Nekekur Watches Symphogear: S2 E1

Season 2: Electric Boogaloo

first episode here, masterlist here

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Maybe should’ve saved that image for the start of Season 4, but I could be frickin dead by that point considering what this anime puts me through, so might as well use it while I can.

“Agonizing pain” aside, I’m thrumming with excitement at starting the second season of Symphogear! No matter the trials we’re sure to endure, I trust this anime will sweeten the suffering with plenty of radness, fun times, and of course, extravagant lesbianism.

I block out Symphogear-related stuff for the sake of avoiding spoilers, but things inevitably leak through (anon is now disabled for this reason), and I do remember seeing some fanart of this series before I started watching it. So, I gotta say upfront there are two things I know about Season 2 in advance.

The first being that we get a new pink magical girl, and people ship her with Tsubasa.

That’s it, that’s all I know about her. I don’t know her name, what her skills or personality are, what her role in the story is, why some people ship her with Tsubasa, and whether there’s any canon basis for this ship or if it’s just fan crack.

All I know about her: is pink, is a Symphogear, and is weak to the Leg. (Really though, who wouldn’t be?)

The second thing I know about Season 2, and thankfully this isn’t really a spoiler, but I’ve been told “the girls make some weird fashion choices” apparently? I don’t know what the big deal is, the first season had mostly normal clothing. Except Chris’s bizarre thneed thing.

How ba-aad can it be? I guess we’ll find out.

One more thing I should add before pressing play: I’m gonna keep these posts about the episodes only, so any non-episode material, such as the OVAs/ manga/ keywords/ etc., I’ve decided to wait to watch until after the first three seasons. Tl;dr explanation why here.

Okay, I think that covers any pre-season thoughts. Eager to start watching, so let’s not wait another moment. Brace for ten degrees down bubble, folks, it’s time to dive dive dive right in!

Here we go, Episode 1: The Gungnir Girl!

We open the new season with a grayed-out scene, presumably a flashback.

A young woman’s voice sings over the scene as a lone Symphogear stands in a burning and collapsing building. In her hand she clutches a…

…tiny white metal-plated monster fetus?

Fuck is that. It sure doesn’t look like the monsters we’ve seen before. The Noise never really had faces, but this thing has a clearly defined bony facial structure, including eyes. Could this be a new type of Noise, or a different monster entirely?

A second unknown girl stumbles through the rubble toward the Symphogear girl. But it may already be too late.

Yikes, those look like Climax Song wounds!

Never forget.

So I suppose Unknown Girl 1 died from her Climax Song while she held the white monster fetus thingy, and Unknown Girl 2 will now become a Symphogear herself and set out on a quest of personal vengeance to slay the tiny white Moby Dick monster?

Who are these people? Where did that first girl get her Gear? I thought our team’s top-secret agency, a.k.a. Section 2, had a monopoly on Symphogear technology.

It’s hard to see exactly what’s happening in this flashback due to the way it’s shot, and the swirling flames and collapsing building obscuring the scene even more. I have no more idea of what is going on around me right now than a squirrel caught on a merry-go-round. But, prologues are meant to be Mysterious, so any viewer confusion is likely intentional. This flashback will no doubt become clearer as we get deeper into the season.

The wounded girl continues to sing while holding the Moby Dick fetus, but the building crumbles around her. Unknown Girl 2, who I’m gonna call Ahab until proven otherwise, is saved by another unknown person who dashes in and tackles her out of the way of burning debris.

Ahab can only watch, helpless and horrified, as her Symphogear friend (girlfriend?) presumably dies. The scene ends with a shot of Ahab’s stricken face.

WELP

GLAD TO SEE WE’RE OFF TO A CHEERFUL START

ANOTHER FUN-FILLED SEASON AHEAD OF US, I SEE

TOP FORM, SYMPHOGEAR. TOP FORM.

After that prologue, we get a look at… Saturn?

Turns out that’s what the moon looks like now, post-Kadingir. We get a few seconds to take in the view before the camera swoops on over to a pop idol performance.

Oh hey, it’s the prophesied pink girl! That was fast. So she’s a pop idol, too? Maybe that’s why people ship her with T-boss.

She sings a darkly energetic song. In Engrish, even. But hey, at least it’s a step up from Finé’s “duck-hunting.”

We intercut between her performance and a Noise attack at a different location. A military train hurtles along the tracks, trying to escape the pursuing monsters. The train busts out anti-air turrets against the Noise, because apparently they didn’t Get That Memo from Lumbergh that conventional weapons are useless against the Noise. Only a Symphogear can defeat them.

We get a look inside the train and see a woman recognizable as a Section 2 agent from the first season, but damned if I know her name.

Pink girl’s lyrics play over the scene, and the agent tells some scientist clutching a box to get to safety.

Dr. Ver? For real, this guy’s name is Dr. Ver? That is like two shades away from being a flat-out Bond villain’s name.

Dr. No and the agent are soon joined by…

OUR GIRLS, THERE THEY ARE!

It’s the episode’s titular “Gungnir Girl” and her jellyfish-haired friend! I’m clutching my own cheeks from joy at seeing Hibiki and Chris again. It hasn’t been that long, but I missed them so! I can’t imagine how it must’ve felt to viewers who had the wait the entire inter-season gap during broadcast.

Now all we’re missing is Tsubasa. Where she at? Probably lying in wait elsewhere on the train, waiting for the exact perfect moment to make the most dramatic entrance possible. A motorcycle may or may not be involved.

The girls confer with the agent and Dr. Ver about the Noise attacking their train. Chris points out:

Well, Chris, you’re the only person besides Finé capable of that, so…

…Nevermind, I forgot you don’t know what you’re doing either.

They don’t have time to speculate on who could be controlling these Noise, however, as the bombardment continues. We still switch between this scene and the pop idol, with her lyrics overlaying their conversation.

New girl, your song is cool, but who the hell are you and why is your performance intercut with this train attack?

I think the anime is trying to parallel Tsubasa’s solo concert from Season 1, which was also intercut with a scene of Hibiki and Chris fighting the Noise together. But it made sense there to blend Tsubasa’s concert with Hibiki and Chris’s fight, because that concert was Tsubasa’s fight. It was the culmination of her character arc for the entire season, where she finally Let It Go, The Self-Loathing Never Bothered Me Anyway, and moved forward after years of pain.

But here with the new girl, we have no idea who her character is as a person or what her arc will be, so there can be no viewer investment in her yet and therefore no satisfaction from seeing her perform the way Tsubasa did. So intercutting it with this tense attack scene is just distracting.

We get a shot of agents back in the base monitoring the train.

Flashy new high-tech base! Looks like they rebuilt the entire place from scratch after Finé destroyed it. The old base design was more elegant and cruise-ship looking, this one looks like they’re hacking into the Matrix. Pretty cool.

Snoop Oni, my man, good to see you again!

