天下制覇

Hey, there's Chekhov's minigun.

Impressions:

In a lot of ways, this was a rehash of the last big balls-to-the-wall action episode of the show that capped off the end of its first major arc. That was my favorite episode of this show to date, so I'm all for more episodes trying to emulate that. This one falls a little bit short though. First and foremost, because it wasn't focused on a beefy antagonist like that episode was, instead going for the legion of jobbing truck/glider monsters. There were moments here and there where it really came together, like the crash where Sophie got yanked out and saved, and the music was on point the whole way, but it never really came off as a pitched, desperate fight, just a bunch of segments of the characters getting to be badasses, Business Dude included. A great action scene should elevate all participants though, and too much of this had the Symphogear issue of static punching bags that the characters already kill by the hundredfold, now by the thousandfold.

Which leads us to the second big issue, the climax of the episode. Zaruba practically gave a "I'm so about to die" speech right before kind of spontaneously self-destructing for not really any good reason, especially considering that the entire cavalry was apparently hovering just offscreen. All this on top of him being some kind of poorly defined demon/ring/motorcycle thing.  The Chinese girl who seemed to sacrifice herself the first time they pulled this gets the benefit of the doubt for being a person. The magic… whatever… doesn't, and the audience has to wait for a character to explain what actually happened there. It would've made a lot more sense just in general had Zaruba gotten offed by surprise mid-death speech, or even let Gina take the fall instead. Lord knows I still have no idea what she's doing on this adventure besides carting a giant bra around.