The Harmony Of Hope And The Dirge Of Despair: Part 3 (Senki Zesshou Symphogear GX) [3.2]

(Continued from 3.1)

Part 2: Waltz Of Weakness


Before we get into it, here's something cute! At the time of starting this section of the writeup, it's September 13th. The date is notable because it's Hibiki Tachibana's canon birthday. Happy birthday, Hibiki! You're an inspiration to us all and now I'm going to write in part about how you're having a mental crisis of utopic tension in a series all about power creep and alchemy and having to go SUPER SAIYAN SYMPHOGEAR. Oh, you think I'm fucking kidding. Just you wait 'till the next section. Anyway. We have established that alchemy is a power beyond anything the Symphogear users have faced so far; enough to actually shatter Tsubasa and Chris's relics. Are we getting a retread of the "can't fight" arc Hibiki went through last season? Well, not quite. Before we get into that, let's muse a little on the storytelling philosophy of the anime power creep and power-up arc.



At its face value, power creep is a simple matter of creating escalation along with increased stakes and tension within the narrative. You start your first season or arc with your protagonist overcoming their enemies and obstacles using their adversity, special powers, and/or other unique skills they bring to the battle. Now they've overcome a foe with X amount of power, but here comes the next chapter of their story and some new fuckers with twice the power level. Our protagonist can't save the day with their current skillset, and will have to either "train" or "gain" some new ability that lets them cut through. This is a well-worn trope of anime, one that simultaneously builds the new foe up as a real threat thanks to their power level and gives your protagonist something to overcome. You can see this almost perfectly in Sailor Moon, starting around its third season. The special power which melted the final antagonist of the previous season isn't strong enough to defeat even a monster of the week sent by the new villains, and so new powers have to be unlocked. Sailor Moon is more of a "gain" series than a "train" one when it comes to this, however. Symphogear GX has shown itself to be the latter, particularly the arc way back in its first season when Hibiki actually took on training to get good at fighting. We'll get more into this when we delve into the specifics of powering up in Symphogear GX, but for now let us get back to the plot.


Where were we? Oh right. Powerlessness. Leiur and Phara seem satisfied at each having broken a Symphogear, and that's about all they do. No killing the girls when they're down. Well, in Tsubasa's case her foe just sort of fucks off, but Chris is bailed out by Kirika and Shirabe, who get in there to slice up some of the new Alca-Noise and smuggle Chris out of there. Oh, and we can't forget the mystery girl Leiur was after, a girl named Elfnein who will be very important going forward. They get out of harm's way, but Kirika and Shirabe are hardly as strong as they were on team Frontier. It's something they muse on to each other, lamenting their past as Receptor Children as we go into flashback.

Eugh. So, a lot to poke at there. Namely that Maria and Serena were Receptor Children too, which makes sense given the Finé claims Maria was making last season. Far wilder is the fact that Finé as Ryoko was there, and working with that selfish prick Dr. Ver?? I guess that explains why they tricked him into helping him last season, because he had prior acquaintance with Finé. Wait, did he know Ryoko was Finé? Did anyone there know? I'm getting besides the point here, and it's all set off from seeing that fucker Dr. Ver here again. Thank God it was just a flashback. Anyway, we get some more regrets and anxieties that will make up the character arcs for this season. Kirika and Shirabe, after all the Frontier scandal and their plea bargain, are feeling powerless and without guidance. They can't find what they want to do in the world. Chris, meanwhile, is feeling a bit of shame at getting protected by the people she's supposed to be protecting. Some more housekeeping: Maria, as part of a plea deal to keep things hush hush, agreed to become an idol and pretend to have been a government agent infiltrating FIS the entire time. This also got Kirika and Shirabe out of trouble, but kept Maria on a tight leash. Given all of the happenings, Maria requests a transfer to SONG to work on this alchemy problem threatening the world. Things are pretty dire, so what will this show do next?


