Finé’s character arc from Season 1, which frustrates me because Season 2 clearly is putting effort into continuity with Season 1. There are many well-done nods and developments that follow from Season 1. The biggest one in this episode being the completion of Chris’s struggle to find belonging after being lost for most of last season, and how satisfying it was for us to see Chris reach this point. Other continuity moments in this episode, such as Tsubasa flashing back to Kanade’s death and how it affected her, just make Finé’s revival seem all the more awkwardly placed.
I stick with what I said earlier: Symphogear has plenty of time to make this story development work, so I can’t judge anything until the end of the season. This show is engaging enough that I’m sure any grumpiness I feel right now will soon pass.
If it’s true Finé is consuming Maria, then Mom and Maria share something in that they’re both being slowly overtaken by a creeping illness that will lead to their deaths. For Mom, her body will die, and for Maria it will be the death of her consciousness, and her body will live on only as Finé’s vessel.
It could be darkly fascinating to watch a character struggle with that kind of gradual decay. Fight Your Shadow Self is one of the big themes of this season so far, shown mainly through the contrasting Symphogear wielder trios. On a sub-level, Maria is also fighting her own Shadow Self.
A redemption arc for Maria could take a lot of different directions. It’s usually Hamster-Jesus’s job to extend the hand of friendship. But, Hibiki hasn’t had much interaction with Maria. Hibiki’s conflict has mostly been with Shirabe, who accuses Hibiki of being a hypocrite rather than a hero.
If Hibiki is too busy with Shirabe, and if Chris can get over the Boom Headshot mentality, then Chris would be a good candidate to find some kind of connection with Maria. Chris survived her own redemption arc, even survived Finé’s hold over her, as Maria is now struggling against Finé’s hold in a different way. And Chris finally found a home, which we know is something Maria longs for, too.
A friendship with Maria might even give Chris some closure with Finé’s memory.
Snoop Oni could also step in to help convert Maria to the good side, like he helped Chris via Hug Therapy.
God knows Maria’s mom seems unlikely to do that kind of thing for her.
Maria is Tsubasa’s parallel-opposite from a character structuring perspective. The Black Queen to Tsubasa’s White Queen, as the anime framed it. And, Tsubasa is the one Maria has had the most interaction with. So, Tsubasa may be the one to break through to Maria if Hibiki and Chris can’t do it. However, Tsubasa would first have to cool her own ardor enough to make it through a conversation with Maria without trying to plant a sword in her.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Sprite and Cherry Coke will probably follow Maria’s lead if she leaves the terrorists and joins the agency. It might even happen the other way around: Team Rainbow could convert Kirika and Shirabe first, then Maria will follow them so she can stay with the only companions she has, once her mom shuffles off her mortal coil.
Sheesh. Her mom dying, Maria trying to bring about some terrorist plan to drastically change the world, Finé slowly consuming her soul… Maria is under an enormous amount of pressure.
Maybe I should forgive the poor girl her awful choices.
Some choices are unforgivable.
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