Mercy. The inter-season gap must’ve been rough. But I guess our team dad now has three daughter figures to worry about instead of just one, so it’s no wonder the guy is stressed.

The Staff of Solomon?

…That Staff of Solomon?

How in hell was that Relic not destroyed along with Finé? And if the Staff survived, could that mean Nehushtan or Durandal could be recovered, too? And where are they taking the Staff on this train? It ought to be locked up somewhere, or better yet destroyed for good.

We’re still doing this.

Also, beautiful, why is your hair shaped like kitty ears? Is this a Thing people do? Well, I guess I shouldn’t be so harsh. It’s not any stranger than that thing Tsubasa always does with her hair where she makes it look like her head has an apostrophe.

Pink girl and Ahab are the same person? Maybe that was supposed to be obvious from the start, or maybe I just got distracted by the glee of seeing Hibiki and Chris again.

The team is able to make it to another train car away from the Noise. Dr. No tells us it’s been three months since the Red Dragon’s apocalypse, which they are calling the Lunar Attack because…

…actually I have no idea why they’re calling it that when holy shit that is such a lamer name than RED DRAGON APOCALYPSE seriously this could be the name of a frickin metal band why are you passing up this golden opportunity.

They released the technology for creating Symphogears?

THEY PUBLICLY RELEASED THE BLUEPRINTS FOR CRAFTING A MAGICAL WMD?

Wow. Revealing the existence of Gear and telling the world how to make Gear are two completely different things, and the latter sounds like it’s going to create extreme problems for our team.

Sure, the ideal is that Symphogear girls will be Good People and will fight to protect others from the Noise, and it’s unfair for Japan to have sole protection from the Noise when the rest of the world just gets eaten by them, but… With this data release, now any schmuck could make a Symphogear and train some girl into their personal weapon. It’s not like Gear is only effective against the Noise, you could use it to kill humans just as easily.

What’s to stop some rogue Symphogear girl from going haywire and slaughtering people? What’s to stop some rich warlord from amassing his own personal army of Symphogear mercenaries to invade places? What’s to stop some dictatorship from trafficking little girls and putting them through some vicious brainwashing regimen until they’re magical killers? Hell, that’s not too far removed from what Finé tried to do with turning Chris into her minion.

I come from a country where civilians can legally own a TANK and even I think widespread Symphogear access is a bad idea.

News broadcasts during the above scene at the end of last season told us the Japanese government was under a lot of international pressure, considering the world almost ended because of Finé’s dickery happening under their watch. But even so, releasing the data in response to that pressure will definitely lead to havoc. Because this anime loves Pain.

Dr. Ver continues, telling us the agency is studying the Staff of Solomon. They hope it’ll lead to a better understanding of how the Noise work and how to fight them.

I’m glad that Chris, who knows better than anyone, can see that this Relic will cause more harm than good. She even clenches her fist, the same fist she used to wield the Staff herself.

Seems her past still haunts her. Finé was the one pulling the strings, but Chris knew full well the strings were there and didn’t try to cut them for a long-ass time. Chris earned her redemption last season, but I like that the anime isn’t just brushing off all the harm she did before she clawed her way out of that life.

Redemption doesn’t mean forgetting what you’ve done, it means always staying mindful of what you’ve done, so you can catch yourself if you ever start to backslide.

But backsliding into assholery doesn’t seem likely with Hamster-Jesus around to hold Chris’s hand through the self-doubt! Literally. The same hand Chris used to cause pain with the Staff, Hibiki now uses to hold gently and offer reassurance. Hamster knows all about using her hands and fists as weapons, but the heart of her personality has always been to offer those hands in forgiveness before resorting to a fight.

THREE MINUTES AND FORTY-NINE SECONDS INTO THE NEW SEASON AND WE ARE GO FOR GAY LIFT-OFF, HOUSTON.

I guess to be fair, maybe Ahab and that poor girl she watched die in the prologue scene were gay together, too. We don’t know yet. They could have just been friends or colleagues or sisters.

…Uh, not that that would stop a lot of fans from gay-shipping them together.

Chris still can’t cope with receiving kindness, so she blushes and calls Hibiki a baka and oh someone save me these two are too cute right now.

The moe trifecta is complete.

Also, holy art shift, Batman.

This new style isn’t bad at all, it’s just jarring to see such a difference in the characters we’re familiar with. They look like doujinshi versions of themselves.

Will we get a new art style with each season? Maybe I’ll finally get used to this style and then the anime will yank the rug out from under me for Season 3 and completely redraw them.

The agent gets Dr. No and the Staff to safety from the Noise attack, while Hibiki and Chris suddenly remember they’re magical girls and summon their Gear right as the Noise break through the roof.

New transformation sequences!! We went from 80s synth rock album covers to… Leonardo sketches?

Hibiki’s armor pours over her in this upgraded transformation sequence. We see Gungnir clamp on layer by layer in intense detail.

Hibiki gainaxes during the transformation, which I definitely don’t remember happening last season, and then…

Oh, Symphogear. Art shift or not, it’s reassuring to know that some things about this anime will never change.

Those two little cloth tails at the base of her neck are new, too. They look very Leaderly and they flutter neatly as she moves.

We don’t get to see Chris’s new transformation sequence for her Ichaival Gear? BOO!

A whole murder’s worth of Noise swoops through the sky, but Hibiki is confident she and Chris can take them out. They’ve been practicing a new combination attack, but Chris says it’s not perfected yet.

If Hibiki and Chris don’t use that combo attack for some climactic fight by the end of the season, I will eat one of my daggers.

Hamster has a new battle song too, similar to the old but with some alterations. Chris shoots down the Noise while Hibiki sings and stays in melee range to guard Chris’s back.

This fight is fucking rad. Now that Symphogears are public knowledge, I guess the agency can start recruiting more openly. This shot would make a highly effective recruitment poster. No text needed, literally the entire poster is just this shot of Hibiki and Chris being badasses and maybe add a link to the agency’s website at the bottom.

Even gunned down by Chris and Bruce Lee’d by Hibiki, more Noise keep attacking. The girls have to blow all their DPS cooldowns to take them out.

I am drowning in this scene’s flood of awesomeness. We went from recruitment posters to prog-metal album covers.

Chris spots the boss Noise and racks a whole clip of missiles to shoot it down.

This particular Noise seems to have a pretty high Evade stat, though. She pulls out her Gatlings for more firepower, gainaxing as she does.

I better take off my shoes if we’re gonna be spending this much time in the Bounce House this season. I guess the budget didn’t only go toward animating transformation sequences.

Snoop Oni and the others continue monitoring the fight from the base. He reflects that the Noise aren’t intelligent enough to plot attacks like this. But if the Staff is already in the agency’s custody, then that rules it out for being what’s controlling these Noise.

