Nekekur Watches Symphogear: Nekekur Watches Symphogear: Season 3 (GX), Episode 1

GX gon’ give it to ya

(Read the full episode below, or click here for the list of other episodes)

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Third time’s a charm!

I avoid spoilers as best I can, but droplets occasionally filter through my panes. This being Season 3, it’s appropriate there happen to be 3 details I know about GX in advance:

First, our villain this season is a German woman named Carol, and she’s ~*~pRoBLemAtiC~*~. No idea why she’s the villain, what her goals are, and why she’s so contentious among fans, just that she is.

Second, some people ship Carol with a character called Nein, and this ship is utter garbage to the lowest depths of Baikal Lake.

The third thing I know about GX in advance is… Well, it’s difficult to explain. I have zero context for it, and I’m not sure how to describe it, but I will say...

...it’s the thing that convinced me to start watching Symphogear in the first place all those years ago.

At the time, there were only 3 seasons. As I watched through Seasons 1 and 2, I kept waiting for The Thing that I had been spoiled on to happen. It never did. Therefore, The Thing must happen in Season 3. This’ll make more sense once it actually happens and I have context for The Thing. So, hold tight until we reach that particular episode of GX, whichever it turns out to be. I’ll let you know when I see it. Oh boy, I will definitely let you know.

Here we go! The first episode of Season 3 of this cheerful, uplifting anime, titled...

Hhhhhgggh. Okay. Okay. Gonna be another of those seasons, isn’t it. Isn’t it. Okay.

We open inside Section 2’s submarine base. They monitor a space shuttle making fiery re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

This Section 2 agent has like, 500 APM. She’d slaughter at e-sports.

THEY PICKED UP MOM’S BODY WHEN THEY WENT TO SPACE I’M CRYING

The mission isn’t only about recovering useful Relic technology. They want to honor this woman who fixed the moon orbit and saved our planet. Bringing her dead body back to Earth, “resurrecting” Nastassja’s memory by giving her a proper burial in the world she helped keep alive. Death and life and resurrection interwoven. This means so much.

Unfortunately for this touching gesture of respect, the space shuttle carrying Mom’s body and the Frontier fragments is having system trouble. It’s headed for a crash-landing into Earth, killing anyone in the area of impact and destroying the Relic tech on board (and Mom’s body).

Section 2 wants to save the shuttle from crashing. But, they need permission from the U.N. Security Council. At the very last moment, permission’s finally granted.

I paused and read this wall of text so you wouldn’t have to. The gist is that the U.N. isn’t happy that Japan has sole control over Symphogears. However, in this particular case, the U.N. voted to allow the Symphogear wielders to save the space shuttle from crashing, on condition that Section 2 shares information about any Symphogear activity outside their home territory of Japan. Fair enough.

This U.N. message contains some interesting background worldbuilding. That Symphogear wielders are legally defined as “paramilitary activity”, that the Peace of Westphalia (a treaty from the 1600s??) is still active, and that THIS SPACE SHUTTLE’S NAME IS “NED BUNTLINE93R” LMAO.

They named this space shuttle after a guy from the 1800s who wrote trashy Wild West dime novels, was married 6 times, invented a new type of Colt Revolver, got kicked out of the army for drunkenness, survived attempted lynching by a revenge-mob after he killed a guy who challenged him to a duel for sleeping with the guy’s teenage wife, went bounty hunting and single-handedly captured two murderers, and helped instigate an anti-British riot alongside the infamous Gangs of New York.

...Actually yeah, that’s an awesome name. We gotta protect this space shuttle at all costs.

Great, so our Symphogear girls (a.k.a. Team Rainbow) have official permission from the U.N. to save Ned Buntline93R from crashing into Earth!

...How, though?

How are the six girls supposed to save the space shuttle? How does wielding magic blades and guns and singing your heart out fix broken aerospace machinery?

Genjuurou’s glad his agency has permission to Do Shit instead of watching helplessly. At his command, the submarine launches a missile (presumably carrying the girls inside) from underwater all the way up to SPACE.

Japan must’ve blown its entire GDP on rebuilding this submarine after last season’s finale.

Inside Ned Buntline93R (I’m using that name every chance I get), the astronauts piloting it desperately try to change the burning shuttle’s course.

These two men know they’ll die either way, but at least they can try to make Ned Buntline93R crash somewhere unpopulated, so other people won’t die with them. It’s grim and noble.

Ned Buntline93R’s system detects the approaching missile launched by Section 2.

Oof, that’s morbid. The pilots don’t know Section 2 is trying to save them. They assume this missile intends to break the shuttle into many small pieces, so those pieces will burn up harmlessly on re-entry instead of crashing into Earth and killing people. That’s what the Symphogear wielders did at the end of Season 1, smashing the moon-chunk that Finé yanked off into tiny pieces to save lives from the impact.

A girl’s voice breaks through on Ned Buntline93R’s comms.

Hamster-Jesus to the rescue!

She’s not even on screen yet, but hearing Hibiki’s voice throws sunshine into the lightless well of my soul.

Hibiki’s voice is joined in song by two other voices!

The original trinity of Team Rainbow has arrived!

The girls jump out the submarine’s missile. Chris launches missiles of her own from her Symphogear, so the girls can ride those missiles the rest of the way to Ned Buntline93R.

I dunno what’s radder: Riding missiles through the upper atmosphere, or all three magical girls singing a duet while they do this. (What do you call a three-person duet? A triet?)

Tsubasa, understandably, has trouble keeping her balance while riding a rocket like a surfboard.

HAH. All the girls love each other, but Tsubasa and Chris will ever and always be Tsubasa and Chris. Ribbing each other any chance they get.

Chris, you did not just say that.

NO HETEROSEXUAL EXPLANATION FOR THIS

Chris has no trouble keeping balance. She must ride her own rocket often. (...That came out wrong.)

The girls make it to Ned Buntline93R and hop off their missiles onto its hull. Tsubasa and Hibiki work together, using propulsion from their Symphogears to slow Ned Buntline93R down. Their teamwork is so strong, they communicate with barely any words.

For reference, the real-world space shuttle upon re-entry reaches a speed of 17,500 MPH, and its hull heats up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

How in the nth degree of fabric softener are our girls supposed to stop something that’s burning at 5 thousand degrees and traveling at 17.5 thousand miles per hour?

The action here is seat-gripping. The Japanese Defense Minister watches a live feed on his screen. Not that he lets it interrupt his unending consumption of noodles.

Are national leaders in Symphogear-world contractually obligated to eat their nation’s stereotypical food every day? Was that a term of the Treaty of Westphalia? That’d be like an American president gorging himself on McDonald’s, or a British monarch drinking shitty weak tea.

Never mind.

Defense Minister Noodles isn’t the only one allowed a live feed of the Ned Buntline93R rescue mission.

Yay, Team Black returns! I was worried when Section 2 only deployed the original three members of Team Rainbow on this mission. Glad to see the newer three members of the team get to make an appearance this season.