Well, what it does next is completely out of left field. We scene transition back to Lydian and get, for no real reason other than to lighten the mood, a chipper and upbeat song about making beef stroganoff in cooking class. And it's the catchiest fucking thing. I don't know what this is doing here, or why, but it is here and I love it. Let's just stick that down below for you. Be warned. This shit will get into your head.

The actual scene is some fluff with Hibiki and Miku where Hibiki has a new ideological crisis on her mind, Miku is worried, and Hibiki ends up nicking her finger. It's fine, though. Everything's just fine. Actually it's not, but you know our Hibiki. She doesn't want to make people worry. No, what's worrying her is her own power. Before, Gungnir was just a shard embedded in her chest that she could tap into. Now Maria's bequeathed Gungnir to Hibiki, and its power is Hibiki's very own. It's a great power, but the great responsibility behind it is fucking Hibiki up here. Hibiki, the optimist who wants to make friends and hold hands, doesn't want to hurt people with her power. She's sure she can understand Carol, if they earnestly talk to one another. In a way, this is a bit of a status quo reset back to the season 1 days. Tsubasa and Chris have no relics. Kirika and Shirabe are lacking the special LiNKER attuned to them. Maria has Serena's old relic, but it's broken as well. Hibiki is the only Symphogear user that SONG can rely on now, and she's also going through some stuff. That will lead to some bad shit later, but for now... Let's explain Elfnein's deal.


Well, she looks very much like Carol. This is because Elfnein is a homunculus created by Carol via alchemy for a special task: the construction of the Château de Tiffauges, a super-alchemy device which Carol intends to use to dissect the world. Once Elfnein found out about this, she defected and took her own special relic with her: Dvergr Dáinn, a fragment of the cursed magical sword Dáinsleif. It also turns out that alchemy is directly powered by memory, which is what the Autoscorers are up to with all the kissing; sucking memories out of people and leaving them as husks in order to fuel their own power and Carol's ambitions. Nasty business, but hey. We've got an alchemist of our own on our side now! She can work on repairing the relics, as well as powering them up to match Carol's alchemy. Hm. It may sound like this is the "gain" type of powerup, but trust me. We're in "train" mode. It'll click in a second, trust me. What also clicks is a slight clash of ideology between Hibiki and Maria, when Hibiki is showing reluctance to fight:

It's a lot for Hibiki to chew on, and the end of the episode has her and her pals walking along when they encounter the aftermath of one of Garie's memory collecting excursions. We get our typical villain speech, you know the deal for this show. RRR YOU'D BETTER FIGHT ME! NO I WANNA HELP PEOPLE! So Garie summons Alca-Noise, Hibiki's got to fight, she goes to sing and... she can't. Our poor hopeful girl is too anxious about causing hurt with her very own power that she can't use it. There's a brave play by Hibiki's pals to get out of the situation, and then Maria comes in and gets to use Gungnir for a bit (and doesn't it just sting for Hibiki to see it answer her call?) to try and fight off Garie. It doesn't go all that well. Alchemy still is stronger than the Symphogears, and Maria herself has been worrying about her own lack of strength. Getting beaten by Garie and having her fuck off again doesn't help with that, and both Hibiki and Maria are hurt by all of this. Hibiki snatches her Gungnir back from Maria, angrily snapping that it's hers before apologizing. Things aren't looking too hot here. Two wielders with broken relics, three lamenting that they lack the strength to fight, and our last one unable to fight because of her fear she'll hurt people with her own power.


It gets worse. With enough collected memories, Garie can now awaken the fourth and arguably most powerful Autoscorer, Micha. Not good. Miku, bless her heart, does a lot to try and alleviate Hibiki's anxieties with a gentle talk. She knows, deep down, that Hibiki's songs don't exist to hurt anyone. Poor Hibiki has gotten so wrapped up in the fear of hurting people that it's possible she's forgotten why she sings. It's when Micha attacks Hibiki and Miku that things really look bad. The Frontier trio are too far away to intercept in time. It has to be here and now, and the words still won't come to Hibiki. As Hibiki and Miku face down their certain death, Miku finally lets Hibiki know the truth. She lets Hibiki know exactly how she knows Hibiki's songs don't exist to hurt her foes.

