This post was last modified: Oct 10, 2017 at 7:41 AM by Draku.

PART 2: THE IDEA AND CHARACTERS OF SYMPHOGEAR AND HOW GX FUCKS THEM UP, SECTION I

I touched on this in the first rant post, but I will expand upon it here, much like many points made in that post will be in the future. Symphogear is a mecha magical girl series that combines many appeals from various niche media, from idolshit to sentai to create one hell of a show that's incredibly fun to watch and can 180 its mood around from complete and utter death and devastation to prim and happy school life in the blink of an eye. The first season came out of nowhere as an anime original and blew many with low expectations going in watching it away. Much of what it does has been done before, but Symphogear has its own brand of crazy over-the-topness and adherence to insane lore stuff that really brings it home. It's simply a fun as fuck show that knows what it's going and succeeds heavily at it.

The main trio of Season 1, as seen in... Season 2. From left to right: Tsubasa, Hibiki, Chris.

Season 1 mainly focuses on the development of Hibiki Tachibana, the main character of the series. She's very charming and headstrong, wanting nothing more than to talk with others yet at the same time willing to fight those in their way if she must in order to get through to them. She manages to go from misguidedly trying to fill the shoes of the Gear user who died trying to protect her at the start and manages to become her own person in the process. Her main conflict in the second season is driven by loose threads of the first, with her own hardheadedness driving her to continue fighting as hard as she must even though the incident that caused her to become a Gear user is literally killing her, bringing her to arms against even her best friend, who she faces without any hesitation, as she simply wishes to right the situation despite the immense risk to herself.

Hibiki when confronted with someone who she can't convince with words alone in Season 1, channeling her feelings into her fists instead.

Fast forward to Season 3, where Hibiki is a complete fucking wimp who whines about fighting other humans and can't even transform at one point due to a lack of determination yet acts like a complete asshat to the person who gave her the key to continue fighting. Hibiki as a character plummets down to the absolute rock bottom of the cast despite being the shining star of the first two seasons who brought everyone together. Now she's simply stuck in a hospital bed the entire time and can't do a god damn thing ever, except for the times when she conveniently snaps back to her senses, which still isn't enough by comparison. While this sort of development could work out if executed better if this was her first time dealing with such an issue, it's not at all. She's overcome this before. Multiple times! GX's modus operandi is to reset as many characters as possible and infuriate the viewer by making their redone "development" insufferable. Also, bring dads into everything. Right, Hibiki has a dad that abandoned the shit out of her when she was younger and is nowhere to be found in the first two seasons. I wonder what happened to him?

Hibiki when confronted with someone who she can't convince with words alone in Season 3, being a whiny shit who doesn't even want to transform to deal with a hostile enemy right in front of her.

Tsubasa Kazanari is another major player in the original season, acting as a sort of deuteragonist but at the same time a source of conflict. She was a free bird and singer while teamed up with Kanade, her idol partner that helped bring her out of her shell. After the passing of her beloved friend, she recluses and steels herself from the outside world, coldly following on only the duties given to her as a sentinel on the battlefield and not enjoying her music career much if at all. She blames Hibiki for what happened to Kanade and takes her anger out on her, yet the kindness in Hibiki's heart as well as Tachibana's own developments to move past her stupid and thoughtless goal of "replacing" Tsubasa's lost second half manage to break the ice in the blue girl's heart and make her expand her horizons, taking an opportunity to sing for the world over and enjoy herself again, even if Kanade will only be there in spirit.

The end result of Tsubasa's development in the first season, having overcome her past and present to be reborn and head towards the future, symbolized via the flames of a phoenix.

Season 3 manages to completely fucking ignore this and have her fall right back into the same shit where she thinks she's nothing but a sword for battle. Surprise surprise, another character, Maria, manages to make her realize she's being foolish and that she should be more open to the world. Again. What caused this regression, you may ask? Why, none other than conflicted feelings centered at her father, of course. Family lineage is binding and whatnot. But it was all a misunderstanding, and her father (who actually isn't her biological father, lol Symphogear) was actually totally cool with her doing her own thing the entire time and actually was glad to see her move away from being a stoic sentinel. And so we get the same arc as Season 1, except heavily compacted, meaningless, and with more daddy issues. This is a recurring trend in Season 3, you see...

The end result of Tsubasa's development in the third season, having overcome her past and present to be reborn and head towards the future, symbolized via the flames of a phoenix.

Tune in next time for further elaboration on the cast, focusing on some of the characters I didn't get to today.

Fuck Symphogear GX.

SHY GUYS

Shy Guys have always been my favorite Mario enemy... well, not always, but ever since I first played Yoshi's Island. Why? A couple reasons, really. First is that their design is just more visually appealing than most of the others - the mask leaves you wondering what's behind it, while the overall shape and design has that chibi aesthetic that tends to get people interested. Second is their utility. Part of what drew my attention in Yoshi's Island was the way Shy Guys seemed to do anything - fly, hop around, dance with spears - and reading guides for Paper Mario only made them appeal even harder with Chapter 4. It took me years to actually play Paper Mario, but doing so was worth it for Shy Guy's Toy Box. Finally, they're just pretty fun to play as in those games that let you do so. Shy Guy was always my main in Mario Power Tennis, and I never regretted it as a choice.

I give Shy Guys four and a half mysterious masks out of five.

yeah i liked this writeup a lot cause it really gets to the big problem (at least imo) with symphogear gx: everyone just feels like their previous characterization got reset or totally ignored to fit into the dumb theme of dad issues, and in a show like symphogear where the characters are whats holding all this goofy and silly stuff together, is a death sentence (as we can see by how bad this season is)

good writeup, im excited for the next episode of the draku symphogear saga ™

CHUCKYA


Also known as Cuckyas, this is probably the most frustrating enemy you will encounter in Super Mario 64. They will grab your ass and then fucking murder you by throwing you off the platform to your death. They are heartless. Just look at their empty eyes.

Chuckyas are not that common in Super Mario 64. However, they are for some reason every romhacker's wet dream. Do you have an empty area? Fill it with chuckyas. Got a small platform? Put a chuckya on it. Just fuck me right up. I totally didn't spend 20min getting up to the top of your bullshit level.

I originally hated these guys but I have learned to love them because of how goddamn broken they are. Check out this old ass Pannekoek vid. My favorite way to fight back against shitty romhackers is using chuckyas. The idiots fill their levels with them so it's only fair that I get to use them to cheat. I just grab them from behind and then clip right through walls and fences. Vanish cap? Who needs that trash when you can force your way in while simultaneously committing murder?