They’re in a prison cell. Harsh, but merited I suppose? Still, Team Black did convert to Team Rainbow and help us save the world at the end of last season. I understand they need to face justice for their terrorism, but I do hope they go free at some point. It’d be a bigger help to society to allow them to live as Symphogear wielders and protect people from Noise, atoning for their crimes that way, than to leave them rotting in a cell forever.

Hibiki, Tsubasa, and Chris manage to slow Ned Buntline93R’s descent a bit, but it’s still going to land in a populated area. The girls need to save the two pilots and the people living in the projected crash area. And Mom’s body inside the shuttle, Tsubasa adds.

I understand what Tsubasa means here, about honoring Mom’s sacrifice, and it ties in with what I said earlier about how moving it is that they made an effort to bring back her corpse for burial... But still, imagine how the pilots must feel hearing this.

Team Black is grateful to Team Rainbow for putting such effort into bringing their mom home.

Inside Ned Buntline93R, the two pilots despair. Even the power of the Symphogears can’t save them from crashing into the mountains and dying a fiery death. ...Or can it?

I…

I need to sit with that for a moment. The beauty of this simple line. “We can hear a song in a burning sky.” Such an evocative image for Hope Amid Suffering. A stellar crystallization of Symphogear’s main message.

It’s also dire bodings for the rest of this season: The sky will burn. Meaning, great struggle is upon us in GX. Things we believed were foundational will waver, and reality will be shaken to its core. Be afraid, folks. Be very afraid.

Ned Buntline93R falls toward a massive mountain called K2. (Buntline93R, K2, why are all the names this season sounding like Star Wars droids?) The girls need to do something fast, else they’ll crash into the peak.

Time for Chris to do Chris things!

Chris dashes to Hibiki, and...

THIS WAS NOT NECESSARY

CHRIS DID NOT NEED TO USE HIBIKI’S FACE AS A MOUNT TO BRACE HERSELF

CHRIS CAN SUMMON HER OWN MOUNTS TO BRACE HER MISSILE LAUNCHERS, WE’VE SEEN HER DO IT:

SITTING ON HIBIKI’S FACE WAS ENTIRELY OPTIONAL. CHRIS DID THAT PURELY FOR THE LULZ.

HIBIKI ALSO DID NOT NEED TO GRIP CHRIS’S THIGH TO KEEP HER IN PLACE

Hibiki’s little “mmph!” of surprise when Chris sits on her face is muffled. It’s muffled. Meaning Chris’s groin is PRESSED RIGHT UP AGAINST HIBIKI’S MOUTH.

From Chris’s, uh, seat, she launches missiles so powerful they take out the middle layer of K2’s mountain peak. Hibiki then punches that layer-chunk out the gawddang way so Ned Buntline93R can fly through the gap.

Look at him. He’s so proud of his daughters. They just permanently altered a piece of Earth’s geography, and he couldn’t be happier.

Ned Buntline93R descends to surface level and starts sliding dangerously down the (now-slightly-shorter) mountainside. It’s no longer burning from atmospheric re-entry, but the shuttle’s still moving at an alarming speed, with no way to steer it away from fatal obstacles.

Chris and Hibiki had their chance to shine. It’s Tsubasa’s turn. Ned Buntline93R hurtles toward a dense forest. Tsubasa whips out her sword, magnifies it into a giant razor blade, and fucken shaves the trees out of the shuttle’s path as effortlessly as removing peach fuzz.

With the forest clear-cut (somewhere, Ecosia is weeping), Chris and Hibiki use more missiles and punches to get smaller mountain peaks out of the shuttle’s way.

I just CAN’T. This scene is mind-blowing. I am so overstimulated right now. The action, the gayness, the song.

The girls sing in tune with each other, filling in each other’s gaps, completing each other’s lines. Shows what a unified trinity they are.

Sometimes I download Symphogear songs to listen to while I’m exercising or driving. I can never download this one, because if I’m behind the wheel when this song comes on shuffle, you goddamn bet I’m flooring that pedal to the max.

Chris’s lyrics in particular are agonizingly beautiful:

Chris feeling strong and safe. This is what she always wanted – to have power/strength, but on a deeper level to know she doesn’t need to be powerful all the time, because she can trust the people around her. She has faith she won’t have to use her power defend herself from them.

For any straight men in the audience (I know you’re not my target demographic, but statistically speaking there must be at least one reading this) who don’t already know this: When a woman says “I feel safe with you”, that’s an “I love you”. Part of being female is, sadly, living in a perpetual state of awareness of just how unsafe we are around other people. Finding somebody we feel safe with, be it a friend or romantic partner or family member, is something precious. Chris singing to Hibiki and Tsubasa that she feels safe with them is her telling them she loves them.

...Even if they aren’t always safe around her, hah. Tsubasa probably still has a bullet scar in the back of her head from last season’s betrayal. Season 2 showed us Chris’s dark side is an inextricable part of her identity. She can’t ever leave it behind, and that’s okay, because it’s who she is. She chooses to use that darkness and violence to protect others.

This rescue mission is going better than expected! If our heroes continue to remove obstacles from Ned Buntline93R’s path, the shuttle will gradually slow down and slide to a stop, saving the two pilots and Nastassja’s body.

DANGIT.

Hibiki jumps down, grabs onto the nose of Ned Buntline93R from the front, and digs her heels into the dirt as the huge shuttle plows forward. She struggles to forcibly halt the shuttle with her bare hands before it hits the village.

One of the many things I love about Symphogear is how the girls sing during battle. The anime doesn’t just play a clean studio-recording of the song over the battle scene. The girls pant and grunt with exertion, and you can hear the strain as they force the song from their lungs while they’re fighting for their lives. Kudos to the voice actors.

Hibiki heaves with all her might, FLIPPING the space shuttle backwards over her own body. She TOSSES IT OVER HER OWN HEAD, GAWD ALMIGHTY, all the way over the top of the village’s huge central building, clearing a safe path.

We get a slow-mo of Ned Buntline93R being tossed upside down over the building. The shuttle comes to a perfect upright landing, like a pencil-dive off a springboard, no harm to it or the village’s main building.

Whew.

I need to catch my breath.

Okay first, they fucking did that. They saved Ned Buntline93R and the entire village.

And second, Chris and Tsubasa VOLUNTARILY HANDHOLDING. This unlikely pairing has truly blossomed.

Everyone watching from Section 2’s submarine is relieved this shuttle crisis was averted, and proud of their heroes. Team Black, watching from their prison cell, cheer. Even Defense Minister Noodles is impressed.

Gurl, she’s fine. She’s just resting on her laurels after that heroic feat to end all feats.

A miracle for real! Hibiki’s greatest fulfillment comes from being a hero who helps others. That’s what power means to Hibiki: the ability to help others. She doesn’t seek to elevate herself, she seeks to elevate others.

Wait a minute...

WHAT WAS THIS EPISODE TITLED AGAIN?

Well, fuck. Somebody better not take Hibiki’s Symphogear away!

Tsubasa and Chris share a fond look. They love their Hamster-Jesus so much.

Holy shit.

I don’t know what to say about this opening scene other than holy shit.

We might as well cap off the episode right here. Nothing in the remaining 17 minutes can possibly top this.

Hell, we might as well cap off the season right here.

