The Harmony Of Hope And The Dirge Of Despair: Part 2 (Senki Zesshou Symphogear G) [2.4]

(Continued from 2.3)

Part 4: Upbeat Of Understanding

Whew.  We can't rest easy yet, as we left things on a massive and huge betrayal cliffhanger. Hibiki and Miku got blasted by a giant corrupt mirror beam, and oh yeah, what the shit did Chris just do? Because it sure looks like, as episode 11 gets going, Chris has defected to FIS. Her lingering guilt and self-doubt over having let the Noise out with the Staff of Solomon for Finè to begin with has gnawed at her, and she's gone over to their side to help them in exchange for getting it back so she can make things right. A grim and practical noble act, cutting ties with her own friendships and happy life to make things right. That's how low we seem to have sunk. Hibiki and Miku are fine, at least, but the cost was heavy. Miku's no longer controlled by Shenshoujin, and Hibiki has no more corruptive influence in her body. The mirror beam burned both relics away. Hibiki isn't a magical girl any more. For now, she is just glad Miku is okay, and more worried about Chris. Hold on tight, because salvation already came. I told you it happened in episode 9, but we were dealing with Miku so I put a pin in it. Let's pull that pin out. Behold. The way back to utopic idealism.

Yeah. I'm serious. This is our way back, and this is how Symphogear G redeemed itself after risking itself in the valleys of grim practicality. This is a short scene between Chris and Tsubasa in which they're out for dinner. Tsubasa is angry about FIS and Hibiki's corruption, but Chris's goal in inviting Tsubasa out is so they could have a nice talk. Tsubasa shuts it down, though, because Chris is a bit too cavalier about it. Well, what she says before she walks out is a simple statement: if you want to have a heart-to-heart talk, why don't you use my name? Chris, being all tsundere, is a litte flustered at this. How's this the key? Well. I'll get into that, but I want to highlight one more little detail that shows things aren't as they seem. Tsubasa got shot in the back by Chris's laser bolts, but barely injured. Chris later cites shooting Tsubasa in the back as her proof of loyalty. Dr. Ver doesn't trust her, the big prick, but okay. She's playing a long game. It's the wrong idea, though. She wants to use stronger power to destroy the power of the staff, going off on her own with this scheme to cleanse her own sins. That still won't be enough to save the utopic ideal, but what happens next? To figure out how this shit works, we need to go way back. Back beyond Symphogear. Back to Sailor Moon.


I won't dwell here too long, as I wrote about this two years ago, but here's the abridged version. The final six episodes of Sailor Moon are this literal and extra-narrative battle between the Sailor Senshi and the villain, the all-powerful Sailor Galaxia. As here, the utopic ideal breaks down and there's lots of murder of our beloved characters. Then Sailors Uranus and Neptune, who have held the role of grim practicalists through most of the show, are offered a chance to join Sailor Galaxia's dark side and they accept. It is all a ploy to double-cross her that eventually fails and leads to their deaths, but the way it's handled almost ruined them for me. Narratively, it disappointed me that these characters who should have been touched by idealism went back to the grim practical well for this gambit. Extra-narratively, it is wringing out an extra episode of grimdark drama for the sake of it. This is the source of my utopic tension, what kept me biting my nails in fear when Miku took on Shenshoujin and when Chris shot Tsubasa in the back. Was Symphogear G falling into the same trap? Were they pissing away the growth and change these girls have visibly gone through for the sake of another episode's worth of dramatic pathos?

