Senki Zesshou Symphogear - Episode 3

o__o"

Things are slowly going downhill, that much I can say. What started out as a series with lots of potential has now become a boring story about two girls, one of whom blames the other for a friend's death, and their fight against monsters through the use of songs. I am slowly losing interest as the relationship between the two leads is frustrating to watch. It's unfortunate that they killed off one of the poster characters so early, especially since she looked to be a likeable character. Also, the repetitiveness of the battle songs doesn't help my enjoyment, either.

The only interesting portion of the episode was Hibiki's so-called "berserk mode." Even though she's evidently not fully out of control, the degree of strength shown gives an idea of what might happen if she were to go completely insane. In a way, the scene where she rips apart the Noise creatures like they were made of paper was slightly disturbing seeing as how her actions contrasted with her regular personality. The disappointing part was that her semi-berserk mode only lasted for a minute or so before she went back to being happy-go-lucky but helpless Hibiki.

Although I mentioned the story as being not-so-great, another scene that made me not enjoy the episode as much as I would've liked to was when Tsubasa and her "manager" were walking down the hall. Those who have watched this episode will definitely know what I'm talking about. The animation quality was so bad that it didn't even look like walking at all. The unnatural movement of hair, the overly emphasized bouncing and stiff swaying of bodies made the scene so horrible that it was actually funny. Never before have I seen such poor animation. Keep up the good work, Satelight. /sarcasm

Aside from the story, the lack of new music is also disappointing. This is supposed to be an anime about songs and singing but, after the first episode, I don't think there have been more than two new songs. Tsubasa's battle song and style are getting too repetitive and I'm assuming Hibiki's going to follow suit. From what I have said already, it's quite obvious that I'm getting slightly impatient. Even though I don't expect to, I may end up dropping this show if it continues to falter. We'll see how things go next week. Hopefully I won't have as many negative things to say.