Friday 25 December 2020

The Harmony Of Hope And The Dirge Of Despair: Part 4 (Senki Zesshou Symphogear AXZ) [4.5]


Part 5: Discord Of Divinity


Here we are, then. The final part of the writeup, wherein we deal with the true antagonist of the season. I said it way back when we began talking about the season, but Adam Weishaupt is basically playing from the Dr. Ver playbook for his run on the show (the prick). Hell... I can't believe I'm about to say this, but he's not even as good at being an arch-manipulator as Dr. Ver was. His end goal is betraying the Bavarian Illuminati for his own selfish wants, yes, but there's no clever plotting here. Okay, blowing up the old Kazanari HQ is actually part of his plan in a way we'll see in a moment, but that move isn't one of an arch-plotter. It's getting rid of the problem with a very big boom. Dr. Ver would have gotten someone else to blow it up for him by convincing them it was a vital move. I need to stop giving Dr. Ver faint praise in comparison before I throw up now, Jesus Christ.

Alright then. Adam's big scheme. The Bavarian Illuminati got Tiki the Autoscorer out of Val Verde, and she's an astronomical observation device. Basically she sees the map that Adam needs to enact his plan, and she's also madly in love with him. The plan, in case you were wondering, is attaining the power of the gods. Such energy would easily allow Saint Germain to undo the Curse of Balal and create mutual understanding at the low, low cost of 73,000 lives or so. Through the whole series and their conflicts, this is what the Bavarian Illuminati work towards. Another key is using the alchemical ley lines Carol used last season, along with the life energy from those multiple sacrifices. Doing so and using a bunch of key shrines will open a gateway in the shape of the constellation of Orion with which to summon the power of a God. Got all that?


Great. Adam wants all that for himself. More to it, he's even more heartless than Saint Germain. He casually offers the fact that Saint Germain needs to sacrifice one of her allies in order to get enough life energy to open the gateway. Then Cagliostro dies and he's basically like "oh well guess it's got to be Prelati lmao". Only she calls him on his bullshit and takes off to warn Saint Germain... but again, we know how that goes. Yeesh. Adam fully intended for them all to be sacrifices from the beginning, so yeah. Saint Germain, fully unaware and too far down the road to turn back now, uses the life energy of 73,811 human lives to begin the ritual to open the gate. She's fully ready to die for her ideals and sins to bring about a better world, devoted to her ideology to the very end. This, then, is where the final unlikely pair come in, as Hibiki and Kirika show up to take on Saint Germain. Simultaneously a grand plan comes together to use holy keystones to seal up the ley lines so the gateway can't be opened, so that's a relief.


Or it would be if Adam didn't just use the actual constellation of Orion out in space to open up the gateway from the other side and beam the god power down here. Whoops. This is when he reveals his true cards, of course. The power of the gods probably could bring about a utopia of universal understanding. But Adam's not gonna. The revolution Saint Germain sacrificed so much more, took so many lives for, was for naught. She revolted against oppression and a ruling order, but all along she was being led astray by this asshole who wanted just that; to rule humanity with god power. And so, as Kirika blocks a fuckoff blast from Tiki with a Climax Song and takes herself out of the fight in the process, two foes who couldn't understand each other stand side by side:










"Even if that's true" being a thematic concession to the fact that the world is imperfect, but can be made better without this utter shitlord and his god power. The final three episodes of this show go all-out, y'all. I'm going to have to fast forward a bit so this part isn't 4000 words long, but here we go. It's revealed, as we blast Adam's arm off, that he was an Autoscorer all along. The first Autoscorer, even, abandoned for being too perfect by his mysterious creators. That ties into the dichotomy of perfection and imperfection again, of course, as the "perfect" Adam thinks himself superior to imperfect humanity and thus fit to rule over all. He has a bigger goal than just "I'm the best, worship me" but... Well, I can't avoid it any more, can I? All the World War 2 invocations, all the weird bullshit with conspiracy theories and Nazis and Norse mythology and whatnot? We have to tackle it once and for all. The show raised it all, and I grappled with the dots for quite some time, wondering what to do with it. Here we are, then. We have Adam Weishaupt of the Illuminati claiming himself to be a perfect being who will rule over us all, turn us into the perfect army, and mold us into his perfect little image. The so-called utopia that Saint Germain has been unwittingly working for isn't a utopia. It's fascism. 


