May 06, 2016
Symphogear G
This one is giving me a lot of trouble to get through, and I'm only 4 episodes in!
A lot of the things in the first series that were slightly off the tropes have been rigidly reigned in. I suppose it's a problem with what happens when a character's story arc has already been completed in the first series.
I'm speaking of Yukine Chris, the third member of the team who got there after a Heel-Face turn, who was so down on her existence the big bad had turned her into a severely masochistic wretch, and who, even though her powers were musically invoked, hated singing her song.
Now, she's at the musical high school struggling to fit in with the regular school girls who like her anti-social ass for some reason, getting drafted into making spring fair decorations, and shanghaied into the school's talent show, where at the end she decides that she really, really likes singing in front of people.
dafuq?
The big bad is back, sort of, since after all, she was a genetic memory from thousands of years ago, so she's manifested in another woman. Interestingly, the oldest and most powerful of the evil Gear users suffers from the same condition, and the danger of using her power is getting taken over by her incarnation of the big bad.
The other two baddies are a pair of lolis. One dead serious and her overeager protector.
Yeah, those rare magical crystals that turn into armor at the right sonic key are now apparently all over the place, and the baddies have even summoned a monster who eats them. As if the original "Noise" weren't bad enough. It really changes the whole scope of the story when the enemy is basically other humans with the same powers, rather than an extra-normal force and a secret internal enemy.
There are some real groaners. The baddies completely fumble their first plan, making a big splash at a concert demanding the world surrender or else, and then blowing off their own deadline. They have a tilt-rotor, and an artifact they can use to make it invisible (But the good guys have a Submarine now!) however, apparently invisibility also cancels out the rotor wash too....
But the thing that bugs me is the whole pretense of normalcy in school. I liked in the first series that they kept school life out of the picture for the most part, and battles did NOT accommodate Hibiki's class schedule. But now... The bad lolis are infiltrating the school fair, and know the real identities of the heroines and want to steal their crystals... and it's just bleah.
Although the animation is better, I'll give it that.
A lot of the things in the first series that were slightly off the tropes have been rigidly reigned in. I suppose it's a problem with what happens when a character's story arc has already been completed in the first series.
I'm speaking of Yukine Chris, the third member of the team who got there after a Heel-Face turn, who was so down on her existence the big bad had turned her into a severely masochistic wretch, and who, even though her powers were musically invoked, hated singing her song.
Now, she's at the musical high school struggling to fit in with the regular school girls who like her anti-social ass for some reason, getting drafted into making spring fair decorations, and shanghaied into the school's talent show, where at the end she decides that she really, really likes singing in front of people.
dafuq?
The big bad is back, sort of, since after all, she was a genetic memory from thousands of years ago, so she's manifested in another woman. Interestingly, the oldest and most powerful of the evil Gear users suffers from the same condition, and the danger of using her power is getting taken over by her incarnation of the big bad.
The other two baddies are a pair of lolis. One dead serious and her overeager protector.
Yeah, those rare magical crystals that turn into armor at the right sonic key are now apparently all over the place, and the baddies have even summoned a monster who eats them. As if the original "Noise" weren't bad enough. It really changes the whole scope of the story when the enemy is basically other humans with the same powers, rather than an extra-normal force and a secret internal enemy.
There are some real groaners. The baddies completely fumble their first plan, making a big splash at a concert demanding the world surrender or else, and then blowing off their own deadline. They have a tilt-rotor, and an artifact they can use to make it invisible (But the good guys have a Submarine now!) however, apparently invisibility also cancels out the rotor wash too....
But the thing that bugs me is the whole pretense of normalcy in school. I liked in the first series that they kept school life out of the picture for the most part, and battles did NOT accommodate Hibiki's class schedule. But now... The bad lolis are infiltrating the school fair, and know the real identities of the heroines and want to steal their crystals... and it's just bleah.
Although the animation is better, I'll give it that.
Posted by: Mauser at
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1
Fifth episode isn't much easier. Although there's a glimmer of interest, Maria, the daughter of the latest incarnation of the Big Bad, and oldest of the three bad gear users apparently has SOME ethics. When the special forces from their "Home Country come after them in the warehouse they've hidden the tilt rotor in, she's not willing to use her power on normal humans. Not that it helps because the bad scientist still has the relic that can control the Noise and uses it to turn them all to carbon dust.
