Part 3: Progression Of Protection
Finally, we get to put this nationalist old bastard on full blast and tell him to fuck off. Those of you with a keen sense for the history of this project will know that we usually save the toxic male antagonists for last. (See: Dr. Ver, Adam Weishaupt.) Why, then, are we dealing with Fudo in the middle of things? Simple. He's not the true antagonist of the season. Oh, he's a real asshole and a piece of work, and tearing into him will be satisfying... but there are bigger and more terrifying fish to fry on the horizon. Fish this idiot thinks he can keep in his aquarium, but more on that in a bit. There's some real interesting meat to this jerk and his ideology, and how it ties into Tsubasa's season arc. It's time to play jam once again.
Somewhere in the weeds of the post on Symphogear AXZ, I made a comment on how Adam and Fudo were macrocosm and microcosm of the same fascistic and xenophobic desire to protect one's pure homeland from the inhuman barbarians at the gate. I made this comment offhand, having no idea Fudo would be a secondary antagonist this season following up on that desire. Boy howdy did I punch the air. And also want to punch Fudo. Even from episode 2 he's showing up with his big dumb nationalist scolding. Fudo does not take kindly to the fact that, after defeating the coffin, the gross mummy inside with its powerful bracelet is given to America to study. The power of the gods, he's decided, is for Japan to have, to protect it from outside threat. He saw the power himself back when Hibiki went apeshit, and now wants that power. There is, I feel, just a bit of a difference between Fudo and Adam. Adam very clearly wanted to rule over humanity. Fudo doesn't have that drive. Everything he does, every terrible thing, he does in the name of his country.
Up to and including betraying that country, mind, but to Fudo this is a massive chess match. To him I'm sure it's not a betrayal because it's for the greater good of gaining the power of a god as Japan's divine protector. To that end, then, sure. He'll use the systems of government and articles and investigations in order to weaken and fracture SONG's structure, all so he can get at Miku and Elfnein to use them for his grand plan. Noble Red are European alchemists, and so he hates them... but he hates America more and so uses the lesser evil as his three queens, moving anywhere they like on the board. Moving to America to swipe the divine bracelet right back from those bastards, for instance... and when they need a new hideout with which to activate their plan? Fudo can pull the strings and lead them somewhere he has access to, where they can experiment to their heart's content:
Hey, remember when Dr. Ver squashed utopian understanding for a hot minute and had his pet monster bite Hibiki's arm off, at the ruins of the tower Kadingir? I'm just saying. Same thing. We could go on and on about the crimes and motivations of this nationalist old fuck, but let's transition into a more interesting point. We just invoked Symphogear's past there by reminiscing on that prick Dr. Ver, but far more interesting is the thematic character arc callback at play here. XV is already invoking the Old Symphogear, the blood-stained beast of nihilstic terror which makes this place a hell world. Why not invoke it some more? Fudo's entire motivation is devotion to his country, and that devotion leads him to go to any length to protect it. He is also eldest of the Kazanari family, with great power and influence. I don't think I'm stretching too much when I say that Fudo Kazanari sees himself as a sword, using himself to cut down the enemies of Japan... but this sword is old and dulled. Fudo wants a sharper sword to succeed him, to slice the barbarians at the gate into a fine mist. The name of this sword... is Tsubasa Kazanari.
The seeds of this plan go all the way back to the concert massacre. I left a little something out when I described the really bad thing Millaarc did. Right after she does it, she looks straight into Tsubasa's eyes and her eyes turn into stained-glass eyes, the same pattern reflected in Tsubasa's. I spent the next half the show wondering what in the fuck Millaarc did. She tries it again on some of the other girls in their fights, but the tempo of the fight is such that she can't get the moment to truly make it sink in. This ability, Stained Glance, is... well, a sort of mind control. Later, before Miku and Elfnein are kidnapped, Tsubasa is freaking out and seeing the Noise as Millaarc, going at her in a frenzy because of the concert thing, and her eyes briefly reflect the stained-glass pattern. It's not until a little later that we see how this benefits Fudo, when he calls her up out of the blue:
We could leave our critique of that at "you old rat bastard", but somehow it gets worse. Fudo has been needling, belitting, and gaslighting Tsubasa for the whole show since the concert disaster. It's the usual antagonist talk about how she's too weak to protect anyone like this, songs are no good and utopian understanding is for dummies. This would be indefensible garbage all by itself, but remember: Fudo is pulling the strings of Noble Red. All that bloodshed at the concert was committed by Millaarc, but its goal was specifically wearing Tsubasa down with a horrific traumatic incident, blasting her with stained-glass eyes, and then working on the goddamned hypnotic triggers implanted within her head. Fudo Kazanari, nationalist protector of Japan and guardian against the foreign devils, ordered the deaths of 100,000 of his countrymen. 100,000 people had to die violent and horrible deaths, a woman had to have that terrible thing done to her by Millaarc and bleed to death on a concert hall floor... so Fudo Kazanari could brainwash his heir into becoming a sword again, and so he could gain the power of a god to protect Japan. Fudo Kazanari is an old rat bastard and he can rot.