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So, that was Symphogear Season 3 (GX)!

This season exemplified Symphogear’s best aspects in one tight package. Magical girl teamwork, badass action, and vocals so powerful I think my genes got wiped of frailty.

Symphogear’s always been a flashy anime. What I adore about this anime is how it subtly weaves in substance beneath the glamor.

GX’s main theme seemed to be a sort of “Defiance of Nature”. Breaking the expected laws of reality/physics/order. The season opens with the girls stopping a vehicle that rightfully should’ve crashed, Chris and Hibiki reshaping mountains, and Tsubasa destroying a forest.

I know y’all are groaning, “There you go again with themes, Nekekur.”

Shush, okay. It’s how my brain works. If something’s not that deep, I will heft a shovel and make it that deep.

This episode was titled after miracles, the girls sang about miracles, and Hibiki called wielding her Symphogear a miracle. Miracles are another form of the Defiance of Nature theme. A miracle by definition is something that ought to be impossible by the laws of nature, it can only be explained by divine intervention.

So, if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say our villain this season (who I’ve heard is named Carol) will also have a Defiance of Nature theme. I expect Carol will try to defy the laws of nature/physics, or the laws of magic, or similar. Like, her end goal will be to create Something From Nothing, or to raise the dead (or heal a loved one who’s dying), or to eliminate all magic from the world, something along those lines. We will, of course, defeat her by the power of song. That’s a given. This is Symphogear.

The teamwork between Hibiki, Tsubasa, and Chris makes me so burning happy. Three wildly different personality types, yet they support each other seamlessly.

A lot of modern media goes for a message of “People aren’t so different from each other after all.” Symphogear goes for a more accurate message. This anime says, “People are different from each other, and we can’t erase that. But it’s okay, because we can work together for a shared goal despite our differences.”

My god, this season was so thoroughly lesbian.

Chris went from hating being touched by Hibiki...

To letting Hibiki save her...

To now being the one to initiate intimate touches like this.

Chris and Hibiki stole this season, but we had nice sprinklings of Chris/Tsubasa as well.

I hope we get to see further gayness from Tsubasa next season.

Moving as it was, this rescue mission was a major change for Team Rainbow.

It’s so... not in their job description. The wielders’ job is to protect people from Noise. Catching the space shuttle has nothing to do with that. They do it anyway, because they want to.

I wonder if this means the Symphogear wielders will start flexing their power outside their Noise-fighting purview. And, if that’ll mean regular civilians and/or government leaders will become wary of them and start trying to rein in the wielders’ power.

We saw in that message from the U.N. that Symphogear wielders are legally defined as “paramilitary”. Governments are typically leery of paramilitary groups (For good reason! Ever heard of some assholes in brown shirts?), even in cases like this where the paramilitary Symphogears technically work for the government already.

This mission to save Ned Buntline93R was approved by the U.N., but... what if it hadn’t been? Would Team Rainbow have gone ahead with it anyway? Will there arise a situation where the government says No to something, and the girls defy them because it’s the right thing to do? Interesting notion for future seasons.

All in all, 5 stars! GX was an excellent season, and I’m so looking forward to Season 4: AXZ.

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Heh, okay, okay. Let’s keep watching.

After that explosive opening scene with the space shuttle, we return to a calm day inside Section 2’s submarine.

Wait what? The Japanese government’s Section 2 is now the U.N.’s Supernatural Disaster Response Team, and is now named S.O.N.G.???

So... do the Symphogear wielders no longer work for Japan, they’re now officially part of the U.N.? Why? Was that one of the concessions Japan needed to make at the end of Season 2, when the Symphogear wielders’ faces were broadcast to the entire world?

Does this mean Japan now has more power on the world stage, since they have sole control of Symphogear technology? These girls are walking WMDs. That’s a pretty “big stick” to carry.

I wonder if other governments will try to steal or sabotage the Symphogears. We knew the American government had a department trying to recreate Symphogear tech (the FISters from Season 2), but their tech got stolen in a coup by Nastassja’s terrorist branch of FISt.

Lots of interesting threads already being stitched for this season. Our Symphogear wielders are now operating on a much bigger scale than just running around Tokyo stopping random Noise attacks. They’re now world agents.

We’ve talked about agency and power before, starting all the way back in Season 1. The climax of Season 1 was the Symphogear wielders overthrowing their own creator, Finé, symbolically destroying her hold over them and taking their power into their own hands. In Season 2, we saw this repeated with Team Black likewise taking their power into their own hands and rebelling against Dr. Ver, who “created” them as wielders via his LiNKER injections.

If Symphogear keeps with the theme, then this season we’ll see all six Symphogear wielders defy the government/U.N. and take their own power into their hands to use it for good.

The ~~Section 2~~ S.O.N.G. agents read a log of the Symphogear wielders’ recent heroics. Saving Ned Buntline93R, and other non-Noise-related disasters.

Don’t... Don’t do this to me, Symphogear...

Chris saving a little girl from rubble.

Chris saving a little girl from rubble.

When her world collapsed around her, no one came to carry Chris out of the rubble.

Chris has become the person who wasn’t there for her when she needed it. I’m crying forever because you can’t save yourself, you can only save others, and in doing so find some peace in yourself.

We get another meaningful shot mirroring past trauma, this one of Tsubasa and Hibiki rescuing a bloodied woman propped against a rock.

We’re less than seven minutes into Season 3 and it’s already TOO MUCH FOR ME.

Okay, let’s focus on the serious stuff. The anime gives us another wall of text from a U.N. report. I paused and read through it. Like the first, it has some intriguing info.

First and less important, we find out “S.O.N.G.” stands for Squad of Nexus Guardians. Neat.

The second and more important detail hides in the fine print. Those falling rocks and rubble the girls rescued people from in these photos didn’t just happen. There was a massive earthquake in that area... which the U.N. suspects was caused by a “high level radiation output toward the sky”. An output they think must’ve been man-made.

SOMEONE ARTIFICIALLY CAUSING EARTHQUAKES

WHAT’D I SAY ABOUT A “DEFIANCE OF NATURE” THEME, Y’ALL

Was this earthquake a test run of that person’s powers? Is this the villain’s goal this season, to hone their disaster-causing abilities until they’re powerful enough to cause so many simultaneous disasters around the world that the Symphogear wielders won’t be able to keep up, and the whole world will fall to ruin?

Symphogear GX knows what it’s doing. We haven’t even met the villain yet, and I’m shaking at the thought of her. This “Carol” is gonna mess up our girls So Bad.

The next slide looks like more of the girls’ heroics. Again hidden in the fine print is that there was an unexpected cave-in at an “antiquities excavation”. In Symphogear-world, “antiquities” can mean Relics, objects of ancient magical power, like the Symphogears themselves. Someone SABOTAGED A RELIC MINE. No doubt to steal whatever Relics were being excavated.

So, Carol is causing natural disasters and stealing Relics? What Relics? Historically, Symphogear villains have used Relics to devastating effect. Finé’s Nehushtan, Dr. Ver’s Nephilim, and the Staff of Solomon they both wielded.

