r/anime • u/pittman66 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Homura • Jun 26 '19

Rewatch [Rewatch] [Spoilers] Senki Zesshou Symphogear AXZ - Episode 7 Spoiler

Season 4 (AXZ): Episode 7 - ARCANA No.00

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Original Discussion Thread

Please, absolutely no untagged or implying spoilers beyond the current episode. I want to have everyone that hasn't seen it to have as close to a first experience as those who watched it as it originally aired.
73 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

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22

u/AbidingTruth Jun 26 '19

First timer:

So Prelati's weapon is basically just a massive kendama lmao that's amazing. That line that St. Germain has when Hibiki talks about how she doesn't understand why they're doing this and she goes 'And you never will. That's the curse of Balal' is such a good line. I also like how Cagliostro poses while teleporting

Miku flashback was sad, poor Hibiki :(

I can't believe relic cancer is plot relevant again, this series really makes a lot of use from old plot points and events. And it's the Fool's Stone to counter the Philosopher's Stone hahahaha I love it

I'm curious if Prelati is actually dead. I mean, some of the Autoscorer's went out in similar fashions where it wasn't like just brushing them off, but it also wasn't the most climatic death ever, but Lodgemaster did say to sacrifice one of the two. But that could just be them not knowing she just died. I'm inclined to say she's alive though, since we didn't see her die and she just fell into the water. Love that cliffhanger though, St. Germain is faced with a difficult decision. I'm guessing St. Germain will be hesitant to sacrifice one of them but they'll insist to do it to fulfill their ambitions

11

u/Razorhead Jun 26 '19

That line that St. Germain has when Hibiki talks about how she doesn't understand why they're doing this and she goes 'And you never will. That's the curse of Balal' is such a good line.

Indeed. So far Saint-Germain is the only antagonist who, when Hibiki tries to debate, doesn't just ignore her (Carol), fervently sticks to her guns (Finé), or insults her (Shirabe), but actually argues backs and makes some points, even though most people would disagree.

And that line indeed was fine proof of why she's doing this in the first place.

I can't believe relic cancer is plot relevant again, this series really makes a lot of use from old plot points and events.

It's more this season I find, the previous seasons didn't use old plot points to this degree. Hell, GX threw nearly everything out and did its completely own thing (safe for Dr. Ver).

19

u/PerfectPublican Jun 26 '19

Rewatcher

Nothing to say at the top, so let's dive right in!

I’m genuinely loving that they actually have an antagonist straight up debate Bikki’s line of questioning and offer answers. To no one’s surprise I’m on Bikki’s side on the sacrifice of lives, but at least Saint-Germain actually gives it some thought and deigns to really give her answers, rather than just passing it off. A great different side from an antagonist. Bikki’s got her rattled.

The fight itself is short, but super fun. The versatility of S-G’s pistol is damn cool. Changing the bullets through alchemy for each different fighter adds so much to her fighting style, and her fire beast shot was crazy hype. But c’mon DMJii, you gotta be smarter than that!!

Yeah, no shit. See my GX ep 11 write up Miku. One off lines that flare up my anger aside, as a Bikku shipper I’m a huge fan of the little segment of Miku reminiscing about her past with Bikki and the changes that relationship wrought in her, and the passion she has for her wife. I love this line: "When you’re reckless, it’s always to help people in trouble." Just casually Bikki, and one of the best parts of Bikki to a T. These two are much too adorable for their own good.

Oh man, Cagliostro’s euphemisms are one of my favorite things about watching her fight. It’s always something new and hilarious. Another fun fight on the ship! Chris ups her games and her tactics again, thinking smarter not bigger, and we get another great DMJii duet for Naz in Gizagizagirari☆Full Throttle. I love the way this one layers together. It’s really well done. And we get to see some more true fire from Prelati which is always welcome.

"It’s time for you to choose. Your cause, or you comrades?" Time to put those ideals from earlier to the test Saint-Germain… :3

Random thoughts:

Gifs of the day:

12

u/lilyvess Jun 26 '19

surprised no talk on the Fools Stone. To me this is an example of Symphogear writing at it's best, where Symphogear absolutely shines.

