So I am a couple episodes late on my halftime writeup of this final season of Symphogear, but you have my wonderful job to thank for that.
After digging myself out of twenty hours of server rebuild and restoration, I caught up on our intrepid band of merry ladies fighting the proxy war between Kazanari Fudou and the rest of Japan, or something. Once again, Tsubasa’s PTSD and trauma is put back into the box in favor of this season’s mid-bosses, the return of Carol and her automations, Hibiki doing Hibiki things, and Miku.
The reintroduction of Carol through Elfnein isn’t completely far-fetched, given Carol’s explanation of copy-paste there was always the reasonable expectation that she might return in some capacity, and predictably, batting for the right side this time. I’m a bit disappointed that her automations got wrecked so easily, but they were worth their screen time. But again, these are all episodes the writers could be using to really hammer down Tsubasa’s state of mind before she inevitably faces Fudou, her actual fucking father, and I am a bit miffed at why they keep focusing on everything but Tsubasa in this final season. I get that Mary Sue Hibiki is the god-killer and centerpiece to her lesbian relationship with Miku, and that is fine, but the OGs here were Kanade and Tsubasa, and she has basically been upstaged by every new cast member since, including Elfnein.
So Miku as Shem-ha. Also not surprising. As we discussed before, Miku was likely going to be a part of this finale because she was also cleansed with Hibiki a couple seasons ago. So this final fight between Hibiki and Miku was always going to happen. Presumably, she will save Miku and destroy the god, but not before the god manages to either make its way to Fudou, or even Tsubasa. I say Tsubasa, because that may be Fudou’s plan all along, she may be some kind of sleeper agent for his plans to channel the god-powers into her. I’m not entirely sure, but he will be the final boss in this show for sure.
With four or five episodes to go, I’m just here for the crazy mech battles, Stupid Sexy Chris, FALCON PUNCH Hibiki, Maria’s Maria, DJ-Jii, and mopey-pants Tsubasa. A tsundere-Carol is fine too.
