“Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die.”
(Read the full episode below, or click here for the list of other episodes)
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A lengthy “I’m back, everybody!” spiel would be meaningless, since 99.9% of the Symphogear fandom doesn’t know who/what Nekekur Watches Symphogear was all those years ago, anyway. I’m hardly some celebrity making a comeback tour.
So, let’s waste no more time. Tighten your goggles, suck on that scuba-hose, and let’s plunge right into this wretched fucking anime we all love!
Last episode ended, uh, Not Good for our heroes.
The FISt terrorists (their real name is FIS, but come on, I’m still gonna call them FISt, some jokes never die) succeeded in unsealing the mysterious “Frontier” from the ocean, after Dr. Ver needlessly killed a bunch of bystanders (bysailors?), which Maria was complicit in.
Shirabe and Kirika…
…A.k.a. the soda girls Cherry Coke and Lemon-Lime Sprite, because you can pry that nickname out of my cold dead hands, were torn asunder. Kirika betrayed Shirabe, and then Shirabe was taken prisoner by Section 2.
Not wanting to be left out of all this shitbaggery that’s been floating around like a next-aisle-over grocery store fart, Chris betrayed us by shooting Tsubasa in the back.
Unclear if Tsubasa survived this.
Meh, she’s survived worse.
There was one light in last episode’s darkness. Amidst devastation, mere clock-seconds away from total loss, Hibiki and Miku declared their love for each other. Not in words, but in actions that speak far louder than words.
Gungnir nearly consumed Hibiki from within, while Shenshoujin nearly consumed Miku from within. The two girls united to save each other from being lost forever, and both of them emerged from this mutual rescue whole in purpose and in their bond.
Shenshoujin is an anti-Relic Relic. The light reflected by this mirror can weaken other Relics, which is why the terrorists used it to strip the magical seal that kept Frontier underwater. Hamster had the Galaxy Brain idea to use Shenshoujin’s own power against it, which freed Miku from the mind-controlling aspect of her Relic. Shenshoujin’s energy beam caught Hibiki in its shine, too, so maybe it scaled back Hibiki’s Gungnir fusion a bit.
I gotta say, of the many magnificent shots from last episode, I love this shot specifically.
I love the geometry of it. The background horizon-line is so flat and clean, and aligns neatly with Miku’s bicep armor in the foreground. We also have the metal cladding of the ship over on the left as another flat, clean line dividing the shot. And yet, that line is slanted, off-kilter, while the stable horizon consists of the unstable materials of clouds and water, and Miku herself is posed in a quarter-turn and is placed off to the side of center-frame. This shot communicates that despite how structured everything seems, it’s all off, it’s slanted, it’s unstable, it’s wrong. Excellent use of shot composition to put the viewer ill-at-ease during this scene when our heroic Miku is doing something evil. Symphogear is so well-crafted a show.
I stand by what I said all those years ago: G Episode 10 is superb. A work of art, and exemplary of just what you can do with an anime like this.
I’m excited to see where we go from here. Now that Miku’s a Symphogear wielder, it’ll certainly help the team to have an extra fighter on hand, considering they lost Chris to the enemy. Hopefully, Hibiki and Miku recover from the Shenshoujin beam quickly. We need them. The terrorists are winning.
We still don’t know what the terrorists’ mysterious “Frontier” actually does. It’s the crux of FISt’s grand plan to save humanity from the impending moon-fall apocalypse that will wipe out life on Earth, but we haven’t been told how.
Based on our first glimpse of it last episode as it rose from the ocean, Frontier is a huge ancient machine. Likely a Relic. My guess is it’s some type of shield generator to protect Earth from the falling moon, or a portal generator to open an escape route for humanity to flee.
“Frontier” as a word can just mean “new, unexplored land”, which nudges me more toward the portal generator option. Portal to where, though? A different planet? A different timeline? Shit, Symphogear is wilder than a porpoise on Pop Rocks, so it wouldn’t surprise me if we end up with a time travel storyline at some point.
I feel I may be jumping the gun by using that meme in only the second season out of five. I don’t know what happens in future seasons, but honestly, there’s no way Symphogear would suddenly decide to get LESS crazy, right? I don’t need spoilers to know that things are only going to compound from here. That’s just the kind of show Symphogear is.
Another important question just occurred to me about Frontier. How many humans do the FISters plan on bringing with them to this new land? Dr. Ver grandstands about how he wants to save the human race, but he callously killed many humans himself already. He seems the type who’d want to save only those people he considers “worthy” based on whatever twisted standards he sets, and let the rest of us “undesirables” perish.
Ver isn’t the only monster around:
I’m not sure what the Nephilim’s still-beating heart has to do with Frontier.
Are the Nephilim’s powers required to open Frontier’s escape portal? Or, does Ver just intend to keep the Nephilim around as his pet monster to intimidate the surviving humans into complying with his dictatorship?
Welp, the only way to get these questions answered is to let the anime unfold. Let’s watch!
The episode begins with Shirabe held prisoner in a cell aboard Section 2’s submarine. Brown-haired guy, whose name I know but refuse to use, confiscates her Symphogear amulet and handcuffs her.
Marks the second time brown-haired guy has handcuffed a Symphogear wielder.
This man can’t restrain for shit. You never handcuff someone from the front. It’s too easy for them to outmaneuver your restraints. You’re supposed to always handcuff a person’s hands behind their back, unless there’s some medical reason they can’t position their arms behind their back. That’s just Handcuffing 101, man.
DON’T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT, YOU GUYS. MY JOB. MY JOB, OKAY. I USED TO WORK IN A FIELD RELATED TO CRIMINAL JUSTICE.
Despite the fact Shirabe is a terrorist being held prisoner by the government and could be waterboarded any minute now, she isn’t worried about herself. She pleads with brown-haired guy for Section 2 to put a stop to her former group’s terrorism.
“Them” consists of: the mom who physically abused Shirabe, the big sister who taught Shirabe values about compassion and justice and then abandoned those values, the predatory doctor who touched Shirabe inappropriately and nearly overdosed her to death with LiNKER, and Shirabe’s former best friend who betrayed and poisoned her.
And still, Shirabe wants them saved.
Rollerblading little emo edgelord is a far better person than I am. She’s wise beyond her years, but more so, she’s kind beyond her years.
In the submarine’s command room, the other Section 2 agents check out scans of the newly-risen Frontier.
I used to call this character Snoop Oni, didn’t I? I’m keeping “FISt” and “soda girls” and of course “Hamster”, but I can let go of that nickname and start calling this character by his proper name, Genjuurou.
Genjuurou and the others are awed by Frontier’s size. It’s a freaking island all on its own, with the central mechanical Relic unit clumped by actual landmass and buildings. So, are we going to try to fit surviving humans onto that island, and then the Relic will magically teleport the entire island in one piece to some safe destination, to escape the falling moon?
The FISters destroyed a fleet of U.S. ships during their operation to unseal Frontier. Now, another U.S. fleet starts moving into position. Either to kill the FISters in revenge or to claim Frontier’s power for themselves.
In the submarine’s medical bay, Miku sits disconsolately in a hospital bed. She’s temporarily de-powered from getting caught in her own magnified Shenshoujin beam, which Hibiki carried her into to save her from Shenshoujin taking over her mind.
Hamster dashes into the room happily and hugs Miku.
