The Shadow, the Self, and the Grapefruit
(Read the full episode below, or click here for the list of other episodes)
------------------
So, that was Symphogear Season 2 (G).
HO…
…LY…
……SHEEEEEIT!!!
This season was infuriating. And fascinating.
I avoid Symphogear fandom spaces to prevent spoilers. And other reasons…
Anyway, my outside perception is that the fandom has a general consensus of, “This anime is just dumb popcorn nonsense… but the action, music, and gayness are loads of fun.” That’s what people told me about Season 1 before I started watching it, and they were so wrong. Not wrong about the fun action/music/gayness, but wrong that there was nothing else of substance to this anime.
SYMPHOGEAR IS SO GOOD AT CHARACTER THEMES
Season 1 impressed me with its handling of arcs for our three heroes and how they contrasted so perfectly with the villain, consistently threaded through with the season’s main theme: Don’t Give Up On Life.
The heroes win because they Don’t Give Up On Life. The villain loses because she Does Give Up On Life.
My favorite storytelling trope is what I call Oppositional Symmetry. Dark parallels, mirrored and/or inverted themes, basically when the villain is just a shittier version of the hero. I can’t explain why I like it so much. Every time it happens, be it in anime or books or movies, I just…
In this Wrap-Up post, I will not be talking about the bad things in Symphogear G. Because:
1) Complaining makes me feel worse. If a show/movie/book is bad enough, I’ll just stop watching it. Symphogear’s good outbalances the bad, so I’ve decided to keep watching it. Since I’ve decided to keep watching it, there’s no point whining.
2) I complained enough about this season’s bad things in the individual episodes while those things were happening in real-time. Going back to list every Bad Decision this season made and why each was bad would take forever, plus it’d just be a regurgitation of bile I already spewed in previous posts. That’s not what I want this Wrap-Up to be.
“Hey Nekekur, didn’t you have a tip jar or something where you were keeping track of dumb moments last season?”
I did! I called it the More Cohesive Storytelling Payments jar, a.k.a the MCSP (pronounced “mucks-up”) jar. The MCSP jar worked like a swear jar – every time something happened in Season 1 that could’ve been executed more cohesively from a storytelling perspective, I paid a dollar to the jar.
I also paid a dollar to the jar each time I got a stupid or spoilery comment from people with no reading comprehension who didn’t understand why I thought each instance was a Muck-Up. (Comments are now disabled because of this. Most of y’all are wonderful! It’s just that every fandom has its morons and crapsacks. And if you’re thinking, “But my favorite fandom is different, we don’t have any morons or crapsacks!” …you are one.)
By the end of Season 1, we had collected $53 for the jar!
Season 2 had so many Muck-Ups, I stopped keeping track. If GX is anything like G, this show will bankrupt me by the end of all five seasons. And so, I’ve decided to discontinue the MCSP jar.
However, I did promise to donate the MCSP jar’s proceeds to charity, and I’m a woman of my word. If I totaled up the $53 from Season 1 plus all of Season 2’s dumb moments and dumb reader comments, it’d be, like, a thousand dollars.
…You know what, yeah. Fuck it. Let’s make it an even $1,000.
There we go.
Now that I’ve covered the shitty parts of this season (rather, explained why I’m choosing not to cover them in this post), let’s drill down into the great parts of Symphogear G!
Season 2’s themes were a little more subtle than Season 1’s straightforward theme of Don’t Give Up On Life. Made me work harder to analyze the season, a challenge I enjoyed. It was a delight picking this season’s bones clean and seeing what made the marrow leak through.
There’s a lot going on in Season 2, but I think I’ve managed a decent grip on it. We got more of that Oppositional Symmetry I loved so much from Season 1, expanded into more complex forms.
The very first episode of Season 2 established the Fight Your Shadow Self theme, with the opposing team of Black Symphogears.
Heck, even the two teams’ bases have Oppositional Symmetry. Both Section 2’s submarine and the FISters’ Osprey are unconventional in that they aren’t “bases”, they’re vehicles.
Also, both these bases can move unseen. The submarine hides underwater and the Osprey turns invisible.
Y’all, I lose my car in the Costco parking lot. I can’t imagine the “where the fuck did I park?” that must go through a person’s head when your vehicle is either 1) invisible or 2) floating somewhere in the 139 million square miles of the planet’s ocean.
The next theme of this season, “Consumed From Within”, actually comes from last season:
Symphogear carried this terrifying theme forward and cleverly wove it into multiple characters in Season 2, not just Hibiki.
Genjuurou speaks the final theme, the endpoint of all the character arcs in Season 2:
Like Finé above, he’s talking about Hibiki’s Gungnir fusion. And, like Finé above, it applies in a broader sense to other characters.
At the start of Season 2, I was skeptical of Symphogear’s decision to add so many new characters. The new wielders Maria, Shirabe, and Kirika, plus Mom and Dr. Ver. I was proven wrong. All these new characters turned out well handled. Each contributes to Season 2’s overarching themes in unique but interconnected ways. This is quality character writing.
All these themes feed into each other. Let’s start with Madame Butterfly herself.
Finé’s shadow hung over us the entirety of Season 2.
Who is Finé’s Legacy? The obvious answer is, “The person she possesses as her next host, duh.”
But, Symphogear is too complex to leave it at so obvious an answer. Several characters this season vied, intentionally and unintentionally, to be Finé’s Legacy.
In Season 2’s OP, Hibiki reaches for a silhouette. I believe this is Finé.
Hibiki spent this season grappling with her Gungnir fusion. It’s been steadily corrupting her into a berserker shadow-demon, Consuming Her From Within a little more each time she wields it.
Dude shoulda worn his brown pants.
In a way, this corrupted Hibiki is Finé’s Legacy. Finé secretly experimented on Hibiki’s Gungnir-embedded-in-heart condition, making it worse so Finé could use that research to boost her own power with a Nehushtan fusion.
Despite how Finé exploited her, Hibiki showed mercy on Finé. Hibiki is a better person than the monster Finé tried to transform her into.
In a larger sense, every Symphogear wielder is Finé’s Legacy. Finé created the Symphogears.
Maria, Kirika, and Shirabe are descended from Finé, therefore her literal blood legacy. They also name their terrorist organization after her.
Maria (falsely) claims to be Finé reincarnate. Yet, Maria constantly blames herself for not living up to Finé’s Legacy.
Despite all this, the ones who bear Finé’s name aren’t as impacted by her legacy as the one who bears Finé’s crimes.
Finé shaped Chris, for better or worse. I spent a big chunk of Season 1’s Wrap-Up post talking about how Chris and Finé are each other’s Shadow Self. Chris is Better Finé, and Finé is Worse Chris.
Chris longs for a home with people who love her. Something she never had while living on Finé’s leash. She found a home with her friends this season. Even if she’s a bit rough with them…
Chris’s newfound happiness doesn’t last. Her past crimes come back to haunt her when Dr. Ver steals the Staff of Solomon and uses it to summon Noise that slaughter innocent people.
Chris activated the Staff of Solomon at Finé’s direction. Finé manipulated, exploited, and seduced Chris, but she didn’t force Chris. Chris committed evil deeds of her own volition.
Chris started out with good intentions. To remove all violators and warmongers and traffickers from the world, so that no more children would suffer what Chris suffered. Finé twisted those noble intentions, fueled Chris’s worst impulses, and tried to make Chris into her minion, her shadow.
Chris’s atonement is beautiful. Symphogear inverted the Oppositional Symmetry – Chris activating the Staff turns out to be her worst sin and her greatest triumph. Despite the Staff being used to kill countless people, Chris figures out the Staff is the only thing that can defeat the Nephilim, thereby saving every person in the world. The Staff can do more than just kill, and Chris can do more than just kill.
Chris doesn’t Fight Her Shadow Self this season. Chris is her Shadow Self, and always will be. Chris won’t ever be a pure and gentle forgiver like Hibiki. And that’s fine. Chris has made peace with her own violent nature, and, like the Staff, chooses to use that violence to save people instead of harm them.
These self-named “Finé” terrorists have it wrong. Chris is Finé’s Legacy. And she shines brighter than Finé ever could.
Chris used to think heroism was about killing everyone in your way.
