gaaaaaaaaay

I liked how Hibiki resembles her dad, both in appearance and partially in attitude. You can see her laid-back attitude inherited from him, but she has learned how to take responsibility for her actions and grow as a person, whereas he has not. Pretty cool.

Also, Episode VIII: Return of the Edgelord

lol this episode was awful.

Feels like they were just trying to fit in Kirika and Shirabe's edge forms before they did anything else and I think you can really tell. Though, I suppose you could level the same criticism about last episode and Maria, but I thought episode 7 was one of the best in the series so far so *shrug*. The best scenes in this episode were the ones dealing with Hibiki.

Shirabe and Kirika's dispute really didn't make any sense. Going from Kirika's "No, of course I'm not ok." to Shirabe's "Am I burdening you?" is lol and doesn't make any sense. Granted, they are teenagers but still unless Shirabe can read Kirika's mind and see her flashbacks to Chris then there was really nothing for her to get mad over right then.

I actually had to go back and watch the scene in the tunnels again to understand why they even started fighting, I was so confused when it got to the scene in the medic bay. It's really a shame because otherwise the character revelation they had at the end of the episode would have been a good one for them.

Also Micha just going super saiyan for no reason. What's up with that? I know it's Symphogear but come on. Also it's true that she's gotten mad whenever she's been around the Gears before but her going out right before Carol's revival is kind of confusing for two reasons. 1. Why did she go? She's always been relatively obedient before, I know it was her "free time" but she's always swallowed her anger before. 2. "I'll fulfill my mission." This is twice now that the dolls have said something like that before going and dying but it seems like their mission doesn't actually involve dying? Based on the way Leiur and the other doll were talking to Micha ("Where are you going? The memory implant is almost complete.") and Carol's confusion about Garie and Micha being missing. Clearly she was supposed to be around when Carol got revived. It kinda contradicts all the foreshadowing they did with Garie's death about her death being her purpose. ("I need to be first.")

Guess we're back to the same old Symphogear writing/pacing.

The pacing for Kirika/Shirabe's argument is pretty rushed, yeah. Micha having a second form is probably just because she's the strongest Autoscorer though. She was specifically mentioned to be specialized for combat unlike the other three and all. I'm not sure if you could say she expected to die or not, she obviously didn't mind, but she was pretty surprised that she lost, then again Garie was the same way. Both Micha and Garie liked fighting though, and they were picking on the weaker gears to begin with, so if they didn't think they'd die, it'd make sense.

The tunnel battle marks the second time that Micha wasn't able to finish off Kirika and Shirabe when she wanted to, so she could've just gotten more annoyed by that than by anything that happened before. It's also possible that she's only obedient when Carol's personally ordering her.

I don't think Shirabe needs to read Kirika's mind to see that "no, I'm not okay" after she protected her is negative, at the very least it's obviously ungrateful. Being a burden is a weird thing to say there, though. Especially since Chris was mad that she couldn't protect Elfnein, if anything, Kirika was the "burden". It was pretty obvious that they wanted to get their Ignite forms out of the way, yeah.

Anyway their revelations at the end were fine, and we've had far worse writing before, so this is no big deal.

Hibiki's scenes were really good. Now we have an established pattern that, when something's bothering her, she gets snappy and angry and doesn't like opening up. Unlike the no hurting people thing (I rolled my eyes when reading through Hinoa's blog and seeing that she tried to punch Ver), this is something we haven't seen before; the only person who she's ever truly confided in was Miku, and so far in GX, she hasn't snapped at Miku, but she has snapped at everyone else that provoked her.

tl;dr DMjii's parts were okay but could've been better, but Hibiki was good, so okay episode.

Rewatching the scene, the "I'm not okay" / "Am I a burden?" thing was because Shirabe was getting crumpled by the fire assault and was in danger, buuut I suspect it's also partially a translation error?
Easier to understand after that is Kirika's desire to do all the work/fighting so that Shirabe doesn't get hurt, and Shirabe interpreting that as Kirika thinking she was a burden.