We’re in danger. We’re in a lot of danger, people. The sky will burn.

Back with the S.O.N.G. agents aboard the submarine, the background lady agent brings the background guy agent a warm drink. These characters have names, but I don’t care.

The lady agent tells us it’s been three months since the Ned Buntline93R rescue. In that time:

Wow I just love love LOVE it when I pause a frame to hurt my eyeballs reading tiny blurry text and getting deep into the speculation weeds about what those scant details might mean from a story-structure perspective only for the anime to just lay it all out for me clearly less than thirty seconds later. I should’ve just waited. When will I learn to keep my horrid beak shut. The fucking perils of live-reacting to something without knowing what’s coming.

The agents’ conversation is broken up by a sudden alert flashing on their screen.

Their systems detected... something... happening in a Japanese port city. The alert doesn’t say what. A Noise attack? A Relic activation? Or something worse we have yet to discover?

And then it’s gone. The unidentified signal vanishes as suddenly as it came.

Was... was that the “high radiation output” that preceded the other natural disasters? Is the villain preparing to strike again?

Put your big girl boots on, folks (and remember to use a surgeon’s knot and a straight-bar lace if you have high arches like me, I care about your podiatric health), because we may be about to see some serious shit muck our trail.

Cut to a night-shot of the city.

A girl in a hooded cloak dashes through dim streets, dodging bullet fire nipping at her heels from an unknown shooter in the distance. In her hands she clutches a Viking-looking box. Probably a Relic.

Dvergr Dáinn? Sounds like a Swedish bottom doing a keysmash when they got targeted by a very specific callout meme.

Symphogear has pulled from real-world mythologies when naming its Relics. Dvergr Dáinn must be another reference. I wonder what it means.

So, Dvergr Dáinn is a weapon that is cursed to always kill, it can’t stop itself from violence?

Wh....

....Why does that sound like Frothing Berserker mode?

I thought Hibiki was cured of her Frothing Berserker curse when Miku’s Shenshoujin disintegrated the fragments of Kanade’s Gungnir embedded in Hibiki’s heart. Hamster now wields Maria’s un-cursed Gungnir. Will Frothing Berserker mode make a return this season?

OH THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN, ISN’T IT

The miracle that is a Symphogear is Hibiki’s highest power and her personal reason for living: using that power to help others. In the past, when she lost control and tried to hurt people while under the influence of Frothing Berserker mode, it devastated her. Using her “miraculous” power to harm people rather than help them is Hibiki’s worst nightmare.

If the villain wants to break Hibiki this season, forcing her back into Berserker mode by subjecting her to the Relic called Dvergr Dáinn, the weapon that can’t stop itself from killing, is a good way to go about that. “Murdering the miracle” of Hibiki’s Symphogear.

Atone for what? Is this girl evil, but wants to convert to the light? I’m intrigued. Symphogear has always had complex and interesting villains (Finé and Dr. Ver) plus villain minions (Chris and Team Black).

GX Episode 1 is drip-injecting us with tidbits of trepidation, such as the forced natural disasters and the cursed Relic and the atoning antagonist. Not enough for us to figure out what’s actually going on, but enough for us to feel the danger slowly plucking our arteries. There’s such tension established for this season already, and we’re less than halfway through the first episode.

“Before it’s all too late” adds urgency. It gives us a When Not If sense of foreboding. The villain, whatever her goals are, is already moving. Further reinforces the idea that the villain is behind the artificial earthquake and the theft at the Relic excavation. (Maybe Dvergr Dáinn is that stolen Relic?)

The mysterious cloaked girl flees into the night, clutching the box of Dvergr Dáinn, eluding the unknown attacker shooting at h–

Uh. The hell is she wearing? This kid is like, ten.

We see the cloaked girl’s attacker posing flamboyantly atop a building.

Is that a coin she’s holding?

I thought the attacker was shooting bullets at the cloaked girl running away. The attacker was actually just throwing coins at her really hard? This woman’s weapon of choice is MAKING IT RAIN?

In this economy? Shit, bullets are cheaper than cold hard cash.

One of these people, either Cloaked Underage Bikini (calling her CUB-chan from now on) or Freddie Mercury here, must be the “Carol” I’ve heard about. GX’s villain.

Freddie vows that next time, CUB-chan won’t escape. Since we don’t yet know who’s evil, either CUB-chan or Freddie could actually be a good guy. If Freddie’s evil, then we’re expected to side with CUB-chan who’s trying to get Dvergr Dáinn to safety away from Freddie. If CUB-chan is actually the evil one, then Freddie spitting coins at her like a reverse vending machine is a good thing. We gotta wait and see.

Smash on over to a bright sunny day at Team Rainbow’s school while cheery, childlike music plays.

From moonlit murder threats to sunny schoolgirls in 1.024 seconds. The true Symphogear experience.

Chris, Hibiki, and Miku attend a regular day at school.

Hamster moves in for a hug, but Chris shuts her down immediately.

Really, Chris?

Tiny, unimportant detail, but Chris has a bunny keychain on her school bag that looks just like her.

Red ear bows on long white bunny-ears, to match Chris’s red hair bows on long white hair. That is so goddamn adorable I want to build a birdhouse out of popsicle sticks with this image printed on them.

No way Chris bought this bunny keychain for herself. Tsubasa Would Fucking Never, and Hibiki expresses affection via touch rather than gifts. Genjuurou, maybe? Hmm, he’s more a “provider” than a gift-giver, though. In the past, he gave Chris essentials like money for food and transportation when she was homeless. A “cute” gift like this doesn’t seem his style.

That leaves the most likely source of Chris’s bunny keychain to be... Miku?

Daww, Chris is such a softie underneath.

Hold up, who did we just see in the background of this interaction?

The soda girls attend Team Rainbow’s school, now?? Three months ago at the space shuttle incident, Kirika and Shirabe were in prison. What happened in that three month gap?

I imagine the new S.O.N.G. institute figured it needed as many Symphogear wielders as possible for their disaster-stopping task force, so they released Kirika and Shirabe on parole, on condition they use their power to help S.O.N.G..

Does this mean Maria is also out of prison and attending their school? I’d love to see that, I’d love to see her and Tsubasa in the same classroom trying ineptly to cope with their awkward yet intense sexual tension-rivalry with each other.

Our soda girls, Cherry Coke and Lemon-Lime Sprite, remain as they always have been. Real fricken homo.

ANOTHER

Shirabe playfully pinch-tickles Kirika’s bicep. Miku does the same to Hibiki.

Chris is unamused at the blatant cuteness on display here.

Hibiki gets another solid wallop over the head from Chris’s school bag.

Chris says of their affection:

Symphogear ain’t done with the fanservice element, because the next scene takes place in the school pool.

Um. Who’s gonna attend these meetings? None of the wielders has parents.

Maria, Kirika, and Shirabe grew up in an orphanage. Chris’s parents died in war. Tsubasa was raised by her uncle Genjuurou, meaning her parents likely also died. Hibiki hasn’t been in contact with her mom or grandma since the anime started, only briefly mentioned them once.

Screw it. Genjuurou gonna step in and do parent/teacher meetings for all the girls.

