Thursday 5 March 2020

The Harmony Of Hope And The Dirge Of Despair: Part 1 (Senki Zesshou Symphogear) [1.3]


Part 3: Crescendo Of Chris and Minuet Of Miku

Of course, in talking about Chris, we have to deal with just a bit of an eyebrow raise problem. There are a handful of moments of risque content in Symphogear, the usual Japanese cartoon stuff like shared baths and whatnot. There's also the fact that some of the Symphogear armor is a little revealing. For the most part, it's about as much content as, say, your typical Hyperdimension Neptunia game. The exception here is the opening to Episode 5, which opens with a mysterious nude woman talking really bad English to an American over the phone and plotting something. This woman turns out to be in charge of Chris, who starts the episode shackled to an electrocution machine in her underwear. As the nude woman states that pain is the only thing that brings people together, she begins electrocuting Chris. I. Uh. What. What in the fuck? I don't know what the fuck. Well, I kind of do. The notion that pain is the only thing that brings people together will come back to us in the finale of the show, and be resonant with what the climax is doing. Fair enough, but did we have to do it with electrocution torture??? 


Okay. Let's move on from that. Yukine Chris, as we find out her name is, is working with this mystery lady and actively summoning Noise to cause all this panic for... reasons. With Tsubasa still half-dead in the hospital, a newly trained Hibiki who's good at taking out the Noise confronts them and Chris as Chris tries to steal another powerful relic, Durandal. Hibiki grasps the thing and manages to activate its power, going into that wild beast mode again for a moment. This will be important. Episode 6, the halfway point of the show, is where we hit a big turning point. Two massive events shape the course of the show and its conflicts, but we'll start with Chris's. Chris creates more havoc, forcing Hibiki into action against her... but remember, Hibiki is not a despairing Tsubasa. As Chris stands tall, determined to capture Hibiki for her mysterious benefactor, Hibiki holds her arms wide... and says this.





I mean, holy fuck. Where do we begin here? There's the obvious parallel to Sailor Moon, of course. Hibiki's utopian idealist sense that everything can work out and she and Chris can be friends, versus Chris's absolute disgust at Hibiki's naivety. More to the point, we've hit the major main theme of Symphogear: the idea that people can understand each other, if they earnestly talk to one another. This has several applications in the conflicts of Symphogear that I am very excited to talk about, but it's also extremely utopian idealist. Communication is important, and one doesn't just have to talk to do it. You can understand someone's feelings through a song, too, and after Chris finds the Nehustan armor lacking, she's forced to sing herself. Yes, Chris had another relic as well, and as she stands with the power of Symphogear, she is furious. Hibiki made her sing. She hates singing, and now she's going to riddle this idealist with magical girl machine gun bullets. Chris fails to capture Hibiki again, and this is a turning point for Chris. Her mysterious benefactor, a woman called Finè, cuts ties with Chris and sends the Noise to kill her. 


This kicks off Chris's own introspection and redemption, and much like Tsubasa she has a cynical despair-laden worldview which informs her decisions and initial rejections of Hibiki's optimism. Chris's backstory involved her humanitarian parents, singers themselves, who were killed trying to provide aid to war-torn countries. A young Chris was captured and put through what was probably absolute hell, and that has led her to hate singing and her parents (who she calls "idealistic", what a choice of words for me to work with), and thus sees Chris work to end conflict and war itself, in her own extreme grim way. Her backstory is far more dark and extreme than Tsubasa's, but at the heart of it is the same damaged way she sees the world. It's not until she sees ordinary people running in terror from an imminent Noise attack that she truly realizes she's only been sowing the same seeds of conflict she has been trying to stop, and while this leads her to more despair initially, it will be key to her redemption. Chris's redemption is a big build-up, and there are a lot of things I want to talk about when we get to that scene, but we have to jump back a bit again. 


And the dirge played on...
Part of Chris's arc is tied into the next conflict involving Hibiki. In Chris's attacking Hibiki back in Episode 6, Hibiki was forced to transform in front of her best friend Miku, revealing her magical girl identity. This creates a rift in their friendship, and it brings those Spider-Man parallels back. Hibiki was forced to lie to her best friend about the biggest secret ever, to keep having to flake out and cancel plans made with her, to have her studies suffer. The pair always used to sleep together on the top bunk; as Hibiki memorably puts it, "Miku Kohinata is the sunshine which warms me up.". Now, feeling betrayed and upset at Hibiki, Miku opts to sleep by herself in the bottom bunk. This all dovetails in with Tsubasa's recovery, and her acceptance of Hibiki as a competent Symphogear user and a unique optimist who should remain as herself. As the conflict between Hibiki and Tsubasa ends, and the one between Hibiki and Chris shifts as Chris is questioning her actions, this rift between Hibiki and Miku forms, culminating in the end of episode 7 where Miku says she doesn't think she can be Hibiki's friend any more. I have made much of how the Harmony Of Hope, the optimistic and idealist show, has been shining through amidst the Dirge Of Despair. The despair hasn't gone away, though. It is a constant thing to be struggled against, and now our optimist is forced to endure it. 