Unfortunately this is all intercut with the two bad loli's getting on stage for the singing contest, right in front of the three teammates. The derp is strong in this plot. But fortunately the plot is cut short because the lolis get the order to meet at a rendezvous point because of the incident. Even when the good girls confront them outside the hall, they make the implicit threat to the innocents at the school, and so they LET THEM GO! Really, untransformed they are just two little 10-year-old girls. Chris and Tsubasa are seniors. They could just deck them and take their crystals before they even had a chance to transform.
Or at least follow them, discreetly.
No, you let them challenge you to a formal duel. *headdesk*
This is hard to watch, but I figure I need to get through it to see if the third season was worth the effort it took to find.
Unfortunately this is all intercut with the two bad loli's getting on stage for the singing contest, right in front of the three teammates. The derp is strong in this plot. But fortunately the plot is cut short because the lolis get the order to meet at a rendezvous point because of the incident. Even when the good girls confront them outside the hall, they make the implicit threat to the innocents at the school, and so they LET THEM GO! Really, untransformed they are just two little 10-year-old girls. Chris and Tsubasa are seniors. They could just deck them and take their crystals before they even had a chance to transform.
Or at least follow them, discreetly.
No, you let them challenge you to a formal duel. *headdesk*
This is hard to watch, but I figure I need to get through it to see if the third season was worth the effort it took to find.
Posted by: Mauser at May 21, 2016 01:51 PM (5Ktpu)
2
I spoke too soon about episode 5. That one ended with me shouting "Holy fuck!" at the screen. They just don't DO that in techno/magical girl shows! But I guess when the adults step in and push aside the foolishness of little girls, somebody's going to lose an arm....
Interest rekindled.
Interest rekindled.
Posted by: Mauser at May 22, 2016 05:51 PM (5Ktpu)
3
Poor Hibiki. Unlike everyone else, her Symphogear Relic, thanks to the accident in the first episode of the first series, is embedded in her chest in inoperable fragments. Even worse, it started to spread and integrate into her body. This also gave her a burst of extraordinary power when she loses control, where she grows fangs, turns into a black flaming silhouette with burning eyes, and grows ungodly fierce.
The bad news is, her power is like a cancer, and it could kill her. Be nice if they told her rather than telling Tsubasa to "Protect her," too late to stop her from getting into a big fight. And even after, she just throws the girl off the team without an explanation. *headesk*.
On the plus side, after trying to punch a monster in the mouth (and by in I mean in...) and having it chomp her arm off, then chew and swallow it in front of her while she spewed blood, this Beast Mode was able to re-form her arm. So there's that....
This show really whipsaws me back and forth between doing some of the dumbest plot moves ever, to smashing free of the constraints of the Genre, then back again.
The bad news is, her power is like a cancer, and it could kill her. Be nice if they told her rather than telling Tsubasa to "Protect her," too late to stop her from getting into a big fight. And even after, she just throws the girl off the team without an explanation. *headesk*.
On the plus side, after trying to punch a monster in the mouth (and by in I mean in...) and having it chomp her arm off, then chew and swallow it in front of her while she spewed blood, this Beast Mode was able to re-form her arm. So there's that....
This show really whipsaws me back and forth between doing some of the dumbest plot moves ever, to smashing free of the constraints of the Genre, then back again.
Posted by: Mauser at May 24, 2016 05:57 PM (5Ktpu)
4
The main reason I update the body of the post is because I do not save the comments, while do save the bodies. Or, to be more precise, I keep all the bodies in off-line storage, and when I post or edit a post, I upload from the storage. This, BTW, allows me to write posts in anything I want, like a text editor. So, I avoid writing anything into comments that I might regret to lose if I have to re-create the whole blog from scratch.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at May 27, 2016 06:09 PM (XOPVE)
5
My prose is not so Immortal... I gave up trying to save my LiveJournal when the tool I was using to back it up stopped working. The only place where I even maintain the illusion that what I say matters is my Writing Blog on Wordpress, where even then the essays are on topics that don't matter in the big picture of things, like the Hugo Awards. But that IS where I get the most readers and links in. But even the infamous Instalanche only resulted in about 800 hits in a day. A far cry from the server-destroying floods others have gotten.