Hibiki’s classmates ask who’ll do the parent/teacher meeting for her. Hibiki thinks it’ll have to be her grandma.

Of course you don’t have a dad. You’re Hamster-Jesus, conceived immaculately.

This line implies the distance between Hibiki and her mom is due to the mom simply... working a lot? What about all that societal bullying and attacks on their house that Hibiki had traumatic flashbacks to in Season 2? Surely that must contribute to their family relationship problems.

Come to think, does Hibiki’s mom know her daughter is a Symphogear wielder? Hibiki’s face was broadcast worldwide during last season’s finale. The girl who was bullied and outcast, wrongfully blamed for the massacre at Tsubasa and Kanade’s concert, is now a public hero who saved the world. How’d the mom react to that news?

Miku tries to salvage this sad situation at the poolside. She comforts Hibiki by saying it’s pretty common that students’ parents can’t make it to these school meetings for one reason or another, and that lots of adults get busy with work.

Oh, sweet Miku. She’s always sensitive to Hibiki’s emotional state. More so than Hibiki herself is, honestly.

Hibiki is... not great at dealing with her emotional problems. If a problem can’t be solved by punching and/or hand-holding, it’s beyond her scope. So, she tends to brush off these types of problems, instead insisting that everything is fine, just forget about it, it’s not a big deal. Even when she’s visibly upset/crying.

This ties in with Hibiki’s role as Hamster-Jesus, ever the optimist. She’s full of hope and always picks herself back up. However, this strongest trait of hers can also be a flaw. She’s too full of hope, too unwilling to treat emotional problems as the serious issues they are, too quick to keep going onward instead of sitting with her troubles for a while and figuring out how to fix them. It’s not wise.

It is good writing, however. A hero’s best trait also being their hindering flaw. This is balanced characterization. It keeps Hibiki from being an overpowered, undefeatable, shuttle-rotator of a Main Character, instead making her more human.

Miku again sees right through Hibiki’s cheerful facade. (Wow, almost like Miku at some point had a mystical Third Eye with the power to strip away illusions... :)))))))) hahahahhhh oh Symphogear you wretchedfuckinganimeihatethisshow.)

That night, Hibiki, Miku, some of their classmates, and the soda girls visit Chris’s home.

CHRIS’S HOME! I assumed she lived in the school dorms like Miku and Hibiki. She has her entirely own place? That’s understandable. Though Chris enjoys their company, she needs her own space away from the others. She’s still adjusting to normalcy.

Fascinating to get a look at Chris’s home. You can tell a lot about people by how they keep their living space. Not only decor, also things like cleaning and organization, and spacing of furniture/tools/entertainment and –

– and the heck is that on the bookshelf?

Is that an... ape skull?

Chris keeps an ape skull as decor? Why?

The girls stay up late to throw a watch party at Chris’s place. They’re watching...

Oh no. Who’s performing at this music festival?

Who’s the teammate not in the room with the other girls?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME

I WAS JOKING EARLIER WHEN I MADE THIS:

I didn’t actually think this episode would have a Tsubasa concert. Please please please don’t end in a Noise attack.

Hibiki says tonight is the first concert since Tsubasa was able to “follow her dreams”. I think this means Tsubasa’s first concert since she was publicly revealed as a Symphogear wielder on the worldwide broadcast last season finale, same as Hibiki and the other wielders were. I’m relieved Tsubasa was able to continue her idol career, her way of passing on Kanade’s love, despite her superhero identity reveal.

EXCUSEZ-MOI?????

The international terrorist is performing with the person she violently attacked on live broadcast at their last concert and kicked into a horde of deadly Noise?

Especially jarring because singing together in Symphogear represents connection/intimacy. Singing together as idol partners certainly cemented Tsubasa and Kanade’s relationship.

Tsubasa trusted Maria at their first concert, and Maria betrayed that trust. Tsubasa is risking so much by opening a connection with Maria once more, hoping it’ll work out this time. Maria must atone for her terrorism, but she also must atone for breaking Tsubasa’s heart.

I hope Maria takes this second chance at a partnership seriously, and treats Tsubasa better than in the past.

Why are they wearing lingerie for this performance??? Why is GX putting women into entirely unsuitable underwear on display?

I know it’s not at all relevant, but I can’t get over the... disparity between Tsubasa and Maria.

But hey, this concert means we get...

...ANOTHER DUET.

These song lyrics, man.

Maria singing about “independence at a genetic level”, showing how she’s been freed of the curse of Finé’s bloodline and is no longer in danger of being possessed by her genetic ancestor. Maria’s life, her mistakes and triumphs and all, belongs to her alone.

Tsubasa singing about hope and despair, showing how she’s grown from the despairing warrior with a death-wish that she spiraled into after she lost Kanade, into someone who now fights and sings to inspire others, because Hamster-Jesus returned hope to her life.

There’s no deeper meaning to this lyric. It’s just gay.

Holding HANDS while SINGING together. This is the Symphogear equivalent of a sloppy makeout.

The crowd goes wild for the Queens of Music and their fabulous performance. We get another mention of this season’s Miracle theme:

My guess is this lyric means the villain will use her powers and her Defiance of Nature theme to remove the Symphogear wielders’ access to their magic, and our girls will need to create a miracle themselves by re-summoning their Gear when all hope seems lost. Again, likely via singing and hand-holding.

Tsubasa and Maria conclude their song to an impressive starry display in their signature colors of blue and pink.

Symphogear also gives us our first look at this season’s logo and tagline:

“Believe in justice and hold a determination to fist.”

I...

I’m not touching that one. Symphogear, you can not get any gayer at this point.

Tsubasa and Maria wave to the London crowd cheering for their performance.

Back in Japan, the rest of the team also cheers for them. This Isn’t an Anime girl, a.k.a TIA-chan, reminds us how she got that nickname.

Never change, TIA-chan.

After the concert, Maria cools down backstage. Two shady MIBs approach her.

They’re her bodyguards, but in reality they’re assigned to protect others from her. She’s allowed to perform in public, but S.O.N.G. hasn’t forgotten her terrorism regarding all that FISt stuff. Maria stays under constant surveillance, unable to walk free.

Fucking incredible. Maria is the wet blanket who broke down sobbing and cried for her mommy on worldwide broadcast, yet it’s the ADULTS who need to retain their dignity??

On the one hand, Maria did do wrong. On the other hand, she did help save the world from the Nephilim. On the other other hand (I have three hands, if you don’t then it’s a skill issue), I like that Symphogear isn’t brushing her deeds under the rug. The anime’s putting effort into showing consequences for her actions. My biggest gripe with Season 2 was that it didn’t allow consequences for serious events. Such as Hibiki regrowing her arm immediately. I’m pleased to see Season 3 buck that irritating trend.

Maria suffers disgrace nobly. She carries her head high, and puts her heart into her performances and her fights. She’s determined to protect the world, even if parts of it see her as a criminal.

Time for us to catch back up with Freddie Mercury, still chasing CUB-chan through the streets.

Freddie throws her coin-ammo at a gas tanker, causing it to crash and burst into flames.

The truck driver escapes, and calls the authorities.

