Part 4: Finale Of Finè
Ah, Finè. Her name itself suggests endings, but that in itself is an irony. To speak of Finè is to speak of the grand masterminding she's been undergoing throughout the whole series. Even in Episode 1 during the Zwei Wing incident, she was there. She was hiding in plain sight as a character I've not spoken of yet. Sakurai Ryoko is the Second Branch's main scientist, and a genius when it comes to knowledge of Symphogear. There's also just enough suspicion cast on her midway through the show that you wonder what she's up to. She has superpowers, as is made clear during the Durandal incident, but then the boss of the Second Branch is a powerful martial arts fighter, so one can brush it off. Over time, then, the suspicion grows until Episode 10's cold open is literally Ryoko doing things in Finè's mansion and being ambushed by her American conspirators. On initial watch, I was confused by this, but in hindsight the pair sound very similar. Either way, it is a twist, although one that might have been better served if the audience didn't just get to know it point-blank like that. Regardless, Finè has a scheme, and she's used her alter ego as Ryoko to make it happen, pulling the strings behind the scenes to ensure all the pieces come together properly for her to make her move. Let us then square away exactly who Finè is and what that plan is.
Finè, you see, is eternal; a priestess from ancient times who somehow managed to encode her consciousness into the genes of her descendants. What this means is, anyone descended from Finè in the presence of the same resonance wave forms which activate a relic will also activate Finè's race memory, and Finè's consciousness will mentally take over that person's body. Sakurai Ryoko has been dead for 12 years, Finè using her as her latest cover body. The show implies that Finè has been several Great Men And Women over history, people who have brought about paradigm shifts in human history. What we're seeing here, thanks to the modern day and Finè-as-Ryoko's manipulation of the whole goddamned Symphogear project, is her ultimate plan. Her scheme revolves around something called the Kadingir, which is supposedly a divine tower. (Indeed, the Chris redemption battle discussed earlier is fought near Tokyo Sky Tower, possibly a ruse by Finè to distract the Symphogear users while she enacts her real plan.) The Kadingir was not built above ground, though; it was the massive structure the Second Branch was using as its base the entire time, and once Finè plays her hand the thing erupts from under Lydian Academy. An episode prior, Hibiki had mentioned to Miku that Lydian was a sort of safe space to her, and now Finè strikes. A massive tower bursts forth, and what is its grand goal?
 |
| Kill The Moon (2014) |
This, more than anything, is the moment where Symphogear's climax began to really click with me considering my own history. This shit is absolutely wild. A desperate and nihilistic despair-driven attack against the very symbol of utopian idealism that I hold dear. That's just what I got on my first watch. On my rewatch, I actively understood something about Finè that works within the confines of Symphogear itself; mirroring. Finè's goal, on the face of it, is a twisted and corrupted version of the main theme of the series. "We can understand each other, if we earnestly talk to each other." In destroying the moon and undoing that multilingual curse put upon us by the Lord, Finè will presumably revert us all back to a universal language. Everyone will be able to understand each other, just as it was in ancient times. Finè, of course, is far from an altruist: another part of her scheme is the logical fact that blowing the god damned moon up will result in untold ecological fuckery... at which point the superpowered Finè can unite the world, and rule it as a goddess. There's a bit of sympathetic dialogue where Finè wishes to talk to her God, and tell Him her feelings... but it's a bit muted and off-putting compared to the main petty scheme at play here. Petty as it may be, Finè does have that extra-narrative power... and she does deliver a blow here.
 |
| I've written smug arrogant villains like this and they're fun to write. Awful, but fun to write. |
Tsubasa refuses to fight. She lets Hibiki get in a good blow, but incapacitates her with a shadow-sealing attack before going right after Kadingir, blowing herself up along with it. Hibiki is back to her old self, but unpowered and weakened. Helpless against the unlimited power of a furious Finè. It seems that despair has well and truly won, but then... a miracle. Of course, a miracle. Thanks to the efforts of Miku and her friends underground, a message can be sent up to the surface. A song, the school anthem of Lydian. A song Hibiki loved, which made her feel safe and at ease. It could be the power of a waveform, it could be a feedback loop, or it could just straight up be the Harmony Of Hope refusing to waver and quiet down... but Hibiki, Tsubasa, and Chris are back up on their feet, clad in new heavenly Symphogear forms... and as they return to full strength, the usual opening theme kicks in. Hope has been restored, and it's time for the final battle.