Chris now understands heroism is about protecting others. Hell, she even protects enemies.
During the battle against Shenshoujin, Chris stands in front of Shirabe to block Miku’s energy blast that would’ve vaporized Shirabe into a Cherry Coke mist. I can’t imagine Season 1 Chris putting herself in harm’s way to protect an enemy.
It’s especially moving because, though Chris didn’t know it at the time, the person she’s protecting houses the soul of the person who hurt Chris most.
Actually, who does know Shirabe was (briefly) Finé’s host? Genjuurou, Hibiki, Kirika… That’s all I can think of. I dearly want it to remain secret and then, like, five years down the road, Shirabe tosses out some casual comment about “oh yeah, the time Finé’s soul was inside me” and Chris just goes:
SPEAKING OF SHIRABE
I hate Episode 9. I hate it so much. It was so horrid it nearly made me quit Symphogear forever.
The exercise montage takes the cake, but it’s not the only pastry in the pile. I also despise the Tsubasa/Chris restaurant scene to heaping plenty.
They’re good scenes. It’s their context that makes them awful.
Tsubasa and Chris having a cute, intimate dinner date… while they left Hibiki all alone that night to grieve what she thought was Miku’s death at Sky Tower.
Team Rainbow having a fun, upbeat exercise montage… while they knew Miku was being held captive by terrorists.
Context is everything. It feels like Symphogear had two darts labeled “fun exercise montage” and “Tsubasa/Chris date”, and the anime just chucked these darts to land randomly sometime this season, and they both happened to land in Episode 9, so Symphogear decided to plop those scenes into this episode despite how staggeringly inappropriate this placement was. I’ll never be able to enjoy these scenes as they were intended to be enjoyed.
I said I wouldn’t use this Wrap-Up post to complain about the bad things in Symphogear G. I bring up Episode 9 because, despite me hating it to the icy depths, this episode contains my favorite moment in the entire season.
Shirabe’s coming of age. Taking her power into her own hands, deciding she’s no longer a pawn of evil, and solidifying her true identity by becoming the hero she should be.
It’s Empowerment of the highest level.
…And then it so painfully and artfully collapses into Disempowerment.
Shirabe’s power forcibly stripped from her. Betrayed by the person she trusted most. Such a strikingly tragic interplay between power and powerlessness, between love and betrayal.
Shirabe is Finé’s literal legacy, since she’s Finé’s new host. However, Shirabe is nothing like her possessor.
Finé mocks Chris’s sacrifice, wonders why any idiot would give their life to save others, because Finé cares solely about herself. Shirabe, though, willingly sacrifices her life by taking a mortal wound to protect Kirika.
Finé’s purple energy-shield protects what she values most. For Finé, that’s herself. (She later reveals she wasn’t protecting Hibiki in this scene, she was only protecting Durandal, a tool for her evil plan.)
For Shirabe, what she values most is Kirika.
Channeling the energy-shield big enough to protect the two of them, even while unconscious, because Shirabe’s most base, subconscious Need is for her Kiri-chan to be okay.
Kirika. Hoooo boy, Kirika...
Of all the characters, Kirika’s iteration of this season’s Fight Your Shadow Self, Finé’s Legacy, Consumed From Within, and She’ll Cease To Be Who She Is themes is the most tragic.
Because it wasn’t real. Kirika wasn’t actually possessed by Finé.
Lemon-Lime Sprite’s self-annihilation was caused entirely by her own fears and doubts. An earnest desire to do good, not seeing the harm she was aiding in.
Kirika commits symbolic self-annihilation by abandoning her values. Working for evil, standing aside while the powerful preyed on the weak, attempting murder, and betraying what she called her taisetsu na, her most precious person.
Physically, Kirika does not change throughout the season. Physically, she is not Consumed From Within. But, by the end of her downward spiral, there’s nothing left of the Kirika we knew and loved. She has Ceased To Be Who She Is.
Look at her phrasing. It’s not “Dr. Ver manipulated me into being awful” nor “Finé’s influence made me awful”. It’s I’m awful. I did those things. There’s no one to blame but me. So, what value is left of me?
There’s an almost childishness to it. An “awful girl”, like scolding a little kid who broke the rules. It’s so sad when we remember Kirika never really got to grow up. She spent years locked up in that cruel orphanage, being told her body/person was only useful as a potential vessel for Finé, and later as a vessel for a Symphogear that the leaders of a terrorist organization could use as a living weapon. She’s a child soldier.
Shirabe came from the same shitty childhood circumstances. But, Shirabe managed to overcome Finé’s Legacy and become a hero.
When Kirika finds out she isn’t actually Finé’s Legacy, that all her crimes were for nothing, there can be only one recourse. Symbolic self-annihilation becomes literal self-annihilation.
Sprite tries to commit suicide in front of Cherry Coke, because what does it matter, the real Kiri-chan is already gone, Consumed From Within by the evil deeds she willingly participated in because she thought she’d be taken over by Finé.
Kirika went from “I’m terrified I’ll disappear” to “I want to disappear”.
Kirika says she wants the memories she and Shirabe shared to remain after her death, but then Kirika poisons those memories herself. First betraying Shirabe, then making Shirabe watch her die.
Kirika is so far gone at this point that she doesn’t see the abject horror of killing herself in front of her partner. She probably thinks Shirabe won’t care, that their relationship is over anyway, that Shirabe and the entire world are better off without her.
For any reader who needs to hear this, I promise you, someone will care. Doesn’t matter if it’s a person, a pet, a houseplant, or the goddamn raccoon that looks forward to eating your trash at night, your life impacts others, sometimes in ways you cannot know. This world is not better off without you.
Because Symphogear understands its characters so well and knows how to interweave parallels, we get more of that Oppositional Symmetry. “What if I’m just another Finé after all?” is a question that haunts both Kirika and Chris, so Kirika serves as a Shadow Self for Chris.
The anime does this on purpose. Multiple times, it gives us screen time of Kirika and Chris facing off one-on-one. Even in the season’s OP!
After Chris betrays her comrade (like Kirika betrayed Shirabe), she approaches Kirika, thinking Kirika of all people will understand her motives.
A mistreated young Symphogear girl who willingly allies herself with a world-destroying villain, for the twisted goal that it’ll be for the greater good, no matter how painful and isolating it is for her personally.
And in the finale, when Team Rainbow and Team Black unite, it’s Kirika whose hand Chris clasps.
Season 2’s themes of Fight Your Shadow Self, Finé’s Legacy, Consumed From Within, and She’ll Cease To Be Who She Is are so strong, they even shape supporting characters like Mom.
I’m gonna be real with y’all. At first, I didn’t see the point of this character. Mom spends much of the season off-screen due to her illness, during which time she doesn’t contribute much to the movement of the story nor the development of the other characters.
When a series benches a character for big chunks of time like this, it’s usually a sign they don’t know what to do with the character. This problem is often solved during the early writing process by combining that character with another character.
My thinking was, “Why didn’t Symphogear just combine Mom and Dr. Ver?” These two characters have enough similarities in basic sketch. Adult leader of the young antagonist squad, an intelligent scientist who knows a lot about Relics, who holds (and abuses) a position of authority over the three Black Symphogear wielders, which they eventually break free of. Sure, just amalgamate Mom/Ver during the early drafts of the season, that would’ve worked fine. Why did we need Mom as a separate character?
WHAT A FOOL I WAS TO DOUBT SYMPHOGEAR. I SEE NOW.
It’s not that Symphogear didn’t know what to do with this character. The anime knew exactly what it was doing with her. She serves an important thematic purpose quite different from Dr. Ver’s, and therefore she needed to be a separate character.
In keeping with Finé’s Legacy, Mom is a Relic-researching scientist who uses the Symphogear wielders’ power to further her own ends.
To the leaders of FISt, the wielders are tools, not human beings deserving of compassion.
This attitude of Mom’s gets Serena killed. Serena bravely sacrifices her life by singing a Climax Song to save the lives of other people from a destructive monster, the Nephilim.
Finé got Kanade killed. Kanade bravely sacrificed her life by singing a Climax Song to save the life of another person from destructive monsters, the Noise.