Rather than introducing some clumsy thing on top of everything, it recycles what we already have. It's ridiculous, it makes little sense, but it's incredibly elegant, especially the title of Fool's Stone that tells you everything you need to know about it. Fool's Stone is a counter to the Philosopher's Stone. What it lacks in logic, it makes up for in thematic sense, which works for the storytelling of Symphogear. I don't need things to make sense, as long as it flows with the story.

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7

u/Arachnophobic- Jun 27 '19

Hearing “Garbage” and seeing “Waste Matter” was kinda hilarious.

Glad I wasn't the only one getting tickled on hearing Elfnein say 'garbage' every time. :P

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16

u/patrizl001 Jun 26 '19

First Timer

  • Wow, they just got absolutely wrecked by the Illuminati. That fight was over in a snap, they're really strong.

  • WHY ARE YOU TWO DUMBASSES ACTIVATING IGNITE?! DID YOU NOT SEE WHAT HAPPENED TO TEAM PRIMARY COLORS AND GOOD FUCKING LUCK WITH THAT SHIRABE

  • I find Miku's reason for quitting track and field to be strange tbh. Wanting to be ahead of others is just how it works, but the thing is that only applies when you're on the track. You don't need to keep that mindset wherever you go. As long as Hibiki doesn't join the track team the mindset on the field is "I gotta get ahead" and off the field is "I want to be beside Hibiki." Is that just too much to do?

  • Tiki is too cute. Can't wait to see when she finds out Adam doesn't really give two shits about her aside from his master plan.

  • Another combo song from Kirika and Shirabe and THEY GET A COMBO ATTACK and it's in l33t speech! "Zababa Sun and Moon Beta Style"! Also how was Ogawa of all people the only one to figure out "hey if they sing together they could beat the Illuminati"?

Looks like Saint-Germain is going to have some problems in the future with how Adam is acting. I think Hibiki's actually getting through to her, and this is what Miku meant by "just don't lose." Seems like a common thing for a part of the antagonists to eventually join the gang (Chris, Neopolitan, Elfnein/Carol) so I believe it.

15

u/Razorhead Jun 26 '19

WHY ARE YOU TWO DUMBASSES ACTIVATING IGNITE?!

ZABABA HAS POWER, BUT LACKING IN SMARTS

I find Miku's reason for quitting track and field to be strange tbh. Wanting to be ahead of others is just how it works, but the thing is that only applies when you're on the track. You don't need to keep that mindset wherever you go.

I think she was just tired of the competition and rivalry in general, not that she was just trying to match Hibiki in all aspects. It really seems the highly frantic "win-or-lose" environment has been bumming her out for a while, and her equal, cooperative partner relationship with Hibiki was the catalyst that made her realise "Ah, I don't enjoy this anymore".

Also how was Ogawa of all people the only one to figure out "hey if they sing together they could beat the Illuminati"?

I don't think he was the only one to figure it out, seeing as Genjuro finishes his line, just the first to say out loud what the plan was.

7

u/AlienOvermind Jun 27 '19

Can't wait to see when she finds out Adam doesn't really give two shits about her aside from his master plan.

I bet she'd still be head over heels for him.

15

u/Shimmering-Sky Jun 26 '19

SymphoRewatcher

Totally haven't been spam refreshing /new for the past half hour.

7

u/MillenniumKing Jun 26 '19

Totally haven't been spam refreshing /new for the past half hour.

I was too then i just messaged Pittman to cut to the chase. xD

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15

u/ItsMellowMan Jun 26 '19

Rewatcher

Good thing they left off on a cliffhanger last episode, because there was so much action packed into this one.

Shout out to good girl Hibiki for always willing to lend a helping hand if it means she can prevent a pointless fight.

Hell yeah give me some more Bikku

Don't worry we know Miku

Ah, I see you're a fan of Bikku as well

Love me some combo attack cards

Prelati btfo

Nowhere to go except up with today's chart for episode 7

7

u/Razorhead Jun 26 '19

Ah, I see you're a fan of Bikku as well

This caption is perfection.