NOPE! Here's how it goes down. Dr. Ver, seeing a manipulative opportunity, has fitted Chris with a bomb collar and sent her out to stop Tsubasa from invading Frontier and stopping him. He's also watching her from afar to make sure she doesn't betray them, and so Chris and Tsubasa have to fight. Tsubasa absolutely refuses to give up on Chris here, and it's right here where we get our way out. Chris uses Tsubasa's name, calling her Kazanari-senpai. It's code! They're understanding each other by talking. Once Chris says that, Tsubasa gets the whole thing. The supervising Dr. Ver is none the wiser, as well. Chris has taken the offer from Tsubasa, and used her friend's name to have a heart to heart. From now, their clash is performative and that little shit with his binoculars will never know. They appear to blow each other up with a big attack, but unknown to Dr. Ver it's their own goddamn combination attack so they each know how to dodge it. It also cuts off the bomb collar just enough to deactivate it, so when Dr. Ver tries to double cross Chris later... Ooops. No go. The little shit runs away after trying (and failing) with some Noise tactics mixed with his Anti-LiNKER bullshit. That's it! Chris and Tsubasa have done it! The Staff is theirs!


Here and now, in its second season, Symphogear has done it. It's managed to surpass Sailor Moon in my mind. I loved Sailor Moon, as I hope the Moonlight Shines Eternal project expressed. It touched me in a very heartfelt way, it was exactly what I needed when I needed it, and I will always remember when it was the most important and moving experience to me. Nevertheless, it did let me down at the end. Be it executive decision, a need to pad out its final arc, or just a completely different reading... they fucked with Uranus and Neptune. The grim practicalists who I thought would be enlightened by the utopian idealism winning out in their debut season... really weren't. They did the same damn thing to a lesser extreme, because if they weren't opposed to everyone working together the show would be over in 13 episodes. They pulled that performative heel turn betrayal bullshit, wounding both Usagi and I with it, and it was all for the sake of 25 minutes of grimdark bullshit drama.


Not Symphogear, though. Things got bad with betrayal, as we've seen. Nephilim's corruptive bite and Dr. Ver's manipulative bullshit led to so many of the people we love doing the wrong thing. Yes, Miku was manipulated into betraying us. Yes, Chris let her lone wolf nature win out for a moment and pulled a performative heel turn of her own... but here's the key. The resolution is so much better. A lesser show would have Chris do her thing for cheap drama, and then fail anyway. Symphogear G not only resolved this by using its own utopian themes of understanding each other, but it let Chris succeed. She felt guilty about unleashing the power of the Staff Of Solomon in the first place, and winced at all the death Dr. Ver was causing with it. She did what she did to atone for that, and she succeeded. She got her hands on the Staff Of Solomon, and she didn't burn any bridges because Tsubasa is her friend and wanted to help her. Chris couldn't have done it alone, but that's just it. She never was alone, and Tsubasa helped her see that. That's so much better than what Sailor Moon did that I'm blown away.

We have that sorted, now. We found our way out, and in doing so reached a whole new form of utopian enlightenment. There's still so much to face, though. More betrayals and ideological conflicts I haven't brought up, on account of the betrayal section was too damn long to begin with. We've still got a bit of space here, and a lot to tackle in Part 5. So, since we're on a theme all about understanding and how this surpasses Sailor Moon's heel turn attempts at drama? We need to talk about some characters we've barely mentioned in passing. Let's have a chat about Kirika and Shirabe, because they have a big ideological conflict/betrayal arc going on here as well.


You may recall, back at the beginning, that Shirabe laid out the initial ideological challenge to Hibiki's utopian idea of understanding, calling her a hypocrite who didn't know a thing about real pain and suffering. Kirika and Shirabe are "Receptor Children", which basically means they carry whatever genetic resonance is required for Finè to awaken within them at some point. I haven't had a chance to bring up their plotlines yet, but it's important we do. Over their various encounters with the other Symphogear users (and getting saved by Hibiki's Set Harmonics after Dr. Ver forces them to use their Climax Songs to save him, that fucking prick), Shirabe begins having doubts about the actions of FIS being the right thing. As Dr. Ver laughs in glee at Nephilim biting Hibiki's arm off, as Maria hardens up more and more... Shirabe's doubts continue to build. Kirika has her own unique issues, ones she keeps to herself; thanks to an incident where she manifested a magic barrier, she's certain that she's the one who harbors the latent soul of Finè. Saving the world in Dr. Ver's (seemingly) practical way then becomes, to Kirika, a way for her to leave her mark upon the world before she loses herself to Finè.