And as the hospital scene goes: Shirabe thinks Kirika pushed herself too hard, Kirika says that Shirabe jumped in recklessly, Shirabe says that Kirika thinks she's a burden.
tl;dr Kirika doesn't want Shirabe hurt so she throws herself in the frontlines, making Shirabe feel like she's a burden/not pulling her share, which makes her be even more aggressive. So it's a cycle.

The way they introduced it was a bit clumsy/sudden, but I think the argument between them is a good one, and certainly better than what they disagreed over in G, which was super dum

I think, yeah, it's mainly been pacing issues more than the actual content, that's been causing trouble in those regards.

Yeah, overall I thought the content of the episode was alright or had the potential to be good. Just, like Draco says, the pacing and execution of it was less than good.

I think the big problem with the pacing is that they have to stir up some conflict in the characters which they ultimately overcome before killing an Autoscorer, but the timing wasn't quite spot on in 8. For Maria, it worked because they showed her issues much earlier on, whereas Kiri and Shirabe's dispute did come up abruptly in this episode. I'm guessing Chris and Tsubasa will have their issues and wrestle with them before killing the other two respectively. I can see it working for Tsubasa, but Chris hasn't done that much this season. That said, she's had her protection issues hinted at, so she'll probably be all right.

Also while I'm sad Garie is dead, I'm also pleased the other dolls are going to get screentime as a result (though this doesn't apply to Micha rip). Garie IS great but she was also hogging the spotlight when it came to Autoscorers. Dem facial expressions were great though.

also full disclosure; long haired Micha is kinda pretty.

Mirroring the pacing problems complaint here.

Everything the season has done so far for the most part seems like a logical step on paper, but they're taking the steps at odd times so nothing's in any kind of rhythm.

Zababa Eclipse ~ Forbidden Wheel of Evil was pretty great though, and I've already said before that I'm inordinately fond of edge as it is

A lot of episodes this season could do with some repacing but we have to work with what we get. Oh well. It's still okay enough for my flawed tastes.

Also is it just me or did other people totally expect them to stop whatever they're pretending is this "subtlety" with the Kirika/Shirabe mutual yuri situation and just have the two freaking kiss one another at the end there? They practically glued the scene into the perfect cliched frames for that kind of nonsense.

(as to whether or not I would appreciate them doing that, I wouldn't, so I'm glad they didn't. But I expected it to happen when I saw those 'camera angles' and face shots)

Oh yeah, the fight scene was great. 'Dat combination attack. Symphogear always does goat fight scenes.

Also Boyd's Garie picture/solbowz's 'died for an SD card' post simultaneously cracked me up.

Yeah, Hibiki and Miku should get the first canon kiss. KiriShira can have theirs after.

Yeah, pacing is getting kinda conflict-of-the-week here, but that's partly because the whole Ignite module thing is based around having the strength of will to overcome stuff - or at least, that's how I see it. I'm not really expecting masterful writing here, though. It's a [radio edit]ing magical girl anime (where the magic's actually Sufficient Advanced Technology); if I wanted masterfully written stuff, I'd read a book.

Also, ugh, we're stuck with the boring Autoscorers. Hopefully they'll do something to make them less boring.

I actually thought this was one of the better episodes, even if it definitely did have pacing problems. Kirika's and Shirabe's stuff was okay and this is probably the best Hibiki's character has been handled all season.

All season for sure, if not all series. 8DDD Like Draco said, it's cool how she gets her laidbackness from her dad, but other things to drive her (friends, Miku, protecting people) along with her own personal sense of justice.

Hinoa hit on something I was thinking today, that the past two episodes have been kind of conflict-of-the-week. Which isn't necessarily bad, just different for Symphogear writing -- which usually hits the climax of the arc at the end of the episode, and resolves it quickly into the next. So this gives it a more "episodic" feeling instead of the "interlinked" cliffhangers.

Also, Carol coming back and clearly seeing/speaking through Elfie basically confirms that some kind of shit's going to go down there.
If predictions were right and Tsubasa and Chris will each take out one of the remaining dolls, what does that leave Hibiki again? Carol, oooor will she have to punch someone she really doesn't want to punch, ie. Elfie?

Still holding out for Miku getting something. 8D Though I think that would wreck her dynamic a bit of being Hibiki's emotional anchor.

Hibiki's dad