Genjuurou calls Hibiki and Chris. He orders them to the truck crash site to help emergency crews contain the spreading fire.

Hamster and Chris leave the watch party to go help stop the fire.

HIBIKI’S TUNIC HAS A BRIGHT YELLOW CHICK WITH THE SAME OFF-CENTER LITTLE HAIR TUFT AS HER

PLEASE TELL ME THIS TUNIC IS REAL-LIFE MERCH I CAN BUY

Miku worries about Hibiki. Because honestly, “Miku worries about Hibiki” sums up her entire character.

Ya know. In any other fucking anime. I wouldn’t worry. But. This is Symphogear, that most wretched of fucking anime. This fire is 100% a trap by Freddie Mercury to lure out our girls.

Kirika and Shirabe want to come help, too. Unfortunately, they’d need injections of the LiNKER drug to wield their Symphogears. So, the soda girls stay home.

Over in London, Maria and her two bodyguards/minders walk through the back rooms of the concert venue, through a creepy hall of mannequins.

I’m guessing this is a storage room for concert costumes, and they’re stored upright on mannequins instead of folded in boxes, so they don’t crease or something. Still eerie.

One mannequin turns out to be a new character in disguise!

The new character jumps out and ganks one of Maria’s bodyguards by... kissing him.

Heterosexuality? In this anime? It’s like looking at an alien race.

This Kiss of Death magically drains the life from Maria’s bodyguard. He drops dead. The remaining bodyguard opens fire on the weird new lady. She deflects his bullets right back at him, killing him with his own shots. While she fights she also... tap dances??

Who are you, lady?

Is this tap-dancing assassin connected to Freddie Mercury? Is there a squad of weird ladies luring out various Symphogear wielders?

Tap Dancer mocks Maria.

So, Freddie and Tap Dancer seek Symphogears/Relics? That’d tie in with the earlier tidbit about a Relic excavation site being attacked by a forced “natural” disaster. Does the villain who’s causing these disasters have a pack of Relic hunters fanning out across the world to fetch Relics for the villain to use in her upcoming scheme, whatever that may be?

OH SHIT. We left the soda girls at home with no way to defend themselves without LiNKER. If there’s a third assassin alongside Freddie and Tap Dancer, that person might be headed after Kirika and Shirabe for their Symphogears!

While Maria’s under attack by Tap Dancer in London, over in Japan the Cloaked Underage Bikini girl, a.k.a. CUB-chan, flees the fiery area, trying to escape Freddie Mercury’s deadly coin throws. (Re-read that sentence as many times as you need.)

Tap Dancer said they’re hunting Relics, so they must want the boxed Dvergr Dáinn, the cursed weapon Relic, that CUB-chan’s clutching.

CUB-chan doesn’t seem to have any magic powers, unlike her attacker or that Tap Dancer attacking Maria. All she can do is haul bikini-clad ass.

Yet another mysterious figure (fourth one this episode!) stands on a rooftop overlooking the fire.

Bro, I am running out of nicknames. This braided traffic cone better give me her true name fast, else I’ll be forced to come up with something especially annoying for her.

The girl in the traffic cone hat makes no move to stop the fire threatening this part of the city. Nor does she attempt to help CUB-chan escape Freddie. She just stands there and watches and says nothing. Whose side is she on? Is she yet another faction separate from the others?

It occurs to me, how old is this character? She’s small in stature, which implies she’s a child, maybe the same age as CUB-chan. However, I don’t think a braid can get that long without years of growth. Too many years for a child. Is this character older than she appears? That, or she’s wearing the sickest extensions imaginable.

Hibiki and Chris fly in a helicopter toward the burning part of the city. Though most civilians evacuated, there’s a group trapped inside an apartment complex the fire fighters can’t reach.

Hibiki and Chris can tell this fire must be deliberate arson by someone evil. However, if there’s people to save, they’re gonna dive right in!

Back with Maria in the backrooms of the concert venue, she evades Tap Dancer’s attacks.

Tap Dancer’s body moves really weirdly. I mean, besides the tap dancing. Plus, her joints and even eyeballs have strange, articulated clacking sound effects. She seems more like a doll than a human.

Heck, is Tap Dancer a doll? That’d make sense thematically, considering we met her in a room full of mannequins. Who’s controlling her, then? Freddie, or CUB-chan, or the girl in the traffic cone hat?

Without a Symphogear, Maria’s defenseless. Not only does Tap Dancer have the Kiss of Death, she has a sword she slashes at Maria with.

HEY GUESS WHAT

SOMEONE ELSE IN THIS VENUE ALSO HAS A SWORD

Cue a dramatic entry from the Mistress of the Dramatic Entry... Tsubasa!!!

...Or not. We cut back to Hibiki and Chris.

Damn it, Symphogear, that was a golden opportunity. What the hackberry is Tsubasa off doing elsewhere in the concert venue while her girlfriend is under attack? Stuffing her bra and crying into the cups?

Anyway, Hibiki and Chris arrive at the fire. Hibiki’s job is to rescue the trapped civilians. Chris’s job is to go hunt down the arsonist (Freddie) before she starts more fires.

Hibiki jumps out the helicopter toward the burning buildings. We’re blessed with our first transformation sequence of the season!

WOOOOOOOO YEAHHHHHH

If Symphogear transformation sequences have no supporters, I am no longer in this world.

Crackers and brie, do I adore transformation sequences! There’s something so fundamentally Fantasy about seeing power manifest in a physical form that envelops the character. I’m minded of verses from the Greek epics, about being empowered by the gods to Put On Your Greatest Self, and –

– aaaaaand forget all that philosophical stuff. There’s butt. Always Hamster butt. Seasons come and go, but Symphogear never changes.

The civilians trapped in the burning building hear Hibiki’s approach.

That’s the sound of a Symphogear battle song, my dude. Isn’t it glorious?!

While Hibiki sings, we intercut between her trying to save the trapped civilians from the fire, and Maria trying to evade Tap Dancer’s sword attacks.

Tap Dancer’s about to impale Maria on her sword like a caramel apple on a stick, when...

THERE’S OUR QUEEN. A little late, but no less dramatic of an entrance. Wouldn’t be Tsubasa if she didn’t achieve peak melodrama and serious samurai-ness.

Tsubasa swoops in, parries Tap Dancer’s sword with her own sword in one hand, and uses the other hand to carry Maria to safety.

There is nothing in the universe more lesbian than holding a woman in one hand and a sword in the other.

Tsubasa places herself protectively between Maria and Tap Dancer.

The juxtaposition between Tsubasa and Maria here, with one in battle armor and one in that absurdly sexualized lingerie, is highly funny. Handmaiden and Feudal Lord.

(Also, “my friend”. Sure, Tsubasa, sure. I, too, hold hands and sing about rainbows and say I love you in front of a crowd of thousands to my “friends”. Totally not lesbianic behavior at all.)

Tap Dancer says she’s been waiting for Tsubasa. To steal Tsubasa’s Relic/Symphogear, likely. Tsubasa demands to know this weirdo’s name. New season, who dis?