Tsubasa accompanies them. Tsubasa is…
…fine now? ExCUSE me??
That bandage is around Tsubasa’s head. I thought Chris shot her in the back, but she was actually shot in the head?? And she’s just… walking around as normal, no problem whatsoever, despite getting SHOT IN THE HEAD A FEW HOURS AGO?
WE HAVE A NEW RECORD FOR SYMPHOGEAR’S FAKE-OUTS, PEOPLE. Three minutes and two seconds. There were three minutes of screentime between the shocking cliffhanger of Tsubasa shot from behind by Chris, and now, once more, we are totally faked out on any of it mattering.
This three minute time beats the previous record of Hibiki’s shocking cliffhanger of her arm ripped off and then getting it back four minutes later.
I can’t express how irritated I am by this season’s continuous M.O. of dropping a cliffhanger that could lead to serious and interesting drama/story development, then shrugging it off nigh-immediately afterward. It’s so cheap and disingenuous. It’s doubly frustrating because we know Symphogear is capable of better storytelling, evidenced by all the fantastic stuff it’s given us this season and last season. Seeing an otherwise superb anime hobble itself like this is just sad.
Anyway, the lady agent shares the good news that Miku’s got a clean bill of health. No side-effects from Dr. Ver’s LiNKER injections, nor from getting hit by a mega light beam like an ant under a lens. I mean, why would there be side-effects? Why should characters actually have to deal with consequences of what happens to them, like an actual story is supposed to go? Pfft. How silly that would be! (Yes, I am bitter.)
Hibiki’s fine, too. Hamster is her usual cheerful, bouncy self. The only signs she came within inches of death’s door last episode are a few band-aids on her face.
Those wounds aren’t, “My flesh and organs were nearly calcified into superheated rock from my horrifying Gungnir fusion that would’ve wiped out my life.” Those wounds are, “My cat needed a bath and I didn’t have one of those mesh gloves the Chipotle cooks chop meat with to hold the cat still.”
In fact, if someone came up to me and said, “Hibiki wasn’t actually injured in her fight with Miku, she just asked the medical crew to plaster some band-aids on her face to gain sympathy points from her girlfriend and use it as ammunition in a future ‘honey can you please take out the trash’ argument…” …I would not call that someone a liar.
WOW.
Hibiki thanks Miku for saving her. It wasn’t Hibiki who saved Miku last episode, Hamster insists, but Miku who saved them both. The energy beam from Shenshoujin, powered by the strength of Miku’s love for Hibiki, succeeded in removing Gungnir’s corruption from her body. For the first time in the entire two seasons of this anime so far, Hibiki’s x-rays come back clean.
Hibiki harbors zero bitterness over Miku collaborating with the enemy, however briefly. There’s genuine appreciation as she thanks Miku.
SYMPHOGEARRRR DON’T DO THIS TO ME
Miku finally got what she always wanted. What she willingly had a trepanation hole drilled into her skull to accomplish. She protected Hibiki.
You did it, you wonderful little green garden gnome. You goddamn well did it. Brava.
Despite this good news for Hibiki and Miku, Section 2 is on the back foot. FISt’s plan is proceeding as intended. We need to step it up if we’re going to stop them.
Uhhhhhh. Yeah, about that, Miku.
This segues us to Chris, now working with FISt.
Just wanna point out, Chris is shorter than everyone in this shot except Mom the wheelchair user.
Chris reveals why she betrayed Tsubasa and joined FISt:
Chris, this mentality is how we get arms races. Once you obtain that even greater power, someone else is now incentivized to find an even-even greater power, and then an even-even-even greater power, ad infinitum. “There’s always a bigger bomb,” ya know.
Kirika can relate. Like Chris, Kirika is a good person underneath and wants to save people, but has gotten twisted up along the brambly path and is instead harming people.
Maria is skeptical of Chris’s motives.
Dr. Ver tells Chris he’ll kill her if she betrays them like she betrayed Section 2. Chris shrugs off his and Maria’s distrust. She’s not here to make friends with the FISters.
The FISters explore Frontier’s interior. Its dark, blunt stone architecture gives it a spooky feel, like delving into old catacombs. What is this place?
The group reaches the heart of Frontier. Mom says:
Dr. Ver takes the Nephilim’s beating heart out of its box. He presses the heart up against the generator like he’s trying to Apple Pay. The generator accepts his transaction, lighting up with energy taken from the Nephilim.
So… the Nephilim’s entire purpose was just to jump-start Frontier out of its millennia-long slumber? Hmm. Then why did the Nephilim need to be a big, scary monster? Surely it can’t be that simple. No way the Nephilim’s heart is just going to sit there calmly for the rest of the season and act as Frontier’s battery cell.
We already know the Nephilim absorbs aspects of whichever Relic wielder activates it. Like how it absorbed aspects of Serena, who activated it the first time, and later of Hibiki, who activated the Nephilim the second time and also unintentionally fed it an arm.
It’s been years and I am still not over that scene.
Anyway, if the Nephilim devours energy from other Relics, won’t it drain Frontier for its own usage instead of feeding Frontier energy? I don’t trust the Nephilim.
The generator, powered by the Nephilim’s heart, not only activates the machinery of Frontier, it covers the outdoor landmass of Frontier in new plant growth blooming forth. It’s a grim poetry. The Nephilim’s heart, a being of pain and fear and devouring, used to power a machine that will bring life and peace.
The… bridge?
Bridge to where? I mean, Frontier’s an island, so yeah it’d need a bridge to connect to anywhere, but I thought the whole point was that Frontier would open a portal to leave Earth, not bridge itself to someplace else on Earth.
Ver tells Mom to go examine Frontier’s database archive room while he heads to the Bridge To Nowhere. He’s still giving orders, and worse, Mom is still taking his orders.
Kirika harbors doubts. She remembers what Shirabe told her after her betrayal, that Ver’s cruel methods won’t succeed in saving people like the soda girls originally wanted.
Aboard Section 2’s submarine, our remaining girls catch up with Genjuurou on the situation. He’s upset the three girls are out of their hospital beds so soon. (Dunno why, not like anyone in this anime actually takes injury. They’re fine, man. These gals could survive nuclear winter intact.)
Hibiki currently using every fiber of her being to resist retorting to this magnificent innuendo of a line Miku just dropped.
Why does he say it like it’s so… final? Hibiki didn’t lose her Symphogear permanen–
Oh for kittens’ sake.
Hibiki lost her Symphogear permanently.
Hibiki and Miku lost their Symphogears permanently from Shenshoujin’s anti-Relic beam.
I THOUGHT THEY WERE JUST TEMPORARILY DE-POWERED UNTIL THEY RESTED A BIT
YOU’RE TELLING ME GUNGNIR AND SHENSHOUJIN ARE GONE FOREVER??
I don’t know what happens in future seasons, but simply knowing future seasons exist means Hibiki will somehow get another Symphogear. You can’t have the main character of Symphogear, well, not wield a Symphogear. Hibiki must either get her Gungnir back or get a different Relic to replace it.
And this pisses me the fleek off, because while it’s guaranteed Hibiki will return to being a wielder, it’s dismally unlikely Miku will do the same. Symphogear is going to force Miku’s character back to normalcy, isn’t it? ISN’T IT??
symphOGEEEEEEEEARRR
In the past, I threatened to cleave something with a giant axe if Symphogear cowardly backpedaled and returned Miku to normal instead of committing to its decision to make her a wielder. You think I forgot about that threat, anime? YOU THINK I FORGOT?