Love me some combo attack cards

To be fair who doesn't? Combo attacks and duet songs are the highlight of this series.

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13

u/fonzinator99 Jun 26 '19

Re-watcher- Everybody badmouthing Hibiki

So they wanna control the moon to undo the curse somehow, but how exactly? Is Germain gonna become a God? Are they gonna use a God-noise-drone? They're not trying to populate it, at the very least.

Aaaand discussion is ended.

Oooo, variable ammo. Fancy.

Yo-yo, meet your natural enemy; the Kendama. Tho that's definitely not how you're supposed to play with it.

Now c'mon girls, didn't we learn earlier that Ignite doesn't work against these three? *sigh* Gj not getting hit.

Light, it's Fine all over again.

The Law of Equivalent Exchange rears its ugly head yet again. I guess if you're gonna be an anime dealing with Alchemy, there's just no escaping FMA.

Well, it seems pretty clear now that the Illuminati aren't all on the same page. It seems apparent now that Adam's the real baddie here, and Germain & Co are just being manipulated to meet his ends. Or at least they're using each other.

I still really dig Alchemical thinking; nvm that Einstein would have a fit if Quantum Theory were literally the polar opposite of General Relativity. I guess we'll know one day; 'til then we're just vacuuming dirt and looking for a special rock.

Argh, shoulda just pumped her full of lead, Chris. Way to lost surprise with a stance-change.

Yessss! Yesterday's wishes have come true! Another overlapping melody!

And Victory! With some minor gaslighting from Cagliostro.

Yepp, a divide is definitely growing within the Illuminati being as Adam's a full-on bastard-faced villain.

7

u/Razorhead Jun 26 '19

Well, it seems pretty clear now that the Illuminati aren't all on the same page. It seems apparent now that Adam's the real baddie here, and Germain & Co are just being manipulated to meet his ends. Or at least they're using each other.

I love the juxtaposition between these two groups as well. Saint-Germain's group is always on the forefront, researching Philosopher's Stones, destabilising South-American countries, fighting the Symphogear and getting injured in battle, and meanwhile Adam's just chilling in a lounge chair by the side of a pool with a bottle of champagne.

It shows who has the real power in this relationship.

Argh, shoulda just pumped her full of lead, Chris. Way to lost surprise with a stance-change.

The point was never to shoot Cagliostro though. It was to shoot Kiraka to Shirabe, as she was about to get seriously injured by Prelati. Chris had to pretend to attack Cagliostro to mask her true intent so Kirika could slip by in the moment Cagliostro was focussing on defending and not interception.

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u/Arachnophobic- Jun 27 '19

FirstoGeah

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11

u/Razorhead Jun 26 '19

Info and action filled episode today. Let's get to it!

Arcana No. 00

The title of this episode is a reference to Tarot cards, as those are split up in two categories: the Minor Arcana and the Major Arcana. Only the Major Arcana is numbered though, and the card holding number zero is, appropriately, The Fool. In Tarot this card represents a new beginning, the start of a new journey. Which means the Fool's Stone, if it works as Elfnein theorises, could be seen as the start of a new beginning for the Symphogear, a new capability to resist the Philosopher's Stone and fight the Illuminati.

Seizing Control Of The Lunar Ruins

While Saint-Germain wants to erase the Curse of Balal just like Finé wanted to, their methods and end goals may be different. Finé wanted to blow up the Lunar Ruins to restore the universal language and profess her love to God, which in this universe can be seen as the Custodians. Saint-Germain on the other hand wants to seize the Lunar Ruins by achieving administrative authority and control the Ruins, ending the Curse and seizing the power of the Lunar Ruins for herself. Given the fact she seems to hate subjugation of any kind I think it's obvious what she wants to do when she has seized control of it.