Chris gripes how the fight would be easier if they still had their super-strong white Gear from last season’s finale. Really though, those things were too powerful for the anime to break out for anything less than another apocalypse. If something is OP, it gets nerfed. That’s just how it works, Chris.

A more immediate problem presents itself. The train is about to enter a tunnel, meaning Chris and Hibiki need to move fast or this is gonna turn into a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

Hibiki quickly grabs Chris and kicks back down through the train roof just in time, saving them both from getting smashed into the arch of the tunnel.

Yuri hand-holding and a bridal carry in the same episode?! Symphogear, you’re spoiling me.

Chris has come so far in terms of teamwork.

That’s a far cry from the first time Hibiki saved her.

Hibiki gets an idea how to beat the remaining Noise.

Hah, still funny. I hope Snoop Oni’s Bruce Lee movies are in every season. Also, if he can pass action movies off as Combat Manuals, can I pass this anime off as Music Appreciation Theory 101?

Hibiki decides to uncouple one of the train cars and hit the Noise with it, because this is Hibiki we are talking about here, High Impact is her deal and everything can be solved by smashing hard enough. The Noise in the tunnel are lured into the unhooked train car and trapped by the explosion of her attack. She lands a mighty Thunder Punch, singing as she does.

Hamster’s new lyrics are hurting me and they need to stop.

Hey, speaking of songs, whatever happened to our new magical girl? We stopped intercutting with Ahab’s stage performance sometime during the battle, but I was too distracted by the awesomeness to notice exactly when.

Aaand of course the symbolic dawn breaks right behind Hibiki as she wins the day and poses triumphantly. Even Chris marvels at how strong she’s become.

Hamster went from fangirling over Tsubasa’s battle prowess…

…to now inspiring that fangirling in others. Maybe someday Chris will get her own fangirl to look up at her adoringly, and the Circle of Life will continue.

Where is Tsubasa, actually? It’s true Hibiki has grown in power, and Chris was pretty strong to begin with, but even so, Tsubasa is still Section 2’s most skilled and experienced fighter. You’d think they would include her on a mission as important as transporting the Staff.

The train arrives safely at its destination, some kind of military base, and our team hands the Staff to a bunch of soldiers.

Dr. Ver, now with the soldiers, thanks Hibiki and Chris for protecting him during the escort. They better get a sweet-ass exp bonus for this mission. Useless escort NPCs like this guy can really tax a girl’s patience.

There is no fucking way this guy is not evil.

I was shocked when Dr. Ryouko was first revealed as a traitor, since nothing about her ever pinged my bad-guy radar before then. But nope, no surprise factor on Dr. No here. Unnaturally pale coloring, tall and reedy, wears glasses and a lab coat, even has purple trim… Every inch of this character design screams Untrustworthy. The camera even shoots him from a slightly lower angle than the straight-on shots of the girls, subtly making him loom.

Is the position of doctor/scientist in this anime going to be like the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, as in we’ll get a new one every season and they’ll all be shady to some degree? This guy is so transparently evil I’m surprised he isn’t stroking a fluffy white cat in his lap. I guarantee you that whoever our villain is this season, Dr. No already works for that villain or will turn to the villain’s side at some point.

In fact, he’s so obviously evil, I’m starting to wonder if it’s just a bluff. It can’t be that obvious, can it? Like, is he secretly good underneath? Or is that also too obvious a twist? Maybe it’s a double-twist, and the anime will make you think he has some good beneath the bad, but then nope, turns out he really was just a Scumbag All Along.

Hibiki preens so much when he calls a hero that Chris cuffs her over it, because we haven’t had enough adorable interactions between these two already this episode.

Also, I don’t know what those earlier “weird fashion” warnings were about. These casual clothes don’t look too strange. I much prefer this outfit for Chris than her original one.

Dr. No takes the opportunity to pull more shady expressions when praising their heroism.

Buddy, the way you’re behaving right now makes me wonder if you’re the kind of person who is required to update their registration annually. Please take it down a few notches.

“Good use” haha we are so fucked, you guys. Dr. No-Chill-Whatsoever is going to use that Staff to rain Noise down on us like a plague of frogs.

We’re shown that this outpost is part of the American military, who are now cooperating with the Japanese agency.

They’re Marines? Oops, maybe I should go back and edit out references to these guys as “soldiers”, fucken Devil Dogs get real touchy about being called that. I’ve had my nose bitten off before.

I’m wary of where this new Japanese/American cooperation will lead. Last time somebody in this anime tried to cooperate with Americans, it didn’t end well for anyone.

Hibiki, Chris, and the agent walk off the base, satisfied after a successful mission.

Tsubasa blew off an escort mission for a concert? Wow, this kind of mission really does tax a girl’s patience.

WELL THAT SCENE WENT FROM ZERO TO SIXTY

Shitting geese by the flock. It’s like the concert battle ALL OVER AGAIN. Will this happen every season’s opening episode?? Peaceful scene suddenly interrupted by horrific explosion and Noise attack claiming people’s lives?

The Marines open fire on the Noise, but of course it’s useless and they’re slaughtered. Hibiki and Chris rush to help with a disbelieving “Seriously?!” considering they already had to deal with a train’s worth of Noise.

But we don’t get to see the battle itself, as we transition to the new girl.

Ahab absently hums what sounds like the same song we heard her dying Gal Pal sing in the prologue? She sits in an empty outdoor concert hall, watching the crew break down the stage after her performance from earlier.

Wait… why was she performing her song at like 4 a.m.?

No, seriously. Her performance we saw earlier was intercut with the scene of Hibiki and Chris fighting the Noise on the train, conveying to the viewer that the two events were happening simultaneously. And yet the sun rises right when Hibiki wins the battle, meaning the battle ended somewhere around 4:30 to 5 a.m.. The girls weren’t fighting the Noise for hours on end, I doubt the battle lasted more than an hour at most.

So the only conclusion is that Ahab was up there in full costume under the glaring lights singing her heart out for her audience… in the wee hours of the morning.

Ahab’s phone rings, and an ominous female voice speaks through it.

Uh…

Is…

Is the new magical girl… evil?

Do people ship Tsubasa with a villain?

Because this phone conversation sounds pretty dastardly. “Sacrist S” we can assume refers to the Staff of Solomon, since Durandal was code named Sacrist D. So Ahab and this woman must be the ones behind the Noise attacks on the train and the Marine base. The woman on the phone is speaking kinda creepily, and even the music is shadowy and ill-at-ease.

Either Ahab is on the bad guy’s side, or she’s at least a gray character to some degree.

I’m… not sure how I feel about this yet, other than shriveling foreboding. More as it develops. This sure can’t bode well for our heroes, though.

Ahab seems to be A-okay with whatever plan she is supposed to “begin” once the Staff arrives.

Okay yeah there’s no question about grayness now, this character and her mom are definitely going to be bad news for…

…Hold on, why is she only wearing one stocking?