I DID NOT FORGET.
…Unfortunately, I no longer have that particular giant axe in my possession. Also, I was thinking to cleave something like a watermelon, but that’d be super messy to clean up. Plus, axes are unsafe, you know!
Still, there must be some way I can vent my frustration at how many times this season gave us major developments and then faked them out shortly afterward. Let’s find a safer tool to vent than axes.
Like firearms.
Readers who don’t use guns: Uh… Nekekur, isn’t this a bit… unhinged?
Readers who do use guns: Your EDC is an M&P Shield and you use an UpLula? *snicker* How much more Stereotypical Female Gun Owner can you get, Nekekur?
Hush, all of you. I am a responsible adult, I have a legal firearm license, and this old grouch never backs down on some dumb threat she made over half a decade ago. This. Is. Happening.
Ah yes, I feel much better now.
(Always use proper ear and eye protection, kids. And don’t forget to sweep your brass!)
Readers who don’t use guns: Okay yeah, this is definitely unhinged, Nekekur.
Readers who do use guns: Your aim is trash.
In retrospect, the true Symphogear Season 2 experience would’ve been me going to the shooting range, clipping my target on, setting up for the big shoot… and then not doing it. Just backpedaling, walking right out the door like nothing happened. Give Season 2 a taste of its own medicine. Unfortunately, that idea didn’t occur to me until after I ran three mags’ worth of rounds through my little friend, so here we are.
It’s not like I want to shoot Miku or any other character. I love Miku to the core!
I genuinely believe she’s the bravest of all characters in this anime, simply because she doesn’t have magic powers like the rest of them. Even other non-magical characters such as Genjuurou have advantages like huge muscles and martial arts training. Miku has none of that, yet she still charges forward without hesitation, risking everything to protect the girl she loves.
Miku when confronted by an ultra-powerful villain:
Miku when trying to confess her feelings to Hibiki:
Miku is wonderful. True sunshine, just like Hibiki calls her. I’m not angry with Miku for the anime backpedaling on her becoming a Symphogear wielder. None of this is her fault.
(Also, I didn’t think I would need to note this, but Internet Be Stupid Sometimes, so just to make it perfectly clear: the above set of firearm images is absolutely not a threat against any actual human being. Certainly not whichever writers created Symphogear G back in *quick google search* 2013. My gun is solely for self-defense. The above set of images is just intended as a funny way of me expressing frustration with a piece of fiction. This is an anime for chrissake, and while I both adore and am agonized by Symphogear, I would never cause harm to human beings over a goddamn fictional show. Heck, I’ve never even sent a nasty Anon on Tumblr. Everyone be chill, okay? You’re safe.)
These fake-outs are driving me up the wall. So frustrating. I want Season 2’s big developments to mean something.
Season 1 understood that. Kanade died, and this event had serious impact. It shaped the lives of Hibiki and Tsubasa for the rest of the season. Kanade didn’t just come back the next episode.
Hamster took a serious wound to her chest. This permanently affected her, by giving her the power to wield Gungnir and also corrupting her with the Frothing Berserker curse she had to learn to overcome. That impact lasted all of Season 1 and into Season 2, threatening to consume Hibiki from within.
Tsubasa sang a Climax Song and nearly died from it.
This was treated as a serious injury. Tsubasa spent time in a coma, more time in hospital recovering, and more time after that walking around with a crutch. She didn’t spring right up the very next episode like she did here.
All these important things that happened in Season 1, well, they happened. They weren’t fake-outs. The only fake-out I can think of from Season 1 is the ending scene, when Hibiki revealed to Miku she didn’t actually die stopping the meteoroid and was merely pretending to be dead.
I thought that incident was an anomaly. The lone stain on a season which otherwise thoroughly impressed me. I didn’t realize that ending scene was setting a precedent for the entirety of Season 2.
Hell, the only non-fake-out I can think of this season is Serena dying.
I know I’m complaining a lot. But… this story matters to me. It now feels like this story doesn’t matter to itself. Why should I care what happens in an episode if it’s just going to get erased the next episode?
Symphogear Season 2 put a ton of effort and dedication into other details. What we’re seeing here is by no means a case of “the creators half-assed it” or “don’t you take it seriously, the people who made it didn’t bother to”. They clearly did take it seriously. Look at this season’s many, many excellently done scenes, from the spellbinding action to the fantastic music to the moving and heartfelt character drama. There is such GOOD in this season. Makes its fumbles stick out all the more sorely.
Stop sabotaging yourself, Symphogear G. You’re a good anime. Don’t be afraid to make life-changing events for your characters actually be life-changing.
Enough whining from this old hoot. Let’s keep going.
Tsubasa vows to handle everything on her own, with or without teammates. Typical Tsubasa. It’s telling of how strong Symphogear’s theme of Working Together is, that even an ultra-super-badass like Tsubasa can’t triumph without her comrades. Characters who take a Go It Alone mentality never succeed.
Tsubasa thinks about Chris’s betrayal. She wonders if her non-serious injuries from the shooting were on purpose. Did Chris deliberately spare Tsubasa’s life? Is there still some teammate-affection buried under Chris’s traitorous, violent exterior?
Inside Frontier, Dr. Ver and Maria arrive at the “bridge”, a room in the style of 70’s low-fantasy B-movie crystalline prop architecture. I know that sounds disparaging when I say it like that, but believe me, I would decorate my living room like this if I could.
Ver plans to inject himself with LiNKER? That’s the drug that forces compatibility with a Symphogear. For what purpose? He can’t wield a Symphogear.
Uh… I don’t think that’s such a good ide–
Holy SHIT he... partially fused himself with the Nephilim??
Horrifying.
Fascinating.
Wielders always match their Relics. Last episode, I talked a lot about why Miku resonated so well with the mirror Relic, Shenshoujin. We’re now seeing another example of that theme. The Nephilim Relic is an unholy monster, driven by an immense hunger that is never sated. The Nephilim has no power of its own, only gains power by consuming its fellow Relics. Ver is a monster, personality-wise, driven by an immense hunger for power that is never sated. He has no power of his own, only gains power by grinding up his fellow humans as pawns in his plan.
And now, Ver isn’t just a monster personality-wise, he is physically becoming monstrous, allowing the Nephilim to eat part of his humanity and transform him. These two ravenous, greedy monsters with no limit are fusing with each other. How darkly appropriate.
(What is it with the Nephilim and eating people’s left arm specifically? Are human arms the equivalent of Left Twix and Right Twix, in that ravenous monsters have a taste preference for which one they eat?)
Human/Relic fusion has, historically, never ended well for the human. Finé fusing herself with Nehushtan and then the Staff of Solomon, Hibiki fusing with Gungnir, Miku fusing with Shenshoujin…
What makes Ver think the Nephilim’s cells will stop at eating his arm? He himself called the Nephilim a “glutton”:
Why would you trust a glutton to eat your entire arm and not a bite more? I worry the Nephilim will consume more and more of Ver until there’s nothing left of him as a human, like how Gungnir and Shenshoujin ate at their wielders from within.
Somebody boot me for making a reference that only about 2.056% of readers will get.