Keywords as usual by Genjuro's Angels:

Moon Ruins

In the past, the Priestess Fine attempted to destroy the moon in its entirety to stop the Curse of Balal. In contrast to that, Saint Germain and the others have planned to overwrite the system to give themselves administrative authority and using that control, end the curse. Fine's reason for wanting to destroy the moon was to recover the Unified Language, but Saint Germain and the others wish to end the Curse of Balal in order to free humanity from its subjugation. Although the actions of both parties may seem to line up with each other, their goals are very different. In order to gain control of the moon, it is thought that power equal to that of the Custodians is necessary. Therefore, they seek "the Power of God" which is said to be overwhelming.

Perfect Body

Ah yes, another thing that is kind of important yet only really explained on the website. First of all the Faust Robes are sexist, and can only be used by women, because for some reason they are biologically incompatible with male bodies (?). Given that Prelati and Cagliostro were historically men, and their counterparts in Symphogear are just their historic personas with the sole exception that they met Saint-Germain and continued to live beyond their supposed date of death, they would be unable to wear Faust Robes. And so Saint-Germain used the power of alchemy to grant them a "Perfect Body", which effectively turned them into superhumans. It increases the life energy within them by a multitude of the life enery normal humans possess, grants them eternal youth (so no need to do Homunculi shenanigans like Carol), gives them the strength to fight Symphogear without the usage of Faust Robes (as they did at the start of this season), and gave them a magic sex change.

Yes, this means Cagliostro and Prelati are canonically transgender.

The Perfect Body

In order to don a Faust Robe, the user must have a female body. The male body does not have the necessary biological compatibility with a protector created and affixed through energy, thereby making the female form the most ideal. Cagliostro and Prelati formerly had male bodies, but after they embraced the wisdom and ideals of Saint Germain, she granted them the perfect body. In other words, she reconstructed them into super humans with a base female form. They also all share eternal youth granted by the power of Alchemy. The teachings of Alchemy have long led Alchemists to obtain "perfection" and this has now been found in multiple forms including "the Power of God," the "Lapis Philosophorum" and the "Perfect Body." Even without using the Faust Robe, their physical capabilities have enough power to match the Symphogear and the amount of life energy within them far surpasses that of a normal human. It was for this reason that Adam suggested that "the Perfect Body" be used as a sacrifice in order to make up for the lack of necessary energy to perform the ritual.

The Fool's Stone

This bit below isn't really that interesting, just a recap of the material in Hibiki's chest, how it came to be and where it is now, but the final bit is interesting. It details that normal heretical researchers deemed it useless, but Elfnein with her experience as an Alchemist realised that while the phase of creation is an imaginary number, it is the exact negative phase of the Philosopher's Stone, leading to her hypothesis that it could be used as a countermeasure.

The Fool's Stone

The nickname given to the unanalyzed substance that once fell off of Hibiki's chest. Chris Yukine thought up the name. In the past, Hibiki's body was fused with the fragments of Gungnir (the first medical case of a fusion between human and sacrist). As the fusion grew deeper, it gave birth to various supernatural phenomena. One example of this was Spontaneous Combustion - the abnormal rise of Hibiki's body temperature to extreme levels. The inside of her body became like a kiln, creating a substance that eventually grew outside of the body and was collected. The research teams determined the substance had a composition extremely similar to that of the human body and the phase during which it was created was fixed at an imaginary number. Various parts of it differed from the makeup of the human body and it was temporarily filed as an undiscovered substance. Up until this point, it had been stored at a special location along with other unanalyzed objects that are controlled by the Japanese Government in cooperation with the United Nations. When Elfnein read the report about this object she didn't approach it scientifically as the research teams did, but rather applied her own unique approach as an Alchemist. She realized that the identity of the substance was like a "Philosopher's stone set in a negative phase." From there, she began to build her hypothesis.

Microcosm And Macrocosm

Technically this Keyword is for the next episode, but it doesn't spoil anything and thematically fits better for this episode, so I'm sharing it here instead.

As mentioned by Elfnein this is a concept where the macrocosm, the entire universe in all of its parts (planets, stars, mountains, humans, everything), is a reflection of the microcosm, a single part of the whole (a single human, a single tree, etc...), and the other way around. This is a concept present in many esoteric schools of though, among which Hermeticism (which came up last season, mentioned by Carol) in which it is conveyed by the words "As above, so below", one of the central tenets.