Enough caffeine shooters will fuck you up, I guess.

Back at the Marine outpost, it looks like Hibiki and Chris were able to Fuck That Noise. Survivors survey the post-battle damage while the agent calls in a report to Snoop Oni.

She tells him that Dr. Ver is nowhere to be found.

Gee, you mean Dr. Bond Villain did something suspicious?? Let me try to contain my shock.

So… are we supposed to gather from all this that Ahab and her mom are working with Dr. Ver to steal the Staff to summon Noise and “drop the curtain” i.e. destroy the world?

That’s… straightforward? I suppose more plot will develop as we get deeper into the season. Not that this is a bad plot. It makes enough sense and it creates a substantial threat for our heroes. But it feels weird for the anime to lay all that out there when we’re only halfway through the first episode. Season 1’s plot of Finé destroying the world to transform it into one under her control was developed over the course of several episodes, with a lot of symbolism and foreshadowing.

Season 2 is laying it all out so fast I can only assume this whole Steal The Staff, Destroy The World deal is just a decoy for the real plot and the real villain, someone who will be bigger and scarier than Ahab and Dr. Ver and who will have something even more dire planned for our heroes than just simple Noise attacks.

Snoop Oni tells the agent and the girls to report back to base. We cut to Tsubasa’s concert that Hibiki was excited about.

Fuck me with a blunderbuss.

I can’t believe this. Not only is Tsubasa performing jointly with someone again after working solo ever since Kanade died, but that someone is Ahab?!

OF ALL THE CAFFEINE JOINTS IN ALL THE CONCERT HALLS IN ALL THE WORLD, SHE WALKS INTO OURS

Turns out this may just be a one-time thing however, as this TV newscaster tells us tonight’s international concert is a rare collaborative effort between Tsubasa and “the diva Maria”.

Ahab’s real name is Maria?

Blessed Julie Andrews, forgive me this sin.

If the concert is only just now about to start, why was Ahab/Maria up singing at 4 a.m. in costume? Dress rehearsal, I guess?

Oh okay, I think I get it now. The song and the train battle were intercut, which usually conveys to viewers that two events are happening at the same time. But instead, the battle was happening in present time while Maria’s cool-but-distracting song was meant to be a flash forward to later in the episode.

This feels like a clunky directorial decision. Especially since that scene came right after the prologue’s flashback. So we went from flashback → present time → intercut with future time → then back to present time → then we meet Maria properly during the phone call → and now we’re seeing her song happen for real this time.

All this editing choice did was confuse the viewer (well, me at least) and make me think Maria keeps really odd hours. I realize the truth now, but if you think I’m ever going to stop teasing her about it, you’re sadly mistaken.

Also, this means I was wrong during her phone scene. That crew wasn’t breaking down the concert hall, they were setting it up for tonight’s performance with Tsubasa.

Speaking of Tsubasa, WE FINALLY SEE HER!

She’s literally just sitting there doing nothing, but that didn’t stop me right now from letting out an ugly seal-bark of happiness at seeing her again.

She’s wearing some kind of black covering, presumably to protect her costume while she waits backstage. It’s much more dignified looking than those oversize altar boy outfits she and Kanade wore before the first concert.

There are actually a lot of parallels so far in this episode with the first episode of Season 1. An explosive Noise attack, a concert with two idols, Hibiki excited to attend it, Tsubasa waiting backstage for it to start… Please stop the similarities there, Symphogear, I really don’t want to see anyone die tonight like Kanade.

Brown-haired guy, still so nondescript I refuse to use his name out of spite, stands by Tsubasa. Since he’s a Section 2 agent as well as Tsubasa’s manager for her idol career, he gets a phone call from Snoop Oni updating him as to all the terribleness that transpired today. But Snoop Oni insists Tsubasa not cancel her concert. Probably for morale reasons if nothing else.

Tsubasa seems pretty calm as she prepares for this important concert. Brown-haired guy doesn’t tell her about all the Shit That Happened Guuuurl You Would Not Believe info he got from Snoop Oni, not wanting to stress her before her performance.

Tsubasa sees through his bullshit and knows there must be something wrong, but she’s called away to the stage before she can pin him down on it.

Yeah, “healing the hearts of the wounded” doesn’t just mean the concert audience, does it, guy? I mean sure, everybody was traumatized by the Red Dragon apocalypse that burned their city and the Lunar Attack that shattered the moon, and they could really use inspiration from their pop idol to help them through the recovery process.

But he’s talking about Tsubasa’s heart.

The first backstage scene we saw, Tsubasa was hunched up and nervous, needing Kanade to reassure her. But tonight, she stands tall and confident. This is what she does, her goal in life, sharing her music to inspire people just like Kanade wished. Tsubasa allowing herself to be vulnerable enough to partner with someone again to share that passion, even just for a one-night performance, after she’s been I Work Alone for years, is a huge emotional risk. Healing her wounded heart, as this guy put it. She made a lot of progress last season learning to live with her grief, but she still has some recovery left.

Tonight is a big step for her.

And she’s going to spend it with someone who wants to end the world.

Just fucking fantastic.

I wish knowing we’re in for some Hurt would somehow make it less painful. But, that’s one of the cruelties and beauties of Symphogear. The anime often forecasts incoming suffering so clearly yet still manages to make it rain a torrent when it actually arrives.

We cut to a surveillance van parked near the concert hall. Heavy, menacing music beats as we move through the interior of the van, where everything is low-lit with blacks and purples, literally the most evil color combination, seriously it never fails.

A woman watches the broadcast of Maria’s performance.

This must be Maria’s mom she was talking to on the phone earlier. Whether she’s literally her mother or if that’s just a code name, I don’t know. Why Evil Mom is living in a van down by the river outside the concert hall is also a mystery.

Uh, wow. Evil Mom’s motto is a phrase historically used by imperialists, military units, and gun rights activists. Yikes. Next thing you know, she’s gonna be spouting “Molon labe”.

Is that phrase a description of their plan with stealing the Staff and ending the world? Just slaughter everyone who could possibly threaten you, and then when you look out onto the barren, bloodied wasteland you’ve created, nod your head and say, “Look how peaceful it is now. We’re safe.”

I thought we went through that shit with Chris, where she had to unlearn her mentality of wanting to kill everyone in power so they couldn’t start wars like the one that orphaned her when she was little. Maria and her mom need to learn that lesson too, I guess.

Maria stands on stage in costume once again (did she remember to put both socks on this time?) and waves at the cheering crowd. TV screens remind us the concert’s being broadcast live all around the world. She and Tsubasa must be wildly popular and their collaboration long awaited.

A wider audience just means more victims if another disaster occurs. Are we going to see a slaughter just like the first concert with Tsubasa and Kanade? Will Tsubasa be the one to fall this time? I don’t think Symphogear would kill off such an established character in the first episode, especially after it went to the trouble of resurrecting her twice last season, but… Symphogear has trained me to fear.

