aight well i said i could do it, let's see if i actually can
RANT 1: OVERVIEW AND LAYING OUT THE RANTS TO COME
Okay so Symphogear GX was the third season in a series that was pretty fucking decent. I'd say G (the second season) was great even. For those not in the know, Symphogear is a series about mecha magical girls beating the shit out of their enemies, holding hands, and being gay 'n shit. Season 1 was a fairly standard superhero story with conspiracy and Biblical elements, simple in concept and something that's been done a number of times before but the villain's backstory is fucking bonkers and everything is overblown and cuhrazee so it had a nice niche appeal. The second season is Basically Nanoha A's But Different yet it still worked out and kept the appeal of the first season while improving the overall narrative, adding further lore, backstory, and building upon what was present before, such as character development and plot points.
![[Image: bswKayW.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/bswKayW.jpg)
At least the Gear redesigns were good.
They had ended G with adding new cast members who could be expanded upon and get their own arcs while the old guard could keep their development. Of course they avoided doing this in GX and instead reset all the characters instead and had everyone become massive fucking idiots. Even the plot requires everyone to be dumb as hell for it to work. The previous main threat of Seasons 1 and 2 was wiped out completely in Season 2, they had a very clean slate where they could do something original. Hint: They don't. There are many lessons they could have learned from how the previous seasons turned out, Kaneko had not worked with anime before and Season 1 was a little bit of a mess as a result since he wanted to do so many things at once and compromised to work them all in. You'd think the third time would be good because he knew what he was dealing with by now and G showed that despite having a lull in the middle, right? Fucking wrong. They can't even get the pacing right even though that should have been something to watch out for considering the first season was a bit silly with spoiling its "TWEEST" villain as early as not even halfway in.
![[Image: 5xklZ7v.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/5xklZ7v.jpg)
Micha, one of the villainous Autoscorers, wants nothing to do with this bullshit.
The villains of GX have utterly AMAZING designs and everyone adores them. There was so much potential here, easily likeable aesthetically and their core idea could have been something very good with setting them up as rivals for certain Gear users with a lot of personality based back and forths. Do they do any of this? Of course not. The previous season had a villain troupe that was a little low in powerlevel and apparently this was heinously wrong so in order to fix this they made villains so abhorrently overpowered they have to WANT to lose to lose. Oh right THAT'S THE PLOT OF THE SHOW. Fucking great. Also, any budget that could have gone to making the fights with them interesting is instead wasted on animating trash mobs that are exactly identical to the season 1 and 2 threats that I mentioned being wiped out before. The choreography and flow of fights is screwed over because of this forced inclusion for series "tradition" even though G had plenty of straight Gear to Gear combat that was unimpeded by a need to force the Noise mobs into everything.
![[Image: qvt53zY.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/qvt53zY.jpg)
PIctured: A waste of decent, if edgy, designs
So in order to combat this new threat, the Gears have to get an upgrade! Oh boy, everyone's favorite in action series. Just add another level of power for the heroes so that if you need them to job they'll just not use the obvious super doody doo, and if they're gonna win they'll use it and be really powerful. (Haha no actually the powerup isn't why they won it was the villains jobbing on purpose because they're so strong not even the powerup would let the heroes win. No I'm not exaggerating that's what happens.) What makes this powerup in particular even worse is that the heroes have to overcome a self-trial to gain full hold of it, meaning the viewer must sit through the same sort of thing multiple times for each character overcoming their inner demons. Did I mention how episodic this series winds up? The start is every Gear systematically losing, then they get the powerup and they go through each Gear systematically winning. It's like going through the goddamn motions.
![[Image: Ch0FFve.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/Ch0FFve.jpg)
Our cute little main antagonist that can infinitely duplicate her memories yet forgot everything important despite having backups.
I haven't even touched on the main antagonist yet, whose motivations are so fucking stupid and a stretch that requires her to have forgotten important parts of her past. Despite that one of the key parts of her plan being a clone of herself WITH ALL OF HER MEMORIES. And said clone sides with the heroes and is a good person BECAUSE SHE HAS ALL OF THOSE MEMORIES, UNLIKE THE ORIGINAL APPARENTLY. I'd go on further but that's its own rant. Lots of this stuff will become their own ranting centerpieces, just you all wait.
