I really dig this cast! I like how even Messer's grim reaper hardass attitude gets depth, with that he's doing it to protect people, and him turning down the offer to socialize, but that close-up on his face telling you that it still bothers him that people see him as asocial

Mikumo is so good, it's basically like Tsubasa if she suddenly didn't entirely defrost in a single episode and kept her role. She definitely might end up dying, but in the meantime she has a great mix of hidden self-doubt, background, and hardass to Freyja. The subbers' buttmad at the end was great.

I really dig Hayate as well, Mirage's speech to him after his 'first kill' was fantastic. In general I really like all the cast, I think they all have their memorable bits and own personality-types. And they're not all bending over backwards to make the MC look amazeballs.

I can definitely appreciate the Windmerean side as well, and it looks like they're a neat set-up to the kind of anti-Western thought of "get brutalized/scarred, then coerced into softpower economic/'trade' agreements which actually favour the conqueror. Of course nationalism factors into it, but their restriction of earthen culture also shows an understanding of the 'culture war' aspect of war, aka dehumanizing the other side.

Also the spacefights are pretty hype/tense, as always, and the juxtaposition with the Walkure is both jarring and also somehow hype, even if it still gets idol cheesy
It's funny because this show assumes the audience is the type to be into both aidorus and scifi mechs and so on

idk how to fight the dead, chasetral

Oh my god this rain is LOUD

PLEASE DO NOT BLOCK ADS ON KISSANIME

Ten seconds have passed and we already have our animal symbolism. Not to criticize that, of course.

Getting all Lawrence of Arabia in here.

I should qualify this reaction post by saying that singing-as-a-combat-mechanic makes me cringe like nothing else.

I don't watch a whole lot of anime but the moe is already real and kind of hurting my molars.

I, too, growl when I nod.

uh oh, these girls are IDOLS, aren't they

Suddenly the opening of FFX-2 makes much more sense. I still hate that game, of course. I do admit that it's pretty fun, though.

The job system is basically like FFV, which I'm a big fan of. If a game has good combat mechanics and class systems, I can more or less ignore the story and characters entirely.

I do think that FFX was one of those stories that had room for a sequel IN THEORY, but actually making a sequel was probably not the greatest idea. Kind of hard to describe. Some stories should be left open just so we can get the impression that there will be something after--

Wait, people are being eaten.

omg no no no no

this singing, PLEASE

omg I can't watch this. I am dying.





Madoka is like "omg, this is so cool." And yet she's the one who ends up dying on us, apparently!

Oh shit, Madoka wrecked.

YOU CAN ONLY BE SAVED IF YOU BECOME A SYMPHOGEAR.

Best girl confirmed.

I have to say, this all escalated rather quickly.



This is all well and good, but we don't even know who this person making this sacrifice is. Or at least, I certainly wasn't able to glean much from her character aside from just general enthusiasm and altruism. Maybe that's the point?

Back to the present day.

Isn't this a FFVIII song? I've heard this melody before, I swear.

Hibiki is irritating.

Nice view from the dorm room.

In case I need to qualify that statement: I am talking about the landscape, not the impromptu cleavage shot.

This juxtaposition of Magical Girl Symphogear against things like vanilla military is so, so weird to me. It's the same reason I could never take superhero comics/movies seriously. Well, not "take seriously," I guess. I was just never able to suspend my disbelief enough to consider it anything but funny. This is kind of the same thing.

So do people know that the Magical Girls are actually fighters, too?

omg, something is always happening

wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww where did this little girl come from???

I admit, I don't really know what's happening here. Where did this girl come from? Where are they going? "I'm getting further away from the shelter." Okay, what? What's the shelter? I swear I've been paying attention.

We're getting FLCL up in here.

Alright. Huh. So this was a thing.