On the other hand, does this joint concert mean Tsubasa and Maria already know each other? Collaborations between artists take a lot of effort and communication, so presumably she and Maria have been working closely together in the three months of the inter-season timeskip to make this concert possible. In all that time, has Tsubasa not sniffed out that Maria is Up To Something?

We see Miku and her school friends in the concert hall, cheering for Maria.

Oh merciful Madokami, it’s that “This Isn’t an Anime” girl, aka TIA-chan. I expect she’ll give us plenty of Mr. Gorbachev Tear Down This Fourth Wall moments like last season.

That’s Maria’s full name?

It sounds like European royalty.

I changed my mind. Forget European royalty, it sounds like pony royalty.

Dammit. Cannot unsee.

Teasing aside, I think it’s really interesting that the new Symphogear girl is named after the two major female characters in Christian mythology. Eve is demonized as the original sinner, the corrupter who tempted her partner into wickedness and fucked everyone else’s lives up because of it. But Maria is idolized as the atoner, the motherly figure of purity who supported her son in redeeming humanity from its inborn sin that Eve cursed them with. Both figures are pretty dehumanizing ways of portraying women, but this is a mythology we’re dealing with here, if it wasn’t at least slightly fucked up we wouldn’t still be talking about it thousands of years later.

So if our new magical girl Maria Eve embodies the dual aspects of Corruption and Purity like her name suggests, maybe it means she will eventually purify/atone from her current alignment, which seems to lean toward corrupt/evil from what the anime has shown us so far.

I don’t know if “Cadenzavna” is a mythological reference, too. Could just google it, but I worry that might yield spoilers, so I’ll hold off.

TIA-chan and the other schoolgirls tell us that Princess Cadence (wait, it’s supposed to be spelled Cadance? Silly ponies) is a hot new music sensation from America. They add that Maria only appeared on the charts a few months ago, but her popularity grew fast due to her impressive “stage presence”. By which I guess they mean, “Girl was up rehearsing all night like a tweaker and she can’t find her other sock for the life of her, but goddamn she’s got a pair of lungs on her!”

Miku checks her watch, worried that Hibiki hasn’t shown up for the concert. Her friends worry too, as they know Hamster is a Symphogear, so her being late for an important event could spell something dire.

Miku seems downcast, maybe wondering if she might have kept Hibiki in the doghouse too long and now she and Chris have run off together somewhere cozy.

Their worries are interrupted as the concert begins. Tsubasa and Princess Cadence rise up through the stage on a platform in front of huge screens that display the name of their duo.

Maria gives a scripted opening line to Tsubasa to kick off the performance for the crowd.

Yeah lol, I think it’s pretty certain you’ll face Tsubasa on the battlefield at some point, Princess.

Their microphones seem to be shaped like swords or lances or some other long stabby thing. Because it’s Tsubasa, do we even need an explanation why anything is swords with her?

Their dance and duet begins. Tsubasa has a deep voice while Maria’s is higher in comparison, blending well together. They move smoothly in sync and against each other as they dance and swirl their microphones.

The camera barely stays still, carrying us across the stage in big sweeps that emphasize the cheering crowd and the detailed choreography. The performance even includes impressive pyrotechnics.

This scene is way fucking cool. Symphogear’s concert scenes are always top-notch and entrancing.

Their dance routine is really complex. It must’ve taken a lot of rehearsal for them to get it down so smoothly and not like, accidentally whack each other over the head with those microphone-swords. There is no way Tsubasa and Maria are not already familiar with each other by this point, even just on a professional level.

That will really sting for Tsubasa when Maria shows her true colors, whatever the hell those may be. Poor girl’s still gotta be raw from Ryouko/Finé’s betrayal. Having Tsubasa’s new colleague betray her too is just going to be extra salt in the wound left by last season’s villain. Especially considering the bravery it took for Tsubasa to perform as part of a duo again after the heartbreak of how her last duo ended.

Just singing and dancing with Maria like this is a pretty big connection, honestly. Dance is often used as a metaphor for intimacy, and it makes sense for two idols to connect with each other this way. We certainly saw with Kanade and Tsubasa how dancing side by side and joining their voices drew them closer as a pair.

It’s also amazing that Tsubasa and Maria pair so smoothly when we haven’t even seen them talk to each other yet, except that one opening line from Princess Cadence that seemed to be just part of the performance. So their connection is conveyed entirely through bodily movements and song.

Heck, they even hold their microphones for each other at one point.

I gotta say… just from this scene alone, I can see now why people would ship these two. Regardless of what their canon relationship may be, which I don’t know yet because again we haven’t actually seen these two hold a conversation, they just plain look fantastictogether.

TIA-chan and the others were right, Maria has a powerful stage presence. She may be a bad guy, but she’s got a lot of dramatic flair. Which anyone who wants to share a stage with a drama queen like Tsubasa will definitely need, hah.

Tsubasa and Maria have great stage chemistry together. So great it’s making me cringe, because Maria is almost certainly Shot Through The Heart And You’re To Blame levels of an unwise romantic choice at this point in time. Please, Maria, don’t turn out to be bad after all. Please be a good person, for Tsubasa’s sake if no one else’s.

Maria’s costume is pure white (there’s that Purity theme from her name again…) while Tsubasa’s is mostly black. It’s a flipped contrast – Tsubasa in dark even though she’s a hero, and Maria in light even though so far the anime seems to be setting her up as an enemy. This scene is really thoughtfully orchestrated.

Hey, the anime even managed to work in a nod to Kanade with her fiery wings/rebirth motif! That’s a nice way of remembering her tonight as Tsubasa takes her first official dance with a new partner.

Princess, if you fuck this concert up for Tsubasa… I will find out where you live, creep into your bedroom in the wee hours while you’re out singing, and hide at least twelve spiders in your pillowcase.

At least twelve.

After the opening song, Tsubasa thanks the crowd and the international viewers. She says their support always gives her courage.

Maria takes a much bolder tone when she speaks to the crowd.

She doesn’t thank her fans like Tsubasa did, or say she wants to share good things with them.

Well, that sounds menacing. I can’t picture someone like Tsubasa or Hibiki telling people she’ll leave them behind if they can’t keep up with her. No hero would say that.

It’s like a twisted version of the first season’s Don’t Give Up On Life theme. Encouraging people to save themselves, like our protagonists did last season, is completely different from telling people you won’t save them unless they can keep up.

After talking to their fans, the two idols turn to each other. They both say what a privilege it is to sing with each other.

Okay but they mean like, their first official/public meeting, right? For the sake of the camera crews? I’m so confused on how they could possibly not have met before tonight. I hope the anime clarifies at some point.