Where the similarities break off is the reaction. Finé expresses zero remorse for her role in Kanade’s death.
At first, Mom likewise seems not to care much about Serena’s death. Later, we find out Mom is indeed haunted by it.
Mom’s biggest fear becomes that she’ll condemn more of her adopted daughters to death. Like in the above scene, when she hears Kirika and Shirabe singing fatal Climax Songs as Serena did.
This next part is gonna get a bit grimmer than my usual tone. So, just to be cautious, if you don’t want to read about real-life child abuse, scroll down til you see Kirby.
For five years, I worked in the criminal justice field. I processed over 70,000 pre-trial reports, from crimes mild as graffiti to serious as murder. Among all those crimes, I was shocked to discover child molestation is way more common than I thought. And, I only worked on cases that made it to the pre-trial stage. How many thousands more don’t have enough evidence to bring to trial, or worse, never get reported in the first place?
In child molestation cases I worked on, the perpetrator was most often 1) a guy, and 2) part of the household or extended family. It was super rare for the perpetrator to be a gal or a random stranger.
In these cases, especially ones where the abuse went on for months or years, I often wondered, why didn’t the mom do anything? How can she not know that this guy in her home, often her own boyfriend or husband, is molesting her kids?
After a while in that job, I realized the terrible truth.
The mom usually does know.
She puts up with it because she needs the guy. Usually for financial reasons. Without his income, she couldn’t afford to house and feed the kids on her own. Most moms want a better life for their children. She figures it’s a better life for the kid to at least have food on the table and a roof over their head while being abused by one person, than to be in the foster system or on the streets, where they’d possibly have more than one person abusing them any given day. Staying with an abuser is a trap the mom sees no way out of. Maybe a trap she herself was subjected to as a child.
We see that awful compromise with Mom in this season of Symphogear.
Though Mom is disgusted by Dr. Ver, she holds her nose because she thinks he’s needed for her Frontier plan to save the world.
Sure, Ver’s inappropriate with the kids (touching them, and forcibly injecting them with near-fatal doses of LiNKER like he did to the soda girls), but at least the kids are alive. If Mom’s Frontier plan fails, the world will be destroyed by the falling moon, and her daughters will die. Like Serena already did.
I don’t think Symphogear is trying to say Ver did molest Team Black. I think it’s trying to say he’s the type of person who would, and Mom’s aware of this and chooses not to prevent it.
Same as those real-world moms who fear a worse life for their kids, Symphogear’s Mom decides that, distasteful as Ver’s behavior is, it’s worth it to save the world… right?
It’s not. What’s the point of saving a world where they’re subject to abuse? Saving lives isn’t a good enough reason on its own. Life has to be worth living.
Thanks, Kirby.
Anyway, it’s no coincidence the anime doesn’t reveal Mom’s true name to us until after she acknowledges the wrongness of her terrorism plan.
Before this episode, she was only ever called Mom.
Nastassja means “resurrection”, often the resurrection of a savior.
In this same episode where her name is revealed, Mom begins trying to improve herself. To be “resurrected” as a better person and a better parent to her daughters.
Mom’s been dying since before we met her. She has an illness Consuming Her From Within.
Knowing she has little time left gives Mom a sense of urgency. Gotta save the world at any cost, while I still can. This urgency blinds her to the horrors she’s inflicting upon her kids for a supposed “greater good”.
In the name of heroism, she’s trying to twist her daughters into villains.
If you can’t tell why this parenting behavior is so shitty it caused the London Cholera Outbreak of 1831, please ruminate a while before having kids yourself.
Mom eventually sees the error of her ways. She uses her final moments of life to fix the falling moon. She reboots (resurrects) the moon-satellite, setting its orbit back on the right course, as she herself strayed from the right course and had to find it once more. The dying woman lives up to her name of a resurrected savior, saving the lives of the entire planet.
Mom decides to screw Finé’s Legacy. Mom wants her kids to be her legacy, what she leaves behind after she knows she’ll die. Nastassja made the girls call her “mom” in life, but she doesn’t live up to that title until she dies.
Mom gets Consumed From Within, and Ceases To Be Who She Is. But, in her case, we rejoice in this “resurrection”, because it was goodness consuming evil, it was her ceasing to be who she was as a villain. Reborn as a savior in her moment of death. The previous version of Mom was her own Shadow Self. She fights it and wins.
For a character with relatively little screen time, Symphogear excellently wove in Nastassja’s thematic story with the other characters’. Great job! Rest in peace, madam. o7
This is an interesting one. While the Nephilim isn’t exactly a “character”, it’s worth looking at how the Nephilim fits into Season 2’s themes.
Symphogear could’ve chosen to call this monster anything else from mythology, or come up with a name of their own. Symphogear chose the name “Nephilim”.
In biblical mythology, Nephilim are the offspring of two races: angels, once pure beings, who fell to corruption and mated with humans, a race prone to even more corruption and sin. A Nephilim, offspring of a corrupted angel and a human sinner, is therefore both angelic/holy and earthly/impure.
Symphogear’s Nephilim is a physical incarnation of Fight Your Shadow Self. Its very nature is to be at war with its own dual identity of angelic and monstrous.
Symphogear’s Nephilim can only grow by leeching someone else’s energy. Serena’s, or phonic energy from the other wielders, or eating Hibiki’s arm. The Nephilim can’t grow on its own merit, because it has no centered self. It’s an abominated being, a living contradiction of two opposites.
It gains power from others, but not via teamwork like our heroes do. It has the power to defeat (emphasis on eat) Noise, but it doesn’t use that power for good like the Symphogear wielders do. The Nephilim keeps changing shape and regenerating, but never into a better self, just a more powerful version of bad.
Fitting, then, that the Nephilim’s fate in the season finale is to get stuck in eternal limbo inside the Noise-dimension. It’ll remain there forever, constantly battling and eating Noise and regenerating its wounds. Never dying, but also never triumphing.
The Nephilim can’t grow as a person until it conquers the Fight Your Shadow Self struggle like the other characters do. However, the Nephilim physically can’t achieve that character peak, because of its inherently contradictory identity. So, it’s cursed to float in limbo eternally.
Hokay, we’ve covered Season 2’s sub-villains in Kirika, Mom, and the Nephilim.
LET’S TALK ABOUT THE MAIN VILLAIN NOW
BOY HOWDY, DO I LOVE TALKING ABOUT SYMPHOGEAR VILLAINS
Dr. Ver hits every note of this season’s themes. And by “hits” them I mean “is a perfect Oppositional Symmetry counter-example of what makes our heroes heroic”. I hate Ver’s fucking guts. I also acknowledge that he’s an excellently crafted antagonist.
Maria claims to be Finé, but isn’t. Kirika fears she’s Finé, but isn’t. Shirabe actually is Finé… but also isn’t, as we talked about, since Shirabe’s nothing like her possessor.
Ver is truly the next Finé. Though he’s not possessed by her, he’s most like her in terms of personality.
Both Ver and Ryouko-Finé are highly intelligent scientists who wear glasses and a lab coat. They both have a talent for Relic research. They’re both doctors who medically exploit their patients. They both wield the Staff of Solomon to summon Noise to kill innocent bystanders for their plan for power. They both collar Chris into being their minion, then try to kill her once she outlives her usefulness. They both attempt to fuse their bodies with a Relic.
Creating and maintaining Symphogear wielders was also Finé’s function in her Dr. Ryouko disguise.
And, like Finé, Ver uses this position of trust to manipulate and abuse the girls in his care.
Hibiki, our hero and Hamster-Jesus, also uses her hands as weapons. However, Hibiki just as frequently uses her hands to connect with people. Villains like Finé and Ver use their hands for pain. Also for sexual predation.
Genjuurou touches his girls all the time, but it’s never inappropriate. Symphogear isn’t trying to say an adult man touching a non-adult girl is always evil, it’s saying Dr. Ver as an individual is evil.
The difference here is whose benefit the action is for. For Genjuurou, these headpats and hugs and hand-on-the-shoulder touches are Good, because they’re intended for the girls’ benefit. He’s sensitive to their emotions and desires. When his girls need it, he touches them to comfort them, to encourage them, to connect with them.
