Senki Zesshou Symphogear - Episode 12, 13

Congratulations GetWet on finally completing this trainwreck of a series. As a viewer, it was tough to watch so I extend my condolences out to all the staff who had the misfortune of being involved in the subbing of this show. Kudos to you all for battling through it... Okay, it's not as bad as I make it seem, but Symphogear definitely didn't meet expectations.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear - Episode 11

Well, at least the art isn't that bad...

Didn't see this coming, did you? Well, neither did I. It seems like GetWet is slowly (and I do mean "slowly") finishing up this series. Usually, being this delayed is not a good sign at all. But since Symphogear has fallen below my expectations, all I care about is that it's actually completed, regardless of when.

However, to my surprise, this episode was actually quite entertaining; my expectations were lowered drastically since Episode 1 so "quite entertaining" may be an overstatement. Now that the true (and obvious) identity of Ryōko is revealed, things are starting to heat up. I appreciated the fact there is actually an antagonist in the story, rather than just having the protagonists continuously fighting to protect people from the Noise. But on the other hand, I felt that waiting eleven full episodes before revealing this fact was unnecessary and resulted in the loss of many viewers.

Some Updates

Some updates regarding pending reviews.

Area no Kishi is dropped from reviews since I've fallen too far behind. There's just not much to write about when it comes to sports anime. This is the one important lesson I took out of this.

No, I haven't forgotten about the Ano Natsu de Matteru review. It is still a work in progress. I just haven't found the time and motivation to finish it. I'll try and complete it when I catch up with everything else.

Currently awaiting GetWet to release the last few episodes of Senki Zesshou Symphogear. As of today (May 10th, 2012), they have released up to Episode 11, which I will review soon. Other than that, I'll just have to play the waiting game. Hopefully, the last two episodes are released before this season ends.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more reviews~

Senki Zesshou Symphogear - Episode 9, 10

Still sticking with GetWet for this series so that's the reason why the reviews are so late. Hopefully, the last three episodes will be released soon.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear - Episode 8

The perfect example of QUALITY animation.

Wait... what happened to Miku? Where's the "I can't be your friend anymore" or "You lied to me so I'm not talking to you" attitude? It's like there was a random timeskip or the last episode never happened. Worst of all, there wasn't even an explanation as to why Miku said what she said. I find things like these hurt the believability and entertainment value of a show. The repetitiveness of the songs, not to mention how horrible-sounding they are, also pull down the ratings remarkably since one of the central themes in the series is music. Aside from Hibiki and Miku's restored friendship, the plot barely moved.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear - Episode 7

Fine = Ryōko?

On the scale of realism, this show would probably float around "unrealistic" even if all the Symphogears were removed. The characters all seem fake and their development extremely forced. Last time, it was Tsubasa's sudden change of attitude towards Hibiki. This time, it was Miku's personality that did a complete 180-degree turn.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear - Episode 6

;__;

Surely, but slowly, the episodes are being released. This one in particularly got the series back on track. I enjoyed it for the most part but felt some things were questionable. Still, the series has fallen far from where it started; a promising first episode had caused my expectations to be high. And by the looks of the score on the MAL page, the future episodes don't look too bright. Nonetheless, I will not let this discourage me/influence my thoughts. My reviews will still be based solely on my own thoughts, though. Now then, for this episode, I've split the bulk of the review into the two paragraphs: one for the positives, and one for the negatives.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear - Episode 5

Berserk Hibiki shows up again

Some interesting development for a show that I had thought of dropping. A new antagonist is introduced right off the bat, although her face isn't shown. An uninformative English phone call to what I presume to be a representative of America sets up the rest of the episode well. Surprisingly, the episode did not focus on the development of Hibiki. Instead, Ryōko's "other side" seems to be finally making its public appearance.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear - Episode 4

A perfect example of contrasting images

This was a very eventful episode, in my opinion. The episode was divided into three distinct parts, each of which added a lot to the story. Apart from the story, the animation quality was still a bit awkward in a few scenes. The BGM tracks used in this episode, on the other hand, sounded really nice and matched well with their respective scenes. Symphogear is slowly back on the rise again after a couple of disappointing episodes. I'm looking forward to seeing how everything unfolds now that Tsubasa is temporarily out of the picture.

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.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear - Episode 2

Why does this have to happen?

To be honest, this episode wasn't really that great when compared to the first one. Maybe it's because the battles against the Noise are starting to get old or the tension between Tsubasa and Hibiki is being emphasized and dragged out too much for my liking; it just doesn't have the charm and flare that Episode 1 had. Nonetheless, the episode was still enjoyable as it explained a bit more about Symphogears and how they work. And just like last week, another cliffhanger is placed at the end of the episode.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear - Episode 1

Kanade and Tsubasa~

This was truly a stellar start to a series which I picked up at the last minute. What I wanted was delivered to me right in the beginning with that budget-blowing concert. The song 逆光のフリューゲル (which I believe is the title of the song that was performed) worked extremely well as a means of immersing the viewer in the episode. Even though it has only been one episode, the slew of songs (some of which I found interesting since they were neither Japanese or English) that were sung throughout makes me wonder if and hope that the rest of the episodes will be similar in style.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear - Preview

Senki Zesshou Symphogear (shortened to SZS): an anime about two girls saving the world through music. While this sounds like another apocalyptic story, the addition of the element of music is what grabbed my attention. Seeing as how THE iDOLM@STER, one of my favorite shows, came to an end last season, the absence of a music-oriented anime in my weekly schedule is quite disappointing. I'm just hoping that SZS can fill the void left by THE iDOLM@STER. Essentially, I'm looking for more music, as opposed to story/plot development, so I will watch in hope of seeing some budget-draining concerts.

Winter 2012

A new year means lots of changes and that is exactly what I have planned for my blog this year. Gone are the days of one-paragraph reviews followed by a wall-of-text summary; they are replaced by short paragraphs of pure reviewing and thoughts. I think this will enable me to pick up more shows and make it easier and more interesting for people to read. I'd like to thank everyone for supporting my blog by just reading it (the increase in pageviews recently has been encouraging) and I hope that this year will be a great one.

I've decided to blog about several shows this season. I may add or remove some depending on my schedule and preferences. For now, the list of shows I plan to watch for the Winter 2012 season are below.