After their handshake, the camera takes a sinister pull in close to Maria’s face, hiding her eyes and focusing on a wicked little smirk. She says she has just one more thing to add…

She does an almost Marilyn-esque swish of her white skirt, and HORDES OF FUCKING NOISE BURST FROM THE GROUND THROUGHOUT THE CONCERT HALL AT HER SUMMONS

NOT AGAIN ARE YOU KIDDING ME

The crowd shrieks in terror and tries to flee, but they’re trapped. Everyone else is aghast, too. Snoop Oni and the agents back in the base flip out, and as for Tsubasa up there on stage next to Maria…

Maria takes cold control of the situation and orders the panicking crowd to stay calm. Shit, these people were screaming in excitement for her song a minute ago, and now they’re screaming in terror as she summons monsters that could devour them all.

We cut back to Evil Mom in her van, saying to herself that the Noise appeared late but at least she can go ahead with the “plan” now. Two shadowy figures stand behind her chair.

Hold on, hold the fuck on, those glowing things look like Relic amulets. I thought we were getting one new magical girl this season, now we have three?

We just doubled our pool of Symphogears! Slow down there, anime. If you keep doubling at the start of each season, then by the time Season 5 airs the number of characters is gonna rival an AKB48 lineup.

This is why it was a bad idea to release Symphogear technology. NOW ANY CREEP CAN LURE GIRLS INTO HER VAN WITH THE PROMISE OF SHINY JEWELRY.

The Noise at the concert seem to be under tight control. They surround the trapped crowd threateningly, but don’t attack. Miku and her friends are terrified just like the rest. Miku says Hibiki’s name, and TIA-chan does classic TIA-chan.

We see Hibiki and Chris en route to the concert via helicopter. They’re watching Maria’s fuckery happen on the live broadcasts. But they’re still forty minutes away, so they won’t be able to help Tsubasa stop her any time soon.

The agent and the girls are certain these three Noise attacks must be connected. It can’t be coincidence that the train, the Marine base, and now the concert attack all happened in one day.

Tsubasa could probably single-handedly clean up that concert in less than forty minutes without dulling her sword, but that would mean exposing her powers in front of all those international cameras, and I’m still hazy on whether or not the Symphogears’ superhero identities are still top secret or not. Plus, Tsubasa would have to handle Maria on top of all the Noise, and Tsubasa doesn’t yet know that Princess Cadence is a Symphogear herself.

Tsubasa bares her amulet, ready to transform into her Gear. But Maria stops her with a threat of making the Noise start killing the audience. She then adds:

Oh okay, that answers that question. Thanks, Maria.

Also, why is the camera so tilted right now? Shooting a scene with Dutch angles is supposed to convey tension or imbalance, which is suitable here, but the anime is taking it way too far. These shots are so rotated they’re starting to look like a Loss edit.

Even at the cost of revealing her identity, Tsubasa still seems willing to go for it to save these people from the Noise. After all, that’s what Kanade did when their concert came under attack. She leapt right into battle without hesitation.

Tsubasa says that Maria’s threats won’t stop her. Maria replies that she “doesn’t hate” that characteristic of Tsubasa.

Yeah, Maria, and maybe if people like you didn’t Abandon Ship on humanity at the first leak in the hull, the world would be a better place, too.

We touched on this a bit with Finé, but this kind of nihilism Maria seems to be expressing here is a common theme for anime villains. “Suffering exists, therefore humanity is bad, therefore we should destroy the world and remake it, Q.E.D.” is a mentality that shows up a lot. The hero usually defeats it with “Stop, the world is good because Love and Friendship exist, too” which last season executed really well.

Maria seems kinda jaded, probably due to watching her Gal Pal die in the prologue. So basically, it seems Maria has failed criterion number one of being a Symphogear: Don’t Give Up On Life. She’s got a long way to go if her character arc involves eventual redemption like Chris’s arc did.

That “Cadenzavna” comes out so awkward. Why did the anime choose to name her that when Japanese tongues have such a hard time pronouncing so many consonants together? Why not pick an easy real-world European name, like Wulfefundis or Byrhtnotha or Æþelðryþe?

Whoa, Maria and Evil Mom’s group are taking hostages to make demands on governments? That’s flat-out terrorism.

Tsubasa and the others are shocked that Maria seems to be declaring war on literally “every country on the planet”, but she has another shock ready for them.

Maria reveals that she’s a Symphogear by singing her activation phrase, and…

…No…

…fucking…

…way.

Gungnir? Her Gear is Gungnir??

WHAT IS THIS SACRILEGE

The nightmare is real, however. Maria shows us her transformation sequence in all its villainous glory.

LOOK WHAT YOU DID, TEAM. Not only did the bad guys make a copy of your Gear now that you released the technology, but they made a twisted, dark, corrupted copy of your Gear!

The awesome, hideous intensity of this new season is gonna make me miss a period. I mean, I knew the new girl would be a Symphogear, but I expected her to have some random pink Gear or something, to match her hair like the other girls’ Gear! Little did I know it turns out to be not only Gungnir but a wicked mockery of Gungnir?? With sharper horn-spikes, a high sinister collar, and a fucking cape are you serious.

Everyone’s jaws drop at this development, from Hibiki and Chris watching from the helicopter, to Snoop Oni and the agents in the base, to Tsubasa still up there on stage with Maria.

This must be Tsubasa’s worst nightmare.

Yet again she’s faced with a disastrous Noise attack at a concert where people came to see her and could end up dying because of it. Yet again she could fail to protect what she cares about. Yet again Gungnir has returned to her being worn by someone other than the person she loved.

And to put icing on the rotten cake, not only is Maria certainly no Kanade, she directly shits on Kanade’s legacy by wielding a corrupted version of her Gear and using it to harm people rather than save them.

Hibiki is supposed to be Kanade’s legacy, the one who carries on her message of Don’t Give Up On Life. Kanade’s legacy doesn’t belong on someone who would threaten a concert full of civilians, exactly the same kind of people Kanade gave her life to protect.

It took Tsubasa a long time last season to accept Hibiki as the rightful wielder of Gungnir now…

…and Hibiki’s a complete cinnamon roll. How much harder will it be for Tsubasa to cope with someone like Maria wearing her former partner’s Gear?

After that god damn bombshell reveal, Maria also reveals the name of her terrorist group.

WHAT THE FUU UUUUUU UCK

I truly hope this is just some sort of code name for Maria’s shady group, and that they aren’t actually connected to the real Finé. Because that would completely nullify the first season’s hopeful ending of Finé’s death and Hibiki’s parting wish for her to find redemption in her next life.

The episode ends with its own title card.

That’s who the episode title was referring to?

Trust Symphogear to blindside me right when I thought I had a bead on this anime.

After the credits roll and I get a chance to scoop up the shattered teeth that just sprayed out of my mouth like donut sprinkles due to the punch of this episode, we get a brief shot of those purple display screens in Evil Mom’s van. The camera holds on what is either an early Pokemon evolution or that little white Moby Dick monster from the prologue that Maria’s Gal Pal held.