For Ver, there is no desired connection of the sort. Ver touches them only for his own benefit, his own twisted pleasure, never a care for how the girls feel about him or what their emotional needs are, and that’s what makes these touches villainous.
Same with Finé, who made invasive sexual touches on Hibiki, Miku, and especially Chris, all for her own sick enjoyment. Ver really is humming from Finé’s hymn sheet.
The anime also isn’t going for an overly-simplistic “males bad, females good” angle, since Finé was a female villain and displayed the same immoral sexual behavior. Again, Symphogear is emphasizing the flaws of the individual over their sex, age, or other uncontrollable traits.
Dr. Ver is unique among all this season’s characters in that he’s the only one who willingly tries to Cease To Be Who He Is.
He believes humans and heroes are different things. To become a hero, he thinks he must discard his humanity.
Ver doesn’t get that holding on to your humanity is what makes our heroes so strong. Caring about fellow humans is what keeps heroes fighting. Not just caring about friends/family, but caring about strangers. (Shirabe defects from her family to save a shipful of sailors, men she doesn’t know and has no connection to, just because saving them is the right thing to do. Their lives have value even if she doesn’t know them personally.)
Ver and Finé hate humanity and want to transcend into something greater. Finé as a godlike being who’d rule the world, Ver as a superhuman “hero” who’d rule over the new world created by Frontier.
In order to become a “hero”, Ver must Cease To Be Who He Is as an ordinary human. He attempts to fuse with the Nephilim, allowing this glutton to Consume Him From Within, in the hope this will transform him into a greater self.
His left arm gets metaphorically eaten by the Nephilim, like how Hibiki’s left arm was literally eaten by the Nephilim.
Ver’s plan to fuse his arm/hand with the Nephilim fails because he doesn’t understand the point of arms/hands: to connect with others. Hamster-Jesus understands this.
Ver tries to throw away his humanity, because he sees humanity as weak and worthless, and believes only a hero has value. Look how casually he kills innocent bystanders, even kids!
There was zero strategic benefit to these killings. Ver simply doesn’t value human life at all.
Not valuing others usually leads to not valuing oneself. After all, if you hate humans, yet you are a human, where does that put you?
Ver has Given Up On Life. If he can’t be a hero, or rather the twisted ideal of a hero he’s formed in his head, then he wants to die.
Finé’s passion project is Kadingir, the tower that will lift her to ascension. Ver’s passion project is controlling Frontier, the spaceship that will lift him to ascension. Finé gets defeated by the winged Symphogears, a.k.a. X-Drive, and so does Ver. Our heroes symbolically grow their own wings to ascend.
Villains don’t grow their own wings, don’t become better selves. They need to use some external object like a tower or spaceship to lift them up. Can’t ascend on their own merit like the heroes do.
This anime has always used motifs of music/religion. Most of the Symphogears are the weapons of gods (like Gungnir, Odin’s spear). In the real world, for thousands of years, music and singing have been used in religious rituals to connect with the gods.
Hibiki understands the truth: We don’t sing to connect with the gods, we sing to connect with fellow humans. That’s what unlocks the heroes’ highest power, the X-Drive.
Ver thinks heroism = strength. It does, but not the way he conceives of it.
Ver reminds me of something one Redditor said about MAGA supporters:
“You gotta understand, the one core value they hold above all others is hatred for whatever they consider weakness. Because that’s what they believe strength is: hatred for weakness. Sadistic, passionate hatred, and that’s what proves they’re strong, their passionate hatred for weakness.”
Ver believes his cruelty toward and trampling of anyone with less power than him makes him strong and therefore heroic. Strength is indeed what makes a person heroic, but it’s strength of character, not physical might.
Shirabe says it best:
True strength is courage. Strength is the courage to not give up, the courage to do what’s right even if you’re afraid. That’s what heroism is.
Shirabe calls out Ver on his shitty plan:
Shirabe, growing up in that cruel orphanage, was suppressed by those in power. She refuses to do to others what was done to her. She does better. I’ve said before, though Shirabe is the youngest of the group, she’s the most emotionally mature.
Shirabe understands what Ver doesn’t. Of the three sisters, Shirabe’s the only one who stands up to him and rejects his evil plan to suppress people. Maria and Kirika fall in line with it, despite their doubts. Shirabe defects. She destroys the Noise that Ver sent to murder innocent bystanders.
We have another inverted parallel here. Shirabe and Ver as competing heirs to Finé’s Legacy. Shirabe is Finé’s host, yet is nothing like her. Ver isn’t one of Finé’s descendants, yet he’s most like Finé.
Shirabe’s heroism in sacrificing herself to save Kirika inspires Finé to do likewise, with Finé sacrificing her spirit to save Shirabe’s life in turn. Ver never learns or grows into a better person like that. He remains convinced to the bitter end, even as he’s led away in chains at the end of the finale, that he’s what a hero should be.
(Hilariously, the word “ver” means “truth”, and he’s the biggest deceiver this season.)
Interestingly, though Dr. Ver is our main villain, he doesn’t spend much time confronting our main hero, Hibiki. The two of them interact in the opening episode, when Ver is undercover as a good guy. They fight at Kadingir, when Ver’s Nephilim eats Hibiki’s arm. And the finale, when Hibiki and the rest of the gang defeat him once and for all. Apart from a few other minor interactions… that’s pretty much it.
Not a lotta screen time shared between our hero and villain this season. That’s fine, because Hamster’s antagonist in G isn’t really a person, it’s her own sense of doubt as to whether she’s a hero and whether she should keep fighting.
The Gungnir Symphogear itself is Hibiki’s Shadow Self she fights all season. Ver is a side quest.
On Ver’s end, the character he spends the most screen time with is…
I want Maria approximately 70315 miles away from Ver’s worthless, creepy ass. I simultaneously want more scenes between them, because their power dynamic intrigues me.
Which of them holds the power in this relationship?
Ver brews the LiNKER drug needed by Team Black to wield their Symphogears. Ver also concocts anti-LiNKER, a toxin that can disable Symphogears. You’d think these two facts would mean Team Black’s dependent on him, but they can’t stand him.
Maria and Mom cook up the powerful lie that Maria is Finé reincarnate, to awe Ver into working for them. He sees through their ruse, putting the power in this relationship back in his hands.
When Kirika and Shirabe finally have enough of his shitbaggery, Maria protects him from them.
Later, Ver boasts that he’s a superhuman hero who deserves to rule the world. Yet, he comes crawling back to Maria after he loses a fight to Tsubasa and Chris.
Maria only puts up with him because she fell for his deceit that he planned to save the world from the falling moon. Once Ver finally pisses off Maria enough, by banishing Mom to a cold death in space, Maria makes it clear she can and will end his miserable existence.
Maria’s support for Ver waffles so many times this season, she could qualify for an IHOP rewards membership.
Maria as a character has intrigued me since her introduction.
I mean, aside from the obvious reason.
Maria’s gotta be the most tangled of the Fight Your Shadow Self iterations this season. Because Maria doesn’t really have a self.
“Who is Maria Cadenzavna Eve?” is Maria’s Jeopardy question this entire season.
Every person Maria tries to be, she fails at.
Maria failed at being Serena’s sister, in her mind, because she failed to protect Serena. Maria failed at being an idol, betraying her supporters by taking them hostage. Maria failed at being Tsubasa’s partner, and now the one person she could’ve had a deep connection with tried to run her through with a sword.
Maria failed at being a false Finé, since her deceit didn’t save lives as she hoped. Maria failed at being the cold-hearted evildoer she tried to force herself to be for Ver’s plan. Maria failed at being Gungnir’s wielder like Hibiki and Kanade, since Hibiki effortlessly ripped Gungnir off her back with a single song.
Maria fails at being all these people, because none of these people is Maria.
The theme of She’ll Cease To Be Who She Is gets reversed. Maria spends the season trying to figure out Who She Is, then finally gets it in the end.
Who is Maria Cadenzavna Eve? Maria Cadenzavna Eve is a hero who carries on Serena’s legacy of courage and selflessness, not an evildoer who carries on Finé’s Legacy of hatred and selfishness. Because that’s who Maria has decided in herself to be, not what others expect of her nor manipulated her into.
