Alright, so what in the fuck are we doing back here of all places? The astute among you will remember a long-running series on this blog, from 2020 and 2021, where I wrote basically a fucking novel about this dumb show. There are things about it that I'm fond of, and things about it I'm not fond of, but that's basically the kind of creator I am: in my head my writings have the shelf life of milk, and anything past six months I look back at and go "oh my god this stinks, what was I doing?". To wit, then: I was successfully able to express my thoughts and emotions about what the show meant to me. I kind of wish I was able to do it without bloating the word count by giving lengthy plot summaries of what happened in the show. It makes me feel like an out-of-touch Internet reviewer when I do that shit, a Doug Walker or a Quinton Reviews. I don't like it, but the words on Symphogear are out there and are like that and I just have to deal with that regret. These words are not a replacement for them.
We're back here because of my own absolutely ridiculous aesthetic chasing. There's no easy way to admit what I did, so let's just say it outright. One day in the spring, I was fooling around with things in my basement when I got an idea. My PS3 had the option for AV cables, and could play Blu-Rays. What would happen if I were able to hook it into my old VCR via those cables? What sort of things that came out on Blu-Ray, years after the VHS format faded away, could be retroactively ported over to tape? The hookup worked, and then I got a further idea. A VHS tape on SLP mode can hold 6 hours of video, at fuzzy lower quality. The runtime of a season of Symphogear on Blu-Ray is just over 5 hours. The result?
I don't know if I'm the only person in the world who's got Symphogear on VHS, but I guarantee I'm the only one talking about it on the Internet. The only thing left to do now was to actually watch the show on a retrograde video format for my own personal aesthetic. I chose the month of July to do that, doing the math to figure that doing 2 episodes a day (and 3 for finales) would fit the entire show into one month-long marathon. This is the first time I've actually experienced the show in one go like this. For the blog I would watch each season twice, then write about it, then wait ages between each season. For the two watchalongs I did with two friends, it was very stop and go based on their availability. This is my first actual marathon of the show, and so I see an opportunity here. I'd like the new me to share some thoughts on the show as I binge through it at this rapid pace. I'd like to try and express new thoughts that this beloved show of mine brings forth in me on watchthrough #5. I'd like to invite you to hang out with me for cool times in a cool basement on summer mornings. Welcome, friends and readers, to the Summer Of Symphogear.
SYMPHOGEAR SEASON 1
Watching it now, without it having to be a metaphysical battleground for hope and despair to clash, I can see it as a story about people traumatized by the cruelty of the world who learn to trust a little bit more and regain their faith in humanity. From Chris Yukine learning to be less hostile to the world and that kindhearted people exist, right up the macrocosmic ladder to the eternal priestess Fine whose love of her God was spurned and who tries to blow up the moon to talk to Him again. All of this, anchored by people who just strive to be the very best they can be in the world, and none so personified as the eternal utopic sunshine of Hibiki Tachibana.
The very next season will reveal Hibiki's very own trauma at the hands of the cruelty of the world, and the one after that will reveal what she used to keep her head high in spite of all that. Here, though, she gets to be the sunny optimist. I've talked about her enough, though, and I want to talk about who really struck me on this rewatch: the girl I've not talked about yet. Tsubasa Kazanari, the girl who lost her love and became a blade. I really appreciated her arc in this season with a fresh set of eyes, and actually kind of lament what's to come for her. Taken in isolation, these 13 episodes show a broken and lonely girl who lashes out at the person who represents what she lost. This self-sacrificing blade nearly kills herself trying to be a blade, but comes out of the ordeal alive. More than that, she comes out of it learning to love again. To love the act of singing, to love the act of living... and to love the budding friendship between her and Hibiki.
It really makes me sad that there's not more of this to come, because I kind of really like these two together! Tsubasa's actually happy now, and these two make a great pair! I know what's to come, though. Season 2 will have Tsubasa push Hibiki away to "protect her", a decision which is still one of the worst bum notes of the show. For the rest of the show, Tsubasa's best friend and confidante is Maria. They make a great pair, but I can lament what was never followed up on here. Or maybe it was. Time will tell, but it was a good rewatch. The bleakness of the Symphogear world is not explored like this again until the final season, which makes the bright optimism which eventually shines through all the brighter. On with the summer sun. On to Season 2.
SYMPHOGEAR G
Jesus Christ. Revisiting G for this, over the course of 6 days, I am awestruck by how dark it is. It's dark in a markedly different way from the first season, as well. This is a season of television all about betrayal and self-loathing, and it shows through in every facet of it. You have huge macrocosmic shifts like the American government working to betray humanity (in a secret collaboration with the Illuminati from Season 4, what a plot thread to weave here) and save their own skins in the oncoming lunar apocalypse. There are at least three shocking twists where Symphogear users turn on each other for whatever reason and have to fight their friends. Even down to the little microcosmic level of the interpersonal, this rot festers: a lie told with the best of intentions to a friend is still a betrayal.
