The first episode of Symphogear XV (season 5) came out this week, and my Twitter feed is full of info about it. So a lot of the time I just have to skip it all, or just avoid Twitter entirely, because spoilers and stuff, and I don’t like spoilers, especially as I hear season 5 is going to be the final one. Maybe I should just marathon the entire Symphogear franchise this season…maybe I should just leave it to a Twitter poll…
I have enough shows to watch this season, so that was just a joke. I don’t normally pick 4 shows, so increasing it to 9 would tip me over the edge. That would probably end up replacing my Summer Curse™.
So to begin: I thought the humor in Astra Lost in Space was going to disappear…oh boy, was I wrong. They only decided to double it, and turn this survival story into your average school trip, and now I can’t get a girl’s laugh out of my head…
That scene happens later in this week’s episode, though. The plot this week continues from the opening, where the 9 find a viable planet to gather food and water. I complain about the unnecessary humor, but I’m getting a lot more Lost vibes this week. Not only are we treated to some tragic backstories, but something else unnatural happens to the 9 on the planet…which has already let the fan theorize that this entire deep space incident was given to the 9 on purpose, as a set-up of sorts.
This is definitely Quitterie’s episode, where she shows the other 8 (and us) how super-tsundere she is. I’ve since learned that this adaptation has cut a lot from the original manga, and that Quitterie was far more angry and difficult in that. Maybe it was just a time issue? What they have decided on though is this letterbox format, which I think will carry on for the rest of the season. Do I like it though? Give it a few more episodes, and we’ll see.
With the rather complicated opening episode out of the way, El-Melloi can finally get into what was the ‘meat’ of the show, which is these mini-stories; these little detective stories. Our first one is set at a rotunda mansion, where the owner has been found mutilated by magecraft, leaving his daughter, his best friend, his nephew and the head maid as suspects. As I continued watching, I found the story more interesting than I had previously anticipated, however as this is really not the ideal show for Fate newcomers who want to get into the franchise, I think that watching the show as mini-stories would be far more enjoyable.
What ultimately bothers me is that El-Melloi is trying to take itself too seriously. It is this over-emphasis that is actually putting me a little off the show. I’m not 100% sure if I would enjoy any ongoing plot that happens here. While Lord El-Melloi himself has not really come across as an exciting person, I’m keenly interested on who this apprentice of his is. No doubt we’ll hear a lot more from her another week, but I’ll continue to tune in, if not for the story or for Lord El-Melloi, but for cute little Grey.
At least Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru? doesn’t take itself so seriously…
As well as some more antics at the massive corporate gym, Ayaka gets a proper introduction this week. Turns out that her family runs a boxing gym, and her father made her and her sister become coaches. Ayaka could easily steal the top spot of Best Girl in this show, I believe. While we see Akemi obsess over health, gym training and the like, Ayaka appears to take a more grounded and sensible approach to exercise. I could analyze this show and say how it mixes the silliness of what goes on at the gym with the more sensible stuff outside the gym, but this show is not meant to be taken seriously at all.
All the edutainment skits in Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru? are all well and good, but there are a few things that have come up that have bugged me. I already spoke about body-shaming last week, but I think what bugs me just as much is how the show thrusts unnaturally huge muscles in your face so much. Sure, it’s meant to be some kind of non-serious joke, but I’ve seen enough of Machio ripping his clothes apart to show off his pecks. It was funny the first time, so to see it again and again just gets really irritating, and I anticipate that this will be a gimmick that’ll just keep on coming back.
And as we descend into the protein bar at the gym, all I could think of was Aggretsuko‘s yoga instructor.
I’m not taking Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru? seriously anymore. My last show here, though, is something that deserves to be analyzed deeply. O Maidens In Your Savage Season has quickly become a show that makes me feel all sorts of emotions towards the characters, and makes me think on how puberty has hit them all like a wrecking ball…no-one more than Kasuza.
She has only ever known the boy she likes, Izumi, as the mischievous kid next door, and so to suddenly see him as the apple of every girls’ eye is a major shock. As I said last week, the main catalyst of all of this has been Niina, and her own approach to sex. She speaks of herself as the aloof beauty who will die soon, using deep metaphors on how she will be replaced by a woman who is far more knowledgeable in love/sex/relationships/etc. I’m not sure if I like how she seems to be secretly enjoying playing with the high emotions of the other girls, though. Sure, it’s all information they will learn soon enough, but this just seems to be the wrong approach. Or maybe it’s me being old-fashioned about it all…
Again, Momoko and Hitoha are relatively left out this episode, and our ‘secondary’ story revolves around how a boy Rika seems to like has suddenly taken an amiable interest in her. She’s finding it all extremely uncomfortable, and is choosing to take out all her frustrations at everyone else, simply because there’s no-one else and she feels that there’s no part in her that’s wrong. Her upbringing has meant she has never felt like this before, even as an upperclassman, and her firm shell will be broken eventually. Pretty predictable on how this will end, but I’m still interested on how exactly it’ll be approached (I haven’t read the manga, so I don’t know).
Protagonist’s points-of-view have been empathized a lot in O Maidens In Your Savage Season. As we watch, we don’t quite feel like the outsider looking in on these girls’ lives – instead we end up feeling Kazusa’s sheer panic at the thought of losing the innocent Izumi she once knew…Niina’s curiosity when she feels she has to ‘metamorphose’ into a learned woman…Rika’s absolute frustration at her classmates who are all talking about who they’re dating, and how they’re ‘doing it’. Is this all the Mari Okada effect? Possibly…
As I said above, my Twitter feed has gotten flooded with Symphogear XV tweets, and here’s me still stuck on episode 2 of season 1. Maybe I should just go and do some kind of Symphogear challenge where I watch the entire franchise (50+ episodes and counting) in one go.
Here in this episode though, Hibiki remains blown away that she can transform into a singing mecha magical girl, and Tsubasa remains blown away that Hibiki has a piece of Kanade’s Gungnir armor stuck in her chest (when she was the concert two years ago). An establishing episode here, and we’ll get into all the really juicy action later on. But I am happy that this was my chosen show, and I’m looking forward to some ; if it ended up being Keijo!!!!!!!! (the second-place pick), then I think I would have gotten a bit frustrated. Maybe frustrated enough that it would end up being my classic/out-of-season pick as being my Summer Curse™.
If you’re more curious about this whole franchise, then go ahead and check out this cool Crunchyroll article, effectively telling you why you should be watching Symphogear. I have a lot of episodes to watch to catch up with every other stan here…should I do that challenge of binging the entire franchise in one go? Yes or no in the comments…
Something else before I wrap this up…I will be attending Scotland Loves Anime for the first time this year, in October. They haven’t made any announcements on what’ll be shown yet, but since I always hear so much about what happens, I felt a little left out. It takes place in both Glasgow and Edinburgh, but I’ll be going over the second weekend in Edinburgh. My first time to Scotland as well.
Oh, and this was the latest Symphogear XV pic I saw on my Twitter feed. I have no idea of how this scenario came across, so I see I have a hell of a lot of catching up to do:
Week 2 has passed, and how were your anime picks? Any outstanding eps for you, or have any characters become your best boy or best girl? Feel free to hit that like button and air your opinions in the comments below…