Behold, the tragic irony of it all. Hibiki is a person who fights because she wants to protect people, and as she tells Tsubasa in her hospital room, she's not exactly good at anything competitive, but helping others isn't a contest so it can be her thing that she is competent at. She grew stronger, did physical training, and became a great Symphogear fighter to protect the people she cared about, like Miku. Now, here she is, all her helping people and powering herself up being the very wedge that drove her beloved Miku away. A different show would have that be the point of it all. Symphogear is not that show. This conflict lasts an episode, but before it can be resolved, Miku has a chance meeting with a weakened and Noise-pursued Chris. The pair don't know they have a common connection in Hibiki, but Miku still takes Chris in and helps her recover. Even if they don't mention Hibiki, that connection does help them to understand each other. See, there's that theme again. This is where Chris realizes the harm the Noise and Finè have been causing, and fights against them to protect people. Hibiki, as well, ends up being caught in a building with Miku against a Noise that actually reacts to noise. Through heartfelt silent texting, Miku lures the monster off long enough for Hibiki to get another civilian to safety before rescuing Miku... and then, like we've said, they each finally understand how the other felt about all of this Symphogear business and make up. 


With all of that complex business sorted, the only thing left is the brewing redemption of Chris. There have been little glimmers of her becoming an ally here and there, and people from the Second Branch reaching out to Chris and helping her out. There's still the notions of idealism and wishful thinking that Chris resents, but it's helpful words from the boss of the Second Branch (and Hibiki's training mentor) that helps Chris to realize that maybe idealism and wishful thinking weren't as childish as she first thought. That maybe, just maybe, Chris the lone wolf can rely on others. So it is, then, that in a grand battle where Hibiki and Tsubasa are working together to fight a shitload of Noise, Chris makes her face turn and finally comes in to definitively help. Hibiki, of course, gives her a big hug and Chris, of course, wonders what in the hell this idealist is even thinking. Here is where we get another key scene, an iconic thing that lays down the groundwork for the themes of the show. Hibiki, up to now, has not been able to manifest her Armed Gear; Gungnir the actual spear. The best she's done is conjure a bit of energy to then use to make her punches stronger. There has been the brief flirtation of despair to this, the implication that Hibiki is somewhat lesser of a Symphogear user for not having an Armed Gear. Here and now, on the battlefield with Tsubasa and Chris by her side, a different and more hopeful truth presents itself:






On a convention panel celebrating the 50th anniversary of the show, Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat had this to say about his show's titular time-travelling hero:

“Heroes are important. Heroes tell us who we want to be but when they made this particular hero they didn’t give him a gun, they gave him a screwdriver to fix things. They didn’t give him a tank or a warship or an X-Wing, they gave him a call box from which you can call for help and they didn’t give him a superpower or a heat-ray, they gave him an extra heart. And that’s extraordinary. There will never come a time when we don’t need a hero like the Doctor.”


What a lovely message for a fully optimistic show, huh? Hibiki doesn't quite map onto all of those ideals quite like Doctor Who does, but there's a strong enough sentiment for her to mirror it. Hibiki doesn't need an Armed Gear because she has her hands. Her hands, like the songs of the Symphogear users, can be used to both hurt the Noise and heal her friends. Even Chris has clearly changed; the former lone wolf now comes up with a plan to defeat the Noise high above. She'll charge up her guns, all while Hibiki and Tsubasa protect her from counterattacks. She is relying on others. Even her song has changed, from a defiant medley about blowing up her opposition to a happier and more upbeat tune about how much better she feels now that she has people she can rely on. She can follow her dreams, and that's just a lovely sentiment. We have a problem, however. Every time a conflict has been resolved in this show, another pops up to take its place. Tsubasa, Chris, Miku, Hibiki... all have been in conflict in some way now, and all of these conflicts have been resolved. With that done, an immediate new threat takes its place, a cruel one. Lydian itself is under attack, and from no less than the mastermind behind the entire plot of the series. Let's finish this bad boy off with the biggest analysis yet, and talk about Finè.

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