I can’t even remember what drove me to thinking that this was all a great idea. Okay sure, I probably shouldn’t be moaning that I just get more anime to watch, but considering I had been avoiding the Symphogear franchise so much… And all these people around me telling me that I don’t know what I’m missing by deliberately not watching the antics of Hibiki, Tsubasa, Chris and co. Oh well…here’s season 2: Senki Zesshou Symphogear G.
Had I been anticipating the return of the airhead Hibiki and her one-punch attacks? Well not entirely, since I had started on Symphogear G pretty much the day after I had finished season 1, and thus was not really expecting anything new, but oh boy, was there a huge difference in animation quality…
I understood that there were some major issues in regards to animation studios for season 1; 3 studios taking some level of responsibility, with Satelight being in charge of most of it when the other two (Encourage Films and Studio Pastoral) sort of…vanished? I’m going to need to look deeper into all of that, since that’s actually a rather fascinating story. But back to season 2, and Satelight is in total control now. Thankfully, since season 1 turned out to be so popular, they ended up with somewhat of a bigger budget.
The action begins right away though, with Hibiki and Chris on a mission to protect Solomon’s Cane…or the Staff of Solomon (was never 100% sure on the correct translation there). They mess it up, of course; I mean, what kind of plot would have a mission that goes perfectly right from the first episode? I suppose, as this season aired in the Summer 2013 cour, the viewers were expecting something spectacular from the very start, and they kind of did get it, when it was revealed that there is another Gungnir user other than Hibiki, in the form of famous idol Maria.
She, along with Shirabe and Kirika, are all introduced in Symphogear G. All of them have Symphogear armor, and all of them claim to be working as a part of a paramilitary organization calling itself Finé. Now it wouldn’t take much of a genius to figure out that Finé, the main antagonist of last season, has returned with a new host, but no…it had to take a good few episodes for Hibiki, Tsubasa, Chris and co. to figure out that the name of this organization and the resurrection of Finé wasn’t all just one big coincidence…So yeah, It’s a shame that the script for Symphogear hadn’t really gotten any better than last time. More on that later though, as in the meantime, I’d like to talk about these three new people that have just arrived out of nowhere: Maria, Shirabe and Kirika.
Having glanced at some spoilers in future seasons, I managed to work out that these three end up sticking around in the Symphogear franchise, just as Chris did too. Which is nice, I suppose; I mean, just having to follow Hibiki, Tsubasa and Chris sounded a little lackluster, and so as 3 end up becoming 6 characters, this starts to look like a genuine magical girl troupe to me (and I’m probably going to end up incurring the wrath of many Symphogear stans by saying that…). But right now, Maria, Shirabe and Kirika are the bad guys.
The not-so-great script meant that I had a bit of trouble figuring out what their real fight was. I mean, they claimed to represent this paramilitary organization called Finé, and that they were able to control the Noise with the help of the Staff of Solomon which they managed to secure in the very first episode. But as time went on, the three of them began to question what they were all doing.
Right from the very beginning, I could never really see Maria, Shirabe or Kirika as bad guys. This season of Symphogear was the kind of season where it was just blindingly obvious who the villains are. Even when Miku decides to be an idiot and get herself kidnapped and turned into a Symphogear user, I knew it wouldn’t be a permanent thing. So, these three girls wrestle with their morals and emotions as they watch the two adults above them (Dr. Ver and Professor Nastassja) play the archetypal villains and wreck havoc upon the whole of humanity.
Eenough about the new characters; what about everyone else? Well Tsubasa has kind of mellowed now that she’s accepted that it wasn’t Hibiki’s fault she got a piece of irremovable Gungnir armor stuck in her chest. Which power is spreading throughout her body, making her more uncontrollable. And Chris? Well, she’s now become my favorite girl in this franchise, without a doubt. In what has taken not a very long amount of time, Chris has gone from a teenage tearaway who sided with Finé in season 1, to one of the most popular girls in her class. In some other shows, this transition would sound a tad ridiculous, but you know something? I’m not even going to question this. This is what the Symphogear franchise has done to me: just accept all the absurd moments on-screen, every single one of them. This in turn would defeat the point in criticizing the show, I suppose, right?…if I’m just ignoring all of the genuinely terrible moments…
If you want me to compare Symphogear season 1 with Symphogear G, then I would rate season 1 higher, despite all the terrible animation direction in it. I think that the whole Symphogear ‘origin story’ ended up working out better than this second season where it ends up turning into a mixture of ‘what-happens-now-that-the-bad-guy-died’ and ‘we-just-had-to-make-up-these-new-bad-guys-that-turn-out-not-to-be-so-bad-after-all’. Don’t get me wrong though; the animation here in season 2 is very good, the music is all solid, and the fight scenes look and feel much better than they did in season 1. However, I think that those fight scenes are pretty much the only thing that keep this second season going. From Tsubasa jumping from breaching submarines, to Maria kicking butt in her own Gungnir armor, to Shirabe firing buzzsaws, to Kirika and her scythe-thing. And Chris just never changes with her seemingly-endless amount of ranged weapons. In comparison, all of the non-battle scenes look kind of dull and not-so-engaging. These not-so-engaging scenes are made even worse with the bad script. Unless this is merely a case of some poor English translation.
Like I said at the beginning of this post, I am questioning why I even decided to watch the entire franchise in one go. A lot of my friends and other were all watching Symphogear XV anyway, and maybe I just didn’t want to feel left out. I think I must have just gotten addicted to these Symphogear battle moments and to the music. Maybe, when I move onto Symphogear GX, Symphogear AXZ, and Symphogear XV, I can just totally ignore the poor writing and the stale non-fighting scenes, and just focus on mecha magical girl fighting, all of which is both cheesy and incredible at the same time. This second season has made it extremely hard for me to criticize, like I normally would in any other anime. The ‘origin story’ in season 1 has been and gone, and now it seems like the people at Satelight just decided to have some fun here with all the battle scenes, the music, the evil villain laughs, the very odd script, the absurd plot twists, and the punches…so much punching…Hibiki’s arms must hurt by now…
If season 3, Symphogear GX, has more of this, bring it on, I guess.