This internal duality between good and evil is reflected in her name. The “Cadenzavna” part I think is just to sound vaguely musical (“cadence”) and European to contrast the Japanese names. What interests me is the rest of her name: Maria Eve. Symphogear chose to name her after the two main female characters of Christian mythology. Eve the Sinner and Mary the Atoner.
Dr. Ver manipulates Maria into evil. It’s still Maria’s decision, so she’s culpable, but he plays a significant role as the tempter.
However, Ver doesn’t see Maria as an equal partner to stand at his side…
…Ver sees Maria as beneath him. He hits her, manipulates her, mocks her.
Ver’s lone desire is to become a superhuman hero, for his own glory. He never expresses affection for Maria, not even when telling her he intends to “repopulate” the new world with her.
Symphogear gives us the duality mirrored once more. Our Maria is both Mary and Eve. Likewise, Ver is her Serpent, and he is also her Adam. Ver tempts Maria into evil, and his plan is for the two of them to become the progenitors of a new human race in his image.
It’s not a wholesome “I love you and want to start a family with you” like a good man would do. Ver’s just plain evil. He wants to control Maria. Force her to bear his children, owning her from the inside out. Possessing her in a way – almost like Finé – by putting his soul into her body, so to speak.
Heck, it ties Ver in further as Finé’s Legacy. Finé also rocked a serpent theme, with her snake-slit pupils and her Relic being Nehushtan, the Brazen Serpent.
I’m sad this didn’t turn out how I predicted. I really thought Dr. Ver was going to die specifically via crushing! Would’ve fit his character themes perfectly.
Ah, well. Sometimes my pet theories turn out true, sometimes they don’t. That’s part of the fun of doing these live reactions without knowing what’s coming. Being proved wrong is as exciting as being proved right!
Here are the three predictions about Ver I made in Episode 11:
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 said then that I’d talk more in the Season 2 Wrap-Up about why I made these predictions. Though my pet theory turned out false, we can look at how.
“A representation of Goodness defeating a representation of Evil” is a universal art motif in all human cultures. There’s one particular incarnation of this art motif that applies to us here talking about Symphogear:
Mary crushing the Devil-Serpent beneath her foot has been a popular subject in Christian art for centuries, based on a single line from bible mythology.
Such a death for Ver was foreshadowed earlier this season. (Or so I thought.)
In Episode 8, Mom tries to put an end to her group’s terrorism and negotiate for peace. As a bargaining piece, she uses a computer chip containing information about Frontier.
Unfortunately for everybody, Dr. Ver betrays Mom and Maria right as peace negotiations go sour. (In fork-tongued serpent fashion, Ver tries to insist it was Mom who betrayed them by abandoning their terrorist goals, and that he was only setting them back on the correct path.)
In the aftermath of Ver’s betrayal, Maria angrily grinds that computer chip under her heel so its information can’t be used against them.
This action stuck out to me. That chip is the symbol of Ver’s evil deceit/betrayal, and Maria crushes it under her foot. She could’ve chosen to destroy it in other ways. Snapped it in her hands, stabbed it with her spear, thrown it out the window, and so on. Instead, she deliberately grinds it under heel, with the camera specifically taking time to do a close-up of this action.
I can’t buy that this was an accident on the anime’s part. If Symphogear knew enough about Christian mythology to add symbolic depth to characters with the meaningful biblical names of “Nastassja” and “Nephilim” and “Maria Eve”, then Symphogear also knew enough about Christian mythology to understand the significance of a character named after Mary crushing a representation of evil beneath her heel.
In the mythology, Mary crushes the evil serpent under foot, atoning for Eve’s sin of giving in to that same serpent. Eve brought humanity to suffering through her original sin, and Mary helps bring humanity to grace through her son’s sacrifice.
We have more Oppositional Symmetry here. Not just between Maria and Ver, but within Maria herself. Maria Eve’s corruption versus her purity. We first see Maria wearing pure white that is a pure facade, then wearing corrupted black when she reveals herself as a bad guy, and then…
…once she finds her true self by atoning for her sin of giving in to Ver’s snaky evil, guess what, SHE GETS ANOTHER PURE WHITE OUTFIT. NONE OF THIS IS ACCIDENTAL.
Holy shit I love Symphogear so much.
Analyzing villain-versus-hero dichotomy is my favorite thing. Season 2 gave us a lotta meat to chomp through: Ver as the main villain, sub-villains like Mom and the Nephilim, and even Team Black, who begin as villains but come to the light in the end.
....
Oh fuck, there’s one more “villain” this season I’m forgetting, aren’t I?
MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL,
WHO’S THE MOST FASCINATING ANTAGONIST OF THEM ALL?
I stand by what I said when Miku-Shenshoujin dropped out of the sky like an overnight rush drone-delivery package: making Miku a wielder was a bad story decision, and backpedaling on it was a worse story decision. Regardless, I’m focusing on the good in this Wrap-Up.
Having the hero’s love interest turn against them is one of the most brutal punches a story can throw. Symphogear, confident in its handling of character writing, went full throttle off the runway and took this arc off to soaring excellence.
As with every other character, Miku has her own iteration of this season’s themes. Miku’s iteration of Fight Your Shadow Self, Finé’s Legacy, Consumed From Within, and She’ll Cease To Be Who She Is…
…it’s perverse. I can’t think of a better word. This was such a twisted reflection, and that’s why it’s such quality.
So, who is Miku’s Shadow Self?
Her own humanity.
In Season 1’s Wrap-Up, I talked about how Finé is a worse version of the three Symphogear wielders and Genjuurou. I made a huge oversight. Finé is also a worse version of Miku.
Those dark parallels, that Oppositional Symmetry between Miku and Finé, get expanded upon in this season.
In Season 1, the heroes are tricked into thinking Sky Tower is a decoy Kadingir. In Season 2, Sky Tower returns, this time as a metaphorical repeat of the ancient Kadingir.
“My beloved threw me down a tower to break up with me” meets “my beloved threw herself down a tower to break away from me”.
Hibiki doesn’t intend it as a break-up. That part of Sky Tower was about to collapse, which would’ve sent Miku plummeting off the edge to her death.
Hamster tells Miku to let go of her and back away from the edge to save herself, since Hamster can wield a Symphogear to survive the fall, which Miku can’t do.
However, wielding a Symphogear will kill Hibiki from the fusion, will Consume Her From Within. Because of this, Miku refuses to let go of Hibiki, even knowing it might lead to Miku’s own death if the tower collapses. And so, Hibiki has no choice but to forcibly pull her hand out of Miku’s to save Miku’s life.
Miku doesn’t take this disaster at Sky Tower any better than Finé took the disaster at the original Kadingir tower thousands of years ago.
(Shit, I just realized the anime even gave Miku serpentine shoulder-tentacles to evoke Finé’s Nehushtan shoulder-whips.)
Ver is the imitation Finé. He creates the imitation Symphogear, to be borne by the imitation wielder. Before this, the FISters were using Shenshoujin as an invisibility generator and ray-gun, not wielding it as a proper Symphogear. Ver is the one who has the breakthrough of realizing a human girl’s song of love is needed to fully unlock Shenshoujin’s power.
Miku willingly takes up Shenshoujin. She gets a trepanation hole drilled into her skull to house her new Relic. Embedding it directly into her brain so she can access higher power. More imitation, of Hibiki’s Gungnir being embedded directly in the heart.
Shenshoujin is an illusion Relic. Ver offered Miku power, but he only gave her the illusion of power. Shenshoujin holds control.
It’s no coincidence Miku’s Relic is a mirror, of all things. She’s trying to mirror the other wielders, to become more like Hibiki. Miku mistakenly believes her love isn’t good enough. She thinks she must become something else to successfully love and protect Hibiki.
A mirror as an object has no value in itself. You only use it to reflect other objects. Mirrors can have pretty frames, sure, but that’s just trim. A mirror itself, the actual glass surface, is always empty. It’s always nothing.
Miku, likewise, feels empty. Worthless. Like she can’t contribute to Hibiki’s battles, and therefore has no value in herself.
Though Miku loves Hibiki and Chris and Tsubasa, it must be hard on her being the only ordinary person in their friend group. They all hang out together as equals for things like school, karaoke, and festivals. But, soon as shit hits the fan, the Symphogear wielders have to leave Miku behind.