I would love to be an influential voice that people listen to, but people have to listen to you first before you can have an effect on them. I see little evidence that I do. My average tweet garners 50 impressions at best. Facebook? Maybe 10 of my 74 "friends" ever react to my posts. Unless I explicitly tag them.
But I don't let that stop me from speaking my mind, however futile the exercise is. But I don't want to devolve into internet crank territory either by posting enormous volumes on a blog nobody reads. That's part of why I segregate my blogs mostly by topic, so that each can find an audience. But it's a big internet, and most folks have already found what they're looking for.
I would love to be an influential voice that people listen to, but people have to listen to you first before you can have an effect on them. I see little evidence that I do. My average tweet garners 50 impressions at best. Facebook? Maybe 10 of my 74 "friends" ever react to my posts. Unless I explicitly tag them.
But I don't let that stop me from speaking my mind, however futile the exercise is. But I don't want to devolve into internet crank territory either by posting enormous volumes on a blog nobody reads. That's part of why I segregate my blogs mostly by topic, so that each can find an audience. But it's a big internet, and most folks have already found what they're looking for.
Posted by: Mauser at May 27, 2016 07:11 PM (5Ktpu)
6
Meanwhile, the bad guys, always the more interesting characters, are starting to fracture. It turns out the whole business of being the latest incarnation of Fine' is a rouse, to try and get the mad doctor who has the Staff of Solomon (the relic that can summon and control Noise) on their side. Supposedly the fight at the end of the first season, which left a huge chunk knocked out of the moon that has now accumulated as a ring, also knocked the moon off orbit and may destroy the Earth in 10 years. This fact has been covered up. The bad guys supposedly have an altruistic motive, they can save everyone, so long as they rule the world. The other bad guys (throughout both seasons) are the Americans, who are mostly off-screen. They want the relic they can use to shield the world so they can protect just America.
Anyway, Maria ends up siding with the Doctor instead of her Mom, and the two lolis are having their doubts. One is worried that maybe SHE is the one who is going to have her identity subsumed by Fine'.
This is after the Mom tried to make a deal with the Americans, who double crossed her at a meeting in the Tokyo Tower. But the Dr., from another building, broke up the double cross with a massive Noise attack.
By AMAZING coincidence, Hibiki and her one normal friend, Miku, are in the tower. Massive property damage ensues and Hibiki goes over an edge, ending up hanging from Miku's hand. No biggie, she can let go, activate her power (the one that's killing her) and stick a superhero landing. Miku doesn't want her to do it, but hanging by a hand requires cooperation. After landing, Hibiki prepares to go rescue Miku, but there's an explosion, and she fears her friend is dead.
Of course, she's not. She got scooped up by Maria, and is now being held hostage. And by the end of the next episode, appears on the baddies side, having been injected with the Doctor's serum that can give anyone perfect pitch, I mean, make anyone compatible with the relics. Is she mind controlled, or just misled? Stay tuned.
(Of course, the bad writing strikes again: They found Miku's cell phone away from the tower, so they assumed she was alive, and were racing towards the rescue plot, which totally cripples the impact of the forced face/heel turn plot. They should have chosen one route or the other, not both.)
Anyway, Maria ends up siding with the Doctor instead of her Mom, and the two lolis are having their doubts. One is worried that maybe SHE is the one who is going to have her identity subsumed by Fine'.
This is after the Mom tried to make a deal with the Americans, who double crossed her at a meeting in the Tokyo Tower. But the Dr., from another building, broke up the double cross with a massive Noise attack.
By AMAZING coincidence, Hibiki and her one normal friend, Miku, are in the tower. Massive property damage ensues and Hibiki goes over an edge, ending up hanging from Miku's hand. No biggie, she can let go, activate her power (the one that's killing her) and stick a superhero landing. Miku doesn't want her to do it, but hanging by a hand requires cooperation. After landing, Hibiki prepares to go rescue Miku, but there's an explosion, and she fears her friend is dead.
Of course, she's not. She got scooped up by Maria, and is now being held hostage. And by the end of the next episode, appears on the baddies side, having been injected with the Doctor's serum that can give anyone perfect pitch, I mean, make anyone compatible with the relics. Is she mind controlled, or just misled? Stay tuned.