–

–

I thought I was ready for Symphogear’s second season.

I was not ready for Symphogear’s second season.

What an explosive start. Talk about blowing your socks off!

Well, one sock anyway.

If the whole season is like this, I don’t know how I can survive all 13 episodes and not die of adrenaline poisoning. This episode came bursting out the gates faster than that racehorse yuri video.

Finé still haunts us like a bad stench, it seems. Her influence was all over this episode. The opening shot of the moon damaged by her attack. The Staff she wielded, stolen and used for more harm. Chris still struggling with her crimes done at Finé’s direction. The Symphogear technology Finé invented now in the hands of a new batch of bad guys. And to cap it off, those bad guys even use her name.

TIA-chan and the others told us Maria is from America, so maybe she and Evil Mom are connected to the American commandos the real Finé was working with last season, the “dirty US-scum monkeys” who tried to double-cross her and got absolutely destroyed for it.

A lot of the time, seasonal villains get forgotten by a show and its characters once a new season rolls around, so I really like that Finé’s influence still plagues us even though the shitlord herself was defeated. It gives continuity and a good springpoint to launch us into the new season and its new conflicts and characters.

Said new character racked up like three nicknames from me in the space of one episode. That’s gotta be a record. Maria is going to have to put up with a lot of crap from me in these posts.

That’s fair, seeing as apparently I AM GOING TO HAVE TO PUT UP WITH A LOT OF CRAP FROM HER IN RETURN.

Black Gear is not what I was expecting when I was told there would be “weird fashion choices” this season, you utter trolls.

And when I said at the start of the episode “so i herd u liek shipping mudkipz with some pink girl” I did not know it was going to be a villain ship.

I was hoping for some compassionate, slow-building romance where Tsubasa gradually learns to love again and finds a partner she can share her dreams with, with Tsubasa still honoring Kanade’s memory and what Kanade meant to her.

But instead, not only is it someone who is extremely shady, but also someone who dishonors Kanade’s memory by using a twisted version of her Gear and also borrowing Finé’s name, the person ultimately responsible for Kanade’s death. So congratulations, Maria, you somehow managed to make both Kanade and Finé spin in their graves at the same time. I never would have thought that was even possible.

Fuck me for daring to hope for an angst-free relationship in this wretched fucking anime. Even Hibiki and Miku have their doghouse moments. This is why we can’t have nice things.

Tsubasa doesn’t have to stay widowed forever of course, but she can do better than a terrorist. They have great chemistry on stage together, but… yikes yikes yikes. I really hope Maria follows the same path Chris did and gets a redemption arc by season’s end.

I hope it won’t be a complete repeat of Chris’s arc, though. Chris fills her own role quite well. There’s no need to ditto it with Princess Cadence when the anime could instead take literally any direction with Maria’s arc.

I already adore Chris a lot, I dunno if there’s room in my heart for yet another misguided dangerous little shitlord struggling to find their place in the world while clipped in by an evil woman controlling them. I may have to accept Not Liking this new character. Maria is already high on my shit list for what she did to Tsubasa in this episode.

Not saying I could never like her. Just saying she needs to, you know, stop threatening the lives of civilians before I’ll consider taking her off my shit list.

But I’ll give her a fair shake. Everybody deserves a chance at redemption. If I was willing to give Finé the benefit of the doubt (and we remember how disastrously that turned out, jeez), then I can trust that Maria will eventually see the light as well. Here’s hoping, Princess.

She does seems similar to pre-Getting-Her-Shit-Together Chris, though.

Maria and early Chris both think the world is flawed and want to make it better, they just have exceptionally short-sighted and awful, even outright murderous, means of accomplishing that. And like Chris, Maria’s bitterness probably drips down from losing someone close to her. With Chris it was her parents, with Maria it’s probably that girl from the prologue who was holding the Aron fetus while Maria looked on.

I use terms like bad guy/evil/villain pretty casually, just because it’s easier than typing out crap like “morality is a complex gray-shaded issue with mutable boundaries, but this character behaves unnecessarily harmfully toward others and therefore falls on the darker side of the alignment spectrum” every time one of these characters is on screen. Calling Maria and her Evil Mom “bad guys” doesn’t mean I think they lack dimension. Even someone as over-the-top evil as Finé had depth to her once we pinned her in a specimen box and got out the magnifying glass.

Likewise, Maria seems like she has some ogre-onion layers to her rather than just simple Villain.

That first “stay calm” comes out really hushed and shaky, like she’s saying it to herself before she says it again, much more confidently, to the panicking crowd. Maria isn’t as coldly in control as she’s pretending to be in front of Tsubasa and her hostages.

Maria Eve better overcome the “Corruption” aspect of her name and live up to the “Purity” part of it. The anime even played with this duality some more by contrasting her pure white concert outfit with her corrupted black Gear.

I understand now why Symphogear only showed us Hibiki’s transformation at the start of the episode and not Chris’s. To contrast it with Maria’s transformation at the end. The anime did the same in the first episode of Season 1. During the concert battle (damn, am I going to have to start saying “the first concert battle” to differentiate it from tonight’s disaster?? please no), the anime showed us Kanade’s transformation but not Tsubasa’s. This was to contrast it with Hibiki’s first-ever transformation at the very end of the episode. Same with Season 2’s opening episode. We’re given Hibiki’s transformation at the start but not Chris’s, so we can compare Hibiki to Maria’s transformation at the very end of the episode.

Kanade, Hibiki, and now Maria. Three very different people, all linked by Gungnir. I’m enraged, but also fascinated by where this season could go.

We touched on this with Finé last season, but I really adore “opposing parallels” as a theme in fiction. When character structure takes Oppositional Symmetry to the point that the villains are just shitty reflections of the heroes.

This theme especially lends itself well to a very visual medium like anime, where things like character design are much more mutable than live-action shows, so anime can play around a lot more with parallels in design and/or identity between protagonists and antagonists.

Heck, this episode even had internal Oppositional Symmetry. We began the episode with a “Gungnir girl” working together with another Symphogear to defeat a horde of Noise.

And we ended the episode with an opposing “Gungnir girl” working against another Symphogear to threaten her with a horde of Noise.

With all these dark parallels floating around even only one episode in, it looks like it’s shaping up to be a Fight Your Darker Self season for Symphogear. If well-played, the character relationship dynamics this season could turn out really interesting.

Maria’s identity certainly seems to be woven from those Shadow Self threads. I just can’t figure out whose shadow she’s supposed to be.

We could look at her as Chris’s shadow, like we talked about. But she could also be Hibiki’s shadow, since she uses a corrupt version of Hibiki’s Gear and twists Kanade’s heroic legacy that Hibiki carries. Maria’s transformation background song sounds like a frickin choir from Valhalla, much more dramatic than the Scottish reel that usually plays over Hibiki’s transformation sequence.