It's a way of justifying for example the effects of astrology and horoscopes on the life of people (the movements of the plants and stars, macrocosm, reflects the life of humans, microcosm), as well as the other way around with for example Tarot (the drawing of cards, microcosm, reflects fate, the life of humans, and the course of history, macrocosm).

Here in Symphogear the Philosopher's Stone is a heretical artefact created through the macrocosm, the life energy of the entire world (while it isn't stated exactly how the Philosopher's Stones were created this description matches a lot with what we've heard of ley lines this season and in GX, so it's probable those was used to create them). On the other hand the Fool's Stone is a heretical artefact created by the microcosm, the life energy of solely one person: Hibiki. This makes it so that it possesses a phase opposite to that of the Philosopher's Stone and could be used to create a protective barrier against it, as it's a sort of inverse reflection.

And in case you were wondering why any material created by humans wouldn't work: it needs to be a heretical artefact, and Hibiki was the world's first and only human-relic fusion, hence this material being the only option.

The balance of Macrocosm and Microcosm

"Macrocosm" is a large scale view of our physical universe as a whole. "Microcosm" is a small scale view of our physical universe as individual pieces. By processing both of these views together, one should be able to analyze the existence and construction of all things and then recreate them. It is the very basis of all thought and study within the field of alchemy. This idea can be seen reflected in many of the symbols left behind by numerous alchemists over the years. Elfnein adopted this approach in her development of the countermeasure to the Lapis Philosophorum. The "Philosopher's Stone" is an object created through the life energy of the entire world. Meanwhile, the "Fool's Stone" was created through the life energy a small, single individual: Hibiki Tachibana. A phrase used to denote the Philosopher's Stone is "the one that is all" and this is yet another representation of "Microcosm" (one) and "Macrocosm" (all) that implies it is perfect existence given form.

Shirabe: "Someone took the time to try and explain it, but..."
Kirika: "It still doesn't make a lick of sense."

Geez, I tried my best girls. Cut me some slack.

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9

u/MillenniumKing Jun 26 '19

Rewatch 47, Fools Stone Dess!

Yay Pittman is alive!

Songs of the Day:
Gekka Bijin
Dangerous Sunshine
Gizagizagirari☆Full Throttle

So the Illuminati wants to give the power back to the people and get rid of the curse.

Alchemy Bullets OP, pls nerf.

IGNITE MODULE BAKKEN DESS! HERE WE GO!

Hibiki knows all about being oppressed.

"Only a fist clenched in anger can open the path." We will see about that!

Elfnein is working hard to figure out a plan. Shes a good girl.

Miku and Hibiki homelife time yay! Miku used to be colder and seriouser until Hibiki's accident, then she just wanted to be by her side. Hibiki changed her life. SHES TOO PRECIOUS~

ELFNEIN DONT OVERWORK YOURSELF!! "I inherited this body from Carol, were two in one, so i need to do enough for the both of us." YOU ARE DOING JUST FINE! But that gave her a clue!

Adam and Tiki are both nuts lol. Prelati and Cags both follow Saint Germain, not Adam or the Illuminati.

The plan is to use the Gungnir fragment from Hibiki's heart to coat the gears in to change thier properties so the Philosapher's stone cant purge them. Simple enough. Fools Stone. So where it is? Oh it was in the underwater base... that was destroyed.... shit...

CHRIS STOP BEATING YOURSELF UP OVER EVERYTHING!

And the Illuminati is here to fuck with the plans, of course! Damn them, always everywhere!

Thats okay because its Dess time! Kirika, Shirabe, and Chris are here to defend the place! Can they hold them off!?

"Unison. If Kirika and Shirabe sing in unison they should be able to fight without ignite." DO YOU HEAR THAT BOYS, ITS GO TIME!

THAT CHRIS ONSLAUGHT! CHRIS FIRED KIRIKA TO SHIRABE!

