PART 8: HOW TO MAKE ONE OF THE WORST CHARACTERS IN ANIME HISTORY, PART DICKS

Screw introductions I'm hopping right in. So picking up from last time, Miku, the Bastion of Toppus Daddus, forces Hibiki to go meet up with her asshole abusive father. AGAIN. But wait, while they're on the phone another important point comes up!! Miku recites that everything will be all right and just fine, Hibiki's catchphrase from the series. This shocks Hibiki. Oh no. Oh fucking no you don't you shitheads.


Moving on from this point that will surely never come up again, Hibiki meets with her dad at the diner again. Maybe this time will go smoother! She asks him to make up with her mother, and he responds that he simply can't do that! He's too prideful for it, and it's difficult! His ex-wife probably hates him for, I dunno, THE PHYSICAL ABUSE. Hibiki's fucking dumbstruck at this. She was pushing on him to make the first move, since she knows that he was the one that was nagging her so much about the family (There's a scene where her phone has endless unanswered calls from his dumb ass, all probably begging for her to contact her mother and make everything dandy in his place so he doesn't have to do jack fucking shit and can just slip back into the family.


Oh shit though, Carol's plan's in motion now! The World Destructor Machine Chateau Bullshit Fucknugget breaks through reality and drops above the city, causing Hibiki and Top Dad to flee the diner and gaze up at it. Hibiki's panicked and talking with the government base to figure out what to do, while Top Dad...


...gets another moment of his asshole glory. This dude is legitimately more unlikeable than most anime villains. In fact, those are almost always better written, with motivations and reasons to feel for them. For Top Dad? It's all just this endless slew of shit. Absolutely nothing redeemable. Not even a glimmer. Until suddenly, Carol attacks, and Top Dad grabs Hibiki and saves her momentarily. The first sort of acceptable act this idiot makes, even if it was written this way as normally Hibiki would be able to take care of herself in the past seasons. GX even goes out of its way to set up Hibiki as the sort to not dodge Carol's blasts with a bit in the first/second episodes, just to make this moment suddenly work despite the contradiction with past events. Great.


And then he runs away immediately.


Carol even shittalks him for being such a pussy, because her dad could beat up Hibiki's dad.


Top Dad, when faced with all of this, decides that THIS is the prime time to turn over a new leaf, by... doing nothing really. He throws Hibiki's Gear at her so that he can go be in safety and have her fix everything. Wow, real lesson learned there. If they wanted to redeem him so badly, he could have at least stood by her or something, fuck. Not that you can redeem someone who's been built up as the ultimate dickwad anyways, but this is the cheapest fucking copout they could have come up with. Nothing about him changes character-wise, he just says a couple things and IS STILL RUNNING AWAY. That's not all though!


Hibiki forgives her father. You want to know why? YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY HIBIKI IS SUDDENLY, AFTER ALL THIS TIME, SUPER 100% A-OK WITH HIM AND IS SMILING HAPPILY? Because HE'S THE ONE WHO GAVE HER HER CATCHPHRASE. "It's all right. Everything is just fine." Those words were APPARENTLY taught to her by her father, and they were so strong as a mantra they were what guided her through every hardship she's ever had! I'm all for giving catchphrases backstories and whatnot in future installments, but poisoning previous seasons and song lyrics like this is just abhorrent. So yeah, Top Dad is now a superhero who gave Hibiki her fighting strength this whole time and she forgot about it until now. Fuck Symphogear GX.


So yeah, Hibiki loves him again! Woo! And he didn't even need to really change or anything for it, all that needed to happen was for her to remember that he told her to lie to herself in the face of adversity so she can face it. Except this fucking moron can't even keep to it himself, so why should she believe in it at all? It just doesn't make sense. So after everything is over, Hibiki takes her father to her house, and he makes the first move and begs to be let back into the family! Hibiki's mother and grandmother look at eachother and know he's fucking trouble, so they both silently tell him to fuck off. BUT THEN


They taint Hibiki's ability to bring people together by holding their hands with THIS shit. In the past, Hibiki was able to turn those who were good at heart but in a bad situation that forced them to do wrongs back on the right path with her conviction, but Hibiki here simply drags one awful party back in with her own mother, who deserves none of this shit. Again, way to shit on past seasons and Hibiki's character even more. Top Dad didn't change his ways at all and had to face fucking nothing. He doesn't atone in any way and will go right back to being a terrible fucking person the instant he's back on the easy ride into the house piggybacked off of his daughter's hardships and mental pain.


What's with all the dads anyways? Apparently the main writer behind the series had been having troubled thoughts about his relationship with his own father around the time a little before GX was being written, and wanted to get in better touch with him and pay his father more mind. So with all this on his mind he simply wrote as much dad shit as he could into the series and wanted his dad to see it all. Then his dad died right before GX aired and he was really bent out of shape about it, which really sucks and I sympathize with him over his loss, having been through the same thing. But for the love of fuck, that doesn't mean one should twist everything in a story around so it relates back to dads endlessly just to catch a family member's attention since they said they didn't really understand your stuff. Especially when you've already written one of those fathers to be irredeemable before they even appeared in the show. Just... don't.

Fuck Symphogear GX.