I was wrong when I said Ver is the only character this season who willingly tries to Cease To Be Who He Is. Same as Ver, Miku wants to discard her humanity, just for different reasons.
Miku wants to throw away Miku. She wants to Cease To Be Who She Is, because that Miku wasn’t good enough. That Miku couldn’t protect the girl she loves. That Miku is the one whose hand Hibiki let go of at Sky Tower, a symbolic gesture Miku mistakenly interpreted as Hibiki rejecting her love.
Miku here is echoing Finé. Finé hated being a mere human because it meant she couldn’t stand equally beside the god she fell in love with. Miku hates being ordinary because it means she can’t stand equally beside her beloved Hibiki, who wields godly powers.
Finé and Miku’s greatest grief is being left behind by the one they love. Finé never again wants to weep over her shattered tower, even if it means killing people, and Miku never again wants to weep over Hibiki’s grave, even if it means working with terrorists who kill people.
So, when Ver offers her Shenshoujin… of course Miku’s answer is yes.
Shenshoujin is Miku’s Kadingir. Her “tower to the heavens”, her attempt at bridging the divide between her human self and the superhuman godly being she’s in love with.
For Finé, it’s a selfish desire. Finé wished to exalt herself above all other humans and become the worthy consort of a god. For Miku, there’s no such desire for power over other humans. Miku wants power purely so she can protect Hibiki.
And so – like Finé before her, who allowed Nehushtan to fuse with her in imitation of Hibiki’s mighty Gungnir fusion – Miku allows Shenshoujin to Consume Her From Within, in hopes this will allow Miku to ascend to Hibiki’s level.
Human Miku is the Shadow Self, in her mind. Wielder Miku is the greater self, the person she wishes to be.
Too late, she finds out there’s no such person as Wielder Miku.
Wielder Miku is just a puppet of Shenshoujin. She’s not wielding Shenshoujin, it’s wielding her. Clamping her very eyes in its visor-jaws, blinding her to the suffering she’s causing people by working with FISt.
Shenshoujin has no feelings for Hibiki. It tries to kill Hibiki, the exact opposite of what Miku wanted when she gave herself to this Relic.
Once Miku recognizes her mistake, she tries desperately to stop it. She tries to undo being Consumed From Within and return to Who She Was, the kind and brave girl who’d do anything for her beloved Hibiki.
Miku realizes her and Hibiki’s battle has gone too far, that Hibiki will be Consumed by the Gungnir fusion if it continues another moment. Our ever self-sacrificing Hamster forges ahead anyway, determined to burn out her final life-embers to free Miku from Shenshoujin’s grip. Miku, equally self-sacrificing, screams for Hibiki to let go of her, to allow Miku to be Consumed by Shenshoujin so that Hibiki can save herself instead.
I adore the climax of this episode. Shenshoujin’s highest power was unlocked by Miku’s love, and it was a reflection of Miku’s love that created the energy beam that ultimately destroyed Shenshoujin. The mirror’s own reflected light shattered itself to shards, yet Miku emerged from it whole.
In more of that Oppositional Symmetry, Hibiki and Miku’s violent battle was instead their act of proving their love for one another. They saved each other from being Consumed From Within by their Symphogears.
ME AFTER WATCHING THIS WRETCHED FUCKING EPISODE OF THIS WRETCHED FUCKING ANIME:
After this incident with Shenshoujin, this Eye of Illusion, neither of them holds any more illusions about their love. Their eyes are opened to the truth – that Miku loves Hibiki, and Hibiki loves her back. They’ll never doubt their bond again.
I know it’s cliche, the old saying of “If you love something, let it go”. But, cliches exist for a reason. If you love a person, you must let go. You need to relinquish your attempts to control them, and let them make their own decisions in life. Even if that decision gets them hurt, or if that decision is to leave you.
To take that decision from your loved one means you don’t see them as a whole person. You see them as an incomplete person, like a child whose brain isn’t fully developed yet and needs you to make those judgments for them. It’s at best infantilizing and at worst dehumanizing.
In wielding a Symphogear, Hibiki will fight, she will take wounds, she may die. But, that’s Hibiki’s choice to make. Miku can’t rob her of that. Taking away Hibiki’s heroism would be taking away Hibiki’s core self. In effect, Miku would be forcing Hibiki to Cease To Be Who She Is.
Miku overcomes Finé’s Legacy of selfish love. Miku does Fight Her Shadow Self, and wins by accepting her defeat. She’ll never be a godly being like Hibiki, and that’s okay. Miku’s love and support and humanity mean so much more to Hibiki than Miku being a “powerful” Symphogear wielder. Power is in the heart, not the fists.
Though it grieves Miku, she steps back and allows Hibiki to be a fighter and a hero. That’s who Hibiki is. That’s the girl Miku loves.
I love this quiet growth. Miku is the epitome of the “silk covering steel” archetype. Sweet and soft on the outside, unbreakable conviction on the inside.
Screw that Shenshoujin shithead and its twitchy stink-eye! Miku doesn’t need it to be awesome.
ANYWAY
ENOUGH OF ALL THAT “ACADEMIC” CHARACTER THEME BULLCRAP
NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT WHAT WE REALLY WATCH SYMPHOGEAR FOR:
YURI
Symphogear is such a romantic anime. I gobble this stuff up like a humpback inhaling krill by the millions.
Everybody loves big, loud, dramatic romance scenes. I love them, too! Season 2 gave us some choice cuts of that deliciousness. Hibiki using her final heartbeats of life to haul Miku into Shenshoujin’s hyper beam and free her beloved from the mirror-Relic’s mind control. Shirabe throwing herself in the path of Kirika’s scythe, risking losing her very soul just to save her Kiri-chan. And whatever the FUCK was happening during Tsubasa and Maria’s concert/duel, seriously, holy tacos on a toboggan this tension could snap a Richter scale.
But, what I truly love in romance are small, quiet moments. That’s what makes a fictional couple work for me.
Let’s start with Tsubasa/Maria. Unfortunately, despite their massive cauldron of simmering, concert-raving, blade-stabbing romantic and sexual tension, Tsubasa and Maria don’t work for me as a couple, at least not this season.
Here’s why: They don’t have any Grapefruit Moments.
Now, I can hear you asking, “Nekekur, what the hell is a Grapefruit Moment?”
I don’t know the official name for this trope. (Again, I’m not a professional media analyst, this is all just me hooting from a tree.) I call it a Grapefruit Moment based on the 1950 film “In a Lonely Place”.
A Grapefruit Moment is a small, inconsequential, normal moment between two romantic partners. It’s a meaningless scene, but the fact the story took time to include it makes it meaningful.
The two partners aren’t doing much that’s plot-relevant, nor learning important new information, nor making a pivotal decision. And, most importantly, there is no verbal declaration of love. They’re just existing together in such a way that it’s obvious they’re in love with each other.
A Grapefruit Moment is often a private, domestic scene. But, it doesn’t need to be. It can happen outdoors or surrounded by other people.
Here are my criteria for what I consider a Grapefruit Moment when two characters in a romantic relationship interact with each other:
1) There is no spoken “I love you”.
2) The moment has little or no plot relevance. (The characters might be talking about something that eventually becomes plot-relevant, but that talk is just backdrop to the interaction itself.)
3) The characters themselves see this moment as insignificant. Ordinary. It’s not a Big Thing for them as a couple, like a first date or a first kiss. It’s just an everyday occurrence they’re comfortable with.
Hibiki and Miki were such a solidly-established couple in Season 1 because they had so many Grapefruit Moments. Doing homework together in their dorm, eating lunch with each other at school, taking a bath together, Miku helping Hibiki dress when she was in a hurry.
There was never a spoken “I’m in love with you”, and yet…
…There didn’t need to be. We could tell.
An important part of Season 2 is the rift in Hibiki and Miku’s relationship. One way we can tell their relationship was having trouble is that Hibiki and Miku had so few Grapefruit Moments this season.
The only Grapefruit Moment I can think of is here, at the school festival. Which gets promptly ruined by The Plot when Kirika and Shirabe crash the party, which leads to Hamster LOSING AN ARM from the ensuing duel. So yeah, not a successful Grapefruit Moment.