(Of course, the bad writing strikes again: They found Miku's cell phone away from the tower, so they assumed she was alive, and were racing towards the rescue plot, which totally cripples the impact of the forced face/heel turn plot. They should have chosen one route or the other, not both.)
Posted by: Mauser at May 28, 2016 02:32 PM (5Ktpu)
7
Episode 10 Shows us the sheer power of the Relic they stuck Miku with. It's mostly a light-beam themed armor, but of absurd power. On the downside, it has a part in the back of the headpiece that hooks up with her brain, making the wielder more of the carrier, really, but also making it nigh unto impossible to get her out of it. Tsubasa has her hands full keeping the Lolis in check. (One of whom the doctor depowered with the antidote to his "Linker" serum that enhances relic compatibility because she wasn't sufficiently onboard with his plan.) Hibiki is sidelined, so that leaves Chris to take on Miku. As a seasoned fighter, she eventually prevails, knocking Miku down through the desk of the ship they're fighting on. Of course, it doesn't end there, Miku gets up and fires off her most powerful weapon, and comes close to wiping out all four girls. Then the doctor fires up the staff of Solomon, covers the ships with Noise, and the girls have to fight them off while Miku makes her escape. Chris ends up doing a rather impressive "Death Blossom" maneuver, but when the lands on one of the escort ships, and sees the ashes of the sailors she failed to save, she says it's her cross to bear.
The reason they need the relic Miku has is that it has the power to break out this gigantic relic called "Frontier", which takes the form of an undersea temple. It also has the power to destroy other relics. But it also makes the user susceptible to control. The Doctor used Miku's desire to protect Hibiki and keep her from fighting to convince her that his plan will bring about a world where Hibiki will never have to fight. However, Hibiki convinces her handlers that she's the only one who can stop Miku, even if fighting her might kill her. They battle, and the bad guys, from their tilt-rotor, launch hundreds of little reflector drones that position themselves to catch every missed shot, until they've collected enough to form a mega-beam they can use to raise Frontier. But also during the fight, Hibiki gets close enough to grab Miku, and forces both of them into the beam, what happens is left to the next episode.
And in a final twist that makes no sense, Chris reverses, does a face/heel turn, and shoots Tsubasa in the back, knocking her to the ground, setting the non-depowered loli free (The other had been picked up and taken back to the sub by one of the staff).
The reason they need the relic Miku has is that it has the power to break out this gigantic relic called "Frontier", which takes the form of an undersea temple. It also has the power to destroy other relics. But it also makes the user susceptible to control. The Doctor used Miku's desire to protect Hibiki and keep her from fighting to convince her that his plan will bring about a world where Hibiki will never have to fight. However, Hibiki convinces her handlers that she's the only one who can stop Miku, even if fighting her might kill her. They battle, and the bad guys, from their tilt-rotor, launch hundreds of little reflector drones that position themselves to catch every missed shot, until they've collected enough to form a mega-beam they can use to raise Frontier. But also during the fight, Hibiki gets close enough to grab Miku, and forces both of them into the beam, what happens is left to the next episode.
And in a final twist that makes no sense, Chris reverses, does a face/heel turn, and shoots Tsubasa in the back, knocking her to the ground, setting the non-depowered loli free (The other had been picked up and taken back to the sub by one of the staff).
Posted by: Mauser at May 29, 2016 03:50 PM (5Ktpu)
8
Episode 11 really gets things twisted around. "Frontier" is a floating island with the city of the ancients on it. It's virtually a ship. The leftover piece of the monster they had early on in the series is enough to reboot the power plant, and the Doctor has managed to seize control of its systems by giving himself an injection of a form of Linker derived from the monster's cells. The ship can control gravity, which he uses to crush a fleet of American ships like balls of foil. He has hastened the crash of the moon, and his plan turns out to NOT be saving everyone, but a small selection of his choosing. Maria is there as he chortles, and realizes that the whole plan has turned to shit.
Meanwhile, Tsubasa has mostly recovered from being shot at. It's hinted that Chris may have pulled her punches. But she's still playing the switched sides card hard.