Down in Frontier’s database room, Mom decodes its ancient archives. Frontier was built by the ancient super-civilization that crafted other Relics. Such as the Staff of Solomon, Durandal, and the Relics later fashioned into Symphogears by Finé, who was herself a member of this ancient super-civilization.
“Arrived”?? Finé’s civilization “arrived” on our world? As in… they came here from somewhere else?
As in… they were aliens?
ARE YOU SERIOUS
Hold on… What did Ver say earlier?
Oh my galloping goodness. The BRIDGE.
Like.
The bridge of a SHIP.
A spaceship.
FRONTIER IS A ~*~S P A C E S H I P~*~ YES REALLY HAHAHAH
THAT’S THE ANSWER TO THE SEASON-LONG MYSTERY OF WHAT FRONTIER IS
I mean… I… I suppose this means I wasn’t too far off in my “portal to another world” guess about what Frontier would be. The anime just meant it more literally. Frontier is a spaceship with an attached landmass, which the FISters will use to fly away from Earth to escape the falling moon.
WAIT HANG ON, MARIA TOLD US IT WAS A SPACESHIP IN EPISODE 1:
Back then, I thought Maria meant the terrorists plan to destroy Earth. She meant they plan to leave Earth. No humans will remain on Earth to hold concerts. And, the only way to leave planet Earth (except a magic portal) is via spaceship.
I can’t believe the answer to Frontier’s mystery was right there from the very start of the season. SYMPHOGEARRRR. Either I’m exceptionally slow or this wretched fucking anime is exceptionally clever. Let’s go with the second option.
Up on the bridge of the ~sPaCeShIp~, Ver presses his corrupted hand to the dormant machinery. This wakes it via the Nephilim’s power in his body. In typical Ver fashion, this display of his new power excites him. The Staff of Solomon wasn’t enough, now he has a brand new toy to kill people with.
Using his Nephilim hand to work the control panel, Ver makes Frontier’s huge outdoor antenna array light up and release a beam of energy.
Ver reaches that noodly beam of energy up and up and up, out into space, then forms it into a hand…
…and uses that hand to…
…slap the moon?
He slapped the moon.
Using this magic hand, Ver grabs hold of the moon to brace its grip. This moon-grip functions as an anchor connecting Frontier to the moon. Ver heaves on the anchor, pulling Frontier upward from the resulting magical force. The noodle arm dissipates, its job completed.
Actually, less “weird” and more “deliberate callback to the first season”, which Season 2 has been rife with and (mostly) done excellently.
The force from slapping the moon (can’t believe I just typed that) allows Frontier to achieve liftoff like Ver intended. The spaceship and its entire attached landmass float up from the ocean, into the air above the waves.
Much to the shock of our team, and to the approaching fleet of U.S. ships spotted earlier.
This episode is a gold mine.
The fleet of U.S. ships receives orders from their leaders to seize Frontier for the U.S.’s control. Uh. You just witnessed an ancient alien spaceship fire a giant golden laser beam from Earth’s surface all the way to the moon and then levitate itself above the waves. You think something so mundane as a naval fleet will capture it? Prepare for a curb-stomp.
Yep, there it is. Ver uses Frontier’s weaponry to wipe out the entire fleet in less time than it takes to tie a shoe. He crows about how fun it is, practically high off all this power in his hands (in his corrupted hand, anyway).
Maria is appalled by his gleeful violence. Not sure why. This latest garbage is utterly in keeping with Ver’s past cruelties and power-trips. Did Maria truly think gaining superhuman power would suddenly change Ver into a good person? That’s not how it works.
I’m minded of the saying contrary to the popular “power corrupts” narrative, the saying of, “Power doesn’t change who you are, power reveals who you are.” Ver’s callous ill-use of his new power shows who he really is. His fusion with the Nephilim isn’t transforming him into a different being, it’s just peeling back his few remaining layers of humanity to reveal the monster that’s always been underneath.
Mom, observing the chaos from Frontier’s database room, is similarly stricken by Ver becoming even more sinister than he already was. Mom vows to keep scouring Frontier’s archives for a way to stop him before it’s too late.
By all that is sugary, he really just Does Not Get It, does he?
Power is supposed to be used to help people, not trample them. And, AND! – You don’t need power to be a hero. Look at the heroics of our non-superpowered characters. Miku (sigh), Genjuurou, brown-haired guy. Heck, even Mom in her own way is trying some last-minute heroics, searching Frontier’s databases for a way to stop Ver.
Dr. Ver is as dreadful as a dislocated disc, but he’s a great antagonist because he so blatantly rejects the anime’s overarching themes about working together, helping others, and being brave enough to do the right thing even if you don’t think you’re powerful enough. This is how to write a consistent villain.
Raising a giant landmass from the ocean, reaching a massive energy-arm up into space, and wrecking an entire fleet of ships, yeah, all this big, loud, dramatic stuff attracts attention. The world’s eyes now turn upon this spot. News crews record the unfolding devastation.
Crowds all over the planet, including Hibiki and Miku’s classmates, watch the news broadcast. The schoolgirls hope their Symphogear friends can stop this apocalypse.
This-Isn’t-an-Anime girl, a.k.a. TIA-chan, is handling this well. Certainly better than the last apocalypse she was forced to live through:
Section 2’s submarine got beached on the emergent landmass when Frontier levitated itself above the ocean. They’re sitting ducks.
I get why Hibiki would hold Miku’s shoulder for comfort amidst this chaotic wild-itude, but why is Tsubasa holding Miku’s other shoulder? Are Hibiki and Tsubasa working together to… hold Miku back?
Ver reveals something terrible. Him using the moon as an anchor to heave Frontier up from the ocean means the moon was yanked farther down by the force of the pull. Ver’s “heroics” drastically sped up the impending moon-crash into Earth. We now have precious little time before impact, and therefore extinction.
This is the exact opposite of what Maria wanted when she agreed to work with Ver. Maria panics. She fumbles at Frontier’s control panel, trying to stop it.
HE DOESN’T INTEND TO SAVE PEOPLE YOU ASS-CACTUS HE NEVER INTENDED TO SAVE PEOPLE HOW DID YOU NOT SEE THIS COMING
“Wow, I can’t believe the guy who did evil things in Episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 is now doing evil things in Episode 11. So unexpected! Who could’ve predicted this?”
Maria’s attempt to stop Frontier fails. Ver is the only one with spaceship Admin privileges, due to his Nephilim-corrupted arm. (All right, we could cut off his arm and use it as a stylus to operate the control panel. Come on, Maria, get creative.)
Ver makes it plain he’s willing to let the rest of humanity die from the moon-fall, so long as he survives.
I mean… what did you think would result from your evil deeds, Maria? Goodness doesn’t come out of evil deeds. When you do evil, you always harm someone, even if that someone is your own soul. That’s, you know, why it’s evil. If no one were harmed by the deed, it wouldn’t be an evil deed.
It’s no wonder Maria has a twisted sense of rightness. Maria grew up an orphan under the thumb of FISt, a cruel and exploitative organization. Her only parent is a woman who repeatedly incited her to kill and to cast aside any need for smiles. (Mom’s trying to redeem herself nowadays, but that won’t erase her shitty parenting in all the years preceding.) Other authority figures in Maria’s life, like Dr. Ver, worsened everything by treating her even more awfully and manipulating her into even shittier situations. The one good person in Maria’s life, the lone example of rightness, Serena, died to save Maria, and her death was shrugged off by the people in charge as merely a “wasted experiment”. So yeah, Maria’s moral compass is pretty de-magnetized.