Even so, his plan goes along at a decent clip. Thanks to activating Tsubasa's hypnotic triggers at the worst possible time, he's done it! He has the god power caged and under control, Tsubasa is by his side and has little choice but to follow his nationalist bullshit, and he left Noble Red poisoned blood so he could kill those foreign fuckers as soon as they became dead weight to his plans. (Killing them off doesn't work, but they have no impact on foiling his scheme barring one thing we'll get into next time.) Now, you may know by now how I feel about magical girl betrayal arcs. Lord knows I've gotten into them enough times here. Nevertheless, a quick primer. Sailor Moon's final episodes? Bad betrayal arc. The heel turn went against my personal reading of the characters involved and seemed to do nothing but fill out time with an extra episode, save for some information given when the double cross failed. Symphogear G's betrayal arcs? Good. One episode long, but informed by both sets of characters' relations to each other, and resolved with no longstanding tensions in a satisfying way. Thus, when Tsubasa appears to betray everyone again, everyone without question implicitly keeps their trust in her and wants her back.
Now, in this episode, it's Maria who will have the climactic duel between friends to try and bring her partner back into the light. This is welcome, considering Tsubasa and Maria are a duet and have grown close over the series. On the other hand, part of me would have liked to see Chris do it, reversing their positions from Symphogear G. Regardless, a raid on the Kazanari mansion begins with Maria in tow, and said climactic duel between friends goes all-out while Fudo has his own battle with Genjuro, his son. Maria gets to reflect all this nationalist bullshit back at Tsubasa and call it utter bullshit; if Tsubasa wants to protect people, she has to do it with her own power and not some god power. There's more back and forth, but eventually...
With the stained glass bullshit broken, Tsubasa has a bit of a cry over her purpose if protecting the week isn't a good enough reason to go on, but Maria is here to take her back home to those who love her dearly. Fudo doesn't take kindly to this and tries to just shoot Tsubasa the failure... but it's his other son, Yatsuhiro, who intervenes. We've not really discussed Yatsuhiro Kazanari in these posts. He was the center of Tsubasa's father issues arc way back in Symphogear GX, and has been working behind the scenes as a government liason for SONG ever since. The man has done his part to make the world a better place, even brokering some sort of peace between Japan and the USA after the US kind of sort of tried to nuke Japan again. Here and now, he does the right thing. He protects his daughter, taking the fatal bullet, and giving his life to save Tsubasa. Even though through Fudo's fucked up perfect heir bullshit, he is Tsubasa's biological father, Yatsuhiro is more of a father than the old fuck will ever be with this selfless act. Tsubasa defeats Fudo here to avenge her true father, but I don't want to touch on what's said in this duel yet. Not for a moment, anyway. It ties into our next segment, but we have to close on the darkness again, I'm afraid.
This, by all accounts, is a failure of protection. Fudo fails, and is locked away after his defeat at the hands of Tsubasa, his last shot of the series stuck in a jail cell. Tsubasa failed to protect the concert, and also lost her father. The biggest failure to protect, though, came from a source we haven't discussed yet: Hibiki. Recall back a bit, that Miku and Elfnein were captured. Hibiki didn't rescue them in time and they were taken. A whole bunch of shit happens with Noble Red at the Chateau, culminating in the accidental summoning of another of those invincible god-monsters from AXZ, the ones that nullify all damage unless the god-killer Gungnir punches them really hard. It takes a lot of work, but they can defeat the god-monster! They can save Miku! Right? R-right? Wait, what the hell's that glowing...
As Episode 8 ends, over a frankly very cruel montage of the best Miku moments that just twists the knife in further, we realize what has happened. This is the dark and terrible fate teased to us at the end of AXZ. Miku was cleansed of sin by a mirror beam and thus a perfect vessel for a god's power. The god has taken her. No. Not a god. We need only look at the XV in the series name to know what we're dealing with. A devil. A being of unfathomable power and evil, wearing the skin of our main character's beloved best friend. We have to delve in, I'm afraid. We have to talk about her next time.
Next time, we talk about the dark goddess of this world, Shem-Ha Meporash. Next time, we talk about monsters.
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