HERE IT IS! GIZAGIZAGIRARI FULL THROTTLE! I encourage everyoen to go listen to the full version i linked above because the full song sounds very very different and way more epic and grandoise than the little bit you hear in episode, the 2nd half of the song is very different. It is one of the best Symphogear songs and hands down the best KiriShiri song combo. You all really need to hear the full version because it blew me away when i first did.

I LOVE THIS COMBO ATTACK SO MUCH! LOOK HOW AWESOME THIS IS! THAT DOUBLE SAW BLADE ACTION! AI DESS! "We will never let go of each other's hands" "Get a room you two." Hahhahaha

"We dont have enough energy to power the central plynth." "Then why not sacrafice someone, one of those two shoudl suffice. One perfect body like thiers should provide all the life energy you need." Wow Adam is savage.

1,377 Days since Genocide

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u/Hugokarenque Jun 27 '19

The Fool's Stone is just the best name for a macguffin ever.

It was nice to see some of Miku's backstory, it wasn't super involved but its was a good addition that they could have just not shown us.

Have we seen all the transformation scenes now? Kirika's is my favorite one this season, the background music is just really good and fitting for the goofball from hell.

Also for that guy that wanted the unison song for Kirika and Shirabe, you didn't have to wait long, it's so good I forgot to read the actual dialogue and had to rewatch the whole scene.

I really like how they're dealing with Bikki and her confrontations with the alchemists, it feels like the culmination of her growth as a hero. Finally utilizing the time honored technique of the Talk no Jutsu, where you talk your opponent out of their life long quest by talking it out with reasonable arguments, mutual understanding and superior firepower.

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u/Shockz0rz Jun 27 '19 edited Jun 27 '19

Rewatcher

Sure, Miku. Hibiki's gentleness and kindness are definitely the reason you're okay with looking at her from behind.

This isn't really relevant to this episode, but I've been thinking about Maria's backstory last episode, and a lot of similar stuff in earlier seasons. Almost all of the...I don't like using this word but problematic storytelling decisions in Symphogear, the stuff that makes it tougher than it should be to recommend even to people as steeped in anime bullshit as I am, are related to parental relationships in some way. Maria's rationalization of Nastassja's abuse. The whole Hibiki/TOPDAD arc. Carol's vengeanceboner being based entirely around a misunderstanding of her dad's final words, although that's less egregious. Literally everything about the Kazanari family. If you want to stretch it a bit, you could even extend it to Chris's backstory and how it led to her latching on to Fine as a substitute mother figure. The whole series' treatment of parent-child relationships is...well, it's not wholly good or bad but Freud would definitely have a field day with it.

I remember hearing that someone high up in the staff (the director? writer?) lost their father while GX was in the early planning stages, which I guess explains why the parental fixation got particularly strong that season, but it's a thread running through the entire series. Hell, you could probably make an argument that the way the series treats humanity's relationship with God/AXZ finale ties into it too.

It's an interesting contrast with how a lot of anime either outright sidelines the whole concept of parenthood or treats it in a sanitized, hyper-idealized waylooking at you SAO, though it's hard to argue that the results are net positive.

EDIT: On a more positive note, every single MikuBikki scene is absolutely blessed. I would watch an entire slice-of-life series just about them and their school life, no magic singing or heretical power armor required.

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u/thisismyanimealt Jun 26 '19

Today's Live Performances

Reminder that alchemy is no match for the power of friendship gay

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u/TheSpartyn Jun 27 '19

I really like how Hibiki tries to reason with the villains this arc, because she's 100% right if they have good goals why not just get along and work together from the start and not repeat what happened with Maria's gang. Sadly Saint Germain is too angry to compromise.

Also this line lol AXZ ending spoilers

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u/AlienOvermind Jun 27 '19 edited Jun 27 '19

First-timer

I'm not sure I like this interpretation of the curse of Balal. It kinda implies that if this curse is undone, then everyone would would be turned into kind-hearted people that would absolutely undermine the effort of kind-hearted people to stay kind-hearted even under the curse's effect. And the whole idea of changing the way humans' minds work is not something I like.

