So I came back to this wretched hive of scum and villainy at just the right time, which is for the final season of Senki Zesshou Symphogear and boy oh boy do we have a show right off the rip. I can only assume that the producers of this series picked up on how incredibly lackluster AXZ was last time and just sped right out the gate with a large-scale battle, Hibiki’s transformation and first new stage song, and kept the focus mostly on her punching the ever-living shit out of this thing, before flashing back a bit to see how they all got there.
So normally I’d tell you to watch the last season to catch up, but as Nyarth is finding out first-hand it was fucking awful. The entire overarching storyline in Symphogear is “The Custodians”. Hints were given about them in every season, even from the first when Genjuro mentions them. But because all eyes were on Hibiki, then The Maria Mafia, then Carol and the Jets, and finally The Goof Troop, barely anyone raised their hand and asked “Gee golly Mister, just who are these Custodians?”
The only relevant plot-point from AXZ was that there were some sort of gods with some sort of god-powers. Adam tried to get that power, claiming the only ones who could were those “free from sin”. Well Hibiki obtained that power for a short time, and it turned out that the reason was because she was hit with that beam back in the second season that cleansed the relic bits from her. Okay, but who else was hit with that beam… hmm…
Yeeeaaah, Miku too. So does this mean Miku will be playing a part in this final choir of song-singing, mech-slinging, Hibiki-PAUNCH action? God I fucking hope so because ever since we did see her as a temporary gear user that season I’ve been hoping they’d use her in some capacity that isn’t just professioning her lesbian love for Hibiki. Which is fine, don’t get me wrong, but in a show where nearly every character resorts to breaking shit to get their point across, Miku seems massively ignored in the fray.
As for the first episode, it doesn’t really do a ton to spin up anything interesting yet, other than show our first mummified corpse of whom I assume is the same from the opening scene on the moon. We got a lot of good Hibiki transformation action, which I honestly think is the best in the series thus far. They took all the good pieces from all the past seasons, put them together, and applied a lot of Hibiki kung-fu action to it which fits her character. I hope this stands for all of the cast in subsequent episodes. Her first current-season song, ALL LOVES BLAZING, was also good, a bit of a mix on the very first, Gekisou Gungnir with bits of G-beat and GekishÅ Infinity mixed in. Her insert songs have varied season-to-season, with probably seasons one and two being the best overall. I’m pretty partial to Hibiki and Chris’ insert songs moreso than anyone else, but I’m curious to see if they’ll put some effort into Maria or DMjii’s tracks this season.
My fear in this final season is that they go for some convoluted Eva-like ending where SONG is NERV and the Custodians are Angels. As much as I love out fisting princess, I also don’t want her and Miku to be Shinji and Asuka by the end of this series, sitting on a beach fingerbanging each other while Maria’s face sinks into the ocean. If this series is to finally end for good, it better end the only way it can, with the Custodians cleaning up their goddamn mess on the moon, and the gear users finally being able to go back to regular lives.
Then we can justify making a new show in three years of them timeskipped ten years and call it Symphogear StrikerS.
Senki Zesshou Symphogear XV releases every Saturday by HorribleSubs, or wherever you get your organically-grown garlic-free Japanese Animations from. For near-instant reactions to episodes, follow @tldranimu on Twitter as there will not be weekly posts, but probably a mid-season and final episode post. Batteries to your Hibiki-Fist sex toy are included because it’s 2019 and I am an all-inclusive ani-blogger now. gachiBASS
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