The beam did indeed strip both Hibiki and Miku of their relics. Tsubasa is going to need backup, but there's nobody else left to fight... until Hibiki proposes that the other Loli take up arms for them.
The fight match up is pretty obvious. Tsubasa vs. Chris, and Loli vs. Loli. Hibiki tags along with the loli, and tries to intervene and talk it out. They both tell her to shut the fuck up, this is a battlefield.
Hibiki takes off to find Maria, maybe she can enlist her aid. Although there's no reason for her to think that's possible.
Will she make it? I dunno, I still have two more episodes to watch.
Meanwhile, Tsubasa has mostly recovered from being shot at. It's hinted that Chris may have pulled her punches. But she's still playing the switched sides card hard.
The beam did indeed strip both Hibiki and Miku of their relics. Tsubasa is going to need backup, but there's nobody else left to fight... until Hibiki proposes that the other Loli take up arms for them.
The fight match up is pretty obvious. Tsubasa vs. Chris, and Loli vs. Loli. Hibiki tags along with the loli, and tries to intervene and talk it out. They both tell her to shut the fuck up, this is a battlefield.
Hibiki takes off to find Maria, maybe she can enlist her aid. Although there's no reason for her to think that's possible.
Will she make it? I dunno, I still have two more episodes to watch.
Posted by: Mauser at May 29, 2016 09:25 PM (5Ktpu)
9
As for the last two episodes... That was a very impressive finish. I've never quite seen such a mix of ridiculous and sublime. They actually managed to pull it all together, everyone's character arc reached its destination satisfyingly, The bad doctor did not get away, or even get the "Heroic" death he wanted instead. The other bad doctor, Maria's mom, who was dying anyway, did so restoring the Moon's orbit. (The Moon, BTW, is actually a monitoring station built by the same guardians who set everything else up. But it also inflicts mankind with the curse of Babel, keeping us down in a way beyond the dreams of the Equalizer General). The threat of Fine's spirit is ended in the fight between the two lolis. and naturally Chris-chan's Face-Heel turn was a fake, the Doctor suspected it, and equipped her with a rather stylish bomb-collar. But Chris and Tsubasa had enough battle practice that they could fake an attack that annihilate them both, allowing Tsubasa to disable the collar. In the end, all the girls ended up on the same side, with the whole world supplying the musical energy to fix everything. And they even managed to nuke the interdimensional arsenal where all these relics and Noise came from.
On the ridiculous side, the inevitable final power-ups... Multiple ones in the last episode. I can't even begin to describe... well, in one case all of the new accessories one of the Lolis ended up with flew off and reformed into a giant robot she piloted from an open cockpit....
And at one point, the doctor had deployed his anti-linker against Chris, so she couldn't use her armor without horrible feedback pain, just as he summoned a whole herd of Noise. Her solution, a command to eject all of her armor. She became a sort of living fragmentation grenade. And of course, this rendered her naked. But even naked, and clutching a PG rating to her ample chest with one arm, she WAS able to disarm the Doctor, so that was kind of epic....
But one of the best trope-busters is that it was little unpowered best friend Miku who struck the final blow that sealed off the arsenal before the nuking which would have trashed this world too.
It was a really, really uneven trip. The highs were sublime, the lows were really really low. But if you can make it to the end, it was a hell of a finish.
On the ridiculous side, the inevitable final power-ups... Multiple ones in the last episode. I can't even begin to describe... well, in one case all of the new accessories one of the Lolis ended up with flew off and reformed into a giant robot she piloted from an open cockpit....
And at one point, the doctor had deployed his anti-linker against Chris, so she couldn't use her armor without horrible feedback pain, just as he summoned a whole herd of Noise. Her solution, a command to eject all of her armor. She became a sort of living fragmentation grenade. And of course, this rendered her naked. But even naked, and clutching a PG rating to her ample chest with one arm, she WAS able to disarm the Doctor, so that was kind of epic....
But one of the best trope-busters is that it was little unpowered best friend Miku who struck the final blow that sealed off the arsenal before the nuking which would have trashed this world too.
It was a really, really uneven trip. The highs were sublime, the lows were really really low. But if you can make it to the end, it was a hell of a finish.
Posted by: Mauser at June 01, 2016 08:02 PM (5Ktpu)
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