So I’ve reached the end of my long challenge. Symphogear XV is the fifth and final season, and for this piece I’m choosing my words very carefully, not just because it has only recently ended (the season aired in the Summer 2019 cour), but I have a lot of friends and social media casuals who are absolutely in love with the franchise and with this fifth outing in particular. They could well have my head if I say the wrong thing.
I spoke about a Symphogear malaise that I had after watching season after season back-to-back. It’s likely that I’ll look at the Symphogear franchise from a different standpoint when/if I decide to watch them again and pad out each episode viewing. There’s no doubt that I’ll forget the things that made Symphogear Symphogear though; from its crazy fights to its equally crazy plot. Heck, a parody site I like, Anime Maru, even wrote a piece back in February about the show’s absurdity, and I only found it whilst researching for this particular post.
Enough about that, though. Time to talk about season 5…
(NB: This post contains lots of spoilers for Symphogear XV)
These six have been on quite a journey to make it this far. Like I said in the previous post, very few franchises make it past 3 seasons, so there’s clearly something that Symphogear is doing that’s working. The chief studio, Satelight, have made several attempts to please everyone, from introducing solid narratives, to tackling sensitive topics like daddy issues. One would think that, now they’ve reached their fifth season, they’d learn that sticking to the audience that love the franchise regardless works easily. Now, it’s been clear that the franchise has had its ‘good’ seasons, and its ‘lesser good’ seasons. So what are we to make of Symphogear XV? Will Satelight try to please a larger audience, or will they stick to what they’re best at, and what is working?
In the prologue of Symphogear AXZ, we see that Miku becomes a far more important catalyst than initially thought…and that’s something we notice as we watch this fifth season. Hibiki is forced to choose: either she fights for the good of the planet, or she chooses to be happy forever with Miku. She can’t have her cake and eat it.
The first episode teases things for the future like every past opening Symphogear episode has always done and, just like every past opening episode, gives us plenty of insane action to keep us hyped for the whole season. I tell you, after watching 4 opening episodes in the space of around 4 weeks, Symphogear XV‘s opening episode has been the best one I’ve seen. It shows us how much Hibiki, Tsubasa, Chris, Maria, Shirabe and Kirika have progressed in their time at S.O.N.G. Task Force, and how much power they can all wield.
With this comes our new antagonists, who are the remnants of the Bavarian Illuminati, from Symphogear AXZ. Now calling themselves Noble Red, they…well…begin as being rather dorkish, but at the same time, they become antagonists we end up really sympathizing with. Vanessa, Millarc and Elsa were failed test subjects of the Illuminati, and were given artificial bodies they didn’t want. So when the Symphogear team destroyed the Illuminati, they were able to escape. Now all they ask for is the power of a god to turn them back into humans again, but as episodes goes on, we learn that our real main villain is far more powerful than all of them combined.
I’ll explain a little further. Noble Red were only really after the bracelet of Shem-Ha, which was recovered from the corpse of the coffin from the Antarctic in episode 1. But they weren’t the only ones after it; we discover that the corrupt Kazanari Organization (that both Tsubasa and Genjuro have close ties to) are after it as well. As self-proclaimed protectors of Japan, they seek the power of Shem-Ha so Fudo (the leader) can become a god himself. When they recover it, they learn about how both Miku became a vessel (see Symphogear AXZ for that), and so end up kidnapping her with the plan to have her as a host.
Of course, everything goes to crap. I mean, it can’t be much of a Symphogear show if everything nice happened all the time, right?
