Symphogear AXZ

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Symphogear is back!
Season 4 of Symphogear episode 1 just came out, and they managed to match, if not surpass, the ridiculous over-the-top action from season 3's opening.
I doubt the first episode of any other show this season will be able to top the sheer awesomeness of Season 4's first 10 minutes.

Commie just subbed it, so definitely pick up that version as it has song subtitles.

For those who haven't watched any Symphogear, the watch order is:
Symphogear
Symphogear G
Symphogear GX
Symphogear AXZ

If you haven't given Symphogear a chance, I highly recommend it if you enjoy ridiculous magic battles. Don't expect super deep plots. Do expect girls punching, slicing, and shooting many, many things well-timed to some fantastic music by Elements Garden and sung by Nana Mizuki and crew.

My best explanation for Symphogear is that it is like Macross, but instead of having pilots and planes, the singers ARE the mecha. Singing is power, literally.

Still just as stupid, still just as bad.

Manages to compare to Black Lagoon, Fist of the North Star, some random ninja anime, the Avengers movie, TTGL, and Project A-ko in less than 10 minutes as the girls stop Lt. Guile and their enemies betray their ally General Noriega.

Obviously, my favorite for the season.

That harmony when the three alchemist girls are singing in the non-language.

Tsubaba's VA (Mizuki Nana) was a little heavy on the vibrato this episode.

The missile jumping seemed to be a homage to Metal Gear Solid Revengeance, or maybe that one level in Contra 3.

I think my favorite part this episode was Hibiki deflecting tank shells with her Chinese martial arts. The one-two step cut in particular is fantastic.

I thought Nana sounded fine. Some of it is probably due to them singing live in the recording booth at the same time they're voice acting.

The alchemists were apparently actually singing really, really bad German, is what I saw some people saying on reddit.

Keep in mind, Project A-ko is from 1986. Missile jumping pretty much starts from there.

If the Illuminati alchemists are singing in bad German, that carries from GX, where Carol was from France or Germany.

The main girls sing their transformation songs and Swan Songs in mangled Nordic languages, if I'm not mistaken.

So episode 2 is out.


God damn! This season is going all out. Second episode that plays like an 11th of previous seasons. The Maria-Kirika-Shirabe Trio song was really good, fitting lyrics as always.

I also like the way that the Illuminati alchemists are playing off of what Carol tried to do last season in destroying the world, and are making themselves invincible trying to force history to go a certain way. Their little pet dragon being invulnerable to normal attacks (lol, Kirika's comment about Hibiki) by simply regenerating itself from an alternate timeline. They didn't go right out and say it, but the art of it splicing into infinite mirror images and a new whole reforming was pretty telling.

Chris' past coming back to bite her is also a nice overarching plotline. She'd been kind of left out of things lately.

But the boobs on the blue haired villainess (voiced by a dude, heh) are kind of grotesque. They hang weird compared to everyone else in the franchise.

Last but not least, Pirate Finé!

Agreed on all points. A solid episode 2 after the ridiculously amazing episode 1.
Exposition was getting a little heavy-handed with the alchemists, but I guess they want us to have an idea of what their goals are.

Maria's fighting was cool, and lol at the jet launcher.

Bikki is amazing of course, but I'm expecting her to lose in the next episode to show how good the badguys are.

Tiki or whatever is in the gold/crystal looks an awful lot like Hibiki. I'm curious if they'll play that up at all or it's just coincidence.

I'm also curious if all of the alchemists are hundreds of years old, or just the leader one so far. The boat from the 1400s with alchemists on it totally reminded me of Baccano.

Also, that OP! Maria boxing shadow-clone ninja guy was awesome.