Maria in this episode seems to be suffering from the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Believing she’s come too far, and that if she turns back now, it’ll render futile everything she did to reach this point, including the crimes she committed. Now, she’s so far sunken, she can’t stop what’s coming.
Maria lunges at Ver. He backhands her away with his Nephilim-corrupted arm.
Ver taunts Maria, mocking her failures. Maria, knocked to the floor and lying there in shame, calls out Serena’s name in anguish. I don’t know if she’s praying to Serena for help or for forgiveness or just out of guilt.
Serena’s death truly was the Defining Moment in Maria’s development. Unfortunately, Maria took the exact wrong lesson from it. Serena’s death could have been a bittersweet moment of resolve, where Maria grieves for her sister but sees the courage in Serena’s noble sacrifice, and Maria vows to go forth as a hero who helps others, to carry on Serena’s legacy. That’s what should’ve happened. Heck, that’s exactly what Maria’s opposing Gungnir wielder did: Hibiki chose to become a hero who helps others, to carry on the legacy Kanade’s brave sacrifice bestowed upon her.
Instead, Maria chooses to take Serena’s sacrifice as Maria’s own failure. This dishonors Serena. If you love someone, you must respect their ability to make their own decisions for their life, even if it hurts you to see them suffer. Maria blaming herself for Serena’s death robs the valor from Serena’s decision, and turns Serena into a powerless puppet for Maria’s own sense of self.
Same as Tsubasa blaming herself for Kanade’s death:
If you blame yourself for A Thing, that means you think The Thing was in your control, which means you think the person who actually did The Thing didn’t effectively do it. “It’s all my fault” is just a different form of selfishness. Until Maria and Tsubasa accept that their loved ones dying was not their decision/fault/failure, they can’t move forward.
Maria then remembers she is a powerful Symphogear wielder, a superhuman warrior who wields Gungnir itself, the Spear of Odin. She gets up and righteously slays Dr. Ver, the first step in atoning for her sins.
JUST KIDDING, SHE LIES THERE ON THE FLOOR AND CRIES INSTEAD.
Ver walks away, smug in his victory. His parting words to Maria are:
EW EW EW
I’m going to gag up a month’s worth of small animal bones.
More gross behavior from Ver. His thought process is nothing but the writhing of putrid serpentine coils. What does the inside of Ver’s head even look like??
Aboard the good guys’ submarine, beached on Frontier’s dry landmass, the team gathers for mission prep. Somehow, some way, they must stop FISt.
With Chris a turncoat, and Hibiki and Miku lacking their Symphogears, Tsubasa is the sole remaining wielder on the good guys’ side. Genjuurou sends her off on the mission. He knows it’s nigh impossible. Tsubasa would need to single-handedly defeat Chris, Maria, Kirika, Dr. Ver and his Noise, and whatever other fuckery FISt has in its arsenal. They don’t even know about Ver’s Nephilim fusion yet.
Still, if anyone can do it, it’s our Resident BAMF, Tsubasa! Soloing all of Team Black will be a breeze for her.
Hamster worries about Tsubasa going on this mission alone. Tsubasa smiles (smiles!) and tells Hibiki not to worry.
Ow, Symphogear. Even when you bless us with a shot of Tsubasa smiling and reassuring her friend, it has to be phrased in a painful way to remind us of Tsubasa’s trauma. Wretched fucking anime.
Tsubasa ramps her motorcycle off the beached submarine and lands it on Frontier’s ground. She transforms into her Symphogear immediately (why did she bother putting on her motorcycle helmet if she was going to transform out of the helmet 3 seconds after mounting the bike?) and charges into a swarm of Noise that Ver must’ve set up as a blockade.
Noise blockades mean nothing to She Of The Blade.
Hell yeah! Singing her glorious battle song, Tsubasa flips her ankle-swords forward to form a giant bayonet on the front of her bike to cut through the Noise. She steers the bike one-handed, so her other hand is free to wield her main sword.
YEEESSS there’s Cavalry Flash! I hoped we would see this rad ability again after she used it to melodramatically cut open a water tower around the mid-season:
Tsubasa doesn’t break a sweat. The rest of Section 2 watches her from the submarine’s command room.
Tsubasa is completely surrounded by deadly monsters, is riding a motorcycle one-handed, zipping and maneuvering said motorcycle all over the place to make full use of her bayonet regardless of this rough terrain that must make handling the motorcycle even more difficult, while she also gracefully wields a sword to cut up any Noise that evade her bayonet.
Atop all that, she doesn’t miss a beat of her battle song. I can’t imagine what must be going through Tsubasa’s head right this moment.
Badass though Tsubasa is, she’s still only one person. Hibiki points out that the team could really use another Symphogear wielder right now to go help Tsubasa stop FISt.
Uh… Miku, then? I thought Miku lost her Symphogear at the same time Hibiki did? We don’t have any other wielders aboard the s–
OH.
OH YEAH, we DO have another Symphogear wielder aboard the submarine!
*distant but distinct whoosh of rollerblades approaching*
Shirabe is Section 2’s enemy. Hibiki is willing to look past that. She asks for Shirabe’s help, taking a gamble that Shirabe is a good person underneath and will do the right thing.
Despite Hamster-Jesus’s unfailing faith, Shirabe remains reluctant to trust her. These two have had friction (What’s the word for one-sided friction? All the bitterness between Shirabe and Hibiki is coming from Shirabe’s side. Hamster just wants to be friends.) ever since their first meeting:
Hibiki admits that she is flawed. She tells Shirabe how her family suffered abuse because cruel people blamed Hibiki for the massacre at Kanade and Tsubasa’s concert a few years ago.
That abuse wasn’t remotely Hamster’s fault, but Hamster insists that the important thing is to be honest about your flaws, even if they’re painful or shameful, and not lie about them to make yourself or others feel better.
Cherry Coke, I don’t know how to impress this upon you with sufficient force to hammer it into your brain deeper than a 4-kilometer South African gold mine, but…
…There is nothing Hamster-Jesus takes more seriously than holding hands.
Hibiki puts words into action, clasping Shirabe’s hand in both of hers to show her sincerity.
Why is Shirabe-Vision… tinted yellow? Does the poor girl have jaundice atop her other miseries? I’ve heard of “rose-tinted glasses”, but never “yellow-tinted glasses”. Has she been looking at the world through an Instagram filter this entire time?
More importantly, why is Symphogear communicating this to us now? We’re smack dab in the season’s climactic Third Act. We need to focus on all the big developments happening around us. Now is not the time to drop random, inconsequential details like Cherry Coke having a weird color vector.
Brown-haired guy points out that Shirabe said earlier that she wishes to “save” her fellow FISters. The best way to save her former family is to cooperate with Section 2, despite her distaste for them.
That does it. For her comrades’ sake, Shirabe finally agrees to help Section 2.
I get your sentiment, man, but I personally have had to stop a kid in my household from duct-taping together his entire collection of Hot Wheels cars into a single “skateboard” and rail-sliding down the banister on it because he thought it’d be cool and he has no conception of how expensive E.R. visits are. So, like, moderation and all that.
Genjuurou returns Shirabe’s Symphogear, Shul Shagana, to her. He’s ever the optimist, just like Hibiki. He believes she’ll use it for Good.