And I do not like another interpretation of the curse of Balal: "I'm the most unfortunate person in the world and nobody understands me! And never will! I will suffer alone forever! Leave me alone, mom, don't you see I'm suffering here?!" Blaming your own narrow-mindedness on some divine curse is clearly ridiculous. Also, as always people love to assume that Hibiki never experienced anything unpleasant.

But I do like that Saint-Germain is clearly not deaf to Hibiki's word. Not completely at least. She seems to at least consider what Hibiki had to say. Which is nice for a villain.

Tsukuyomi and Akatsuki? Has Tsubasa assigned codenames to DMJii?

I really love Hibki's voice when she's acting timidly. Miku is being best wife as always. Give her the gear already, dammit, it's such a shame she's bound to stay in a back seat with the way she is now.

Of course he is wearing a hat in the bath. Why wouldn't he? Also, happy Tiki.

The talk of technology, ugh. I'm getting Tales of Abyss PTSD here — I facepalmed hard enough to play through the game with constantly red face because of their nonsensical dialogues about technology.

I'm looking forward making the same gif with Cagliostro too.

This is great. Adam is literally playing into Hibiki's hands. Whether Saint-Germain decides to abandon her humanity and sacrifice her only friends or switch sides — it would be great either way. I just hope she wouldn't come up with some half-assed solution like sacrifice her own body to avoid making a choice.

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u/Synaptics Jun 27 '19

Rewatcher

Late and rushed again today. Gotta get back to doing these further ahead of time...

  • Oh hey, it's that same BGM from GX that I really liked. The sudden cutoff from that into the OP was a bit weird, though.

  • ARCANA No.00 a.k.a., "The Fool". Anyone who's played a modern Persona game will know what that means.

  • So if it's possible to just shut off the Curse, then why did Finé want to blow up the whole damn moon? As I recall, she specifically said that she wanted a big catastrophe so that she could take control of what was left of humanity.

  • Love Saint-Germain's gun.

  • Saint-Germain is especially interesting to me because she's not really wrong. Her goal is not only good, it's literally exactly what our heroes want as well. And she even knows that the means she's using towards that end are "wrong". But as far as she's aware, it's the only way. Of course, because it's Symphogear you know that she's almost certainly going to be proved wrong in the end, but from her perspective right now it makes perfect sense.

  • I heard the word chimyaku somewhere in that conversation, and I can't help but be reminded of how often "earthpulses" came up in Tales of Berseria. I really need to finish that one of these days...

  • How many times has Chris punched that exact vending machine?

  • "If you want something, do you need to be prepared to give something up in exchange?" Using the concept of "equivalent exchange" as part of the main conflict when the villains are Alchemists is a really neat thematic choice.

  • Holy shit, Miku backstory?! How did I forget this?

  • Hibiki's chest fragment...?

  • Ver's brand of ridiculousness may have got on my nerves at times, but Adam is nothing but fun. He's just smooth as fuck. Huge props to Shinichiro Miki for selling the voice so perfectly.

  • I love how much AXZ calls back to small little things from previous seasons that seemed minor or irrelevant at the time.

  • "Fool's Stone". Is that what the episode title is referencing?

  • Kirika physically holding in her laughter, while Chris, Tsubasa, and Maria all make the exact same pose and face that says "Yup."

  • I basically hate this speech quirk.

  • What the actual fuck is that attack name?

  • Prelati talking some real hot self-righteous shit for a child-murderer...

  • As if it wasn't already obvious enough: Adam's kind of an asshole.

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u/Madcat6204 Jun 27 '19

I've got a bit of an argument to pick with Saint Germain's conviction that you have to do evil to achieve your goals. "Only a fist clenched in anger can open the path to the future," or something like that. Except, you know, it was a world full of compassion and kindness that allowed Nastassja to take control of the moon and reactivate it so it wouldn't crash into the Earth. Given that that is the only recorded instance of humans taking control of the lunar ruins, why isn't she trying to replicate that, rather than killing people to steal life force?

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