天下制覇

Oh boy. Magic arms.

Impressions:

Really? Really, Symphogear? The energy blast was just what Hibiki needed? Really? Could we not think of any other way to resolve that? In fact, the whole start seemed dedicated to taking the wind out of a lot of sails. We just skip forward a little bit to noodles everybody just being all better again without even any real fanfare over Chris at all. Or even any focus to be honest. Do you even want us to care about this nonsensical twist? Maybe that’s the point. Nobody’s obviously buying it, so maybe if we just do our best to ignore it, nobody will care when it turns out to unsurprisingly be nothing. Just like the stuff waaaaaaaay back when with Hibiki’s sad past! And then the moon gets a big energy slap. I thought we got our moonlust out of our systems last season, guys. There was also a relative lack of action this episode, forcing all the chattering to carry the episode, which as I’ve already said many times, holds my interest as well as tissue paper holds molten lead. Relative still being the very operative word there though in comparison to many other things.

I’m also less than thrilled with either Maria completing her journey to a helpless weeping wreck or Dr. Evil gaining yet more magic powers. Maria’s involvement with the main characters since about episode 3 or 4 has been nothing but watching them and biting her lip. Now, I’m not even certain she’ll even do anything but try to ‘heroically’ sacrifice herself, if even that. Dr. Evil I still just have a hard time taking seriously as a main antagonist. For all the faces he makes and children he kills, let’s not forget that every single fight he’s been involved in so far has ended with him babbling incoherently in terror or in manacles and needing to be rescued by the job squad. But this time his plans will work and nobody will immediately regenerate and he’ll be a real threat to something other than children for really reals now that practically every single character in the show is against him!