What? “Haven’t changed” from when? Did Shirabe know Genjuurou before? That doesn’t make any se–
Oh.
Oh no.
Oh no-no-no.
Yellow eyes. Knows Genjuurou.
Symphogear…
I swear to the fucking Energizer Bunny…
Don’t do this. Don’t you dare do this to me now, atop everything else that already happened this season.
I’m going to pretend this Is Not Happening. Because if I allow myself to consider the fact that this Is Happening, then I shall proceed to completely lose my shit, and then we won’t make it through the rest of this episode.
Hibiki takes Shirabe’s hand once more and happily leads her brand new Official Friend off to go help Tsubasa.
Don’t fight it, Shirabe. Accept your fate as a friend of Hamster-Jesus. She’s not fricken letting go now that she’s tasted flesh, i.e. held your hand in person. “Let’s be friends” is not a suggestion, it’s a commandment.
Shirabe agreed to go help, but Tsubasa got quite a head start. How will Shirabe catch up to her? Do they have a spare motorbike lying aro–
Cherry Coke’s Gear can morph into a WHEELY-CYCLE THINGY. This is a step up from her usual rollerblades.
Well, pluck my pelerine to threads, Hibiki went with her!
Also, I was completely right:
Hibiki took off her bandages to go on this mission, and her face is not at all injured underneath them. She totally faked them for sympathy points from Miku. Incredible.
Miku thinks Genjuurou should let Hibiki go ahead with this mission, despite the danger.
YES. SO WELL PUT, MIKU.
MARIA, TSUBASA, EVEN KIRIKA – TAKE NOTES. THIS IS HOW YOU TREAT YOUR LOVED ONES. It’s not, “I won’t let you go, because I love you too much to watch you risk yourself.” It’s, “I will let you go, because I love you too much to prevent you from fighting for what you believe in.”
GROWTH.
Genjuurou gives Hibiki a fond, fatherly, “you are so grounded when you get home, young lady” playful type of threat, but he ultimately sees the wisdom in what Miku says, and he lets Hibiki go. Genjuurou is such a good dad to the team.
Genjuurou, Miku, and the rest of Section 2 promise to support their heroes as best they can in the upcoming battle. They inform Tsubasa that Hibiki and Shirabe are on the way to help.
Tsubasa slashed her way through the Noise blockade and now approaches the main structure of Frontier. A familiar face blocks her path.
Shit, that bike has been through the wringer. Bruised and battered and blown up, all for the sake of Tsubasa’s dramatic entrances. The thing deserves a Purple Heart. How will Tsubasa repair it after this?
Last time they saw each other, Chris betrayed Tsubasa by shooting her from behind. Now, Chris and Tsubasa face off. Enemies once more, their comradeship cast aside.
YES. REVENGE FIGHT INCOMING.
Tsubasa and Chris’s first meeting resulted in a fabulously homoerotic duel:
I’m chomping at the bit to see how this rematch turns out for the two of th–
–what is that what is that WHAT IS THAT
Is that a CONTROL COLLAR? DID DR. VER PUT A CONTROL COLLAR ON OUR CHRIS??
Sick to my stomach.
Seriously, a collar? This is a disgusting violation for any character. Even more so for Chris, a victim of child slavery and exploitation.
Emblematic of Chris’s metaphorical “collar”, once more being the pet weapon of another villain with violent tendencies and a sexually predatory side.
I hate Ver so much. For what he’s done to Chris, for what he’s done to all the girls, for what he’s done to the countless people he’s harmed or killed. I know it’s wrong to hope to see him meet a particularly gruesome end on camera, but…
Tsubasa and Chris aren’t the only ones priming for a post-betrayal grudge match. Hibiki and Shirabe, en route in the wheely-cycle, also get stopped by a familiar face.
HAH! Her hooded scarf has little devil horns. That’s adorable. Look at you, trying to be all wicked fierce. Reminds me of the puffy black vampire coat Maria now wears, which she started wearing when she decided she was now committed to Those Evil Ways.
I wonder how this confrontation will go. Will Lemon-Lime Sprite apologize for betraying Cherry Coke, or will she double-down and do worse for the sake of continuing Ver’s twisted goal to “save” the world? Kirika may be suffering from that Sunk Cost Fallacy we talked about with Maria, where she may feel it’s too late to turn back now.
The fact Kirika put on her little devil horns specifically for this meeting with Shirabe (we’ve seen Kirika in this scarf before, but never with the horned hood up) suggests the doubling-down on evil option.
TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE!!! It’s been so long since I’ve seen one. By every god in existence, I love them.
My feelings about this are half OH YES KIRIKA’S TRANSFORMING and half OH NO KIRIKA’S TRANSFORMING. Oh yes, because Symphogear’s transformation sequences are always gnarly. Oh no, because this is a terrible sign for Kirika.
This is our first time seeing Sprite’s transformation sequence. Our first time seeing Cherry Coke’s transformation sequence happened a few episodes ago, when Shirabe finally took a stand for justice and defected from FISt, taking her power into her own hands to fight for what she believes in, not what evil people manipulated her into fighting for. I talked back then about what a significant moment this was for Shirabe, about the transformation sequence representing her Actualizing Her Power and solidifying her identity.
The fact we’re now seeing Kirika’s transformation sequence means Kirika is also taking a stand and Actualizing Her Power. …On the wrong side. Kirika has solidified her identity, and that identity is evil. “Doubling-down”, indeed.
This won’t be a happy reunion between the soda girls. How bad will it get? Just how far will Kirika go, what lines will she cross? Will love for Shirabe give Kirika what she needs to pull herself out of this darkness? Or, will she descend deeper into the pit?
Kirika doesn’t enjoy evil deeds, doesn’t laugh and crow over them like Dr. Ver does. Kirika believes Finé is about to possess her and erase her existence, and therefore she has nothing left to lose. Kirika’s sole goal is to leave behind a better world for Shirabe to live in after she’s gone. Kirika is so blinded by desperation that she can’t see she’s only making the world worse for Shirabe and everyone else by helping Ver’s evil plan.
Hamster-Jesus does classic Hamster-Jesus.
But of course, Hibiki’s plea for peace doesn’t work, no more than it worked when she tried the same during Tsubasa and Chris’s first fight.
Shirabe tells Hibiki to go on without her and stop Maria and Ver, while Shirabe stays here to deal with Kirika. Even without Gungnir, Shirabe has faith Hibiki can save the day.
Welp.
Welp.
WEEEEEEELP.
There it is. I was hoping the clues earlier in this episode would somehow turn out wrong, but here we are.
Shirabe is Finé.
Shirabe is Finé? Shirabe was always going to get claimed as Finé’s next host? So, not only was Maria-Finé a fake-out, but Kirika-Finé was also a fake-out?!
YOU’VE SURPASSED YOURSELF THIS TIME, SYMPHOGEAR
THREE FAKE-OUTS IN ONE EPISODE
First Wielder-Miku, then Tsubasa not taking any damage from being SHOT IN THE HEAD, and now THIS. It’s not a clever twist, it’s just another irritating fake-out.
Wow. Just… wow. Am I gonna have to get the gun out again?
Wait.
Wait, you guys, I…
…I figured it out. There’s no need for me to get upset at Shirabe being Finé.
Because it’s NOT REAL. SHE’S NOT ACTUALLY FINÉ.