Hand in hand with that is the self-loathing. These people walk backwards into hell for their ideals, betray the ones they love, and hate themselves for it. Maria, trying to be a "needs of the many" antihero who slowly grows to hate herself for the crimes she commits in the name of the greater good. Chris, who betrays her friends out of atonement for unleashing the Noise on the world, burning bridges because she thinks she does not deserve them. Kirika, who literally fights her best friend and lover out of a misguided attempt to leave a world behind before she fades away... and who, when she realizes she's hurt her beloved over a misunderstanding, literally tries to fucking end her own life with her scythe. Jesus Christ.
In writing this, I make the show sound like absolute misery. I know one friend who watched with me really struggled with this shit, because all the betrayal and doing bad things to each other wounded her. It wounded me back in the day as well, a terrible utopic tension that made me wonder how the show could come back from this. Come back from this it does, though, in the only way Symphogear knows how. It stands before the betrayal, the self-loathing, the terrible things done to friendship and love... and extends a hand and says "I forgive you.". It shows the characters who once were broken and doing terrible things have grown and changed thanks to empathy and understanding. Tsubasa forgives Chris without a second thought. Fine saves Shirabe from the soul-cleaving scythe which Kirika tried to turn on herself. Maria finds a new resolve to cling to, not only accepting forgiveness but forgiving herself.
Maybe it pushes things too far into the bleak and miserable. Certainly, it did for one friend. I, however, can't help but admire the unflinching resolve of the utopic ideal that beats as the awakening heart of this season. The night is darkest before the dawn, but when those rays of sunshine hit, they hit hard. I wept in joy as sins were forgiven and the world was saved by six; not because they wanted reward, but because it was the right thing to do. G is a lot to take in, and I understand its bleakness turning people off... but love conquers all, and I think that's something to be admired.
SYMPHOGEAR GX
The most developed and interesting of these to me is, of course, Hibiki's own strained relationship with her absentee father and the emotional turmoil she has over him coming back into her life. The thing that he ended up leaving behind for her was the very unflinching utopic optimism which has driven her for the whole show thus far. It has faltered but never broken, even as each season retroactively grafts more and more trauma to Hibiki's backstory. Like, in Season 1 she was just a girl who almost died at a concert. Now she's a girl who almost died, was ostracized by her peers because everyone else died at the show, and the abuse they flung at her literally tore her family apart. Hibiki Tachibana is a traumatized individual, and the fact that she can still smile and see the best in humanity is something to be admired.
As for her dad, I see a lot of folks online who will not forgive this man. He ran out on his family when they needed him most, and is a deadbeat loser without a backbone. An unforgivable offense for many. I disagree on the "unforgivable" part, for one simple reason: He tries to be better. Compared to folks like Dr. Ver, Adam Weishaupt, or Fudo Kazanari? Akira Tachibana is a fucking saint. There is a lovely line from Kirika in the penultimate episode that stuck with me this time, which goes something like "Mistakes don't matter, it's the making up for them that's important.". I mean, mistakes and the hurt they cause do matter a bit, but the point is that Akira Tachibana tries to make up for his mistakes, learning courage and righteousness from his daughter. That's what's important. The effort to do better and make amends.
Speaking of mistakes... Yeah, Dr. Ver. I still think bringing him back was a mistake, doubly so having him save the world and then die for it. It flies against the poetic line at the end of G, and I don't like it. Even his secret SD card which gets used as a plot hook for next season leads to more mistakes. It will be interesting to test that line about making up for mistakes against shit like the memories in Season 4, or Noble Red. What else to say about Symphogear GX? It's got a certain safety to its structure, playing more off of established anime trope playbooks like escalating power creep with the alchemy or the four Autoscorers as generals like you'd see in other magical girl shows.
I will say one thing about the alchemy, though, that kind of felt like a galaxy brain moment to me. I do still have a bit of holdover from my days of ten years ago where I critique media through an alchemical lens, so let's try it one more time. Hibiki's grand understanding of her father's optimistic phrase to her is itself a form of alchemy, transmuting the words of a man who's made mistakes and is trying to make amends for them into unflinching utopic optimism. Fitting, for a show where the Symphogear users have to power themselves up using alchemy. Very fitting, when you see how they use the Ignite Module as a powerup and weaponize their own traumas and anxieties, transmuting them into inner strength. This will only continue as they battle more powerful alchemists and face more ideological challenges.
From here on out, the story of Symphogear is a story of alchemy as well as utopia. Onward, to more of that.
SYMPHOGEAR AXZ
This season has always been one that I've put at a bit of a distance. Ironically, I can't connect fully with it. Look, I still think that brain diving plotline with Maria, and paralleling her to the tomato, and downplaying her abuse and hellish upbringing because her abuser looked sad while doing it is some absolute nonsense. The power of Symphogear being love and the emotional connections we make? Spot-on. I just wish it didn't have to be tied to such fuckery. But then, in a mad way, that's part of what the whole season is doing. The main thrust of this season's arc is showing how the utopic ideal could be twisted and corrupted into its opposite.