This is not a perfect world. It's a world that would sacrifice too much in the name of its purity and the vanity of its deluded mastermind. The WW2 invocations, the perfection vs. imperfection ideal... it's all built up to rejecting this bullshit. We can build a better world without a fascist fuck like Adam, thank you very much... and what better way to take it out than turning those tools against him? Yes, this leads into a semi-reclamation of the Norse power. Gungnir is Hibiki's relic now, remember. It isn't an occult Nazi weapon, or a powerful spear to be used as a symbol. It's a pair of hands. Hands that aren't clenched in wrath, but used to protect and hold the hands of others. Hibiki punched out the dragon earlier, and we soon learn how: Gungnir is a god-killing relic, able to negate the godly power of undoing damage. Literally a philosophical weapon that damages the concept of gods; no. The concept of fascism, let's say. This is why Adam blew up the old base; to stop the gang from learning this shit. Well, we can beat the shit out of the god and save the day!! Except Adam has Tiki hop out of the god-machine at the last moment, ready to take back the god power into his severed arm when it seeks a new host. Oh shit! The perfect being is ready to take his prize--









Oh that can't be good. More to the point, this should be impossible. The god power can only dwell in a pure soul, we're told, and not a human born with original sin. We'll deal with that knot, but we have the tiniest problem of Hibiki now being trapped in a god cocoon. And it's her birthday, even, and she's not here to celebrate it. And military authorization has been cleared by that bastard Kamakuri. Time for Hibiki's friends and allies to mirror her, and undertake a rescue mission. Unfortunately the army cracks the cocoon and a bigass monster lady comes out... but over the exciting episode 12, Hibiki's friends work to save her from within the monster! Miku is here too to shout to Hibiki via a loudspeaker, to speak to the Hibiki within this giant monster. Long story short, this is a real neat setpiece of a climax episode and we manage to bust Hibiki free. Hooray! Unfortunately we have a slight problem. We invoked World War 2, but it's not over yet. You thought Adam blowing up the base was a dropping the bomb metaphor? This show doesn't even need metaphor. Check this fucking shit out.








That is what I can only assume to be the goddamned President of the United States in the Symphogear universe launching a fucking nuke at Japan to deal with this god bullshit in the middle of chilling by the goddamned pool at a country club for golfing. Jesus Christ. We're 10 million times fucked with a nuclear warhead coming our way, but this is where we get the Bavarian Illuminati stepping in to do the right thing. Cagliostro and Prelati lived, and together with Saint Germain they take a page from Hibiki's book and do what she would do. They sing. They sing, using their life energy to contain the force of the nuclear blast and sacrificing themselves in the process. It's a bittersweet tragedy. They got their redemption, in a way, but it was on their own terms. Hibiki and Saint Germain only fought side by side in an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" sense and never truly took her hands. What a shame. What a shame. Well, all's well that ends well, right--









OH YOU DO FUCKING NOT! This dumb son of a bitch is trying to corrupt the thematic power of hands by siphoning all the god power into his own! Hibiki's not having it and she beats the shit out of that hand! And so, upon our final battle, we get the ultimate summation of all of this. What Adam wants this perfect united humanity for is to protect us against the "Custodians", the beings which created the Curse of Balal in the first place. Adam gives them a name, finally; the Anunnaki. Elfnein's technobabble about the Fool's Stone earlier involved alchemical principles between the microcosms and macrocosms, and here we see that play out thematically. Adam is acting just like another bigoted antagonist this series: Kamakura. They are both xenophobic and desperate to protect their beloved homeland from the metaphorical barbarians at the gate, be they foreigners or weird beings from outer space. As above, so below, you know? We need to reject Adam's rotten "perfection" and embrace imperfection, and the only way we can do that is with an impassioned speech, so...