HahhahaHAH, I’ve cracked your code, Symphogear!! What we’re seeing here is not an important plot development that will have serious ramifications for the story and its characters. No, no, you’ve trained me well. What we’re seeing right here in this scene is YET ANOTHER FUTURE FAKE-OUT.
“Maria is Finé’s new host!” – Fake-out. Maria isn’t Finé. Never was.
“Well, Finé definitely came back, despite Hibiki asking her to wait to reincarnate until Hibiki and the rest had passed on.” – Fake-out. Per Mom, Finé hasn’t yet claimed a new host. Hibiki’s final request to Finé, and their surprisingly moving farewell between hero and villain in Season 1’s finale, is still valid.
“Actually, Finé did claim a new host just now as Mom was saying that. It’s Kirika!” – Fake-out. Kirika wasn’t the one conjuring Finé’s energy shield in this scene.
“No, Shirabe is Finé’s new host, for reals this time, we pinky-promise!!” – Bull. This must be the latest regnant fake-out in a long dynasty of fake-outs.
I predict that by episode’s end or season’s end, it will be revealed that Shirabe isn’t actually possessed. Or Finé doesn’t manage to complete the possession fully, or Cherry Coke gets Finé exorcised from her somehow.
Everything will return to normal and there will be no permanent impact. Because that’s how Symphogear Season 2 rolls.
This realization has made me feel so… calm. Such a great placidity washing over me in a cleansing flow, like Hazmat workers getting toxins hosed off after they exit a contaminated site.
This is fine. Everything is fine. I can stop fretting. Shirabe will return to being Shirabe very soon. Hush now, silly owl, let it all wash away.
Finally, finally… I can move on. I’m not going to talk about this subject any more.
Heck, if I can drop off the face of the earth for years and then pretend nothing happened, I can’t throw stones at Symphogear for pulling big shocks and then pretending nothing happened.
All right, onward! Despite my complaints, I’m still enjoying this experience.
Kirika asks why Shirabe is helping Hibiki.
Hibiki has PULL, y’all. Don’t worry, Kirika, I’m sure you’ll get drawn in by Hamster-Jesus’s charisma, too, soon enough.
The soda girls clash in a whirlwind of sawblades, scythes, and other sharp slicing things.
For extra sting, Kirika and Shirabe sing a duet as they fight each other.
Hnngh.
Hnngh.
Symphogear using its Singing To Connect Hearts theme to brutal sacrilege by having these two partners split in twain and fighting each other viciously, while still singing a duet about how they want to share in a bonded melody, because their voices were meant to be joined with each other.
Why must Symphogear mix equal parts beauty and pain??
Fuck it, I wouldn’t have this anime any other way.
Pain train has no brakes, as we intercut between the soda girls’ duel and our other pair of friends-turned-foes now dueling each other.
That grin while fighting Tsubasa is very much our Chris. Dr. Ver’s control collar may be limiting her, but she’s still herself inside. This is good news. Hopefully, it means Tsubasa has a chance at reaching her!
Hard to “reach” someone when you’re Melee DPS and they are Ranged DPS. Tsubasa brought a sword to a gunfight.
Tsubasa pulls a bunch of sick flips and shit to evade the bullets flying at her, but keeps getting pushed back.
This is my favorite shot in the entire episode so far.
I mean, aside from the obvious reason.
Those yellow-blue puddles we can see amid the salt flats where Tsubasa and Chris are fighting:
Those are based on real-life hydrothermal vents, like the kind found in Yellowstone:
They’re full of water contaminated by alkaline-chloride, a toxic fucking compound that could kill you from enough vapor inhalation. Atop that, the contaminated water filling these hydrothermal vents gets up to nearly 300°F in temperature, well above boiling heat. Tourists have actually dissolved by falling into these toxic, boiling puddles.
You read that correctly. Dissolved.
And here’s our Tsubasa, our Daddy Longlegs, our Angstlord Sword-Saint, just casually splashing around in this puddle of boiling-hot, flesh-dissolving toxic liquid like one of those plastic kiddie pools you fill from the backyard hose.
Reminds me of the previous episode, when Tsubasa launched herself from an aircraft catapult during the battle against Shenshoujin.
I’m not sure what’s more impressive: that Tsubasa can accomplish such superhuman feats, or that nobody bats an eye at it. Everyone, even her enemies, just accepts it as par for the course that Tsubasa can perform all this radness as easily as opening a bag of coffee beans.
From afar, Ver watches Tsubasa and Chris fight. He giggles in cruel glee.
On Frontier’s bridge, Maria also watches the fights on electronic screens. Tsubasa versus Chris, Shirabe versus Kirika.
I’ve figured it out. The more Maria decides to act evil, the more of her legs she covers.
Start of season: one sock, no thigh-covering.
Second half of season: two socks, no thigh-covering.
And now, here at Maria’s lowest point: two socks and two thigh-coverings.
Witnessing her only friends, her beloved little sisters, Kirika and Shirabe, driven to fight each other because of Ver’s evil that Maria assisted in, is what finally convinces Maria to see the light. Maria jolts herself out of her wallowing and resolves to go stop Ver once and for all.
JUST KIDDING, SHE FALLS TO THE FLOOR AND CRIES INSTEAD. AGAIN.
Maria stops crying when Mom calls her from Frontier’s database room. Mom has good news.
THANK YOU MOM
Finally, a filament of hope for us amidst this tapestry of despair.
Mom needs Maria’s songs?
------------------
Feels good to be back.
And what an episode to return to! So many great parts. As for the bad parts…
…Me and my gun have learned to make our peace with the bad parts and move on.
The past several years of my life have been a… humbling experience. I learned the hard way that I needed to take a solid, uncompromising look at my many IRL mistakes and flaws. This silly reaction blog isn’t so serious as IRL, of course, but I can apply those same lessons.
This episode, I finally realized I was making a terrible mistake with Symphogear: I was critiquing the anime based on what I wanted it to be, not what it actually is. That’s bad practice and worse analysis. I gotta shape up, learn to meet the anime on its own terms before I can truly understand and appreciate it. Anything else is just fancy whining, and nobody wants to read that.
SPEAKING OF WHINING.
Hang on, we need to add something to the spaceship.
Maria regrets the sins she’s committed:
But, regret is supposed to be a beginning. As the wise words go, “The first step is admitting you have a problem.” Now that Maria has realized the evil she’s done and regrets it, she should take the next step, which is trying to make amends.
Instead, she’s just crying about it.
This is not bad writing on Symphogear’s part. Maria is a highly traumatized young woman. Hell, so are all the Symphogear wielders. Nobody is living their best life right now. Live, Laugh, Love in this anime is Die, Cry, Duel.
I don’t see it as a mistake in character writing to have Maria not immediately fix everything wrong with herself. Of course she’s going to wallow a while. It’s frustrating to watch, but it’s not unbelievable.
I mean, shit, if I blew my chance at a dame like Tsubasa in the very first episode, I’d be goddamn inconsolable for the rest of the season, too.
Hibiki is currently en route to Maria’s location, holding down B as hard as she can to run faster.
Hamster-Jesus’s outstretched hand brought the light to Chris, Shirabe, and even Finé, that wretched soul. Here’s hoping it’ll do the same for our dear, melodramatic, kitty-eared diva.
I wonder what Mom’s plan to stop Dr. Ver is. Mom said she needs Maria to sing for the plan to work.