The alchemical concept of "as above, so below" this time around is tied into violent revolution against oppressive systems of control. From the humble civilians of Val Verde rising up against petty paramilitary dictators to immortal alchemists struggling to destroy the very concept of oppression itself, it's right there. The tragedy of the Bavarian Illuminati is how they got played by their serpent in the garden, Adam Weishaupt. People connecting and uniting together in commonality? Yes, for one ideology that leads to a utopia of empathy and understanding. For another, it's a far more insidious thing.
One more thing I love about this season: the sets of unlikely pairs they have team up for a few episodes in a row. They each make sense, but I particularly like the Tsubasa/Shirabe pair. I don't like the circumstance that leads them to fight their fight, as I've said in the old blog project, but I like how Tsubasa helps Shirabe grapple with her own sense of being a solitary loner who can only connect with one girl. Tsubasa sees her old self in Shirabe, and is using what she's learned over three seasons and change to help an ally out. When I think about it, Tsubasa has slotted into this role of a utopian inspiration herself. Every season she helps one of her allies through some shit. In the first it's Hibiki, then in G she helps Chris, and in GX she helps Maria. It's nice, and shows an underrated side of her. I like it.
I don't like that we've run out of girls for her to mentor come XV, and so they do some more bad shit with her. Still, I should sign off here for now. I could babble on much more about this season and its stuff, but I have to use that newfound brevity somewhere, right? Let's move on to the end. Let's face God Herself with the light of empathy and understanding.
SYMPHOGEAR XV
And so, we reach the end, and discover that things have come full circle. I pointed out in the old blog posts that the tone and viscera of Season 1 Symphogear was back, but it goes further than that. The arcs themselves harken back to Season 1 Symphogear. Hibiki, the girl who wants to connect with others but ends up having to face discord with those she loves the most. Tsubasa, a girl struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of a concert massacre and her own self-woth in the world as more than just a lonely blade defending people. Having basically run out of confused protagonists to relate to and advise, we take Tsubasa back to her first principles.
I have some conflicted feelings on this. On the one hand, it is all shit that she's dealt with before (and seemingly overcome). The show really puts her through the fucking wringer, in worse ways than Season 1 did. XV's concert massacre is the most fucking upsetting thing, and from there Tsubasa gets gaslit by her xenophobic grandpa who masterminded the entire thing, brainwashed to betray her friends, and loses her fucking father. Like, Jesus Christ can we just let the poor sword be happy? There's giving a character new obstacles to overcome and then there's just kicking her while she's fucking down.
On the other hand... Amalgam. The whole notion of the alchemical ideal of perfection mixes with the utopic ideal of empathy and understanding and the character growth these girls have gone through. Amalgam is a literal representation of the enlightenment and apotheosis the girls undergo through the series. They have reached their peak, and alchemy and harmony combine to transmute themselves and their ideals into gold. This is the power of material social progress, of the utopic ideal made real. Cut through the white noise, the discord, the hell of the world and find the perfect "you" you have honed through your struggles.
It was Fudo Kazanari who ordered Noble Red to do this as part of his scheme to gaslight and bring Tsubasa to his side. He is a monster for this, and he gave the order to have 100,000 of his countrymen who he claims he wants to protect killed like this. This is true, but we very well can't use "they were only following orders" as an excuse for Noble Red's actions here. If I had to be charitable, I'd say the show is trying to push the absolute limit cases of empathy and understanding. The Bavarian Illuminati from last season also killed thousands in pursuit of their "greater good", so perhaps the show is pushing the absolute boundaries of what forgiveness and empathy can excuse. Or perhaps the critics of Noble Red are right, and the show just bit off more than it could fucking chew in trying to forgive a bunch of mass murderers.
I don't have the answer! It's a real ethical conundrum and it's not easily solved, but the fact that one can debate it at least shows an intriguing depth. It's Symphogear itself trying to reach its apotheosis, and at the very least I commend the effort. XV is quite the interesting season to watch, going back to the roots and showing how much its cast have grown and changed. I'll close my talk with a simple moment, near the climax. After Tsubasa returns from everything she endured, Hibiki extends her hand and Tsubasa lacks the courage to take it. Just before the final battle, rocketing back to Earth, Hibiki almost falls out of formation... and Tsubasa finds the courage to take her hand. A simple little thing, but a moment that sticks out. The friendship that I wanted to see more of, represented one last time. What a thing of beauty.
So that's it. That's my second pass at expressing what this show means to me. I hope I conveyed some of it. It's not a perfect show, but I long ago realized that shows don't need to be perfect to be resonant. It is a show that made mistakes, but I forgive some of them and overlook others for the greater good of personal resonance it gives me. It has and always been a show about confronting the horrors of the world, the misunderstandings and malfeasance, with hand outstretched. Sometimes you have to clench your fist when it's something really malevolent, but for most other things you can extend a hand in understanding. I do hope, in some way, that I have helped you understand a little about myself and how I feel about the show. You know, again.
Go, then, and believe in the song in your heart. I leave you with those words... as well as an accurate portrayal of the pure aesthetic which only I was foolish enough to chase. Look upon it, and know what I have known for the month of July.
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