Fuck Symphogear GX.
RANT 1: OVERVIEW AND LAYING OUT THE RANTS TO COME
Okay so Symphogear GX was the third season in a series that was pretty fucking decent. I'd say G (the second season) was great even. For those not in the know, Symphogear is a series about mecha magical girls beating the shit out of their enemies, holding hands, and being gay 'n shit. Season 1 was a fairly standard superhero story with conspiracy and Biblical elements, simple in concept and something that's been done a number of times before but the villain's backstory is fucking bonkers and everything is overblown and cuhrazee so it had a nice niche appeal. The second season is Basically Nanoha A's But Different yet it still worked out and kept the appeal of the first season while improving the overall narrative, adding further lore, backstory, and building upon what was present before, such as character development and plot points.
At least the Gear redesigns were good.
They had ended G with adding new cast members who could be expanded upon and get their own arcs while the old guard could keep their development. Of course they avoided doing this in GX and instead reset all the characters instead and had everyone become massive fucking idiots. Even the plot requires everyone to be dumb as hell for it to work. The previous main threat of Seasons 1 and 2 was wiped out completely in Season 2, they had a very clean slate where they could do something original. Hint: They don't. There are many lessons they could have learned from how the previous seasons turned out, Kaneko had not worked with anime before and Season 1 was a little bit of a mess as a result since he wanted to do so many things at once and compromised to work them all in. You'd think the third time would be good because he knew what he was dealing with by now and G showed that despite having a lull in the middle, right? Fucking wrong. They can't even get the pacing right even though that should have been something to watch out for considering the first season was a bit silly with spoiling its "TWEEST" villain as early as not even halfway in.
Micha, one of the villainous Autoscorers, wants nothing to do with this bullshit.
The villains of GX have utterly AMAZING designs and everyone adores them. There was so much potential here, easily likeable aesthetically and their core idea could have been something very good with setting them up as rivals for certain Gear users with a lot of personality based back and forths. Do they do any of this? Of course not. The previous season had a villain troupe that was a little low in powerlevel and apparently this was heinously wrong so in order to fix this they made villains so abhorrently overpowered they have to WANT to lose to lose. Oh right THAT'S THE PLOT OF THE SHOW. Fucking great. Also, any budget that could have gone to making the fights with them interesting is instead wasted on animating trash mobs that are exactly identical to the season 1 and 2 threats that I mentioned being wiped out before. The choreography and flow of fights is screwed over because of this forced inclusion for series "tradition" even though G had plenty of straight Gear to Gear combat that was unimpeded by a need to force the Noise mobs into everything.
PIctured: A waste of decent, if edgy, designs
So in order to combat this new threat, the Gears have to get an upgrade! Oh boy, everyone's favorite in action series. Just add another level of power for the heroes so that if you need them to job they'll just not use the obvious super doody doo, and if they're gonna win they'll use it and be really powerful. (Haha no actually the powerup isn't why they won it was the villains jobbing on purpose because they're so strong not even the powerup would let the heroes win. No I'm not exaggerating that's what happens.) What makes this powerup in particular even worse is that the heroes have to overcome a self-trial to gain full hold of it, meaning the viewer must sit through the same sort of thing multiple times for each character overcoming their inner demons. Did I mention how episodic this series winds up? The start is every Gear systematically losing, then they get the powerup and they go through each Gear systematically winning. It's like going through the goddamn motions.
Our cute little main antagonist that can infinitely duplicate her memories yet forgot everything important despite having backups.
I haven't even touched on the main antagonist yet, whose motivations are so fucking stupid and a stretch that requires her to have forgotten important parts of her past. Despite that one of the key parts of her plan being a clone of herself WITH ALL OF HER MEMORIES. And said clone sides with the heroes and is a good person BECAUSE SHE HAS ALL OF THOSE MEMORIES, UNLIKE THE ORIGINAL APPARENTLY. I'd go on further but that's its own rant. Lots of this stuff will become their own ranting centerpieces, just you all wait.
Fuck Symphogear GX.
![[Image: s2n7oi.png]](https://files.catbox.moe/s2n7oi.png)