That's right. That happened. The deepest, darkest corruption and betrayal we'd ever seen. Miku, turned against her dearest friend by goddamn mirrors. They couldn't understand each other, and they had to fight. Blasting away at each other, corruption eating away at Hibiki... but she still fought. She fought to save her friend, and she did! There's the proof! If you could use that power of your own to face your very best friend and still save her... then the power of Gungnir in your hands is a good thing. That's what gets Hibiki back in the game. The mirrors... have redeemed themselves. Hibiki was running from her great power and her great responsibility, but not any more! She's overcome her own weakness! Get ready for the song of her heart, Micha, because it's going to kick your ass STRAIGHT TO THE--

THIS GODDAMNED POWER CREEP ALCHEMY BULLSHIT! Not even overcoming one's own personal weakness will be enough to power through it. We need something else, but before we get into that I want to leave you something to consider. Hibiki's weakness, the thing holding her back, was preventing her from reaching her full potential. Hibiki was holding on to a curse in her heart. Keep that in your back pocket. Anyway, all this shattering would be really worrying if we didn't have an alchemist with a special plan. That plan, codenamed Project Ignite, is part of the narrative reason why Hibiki had to be defeated and have her Symphogear shattered here. Project Ignite has to enhance the Symphogears, so having them shattered both hammers in the point that alchemy is super-duper strong and sidelines the girls for a bit while shit gets worse. It was around this point in my first watch that a little feeling of "yes I get it" popped up. We're on episode 5 of 13 and alchemy has won every goddamned skirmish it's been in. We're about to have another one in which Kirika and Shirabe have to take on Micha, and take a wild guess what's going to happen. You know what, before that I want to talk about some other stuff.


Hibiki's beaten up pretty bad and in the hospital, but it's here that we first learn about a man who will come in later: Yatsuhiro Kazanari, Tsubasa's father and Genjuro's brother. Wait, hang on a fucking minute. Genjuro is Tsubasa's uncle? Did I miss something in season 1? Well, it works. We also get a dream of Elfnein's as she dozes off while working on Project Ignite. Actually it's a memory of Carol's; her dad the alchemist hundreds of years ago, trying and failing to cook dinner. You should have cooked beef stroganoff, Dad, I've got this handy song to tell you how. Once Elfnein wakes up, she wonders why Carol bothered copying her own memories to her homunculus. Ponder on that. Some more shit happens and Micha attacks while SONG's submarine base is recharging at an electrical station to power Project Ignite, and that leads to a second round of Kirika and Shirabe's Spy Glasses Secret Mission, which leads to this scene with them in Hibiki's hospital room that has nothing to do with everything going on, but god damn it it's a cute scene and this is my writeup so we're screencapping it.

That Kirika face has been my social media avatar for months now. It's adorable. Anyway their grand plan is to borrow some spare LiNKER in the medical room and buy Elfnein time to finish Project Ignite. This selfless act of throwing themselves into the fray is their atonement for the Frontier incident, and the duet goes to town. It's beautiful, it's wonderful, they're very good girls, and it's still not fucking enough to beat alchemy GOD DAMN IT! Even Kirika and Shirabe at this point are fed up at how unfair this shit is! They want to be stronger! Things are looking bad, they both get shattered, and just as all hope is lost...

Alright. Thank God. We're not exactly done with alchemy kicking our asses yet, but this is a turning point. For 5 episodes we've seen how alchemy beats the shit out of our girls. We get it. It's no joke. Now they're about to empower themselves with alchemy fused with a Symphogear, and match alchemy's power head-on. Again, this seems like it's been a "gain" type of powerup story. They lost, Elfnein did an alchemy, and now they can turn the tide and kick ass. No, that's not quite how it will go. I told you. This is firmly in the "train" mode of anime powerup arcs. What Symphogear does with it, in its own way, is quite the interesting setup.


What I'm saying is, Project Ignite is a gift and a curse. We've gained the gift. Now let's overcome the curse.

(Continued in 3.3)