WE'RE FUCKING DUMB! We believe in hope and love and justice and friendship, we try our goddamned best to uphold those ideals, and sometimes we fuck up because we're not perfect god beings... but the fact that we honestly and sincerely try is what makes us human. This, more than any manifested power-up made to fight alchemy, is the true shining light of the Fool's Stone. Embracing imperfection in direct opposition to Adam's fascist "perfection". Adam takes this well and reveals his true monstrous form as a massive demonic Autoscorer. Come on. First Autoscorer, discarded by his creators to this imperfect world? Of course this fashy piece of shit is Satan. The vain fucker only took a "perfect" human form to stand alongside us to rule. What follows, again, is one hell of a flashy final battle. Imperfection wins out, surprise surprise, but a few crunchy things. First is the bit in which everyone extends their hands to give Hibiki their power, and then Hibiki is seen with a rainbow aura and using all of their attacks against Adam in single combat. It's a wonderful summation of the unison theme, Hibiki resonating with everyone enough to use their powers in spirit. Then we get the actual defeat of Adam by her hands, and I'm sorry but it's time for more screenshots.











It looks much better in motion than a still, but what's happening here is an absolute rapid barrage of body blows delivered by Golden Hibiki right to Adam's chest. Aside from this being the sickest goddamned shit I've ever seen, this is also a so-called "perfect" transmutation of gold done by a so-called 'imperfect" being. Adam's entire worldview is proven wrong here, and so he gets punched 20 million times and has a hole blown through him... but, whoops, this is going to be a brief paragraph break because I can't not show you his dying words. Okay then. Really quick.







In this rad climax the show is validating my specific dichotomy name for the project. Holy fuck. Anyway, that's something to be concerned about for next time... but for now, the day is saved once more! The US is in deep shit for trying to fucking nuke Japan again, Kamakura's learned jack and shit since he kind of wishes he had the power of the gods for Japan's sakes, and most importantly HIBIKI GETS HER BIRTHDAY PARTY!!! That's a wrap on Symphogear AXZ. Phew. I still don't know what to make of it, even after writing this. I won't lie. Writing parts of this was like pulling teeth, re-opening fresh wounds that this show I loved so much inflicted upon me in careless messy imperfection. At the same time, writing this last part here in one massive blitz reminded me why I loved this show. The themes of embracing imperfection and working in unison are so very strong, a very mature and nuanced look at what it takes to build a better world. At the same time, that imperfection let some really gross and unfortunate elements sour this show I love so much. Symphogear AXZ is not a perfect season, but it is a season I can nonetheless respect. Its heart wasn't in the right place entirely, but it got there in the end. It embraced imperfection, for better or worse, and it was an exciting watch. 


So. One more go around is looming on us. The final season of Symphogear. I await it with equal parts anticipation and dread. Anticipation because I love this show. Dread because I know it is fallible now, and it could drop the ball while wrapping up. Well, that's not the only reason for dread. See, Symphogear AXZ does something no other season has done up to now. Usually we get a low-key ending with Hibiki and a nice splash screen. Hell, I'll show you, this is how we lead into the credits of the final episode:







If this were any other season of Symphogear, it'd end here... but there's a post-credits scene. We never did resolve just how Hibiki took on the god power. Elfnein has figured it out, and it has to do with mirrors. Specifically, how Shenshoujin blasted her with its purifying light. It didn't just cleanse her of the impurities of relic corruption, but of original sin itself and perhaps even the Curse of Balal. But wait, hang on a second. I leave you as the show left me, in wondering and pondering. We'll answer this question together, everyone, next time. When it all ends...












END PART 4

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