Shirabe, who up until now has been all about protecting the weak and downtrodden like Kirika and herself, witnesses the mayhem and murder on hand as Dr. Ver moves to awaken Frontier... and she knows it's not right. This isn't how you protect the weak. It's wielding the might of the strong, and that will only create the weak like herself. She correctly identifies the flaw with Dr. Ver's world, and sees his petty bullshit for what it is: a world where the strong (Dr. Ver) rule over the weak (everyone else, and you better believe I have things to say about his true motivations next part). So, she heads off to save the soldiers he's murdering, and then in the chaos and confusion of Miku and Shenshoujin, she's captured by the Second Branch. Her one plea to them as their prisoner is to stop her old allies before everything goes pear-shaped. Hibiki, now powerless, wants to trust and believe in Shirabe as well. The two of them go out together, Hibiki wanting to help save Maria... but when Kirika encounters them, Shirabe sends Hibiki on ahead. This is her fight, and Shirabe is confident that Maria will hold Hibiki's hand in friendship. Shirabe seems just a little enlightened by idealism herself, but then something incredible happens as she tells Hibiki to go on ahead.

Yo her eyes changed. Hey, you know who has eyes like that? HEY, YOU KNOW WHO SAID THAT TO HIBIKI BEFORE? IT WAS FINÈ! Here and now, in the darkest of times, Finè shows up to relay Hibiki's message back to her! She's in Shirabe, or manifesting for just a moment, or something to that effect. We'll deal with Hibiki's own struggle, but for now here comes a white-knuckle battle between Kirika and Shirabe. I haven't gotten to mention their powers, but they're quite interesting. Kirika has a scythe as her main relic weapon, but Shirabe actually uses sawblades, even rollerskating with little sawblades in her big magical girl boots. It's a pretty cool power set that allows her to both have ranged attacks with the sawblades and use close range giant buzzsaws attached to her headgear. Anyway, it's both a flashy and emotional battle between two people who very clearly love each other a great deal, and they go so far as to activate their Climax Songs against each other. It seems a bit much for Kirika, who loves her opponent, to activate the mode of her scythe which cuts your soul in two. I can square it away by saying, I guess, she doesn't intend to use that attack on her? She doesn't really get to, because of what happens next.


Shirabe's own magic Finè barrier activates, and Kirika realizes her own folly. All of this desperate need to leave a mark on the world, the burning of bridges with Shirabe... and all this time, she had Finè too? It leads to what can only be described as a suicide attempt, as Kirika sets her soul-cutting scythe attack against herself. Shirabe saves her but takes the hit. Oh no! Will she die! Nope. It's Finè who takes the hit, allowing this remnant of her soul to be cut in two by Shirabe's scythe... but before she does, she passes along this bit of wisdom to Shirabe.

Finè, unlike a certain someone, accepts that it's too late for her to play the hero... but, isn't that what she just did? She stayed silent, genetic resonance lurking within Kirika and Shirabe, only popping up to help in a quick moment or two. Now, when someone needed her most, when two friends couldn't understand each other? She took the noblest action of all, letting herself fade away. She passed the message back on to us, because we don't need to wait for utopia. We can deal with it, here and now. I kinda like this. It shows that Finè did change a little, thanks to Hibiki's unflinching idealism. The Finè of the first season, who saw humanity as mere insects trying to stop her grand plan, would never sacrifice herself for one of them. Yet, here we are. I don't know if this means, narratively, that Fine's lingering soul is gone for good or not... but this is a fine way to send off Finè, and a fine way to mend the rift between Kirika and Shirabe. That mention of heroism, though. We have to deal with that. We're emboldened by friendship and love now, so let's go full tilt. Let's finally tackle the "heroism" that makes that piece of shit prick Dr. Ver tick, and discover so much more along the way.

(Continued in 2.5)