The next time Hibiki and Miku attempt to have a Grapefruit Moment, their date at Sky Tower, this happens:
Since Hibiki can’t free her mind from all the drama going on, she’s unable to enjoy spending simple time with Miku. This event also ends in disaster: Hibiki pulls her hand out of Miku’s to save her beloved from dying, but this act gets interpreted by Miku as a rejection of love.
Like we talked about above, this rift is Miku’s primary drive in choosing to take up Shenshoujin: so she can protect Hibiki and prove her love.
Let’s compare this to the other couple Season 2 gave us:
Our beloved soda girls, Cherry Coke and Lemon-Lime Sprite.
Kirika/Shirabe work so well as a believable and solid couple because they, like Season 1 Hibiki/Miku, have excellent Grapefruit Moments. Holding hands in the street, grocery shopping together, singing together, trying new foods at the festival together.
These scenes themselves don’t really matter. You could alter these scenes, maybe even delete one or more of them entirely, and it wouldn’t much change Season 2’s overarching plot.
The soda girls themselves don’t treat these moments as big. There’s no talk of, “Wow, I never thought you’d want to go as my date to a festival,” nor an internal monologue of, “I’m so nervous about shopping with her, I hope she likes me!” The characters never remark on these Grapefruit Moments being unusually intimate for them. The characters take it as natural. Spending time together is just something they do. It’s the pattern, not the exception.
Kirika remarks that grocery shopping feels unusual to her, but that’s only because the two of them weren’t allowed to go shopping at the orphanage. Not because shopping with Shirabe feels weird to her. Thus, it’s still a Grapefruit Moment for the soda girls as a couple even though it’s happening over an activity they consider unusual.
(Actually, one of my petty annoyances this season is how the FISters went out in public for everyday activities like shopping, despite the fact they were internationally wanted terrorists and literally every place in the country would’ve had a BOLO for them. Especially Maria waltzing around Sky Tower in Episode 8, since Maria was a world-famous idol even before she revealed herself as a terrorist.)
(Imagine the collective shits that would be shat if someone as famous as Beyonce or Taylor Swift suddenly committed terrorism on live TV and took tens of thousands of her fans hostage, and then a few weeks later you see her casually strolling your local township pushing an old lady in a wheelchair. I guess every background NPC in this anime just decided to drink a big ol’ cup of Not My Problem every morning before leaving the house. This is an absurdly petty complaint, but it nibbles at me, so here we are.)
Back to the romance. By contrast, Tsubasa and Maria’s Grapefruit Moments come out to a grand total of… zero. Zero Grapefruit Moments in all of Symphogear G.
Oh, they have fantastic chemistry and tension, that’s for sure. Heck, their first scene together is staged like a goddamn proposal/wedding. Facing each other, one in a white dress and one in black, one taking a knee for the other.
Tons of big, dramatic, meaningful, plot-relevant moments between Tsubasa and Maria in the early episodes of this season. Made me think the anime was setting them up to be a couple. It just… didn’t pan out.
We never see Tsubasa and Maria have a conversation that isn’t plot-relevant. Not once. (Their concert dialogue doesn’t count, since it’s a scripted interaction happening as part of their idol performance, not a genuine moment between them in their regular non-celebrity personas.) They have so many Big moments together, and absolutely no Small moments together.
After Episode 4, these two don’t interact for the rest of the season. Not until the big final battle, and even that isn’t a Tsubasa/Maria interaction specifically, it’s just the whole cast being in the same place to carry out the finale as a group.
This isn’t a failure of writing on Symphogear’s part. Tsubasa and Maria are on opposite sides of a conflict, and each girl has her own personal drama and teammate drama to deal with. It wasn’t feasible for these two to have any quiet, intimate, normal moments like Hibiki/Miku or Kirika/Shirabe. Too much else was happening.
Compare this to Season 1’s relationship between Tsubasa and Kanade. Though Kanade died in the first episode, we got decent development for her through flashbacks.
Some of these flashbacks are important story-relevant moments, such as the pair fighting Noise alongside each other, and Tsubasa witnessing Kanade activate Gungnir for the first time.
Yeah, that.
But, the anime also showed us Grapefruit Moments between Tsubasa and Kanade. Going jogging together, and Kanade chatting with Tsubasa while she fixes her motorcycle.
They’re chatting about forming an idol duo together, which does later become story-relevant, but that talk isn’t the point of these interactions. The point is to show the two characters going about unimportant everyday life alongside each other. Symphogear taking the time to show these Grapefruit Moments made the Kanade/Tsubasa relationship much more solid and got the audience to care about them more.
I hope Maria (and the soda girls!) gets to play a role in next season. I’d love to see her relationship with Tsubasa develop. They have a solid foundation, they just need to add, you know, actual structure on top of it.
Maybe someday, once all their conflict is sorted out, Maria and Tsubasa can enjoy some Grapefruit Moments together and eventually become a proper couple.
You know, there’s somebody who does have Grapefruit Moments with Tsubasa this season…
I wasn’t expecting a Tsubasa/Chris angle for this season. And yet, we can’t deny these romantic Grapefruit Moments we’re seeing. Making festival decorations together, chatting about Chris’s classmates at school, meeting up at a restaurant.
As with Kirika/Shirabe, it’s not the events themselves that make these Grapefruit Moments. Chris is grumpy about being press-ganged by her classmates into helping make festival decorations, but Chris isn’t grumpy about having to do this with Tsubasa. She’s comfortable and ordinary around Tsubasa, as is Tsubasa around her.
Same with their restaurant date. Chris is even the one who suggests it, and she’s perfectly calm about eating with Tsubasa. To her, this doesn’t feel like an unusual occurrence.
Chris doesn’t display discomfort until Tsubasa suggests they do something unusual for them: have Chris call Tsubasa by name. That’s what breaks the pattern and turns an ordinary, unimportant Grapefruit Moment into what would’ve instead been an important relationship development, had Chris not chickened out of that level of intimacy.
If Symphogear decides not to use Maria’s character next season, or does bring Maria back but doesn’t develop her relationship with Tsubasa, then pairing Tsubasa with Chris is perfectly well established in this season. Wouldn’t be jarring at all to make them official in Season 3 (GX).
Of course, not all couples need to be officially established. Symphogear already gave us the indisputable pairings of Hibiki/Miku and Kirika/Shirabe. That might be enough, and Symphogear might decide to leave Tsubasa, Chris, and Maria as free-floating characters who have no official partner and therefore can explore romantic tension with multiple characters.
Heck, we’ve seen Tsubasa/Maria and Tsubasa/Chris romantic tension… Will there someday be Chris/Maria romantic tension to round out the triangle?? I’d love to see that, for hilarity’s sake if nothing else.
And there we have it, folks. What passes for my “analysis” of Symphogear G.
I concluded the Season 1 Wrap-Up with farewell letters to the characters, and hopes for what the next season might have in store for them. Let’s continue this tradition for Season 2.
------------------
Dear Hibiki,
You continue to inspire me. Your courage, compassion, and determination are traits I hope to emulate someday.
Although our Hamster-Jesus struggled with self-doubt this season, she conquered her Shadow Self and proved herself a true hero. It’s okay to doubt, it’s okay to be afraid. Just keep going.
The poetry of this. Hibiki’s act of mercy was what allowed Finé to die peacefully after a life of hatred and violence. It took Hibiki’s Jesus-level grace upon this sinner to inspire Finé to do better in her next life, which leads to Finé sparing Shirabe’s soul and finally laying Finé’s spirit to rest after millennia of anguish.
Hibiki’s mercy inspired Finé to tell her to believe in the song in her heart, and the following season it’s Hibiki who needs that reminder, that exchange of grace, to believe in herself and be the hero we all know she is.
Hibiki’s words helped Finé stop her evilness, and Finé’s words helped Hibiki keep going forward with her goodness. Hero and villain, two people of opposing parallels, each sparking the light in each other. I… I can’t.
A pox upon everyone who recommended me this wretched fucking anime.