Great, Tap Dancer has a real name now. We still need ones for CUB-chan, Freddie Mercury, and the girl in the traffic cone hat. (One of them is likely the Carol I’ve heard about. Not sure which.)

Autoscorer is an interesting name for this character. The “auto” part must refer to her being an automaton/doll. To “score” an object means to cut that object, which fits since she wields a sword. Plus, it adheres to Symphogear’s tendency toward musical names: a soundtrack is also called a “score”. So, her name means “doll that cuts and makes music”.

It’s appropriate that Autoscorer presents as Tsubasa and Maria’s antagonist specifically. Tsubasa and Maria also cut things (they both wield swords in their Gear), and make music (as idols). You could think of idols as dolls in that they play dress-up in outrageous outfits for the pleasure of others (the soda girls even called idols a “false goddess” earlier this episode). Plus, the original definition of an “idol” is a carved image of a human body, not an actual live person. Fits Autoscorer all around.

I imagine the other antagonists this season will likewise match the heroes they pick fights with. We talked about this a ton in Season 2 with the Fight Your Shadow Self theme.

The duel between Autoscorer and Tsubasa intensifies. Autoscorer uses her long skirt to deflect and distract against Tsubasa’s attacks. Reminds me a lot of Tsubasa and Maria’s first duel, when Maria used her cloak the same way. Tsubasa even whips out the spinning-blade-of-fire attack she used on Maria that night.

Tsubasa successfully lands this devastating attack on Autoscorer. Unfortunately for Tsubasa, it’s too early in the season to kill off an antagonist.

Back with Hibiki, she can’t reach the civilians trapped by the fire. So, Hibiki sits down and has a careful think about the most strategic way to reach the civilians safely.

JUST KIDDING. Hamster charges straight forward and punches through the building’s walls to reach the trapped people.

There’s a time to offer gentle forgiveness to your enemies, and there’s a time to put your fist through solid masonry.

That lyric, hah, that is Hibiki in a nutshell.

Hibiki reaches the trapped civilians. She leads them safely out of the burning building, singing her glorious battle song all the while.

We’re in the clear! Emergency crews gradually get the fire contained. Hibiki, having rescued all civilians and handed them off safely, notices the girl in the traffic cone hat, still standing motionless atop a building, observing the fire.

The anime gives us our first look at this girl’s face.

Huh.

That’s CUB-chan’s face.

So... they’re sisters?

INCH RESTING

VERY INCH RESTING INDEED

Whose side is this mysterious braided girl on, then? She didn’t do anything to stop Freddie shooting coins at her sister. Is there bad blood between them? Is she the one who sent Freddie to hunt down CUB-chan? And, is this a good thing, since we don’t know if CUB-chan is our villain and maybe hunting her down is for the best?

Brooding under the brim of her traffic cone hat, the mysterious girl watches the fire burn.

She hears a voice from her memories:

Wouldn’t be a Symphogear episode without a Traumatic Flashback™. Let’s go, anime, show me what this character’s got in the vault!

OH OKAY, I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE LONG BRAID. This character’s way older than she looks. She’s fricken medieval. She must be some type of immortal, then.

Hol up. This is Carol?

This is Season 3’s villain? This is the Murderer of Miracles, the Defier of Nature, she who will burn the sky?

If this is Carol... does that mean CUB-chan is the “Nein” character I heard about who gets shipped with Carol?

DO PEOPLE SHIP SISTERS?

DO PEOPLE SHIP UNDERAGE SISTERS?

(I mean, it’s not technically underage since they’re medieval immortals, but you wouldn’t use that excuse to justify this relationship unless you’re already a skeevy person.)

I really don’t want to add a sister/sister pairing to this episode’s ongoing champagne meme, you guys...

Anyway, Carol reminisces about watching her dad get burned alive by a religious mob. How fun.

No idea what “the taint of Izark” means. And I know better than to google anything with the word “taint” in it. I’ll wait for the anime to explain.

WELP. That flashback was a giddy little romp, wasn’t it.

Being burned at the stake is usually a punishment for heresy...

...Or witchcraft.

Wait. Oh my guppies, I forgot what traffic cones are called in some places: witch hats. Carol was introduced wearing a witch hat.

She’s a witch?

We have a witch in this anime? You’re serious? You’re serious.

...I mean, sure. Why not? First season’s villain was a ghost who possessed people and walked around wearing nothing but Louboutins and was revealed in the second season to possibly be from an alien race who came to Earth thousands of years ago.

So yeah, let GX’s villain be a medieval witch in a pointy hat. Screw it. Next season, we’ll have a bandaged mummy and Frankenstein’s monster and maybe a werewolf for good measure.

So, Carol hates “miracles” because her dad was burned at the stake for heresy/witchcraft, a.k.a false miracles. Okay, it’s making sense. Carol remade herself as the Murderer of Miracles, and now her goal is to wipe all that hopeful magic from the world, defying the laws of this reality.

Hibiki sees Carol brooding up on the roof. Hibiki assumes Carol must be a civilian child who needs to evacuate the fire but is stuck up there like a cat in a tree.

Separated by FIRE, Hibiki.

Hibiki has no way of knowing why this innocent question would trigger Carol. Carol reacts predictably.

Whoops, looks like Hibiki accidentally aggroed a raid boss.

There are no enemies. Only friends Hibiki hasn’t befriended yet. Carol will no doubt fall under Hamster-Jesus’s sway and join the team by the end of GX, just like all the others. Even the reincarnated Finé couldn’t resist how “dazzling” Hibiki is.

This my-dad-got-barbequed scene is so wild, I forgot about Tsubasa and Maria fighting Autoscorer.

Autoscorer survived Tsubasa’s spinning fire blade attack. She advances on our favorite edgelord sword-saint to continue the fight. Tsubasa can now tell Autoscorer isn’t human.

Meanwhile, Carol casts attack spells at Hibiki.

The closing shot of the episode is Hamster’s shocked face as Carol’s alchemy attack blasts toward her. What if it turns her into a newt or something?

We don’t get a proper ED, just a roll of credits. However, we are treated to Tsubasa’s voice actor singing over it, so that’s nice.

------------------

Hawt DANG. What a start to Season 3!

This episode was chaos. That raddest of rad opening scenes, then Section 2’s overhaul into S.O.N.G., our Symphogear wielders now taking on new roles as worldwide heroes combating non-Noise threats, then the forced natural disasters and the stolen Relic, plus many threatening characters introduced with motivations unknown.

Symphogear has done enough right the past two seasons that I’ll sit back and let it take me on this wild ride. I trust the anime knows what it’s doing.

Excitingly, this episode introduced a new magic system to the Symphogear universe!

Hmm, “alchemy” might not be new to us, actually. If we look closely at Carol’s spells, we see they’re formed of interlocking hexagonal blocks.

We’ve seen magic made of interlocking hexagonal blocks before.

Finé’s magic was never really explained. Finé just called it the “black arts”. Maybe GX will finally delve deeper into that black art, a.k.a witchcraft, a.k.a alchemy.

We might learn more about these hexago–

–OH MY GOD. Hexagons.