But despite the parallels to Chris and Hibiki, it looks like Symphogear is setting Maria up to be Tsubasa’s shadow.

They’re both famous pop idols who want to use their music to make a difference.

And their joint concert involved a ton of choreography emphasizing them moving in sync, alternately side by side and opposite each other. Their concert also included more of that white/black duality theme with their costumes. Heck, the display screens even spell out “Maria x Tsubasa” in giant letters when they make their entrance.

Tsubasa and Maria seem to have another thing in common.

They both had to watch someone they care about die, while they were unable to save her. And in both cases, that someone was a Symphogear girl singing a Climax Song. And it looks like it majorly fucked up both Maria and Tsubasa.

It’s clever that the anime chose to call these two the Queens of Music. Coupled with their black/white thing, it makes me wonder if the anime is going for a chess motif. It sure would fit the Oppositional Symmetry theme even further.

The Queens are the two most powerful pieces on the chessboard, who protect the main leader and act as his striker. Tsubasa is definitely our agency’s top fighter, while Maria seems to fill the same role for her “Finé” group. Both of these Queens even have a daughter relationship to their leader. Snoop Oni is Tsubasa’s uncle and only parental figure we’ve seen in her life, and Evil Mom is Maria’s… well, mom.

But, chop a Queen’s crown off and she’s basically just a very tall Pawn. Hopefully, Maria will someday wake to the fact that she’s more than likely just being used as some asshole’s pawn, like Chris realized with Finé.

I’m still confused about how well these “Queens” knew each other before tonight’s concert. How in the world did they collaborate to put on a huge event like this together, yet never actually meet until after the event was in motion?

I guess it’s technically possible they choreographed the routine long-distance, and each girl rehearsed in her home country with a stunt double of her partner, so tonight’s the first time they met in person. But even if that’s the case… they still never talked via phone, or teleconference, or email, drunk snapchats, anything??

Not even posing together for the concert’s promo posters?

And what about right before the concert started?

They were standing right next to each other on that rig before it rose up through the stage. Is Symphogear telling me there wasn’t even a hello between them while they were waiting for the crew to lift the rig up, they just stood there frozen in their performance poses, completely silent and ignoring each other? I hope the anime elaborates on this before season’s end, or I’m putting a dollar in the MCSP jar.

We’ll have to see how Maria and Tsubasa develop from here. The whole “shadow self” comparisons will probably become clearer once we meet those other mysterious magical girls.

If Maria wields Black Gungnir, it’s possible these girls will wield Black Ame no Habakiri and Black Ichaival to round out the dark symmetry theme.

Symphogear, you better give me the names of these two henchmen real quick, else I’m just gonna end up calling them Bebop and Rocksteady. We’ve already had enough silly reference nicknames this episode, don’t make me saddle these girls with even more.

Also, if the speculation is correct that one of the themes of this season really will be Fight Your Darker Self, then part of me hopes we get to see Evil Mom fight Good Dad. Watching Snoop Oni bust out his Bruce Lee moves on an old lady in a van would be morbidly hilarious to the shitlord side of me.

I’m happy Symphogear is keeping female antagonists like the first season. Seems more often than not, magical girl shows I’ve seen have a male villain, so this is refreshing.

I also have no idea what the Aron fetus has to do with this woman’s “plan”. It seems so far that Evil Mom is the one making the plans and pulling the strings, with Maria taking orders and using her idol status to act as the mouthpiece for her mom’s terrorist group.

But unless actual Mind Control is involved in forcing Maria to behave this way, she’s just as culpable as Chris was when she was under Finé’s direction.

The kicker is that Maria and Evil Mom probably believe that the awful things their group are doing are for some good cause, what with their “If you want peace, prepare for war” motto.

But Maria threatened the lives of thousands of civilians, and is using these human beings as bargaining chips for her demands. And if she’s connected to the episode’s earlier Noise attacks, then her group is also responsible for all those train crew and Marines who were killed, and the Noise will likely kill more people at her and Evil Mom’s orders before she’s defeated. I don’t care if their group’s cause is curing fucking cancer. A good result doesn’t heal the damage caused by terrible methods used to reach that result.

Japan’s largest stadium also hosts concerts, and it holds over 70,000 people. In the U.S., Beyoncé held a big concert earlier this year, where some guys threw a football around as part of the opening and closing act of her concert or something, and the attendance was also in the area of 70,000.

This episode made a huge deal about how Tsubasa and Maria’s concert was a highly-anticipated international sensation, so we can gather that the crowd would be comparable to those numbers. Tens of thousandsof people, all ready to be killed at Maria’s command.

On top of that, these people are Maria’s fans. People who adore her and support her and came out just to hear her sing. And she thanks them for their support by threatening their lives and using them as hostages. Low.

Even Chris in her worst moments of rage still showed remorse for hurting powerless people.

When you have less empathy than Nehushtan-era Chris, you dun fucked up. Maria had better get her act together and show us she has some goodness in her, because in this introductory episode she comes across as Grade-A Beef Jerky, heavy on the Jerk.

And if she tries to pull some weak crap like “I wasn’t really going to murder them all, I only threatened to murder them all”, I will roll my eyes so far back they will cross into the next plane of existence. A bullshit excuse like that doesn’t alleviate Maria’s dishonorable actions here. It also won’t bring back the people who died earlier in the episode from her group’s Noise attacks.

But, a bad person doesn’t mean a badly-written character. Maria has great charisma and enough complexity lurking under the surface that she looks like she’ll make a really cool opponent! And an even cooler good guy if she ever realizes There Are Things In This World Worth Protecting.

I’m so scared of how much she and her mom and those other two Symphogear girls might hurt our heroes over the course of this season. But at the same time, I’m looking forward to the challenge of how our team will defeat this formidable second “Finé” enemy.

Wow, I got so overwhelmed by Maria and Evil Mom in the second half of the episode that I forgot about this overgrown lab rat.

We got a whole batch of new antagonist characters this episode, so I don’t know what role this guy will play in relation to the others. But like I said, he’s suspicious af and I don’t trust him. Still, the Season 1 predictions turned out like 90% wrong, so I could be wrong about this guy, too.

Same with the speculation about Maria, Evil Mom, and their “Finé” group. Who knows where things will go from here. I could be completely mistaken, and their motives and arcs and such will turn out quite different from the ideas they gave me in this episode.

But that’s the fun! Being proved wrong is just as enjoyable as being proved right, since it means Symphogear was able to throw me for a loop and keep me guessing. This series knows what it’s doing with its audience.

Plenty of questions were raised in this episode (really Maria, one sock?), as they should be in a solid opening episode. My head’s humming, and I can’t wait to learn more about all these new characters and new developments.

I don’t know how our heroes are going to get out of this disaster in one piece, and hopefully without a lot of other people dying in the process, too.

I guess all we can do is brace ourselves and forge ahead into the next episode!