What I’d like to see for Hibiki in Season 3 (GX):
STOP BEING OBLIVIOUS TO MIKU
I hope the Shenshoujin arc, where Hibiki and Miku came within a hair’s breadth of being Consumed From Within by their Relics, taught Hamster the importance of proper relationship communication.
------------------
Dear Tsubasa,
Did you have a character arc this season? I didn’t notice, what with all your dramatic awesomeness of unmatched prowess.
I kid, I kid. Similar to Miku, Tsubasa’s Shadow Self this season is her own sense of not-good-enough-to-protect-the-girl-she-loved-ness.
Last season, Tsubasa made her peace with Kanade’s death. The haunting still remains.
Tsubasa opening her heart to her new teammates means she’s made herself vulnerable. She cares for Hibiki and Chris, and that frightens her, because what if she loses them like she lost Kanade?
Worse, what if it’s her fault she loses them, like it was her fault Kanade died? That death wasn’t really Tsubasa’s fault, of course, but that’s what Tsubasa has convinced herself for years.
Tsubasa tries to avoid pain for her friends by shouldering all the burden herself.
This seemingly selfless act is in truth selfish. Taking the burden upon herself is more for Tsubasa’s benefit than her friends’. She finds it less painful to take the hurt upon herself than to see her loved ones in pain.
Tsubasa has convinced herself this is heroic and honorable and very samurai-like of her, but in honesty, it’s cowardly. It pushes the pain onto others. Tsubasa recklessly throws herself into battle to protect others, not caring if she dies in the process, not realizing her death will cause her friends just as much pain as them getting injured themselves. The team is supposed to work together to protect each other from harm.
Like Miku toward Hibiki, and like Maria toward Serena, Tsubasa learned this season that you must allow your loved ones to risk getting themselves hurt. Their heroic sacrifices are something you should be proud of and inspired by, not something you should feel guilt or failure over.
Chris likewise was scared of being hurt, and so tried shouldering too much burden on her own. Tsubasa sees herself in Chris, and is able to reach out a metaphorical hand to her.
Sharing comradeship heals both of them. Like Hibiki and Miku’s battle, Tsubasa and Chris emerge from their duel more whole in self and more solid in their bond with each other.
If Symphogear does decide to pursue a Tsubasa/Chris or Tsubasa/Maria romance next season, I wonder how that’ll affect Tsubasa’s issues. Her friends getting hurt causes her such pain and guilt… How much worse will it be for her new lover to get hurt like her first lover? It wouldn’t surprise me if Tsubasa’s Kanade-trauma rears its ugly head in GX for the third season in a row.
What I’d like to see for Tsubasa in Season 3 (GX):
A concert that isn’t a disaster. Of the three Tsubasa concerts we’ve seen on screen, two ended in Noise attacks. Hmm, the only concert that didn’t was when she performed solo. Guess that settles it: Tsubasa can’t have an idol partner anymore. Too big a threat to public safety.
While it’s unlikely Tsubasa and Maria will perform together on stage again (Maria’s a world-renowned terrorist now, after all; can you picture Bin Laden prancing on stage in a flowery white dress??), I do hope they get to spend more time together outside of their idol personas.
Tsubasa and Maria have only ever interacted in highly-charged, pressure-filled situations, such as their international concert and their violent duels. Might be hard for these ladies to adjust to a normal date and try to make casual small-talk.
------------------
Dear Chris,
You still need a haircut.
I cry tears of joy that you finally found your true home with people who love you. Of all characters this season, you were most haunted by Finé’s Legacy, and of all characters this season, you conquered it with the most bravery.
Apart from shooting your teammate in the head, anyway.
Friendship is letting other people help bear your cross, and you help them bear theirs. Together, we can all make it to the hill where we’ll be crucif– wait hang on, this metaphor got away from me somewhere.
What I’d like to see for Chris in Season 3 (GX):
------------------
Dear Miku,
I already gushed about how devastatingly beautiful and painful your Shenshoujin arc was, how excellently interwoven its character symbolism was, how it totally appealed to my love of Oppositional Symmetry.
So, I’ll use this letter to applaud your other extremely awesome moment this season:
Fucking legendary.
What I’d like to see for Miku in Season 3 (GX):
------------------
Dear Maria,
Diva. Beauty idol. Drama queen.
…Absolute baby.
I still don’t know why you only wear one sock...
Other than for the visual theme of asymmetry/off-balance, showing how you as a character this season are struggling to find a centered self. It’s poetic, but damn does it look daft.
What I’d like to see for Maria in Season 3 (GX):
I wonder what’ll happen to the “Finé” terrorist organization and their orphanage of Finé’s descendants, now that Finé will no longer possess new hosts. Will Maria, Kirika, and Shirabe return there and free the other kids? That’d be great, I’d love to see that next season.
------------------
Dear Shirabe,
Rollerblading little edgelord. Linkin Park and Evanescence’s lovechild. You and Kirika single-handedly keep Hot Topic in business. If I passed you the aux cord, you’d play Amy Lee’s “Lithium” on repeat and sawblade off a fool’s hands if they try to take the cord back. (Or Billie Eilish’s “Bury a Friend” for a reference the Zoomers might get. I’m so old I still use words like gnarly and rad.)
Your magnificent character arc culmination in Episode 9 is the only thing that kept me watching this anime after that atrocious episode. Thank you.
What I’d like to see for Shirabe in Season 3 (GX):
I’d love for Shirabe and Kirika to venture out and experience the real world after spending their childhood locked up in an orphanage. I adored their little festival date, where they got a chance to celebrate and eat and sing among ordinary people and just do regular teenager stuff. After all, the soda girls helped save this world in the finale, shouldn’t they get to be part of this world?
------------------
Dear Kirika,
Allow me to speak to you in words you’ll understand:
DESS
That is all.
What I’d like to see for Kirika in Season 3 (GX):
Learning to love herself. Making amends to Shirabe. (Shirabe forgave her already, but that doesn’t mean Kirika shouldn’t still try to make amends for the betrayal.)
I hope Kirika and Shirabe learned a valuable lesson this season with their mutual near-death experience, about the importance of being honest with each other, and that THEY MAKE NO MORE MISCOMMUNICATIONS EVER AGAIN.
------------------
Dear Ver,
Good riddance to bad rubbish. I still wish you got crushed to death by some heavy object like I predicted, but Symphogear is more merciful than I.
Hell, everyone deserves a chance to make amends. I’ve certainly benefited from people giving me a second chance and letting me improve my crappy ways. (Not that I ever committed murder and terrorism, jeez, but you know what I mean.) Enjoy your time in prison for all your crimes, you snake.
Same as with Finé, a terrible person makes a great villain. Hating him doesn’t mean I think he’s badly written. The opposite! Dr. Ver is a perfect thematic reversal of the heroes, a walking example of that Oppositional Symmetry I adore, just like Finé before him.
He didn’t have the off-the-walls insane dramatic flair that Finé had, but Ver was still quite entertaining to watch (I estimate 37% of this season’s budget went into animating his facial expressions), and I’m glad he was part of the story. This season would be a lot less interesting without him.
What I’d like to see for Ver in Season 3 (GX):
I’d like not to see him in Season 3.
------------------
Dear Mom,
I forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer again. I’m so sorry.
What I’d like to see for Mom in Season 3 (GX):
She probably won’t be in Season 3, seeing as she joined the Choir Invisible in the finale. However, I said the same of Finé at the end of Season 1, and then Season 2 brought back Finé in a surprising way. Maybe Season 3 will bring back Mom!
I’d pay an exorbitant amount of money to see the anime, like, download Mom’s consciousness into her wheelchair mech suit or something, and have the Mom-mech just follow Team Black around all day and keep nagging them in motherly fashion from beyond the grave.
------------------
Last but not least…
…Dear everyone all around the world who made their way to this blog,
Whether you’re an O.G. from the old days when I first started this series, or if you didn’t find this blog until after my “revival”. Thank you.
I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad you are, too. Whatever comes, Don’t Give Up On Life.
Two seasons down, three to go! Symphogear was superb, Symphogear G was excellent in a different yet also satisfying way, and I can’t wait to see what radness Season 3 (GX) has in store for us.
I make but one humble request of you, wretched fucking anime…
…Jesus in a jingly jumpsuit, just let any of them kiss next season.
------------------