Finè, refusing to back down, uses the power of Durandal and a shitload of Noise to create a massive dragon. A beast out of the book of Revelations, if you will. As the trio of Symphogear users sing together to battle the Noise, so too do they work together to defeat this beast, taking advantage of its regeneration such that they each create openings for the other to unleash super-powered attacks upon it. Outside, everyone from the shelter is full on preaching idealist love and friendship speeches. People, we have Gone Full Usagi Here. Finè is defeated, but not killed... and even here and now, Hibiki is ever hopeful. This exchange in particular stuck with me. Despite all she's done, Hibiki is earnest in following the main theme of the show; earnest in trying to understand Finè. Finè, of course, won't have it. She literally shoots her whip into space to pull that fragment of moon down to Earth and kill everyone. The last act of spite from Finè, in this body. Finè is Eternal, after all. One day, a waveform will resonate and she will be back. In the face of this, Hibiki has but one thing to say.
A message from the past, to inspire the future to a new utopian ideal of unity and understanding. Now that's the optimist magical girl I know. Even though Hibiki won't be there to deliver it herself, she's planting the seeds of hope into the eternal. Finè simply smiles. "You really are a hopeless child.", she says. "Believe in the song of your heart.". With that, she fades away into dust. There's one more immediate calamity, and that's the moon fragment which will totally fuck up planet Earth. Having ensured the utopian ideal will continue into the future, Hibiki must protect the present. We've seen it. A lonely grave in the rain. Hibiki must give her life for planet Earth... but she doesn't have to do it alone. Tsubasa and Chris join her, having things and ideals of their own to protect, and the trio sing a swan song powerful enough to blast the moon fragment to bits. Not a moody or morose swan song, now that hope springs eternal, but a happy elegy. Going out with a smile. So it is, then, that they fall. So it is that we return to the rain and the grave. The Noise are still here, though. Miku, like Kanade and Hibiki before her, bravely leads a civilian away from the creatures to try and get them to safety. Holding fast hope to the bitter end in a world of despair. That's the lesson Hibiki taught us. Except... You didn't really think it could end like that, did you? This is a hopeful show. Of course they all survived. Hibiki, Tsubasa, and Chris are back. The Noise remain, but they can be fought. Despair may play its dirge, but Hope's Harmony will remain.
And that massive mess of words was a writeup about the first season of Senki Zesshou Symphogear. I quite liked it, in case you couldn't tell. Its immediate predecessor in my own internal landscape, Sailor Moon, was a very hopeful little show. Symphogear was much the same, but with a more mature bend to it. This is absolutely a show about hope, a show about holding on to that hope and optimism despite the worst of circumstances. There can be horrible unknowable monsters that kill with a touch, there can be people who resent you for who you are (or who you can't live up to), there can be people hurt and wounded by you who hurt you back... but there's so much more good out there. Consider, then, the power of song and the theme of understanding. Finè's corrupted goal was a universal understanding, but song can manage that just fine. I, a native English speaker, know very little Japanese. I watched this show subbed, but even with the Japanese vocal performances there's still a whiff of something. If you can't discern the meaning due to not being able to speak Japanese, you can still feel the feeling from the rest of the song. The instrumentation, the way it's sung, the entire tone of the piece can be understood. Take Chris, as an example; practically screaming death metal vocals as she blasts her guns about in her first song, and then a heartfelt ballad once she joins with Tsubasa and Hibiki. The feeling is still there, in the tone of the piece. That's what I'd like to take away from this experience, now that this first leg of it has finished; we can understand each other just fine, if it's through song. If you thought the journey was over, though... well. It's far from being all over. There are four more Symphogear seasons where this came from. Unlike my Sailor Moon project, where I had watched the whole show prior to watching, I have only seen the first season of Symphogear. I have absolutely no idea what's coming next... but I'm going to find out. Then I'll write about it, and you'll find out. Of course, despite me spoiling the hell out of it, this show is still an experience that shouldn't be missed. I guess, then, if I had to make a closing statement to end this thing, it would be...
Watch Symphogear.
END PART 1
TO BE CONTINUED...
No comments:
Post a Comment