“Hexa” means “six-shaped” in Greek. However, “Hexe” in German (Carol is a German) means “witch”. The witch uses witch-shaped magic. Symphogear is truly a galaxy-brained anime.

Alchemy in the real world is the oldest Get Rich Quick scheme on the books. Turn lead into gold. “What if I took something basic and made it valuable?” is something humans have been asking since Forever. Alchemy in Symphogear further reinforces the Defiance of Nature theme that GX set up from the start of this episode.

It doesn’t look like Carol will literally turn lead into gold, but she will use her alchemy to try to force Change on a larger scale by unnaturally turning one thing into another. Namely, turning our world into a pile of ash.

Carol herself also “cheats” nature by being immortal. She’s hundreds of years old, but stuck in a child’s body.

In medieval Christian mythology, the laws of nature are also the laws of God. To defy the natural order (via heresy or witchcraft) is to defy God’s plan.

Carol wasn’t in the opening scene with the space shuttle, but that scene set up her Defiance of Nature theme for us regardless. Me successfully predicting our villain’s theme doesn’t mean I’m smart, it means the anime is smart. It clearly telegraphed what it was doing for the entire season within the first 6 minutes. That’s quality, consistent writing. The rest of this season’s gonna be awesome if it keeps in that vein.

Having inklings of what’s coming based on story structure clues doesn’t make me less excited to watch GX unfold, it makes me more excited to watch GX unfold. I can’t wait to see where Symphogear goes with this!

At least tonight’s Tsubasa concert didn’t involve a Noise attack, for once. Just a sword-wielding doll attack. Hey, with this wretched fucking anime, I’ll take whatever tiny mercies I can get.

Autoscorer is another example of GX’s Defiance of Nature theme. An inanimate object crafted into a mockery of a person. She’s not supposed to exist – Dolls can’t be people.

I wonder how Autoscorer’s downfall will come to pass? Can we transform this doll into a real person, Pinocchio style? Or, would it be a greater mercy to kill her and free her from this unnatural existence? I could see someone like Tsubasa finding that to be the more honorable course.

By the sparkly patron fairy of lame jokes, I’m gonna get so much mileage out of witch jokes this season.

Might be hard for Hibiki to get through to Carol and relate to her issues. Carol grieves the loss of her dad, and Hibiki never had a dad.

While writing this post, I got accidentally spoiled (minor spoiler, not plot relevant) that Izark is this guy’s name, and that it’s an alternate spelling of Isaac. That name choice is... tragic.

In the ancient myth, Isaac was sentenced to die by blood sacrifice for the glory of God, but God spared him at the last moment in an attempt to prove to humanity that this god was a loving god and would never again demand human sacrifice.

How bitter, then, that this Isaac/Izark gets religiously murdered at the stake, a literal human sacrifice to God, for the “crime” of contravening God’s laws of nature just by being who he is.

Carol’s dad was executed for heresy/witchcraft, so witch powers must be a family trait. Does that mean her sister, Nein, also uses witchcraft? Nein didn’t seem to have magic powers, else she would’ve used them to defend herself against Freddie’s coin-attacks. Nein’s only goal was getting the box containing the Relic called Dvergr Dáinn away from Freddie.

How sad that Carol’s still suffering from grief, centuries later. She never moved forward. Her dad’s dying wish was for her to live on without him...

...but she hasn’t really. She’s just been trapped inside her pain. Hating life, hating the world, hating miracles. Stuck in a child’s body, not growing up even as the centuries pass, still haunted by the burning memory of watching her beloved dad get executed.

I wonder how Nein coped with their dad dying? Better than Carol, or worse?

Nein said she wants to atone. Plus side, that means she’s trying to do good. Negative side, you can’t “atone” unless you committed crimes to atone for. I’m intrigued to see what sins this character committed, and what convinced her to change her ways.

I hope Hamster-Jesus can help these sisters. She helped Finé, who was also trapped in a centuries-long grief over losing a connection to a loved one. Surely, Hamster-Jesus’s open hand of friendship can bring healing to Carol, as well?

Maybe not.

GX’s villain introduction was hilarious. Her lurking angstily atop some random roof like a weirdo.

An antagonist who’s still a child brings up interesting story angles. While it’s disturbing to have a child villain, it’s also a relief in one way: Since she’s too young for it, we’re unlikely to get sexually inappropriate behavior from Carol like we did with the first two seasons’ villains. Finé and Ver were sexual creeps atop their other evil shitbaggery, so I’m glad that for the first time in Symphogear’s history, we’ll have a villain who isn’t some kind of pervert.

We have a lotta villains this season. Carol, Autoscorer, Freddie Mercury, and maybe Nein. That’s good, since we have a lotta protagonists now. It’d be too crowded for all six Symphogear wielders to face off against one villain the entire season.

The anime made the better story decision of having multiple lesser villains under Carol, who each “pair off” to establish an independent rivalry with one or two of the Symphogear wielders. It’s looking like this season will be: main hero Hibiki vs main villain Carol, with supporting heroes Tsubasa/Maria vs Autoscorer, Chris vs Freddie Mercury (the arsonist Chris was sent to hunt down in this episode but hasn’t caught yet), and maybe the soda girls vs Nein, once they meet.

Hah, I just remembered the soda girls stayed home from tonight’s shenanigans. They’re gonna be so upset they missed all this drama.

Maybe Kirika and Shirabe will find an unconscious Nein lying in the street somewhere after escaping Freddie’s attacks, and the soda girls will take her in and care for her without knowing who she is nor her connection to the season’s villain. Same as how Miku found Chris unconscious in an alley after escaping Finé’s attacks, and took care of her without knowing who she was nor her connection to the season’s villain.

Finé wanted to destroy the world so she could reach her beloved. Ver wanted to destroy the world so he could rule over a new world. Carol wants to destroy the world... just for the sake of destroying it. Complete oblivion. Sum zero. How does a person get to that point?

I hope there’s more to this character than just, “They killed my dad, so I’mma kill everybody.” I trust Symphogear’s villain writing, so I imagine we’ll delve deeper into Carol as GX progresses. Likely, her strained relationship with her sister will add depth to this character, once we find out what happened that split apart Carol and Nein.

Also, why now? Carol’s been around since medieval times. What changed for her that she’s now openly putting her Destroy Za Warudo plan into action? Hmm, maybe it took all those centuries to hone her alchemy to the point she can use it to cause these natural disasters and other attacks.

Finé and Carol wield the same type of magic. I wonder if these two characters knew each other, in one of Finé’s many lives? Maybe now that Finé’s gone, there’s nothing to hold back the other alchemists out there in the world, so that’s why Carol’s now free to go on a revenge-bender.

Of the many threats introduced this episode, I’m most afraid of this.

If my guess is correct, that this Relic called Dvergr Dáinn will be used by the villain to force Hibiki back into Frothing Berserker mode, that’s gonna be agony to watch. Especially if Hibiki hurts her friends (or hurts Miku, oh by COTTON CANDY please no) while trapped inside her rage.

Symphogear GX is cooking, you guys. I’m eager to see this bubbling brew boil up further. We’ve been warned the sky itself will burn.

This season’s gonna be awesome...