Who is Shem-Ha? Well, she’s a Custodian who came from outer space, claimed to be responsible for prehistoric life on Earth, and was effectively responsible for the Curse of Balal. Here in Symphogear XV, her role begins straightaway when her coffin is discovered in the Antarctic. Highly unlikely, but I’m not sure if Satelight chose this name on purpose: Shem-Ha refers to the name Shem HaMephorash, which is Hebrew for ‘the explicit name’, or ‘hidden name’ referring to God (more on this here). Rather coincidental then that, as this show ended in the final week of September, Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year, takes place. But I’m going on a tangent here…
The more we watch Shem-Ha act like what is possibly the best antagonist this franchise has ever had, the more we think of what’ll happen to Miku. Social media may joke about her ‘doing a Homucifer’, but we do end up picturing Miku doing these things to these people and the world, even as we get occasional glimpses of her battling Shem-Ha, who has become the parasite to her host. Also, as I watch Shem-Ha wreck havoc while possessing Miku, I couldn’t help but think of poor Naru in Sailor Moon. She’s one of Usagi’s closest friends at school, and yet she always seems to find herself in trouble.
In the meantime, we are also given more ‘arcs’. Tsubasa begins to question what she has been doing all this time is the right thing to do, after she is forced to watch a young girl get executed early on in the show, only for us to find out that she herself is being controlled by Fudo in some kind of Manchurian Candidate-style plot point, which was actually quite exciting to watch. If this season could have had Tsubasa mind-controlled into fighting S.O.N.G. Task Force for real, then that would have been quite epic. Also, we’re given small arcs on both Maria and Elfnein; Maria on her past, and Elfnein on the fact that Carol (the main antagonist from Symphogear GX) is still inside of her.
Now I say that Shem-Ha ended up becoming the most impressive antagonist in the franchise, and that a brainwashed Tsubasa could have become a really excellent subplot, but this fifth and final season sticks fairly close to its main theme: what would happen if Hibiki and Miku ended up on opposite sides? Like I said at the beginning, Hibiki has the planet in one hand, and Miku in the other, and she can’t have both. If you’ve speedwatched the franchise like I have, you might also think that the entire thing may well have all been building up to this – a Hibiki vs. Miku showdown. I can’t say that for sure, and I certainly won’t be spoiling the final episode either, for the sake of those who haven’t seen it yet.
Overall, Symphogear XV has ended up becoming a very exciting watch. Its ‘secondary’ antagonists may have been not quite what we expected, but then I guess that’s something I should just expect. But the animation and art direction in this season has gone to fifth gear, plus everything that an atypical Symphogear stan would expect is all here: music, crazy action scenes, questionable script, and…the Moon. For 4 seasons, the Moon has been something that has appeared a lot in the show, and in this fifth season, the Symphogear team finally get to go there. How, and why? Well…my lips are sealed.
So…it’s over.
It’s finally over…
No really, this challenge was actually pretty fun. It’s made me appreciate an anime franchise that, in the past, I have mocked and laughed at so much. Watching seasons 1-5 in a short amount of time has really made me accept anime tropes that I have otherwise just refused to acknowledge. I mean, I’m a long-term fan of the 90’s TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000, where they take really awful sci-fi/horror movies from the past and poke fun at them whilst watching them. It made me look like a bit of a hypocrite: how can I sling mud at a franchise like Symphogear that has an over-the-top plot and action that gets more and more ridiculous, and love MST3K at the same time?
You could say that I’ve caught the Symphogear bug a little. Heck, I’ve even had to add ‘Symphogear’ to my online dictionary, so it doesn’t keep having to spell-check it. I’m also prepared to rewatch this entire franchise, and give a second opinion on it. Maybe I’ll find more to appreciate in past seasons, but I certainly won’t be speedwatching this in the space of 5 weeks again. Once was enough.
Perhaps I’ll decide to speed watch another long-standing franchise like…say…Sailor Moon, or Pretty Cure, or Macross. No, wait, scratch that. I don’t want to put that idea into the heads of the others at OASG.
While I’m here, I’d like to thank the others at OASG for keeping me going throughout this very tiring challenge, and not letting me criticize the show too much. If they let me off the leash, I would likely have gone crazy in my reviews, and ended up with some unhappy Symphogear stans. I’d also like to thank Alcina especially for providing the very cool main header images.
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Senki Zesshou Symphogear (season 1) has been licensed by Discotek Media, and will be receive a North American home video release in 2020. All 5 seasons of the Symphogear franchise are available to watch now on Crunchyroll.