My guess is Mom needs Maria to sing a Climax Song to deactivate the Nephilim. That’s how Serena deactivated the Nephilim years ago.
It’d be poetic. Serena dying from her Climax Song against the Nephilim is Maria’s greatest burden. (In Maria’s mind, anyway. Serena intended it as a gift of love for Maria, to allow Maria to live on. Maria is disrespecting Serena by interpreting her gift as some deep failure on Maria’s part.) It’d be a perfect character-circle for Maria to atone by singing the same Climax Song to stop the Nephilim that claimed Serena’s life.
Climax Songs are fatal. You can only survive by:
1) be Tsubasa, badass enough you can make it out alive by the skin of your teeth:
2) hold hands with Hibiki, whose unique power is sharing the strain of a Climax Song so the singers don’t die:
If Maria accepts the friendship Hibiki will no doubt offer her once they get within hand-holding range of each other (seriously, Shirabe’s hand this episode only whet Hibiki’s appetite, she’s now hound-harrying the other two members of Team Black and won’t rest until she’s held their hands in friendship, too), then together their Climax Song might be enough to deactivate the Nephilim.
The Nephilim’s energy is what keeps Frontier’s generator running, so deactivating it would remove Frontier’s power source and halt Ver’s plan in its tracks.
However, my speculation has a couple problems. One problem, Hibiki doesn’t have a Symphogear anymore, so I don’t know if she could participate in Maria’s Climax Song even if she wanted to. Another problem, Ver already sped up the moon-fall. Deactivating the Nephilim and Frontier won’t stop the moon from crashing into our world, wiping out all life.
Oh! I just remembered. We have a spare Symphogear lying around.
Maria has kept Serena’s Relic amulet as a memento since her sister’s death. If Hibiki convinces Maria to turn from the path of evil, Maria might be inspired to pass on Serena’s Symphogear to Hibiki, recognizing Hibiki as a worthy hero who would honor Serena’s dying wish to help others.
We don’t know what Serena’s Relic is called. Or what its weapon is. We already have a spear, sword, bow, saw, and scythe. (And let’s not forget Miku’s cricket bat.) According to RPG logic, we just need a hammer/mace to complete the roster. Hamster wielding a giant hammer (hamst-mer?) would be awesome. Of course, being Hamster, she’d still set her weapon aside when the time came to hold hands.
I hope Mom found some real gems when she datamined Frontier’s archives. We’re going to need whatever we can get to stop Dr. Ver.
We’ve seen those veins on Ver’s face before, on Finé and Miku. Finé when she fused with Nehushtan, and Miku when Shenshoujin tried to fuse with her. That these fusion-veins are growing ever more prominent on Ver’s body is a sign that, as I predicted/feared, the Nephilim is eating more of him than he anticipated. He deserves it, but the rest of the world doesn’t deserve the awful consequences he’s inflicting on them from his terrible decisions. How come evil people are always the last to pay for their own crimes, with everybody else footing the bill first?
The Nephilim’s corruption will no doubt keep devouring Ver from within. By the time our heroes defeat him, will he even be human anymore? Will we see a full-on metamorphosis from him in the season finale, the way Finé metamorphosed into the Red Dragon in Season 1’s finale?
Wake up, everybody. New meme template just dropped.
Or how about:
Memes aside, this episode solidified a pet theory that’s been wiggling around in my head this entire season. About what Dr. Ver is, in terms of character structure. That theory is kinda meta, so it’s more appropriate for me to save the details about it for the Season 2 Wrap-Up post, similar to how I did a deep-dive on Finé’s character symbolism and her Oppositional Symmetry to the heroes in the Season 1 Wrap-Up post.
For now, all I’ll say is this episode convinced me that:
1) Ver will die in the season finale. (Not be redeemed like some villains are.)
2) Maria will be the one to kill Ver, and/or she’ll be there to watch him die and his final words will be to her. (It won’t be Hibiki who kills him, who would work since she’s the main hero and he’s the main villain. Also not the Noise or the Nephilim, even though it’d be fitting for Ver to be killed by monsters he tried to control. Nope, I predict it’s gonna be Maria.)
3) Ver will die by crushing. (There’s a hundred ways he could die – shot, stabbed, drowned, hanged, set on fire – but no, I’m specifically predicting Crushed To Death By Heavy Object.)
I’m gonna put these three predictions out there now, and save the Why of them for the Wrap-Up post once I finish the season. Because if these predictions are correct, I’ll look super smart. And if I’m wrong, then you who have already seen the rest of Season 2 can point and laugh at me. Win-win.
I think I’ve got a good guess on Ver’s future, but I honestly have no clue what’ll happen to Shirabe and Kirika from here.
Shirabe confirmed as Finé’s new host means Kirika sided with evil for… nothing. Finé was never going to possess Kirika.
Kirika can stop this, but she feels ensnared by a fate she cannot escape.
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Finé will turn me evil, therefore I must take drastic actions while I’m still me, even though those actions are what’s evil.”
Finé didn’t take Kirika’s soul, Kirika sold her soul away on her own. The tragedy, the futility of it all... It’s practically Greek.
The soda girls have always been two halves of a whole. The dual blades, scythe and saw, of the goddess Zababa.
Pitting Shirabe and Kirika against each other, when they both want the same thing but can’t communicate that to each other piles up the tragedy into a fricken gargantuan decay-heap shadowing everything around it.
Even when trying to slice each other up, their voices join in a song about their shining bond they never want to lose. But, even if they somehow manage to make amends after this duel, how will Kirika react when she finds out the truth about Finé’s new host? Shirabe has the opportunity to deliver the most precision-accurate “it’s not you, it’s me” in history.
The other duel happening simultaneously isn’t any less painful to witness.
Tsubasa and Chris, both rough-edged in their own ways, have always had a hard time coming together without Hibiki between them to smooth out their grind.
(…I just re-read that sentence. No, I’m not editing the phrasing. We ball.)
Anyway, the two of them have always had a contrasting dynamic. Chris and Tsubasa are opposites in so many ways. Red vs blue, hot vs cold, outbursts vs stoicism – even their fighting styles: widespread ranged AoE blasts vs up-close Single Target precise cuts.
Without Hibiki there to gently nudge them into holding hands with each other, Chris and Tsubasa must figure out on their own some way to find a common bond.
They tried before. Chris invited Tsubasa on a dinner date for a “heart-to-heart” chat, but chickened out of the intimacy when Tsubasa asked Chris to call her by name.
If a tender, peaceful dinner date couldn’t get these two to overcome their differences, looks like a violent duel to the death will have to do.
There’s just something about being locked in a duel with Tsubasa that makes women grin wickedly like they’re having the time of their lives.
We also need a way to remove the control collar Ver slapped on Chris. For my sanity as much as Chris’s.
Chris seems more in charge of her faculties than Miku was under Shenshoujin’s mind-control, for instance, so hopefully Ver’s control will be easier to shatter than the mirror Relic was. Chris turning against her friends for a twisted sense of the greater good was painful enough, but being forced to turn against her friends and shoot them down while Ver watches and cackles would be even worse. Oh god it would be so much worse. Either Chris needs to snap out of that collar or Tsubasa needs to snap it off her, ASAP.
We’ll have to wait and find out next episode.
Only two episodes remain in Season 2! I hear the thunder on the horizon. We go forward, always forward.
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