Well folks, it’s looking like we’re watching some goddamn Symphogear. I’m frankly not quite sure how much I’ll be able to critique for you all here – Symphogear is pretty much insane nonsense from start to finish, and attempting to soberly quantify it as an artistic text feels like a bit of a fool’s errand. That said, I am an acknowledged fool, and have actually already reviewed the show’s first three seasons over on Anime News Network.

Looking back on those, I see I docked the second season for “losing any semblance of intelligent writing” and the third season for “going all-in on narrative ideas it’s not nearly well-written enough to support,” so uh, I guess that’s where we’re at as we embark on season four. But really, Symphogear has never actually been about clever or thoughtful writing – it’s about absurd, bombastic action setpieces tethered to an incredibly charming core cast, making for an experience that can see-saw wildly between goofy character drama and world-threatening apocalyptic theater at a moment’s notice, or even faster. It is indulgent and exuberant at all times, and by following the Nanoha model of “giant robot action, magical girl heart,” it’s able to tether its excesses to characters I would probably die for. Let’s dive into the fourth season of Symphogear!

Episode 1

Seriously though, I wasn’t kidding about not having any idea what I’ll be talking about. Symphogear is hot nonsense, it is not designed to be critiqued

I recall reading an interview where Tite Kubo mentioned his favorite aspect of introducing a new arc was designing a bunch of cool bad guys with awesome fashion sense, and I think that’s also probably true of Symphogear. Like a shonen manga, Symphogear just keeps going because no one has told it to stop – there’s no larger structure we’re building towards, it’s just perpetual new seasons with fabulous new bad guys to face

We uncharacteristically open with Hibiki working on her summer classes, and being comforted by her wife Miku. The usual Sympho-trend is to start with a fight scene that tries its damnedest to top the last season’s opening setpiece

And then a helicopter shows up and Chris tells them to get a room. Chris can sense anyone being lovey-dovey in a five mile radius

This is one narrative trick the show knows very well – playfully messing with our expectations. We get a minute of lovey-dovey time, and then suddenly NOPE, THE ACTION HAS ARRIVED

Excellent expression work for Hibiki getting socked in the head

More shows should really take advantage of the power of having a fully married cast. At least half of the fun of this show stems from how unabashedly and charmingly in love the whole cast are

Interestingly, they actually have military-themed human enemies this time. Symphogear generally tends to keep its conflicts in the realms of the fully fantastical, which is smart – this is a show about character bonds and action excess, and grounding these stories in real-world contexts would add a moral complexity the show isn’t really equipped to handle. It’s like Hibiki’s father from the third season – Symphogear just doesn’t possess the narrative nuance required to effectively handle a conflict like that, and attempting to handle it nonetheless only dampens the show’s actual core appeals

Tsubasa’s bike can now do that stupid spinning blade move she uses. See, THIS is Symphogear

I like that Ogawa is just a fully acknowledged ninja at this point, complete with his Ninja Kite

Ahaha, Hibiki does the little “Let’s fight!” shouts in her duet with Chris. Hibiki can’t sing super good, but she can shout very well

Ooh, this sequence of them fighting tanks is excellent. Very dynamic camera work here, facilitated by some remarkably fluid animation of Tsubasa spinning. And there’s a real sense of bodily weight to Hibiki’s martial arts movements – it’s not just fluid, it’s convincingly choreographed

Chris briefly stopping singing when she gets hit by a tank shell is a nice touch

Hibiki ripped off the hood of one tank and used it to break another tank. Yes. This is good

“Watching that movie about fighting tanks last night really worked!” What a magical world they inhabit

AND NOW A MASSIVE AIRSHIP. The first episode of a Symphogear season always feels like Symphogear at its most “pure” – the character stuff is important too, but you get the feeling this show would just escalate for twelve episodes straight if it could get away with it

YES, RUN ALONG THE MISSILES TO REACH THE AIRSHIP

The team babies open their helicopter doors so a missile can fly right through the helicopter. I’m sure whoever came up with that one on the Symphogear staff was very proud of themselves

It’s just kind of delightful to watch a show that operates according to that kind of logic – “what’s the most preposterously improbable and over-the-top action setpiece we can imagine? Yes, we’re doing that”

Tsubasa’s mega-sword cutting just far enough to slice through the bad guy’s shades on its path bisecting the ship is a perfectly Symphogear touch as well

Guys, the ship’s already dead. You don’t need to each blow it up separately

So now they’re engaging in UN activities directly. We stop by a refugee camp

The show heavily hints that we’ll be going into Chris backstory material, which is frankly dangerous terrain. Symphogear lacks the emotional nuance to handle Bad Dads, I’m not eager for its take on the refugee crisis

Apparently the Bavarian Illuminati exist, and they’re up to no good. THIS is a Symphogear-scale conflict

Oh shit, they’re the ones who funded Carol! Symphogear’s seasonal narrative structure and lack of any long-term structure naturally lends itself to this sort of Russian Nesting Villain insanity, where at the beginning of each new season, we pan back from the conflict of the prior season to reveal THIS is who was secretly pulling the strings!

And now they’re revealing this group also supported Mum and Dr. Ver. I’m frankly not certain of the purpose of such clearly fabricated “long-term planning” – it can at times be hard to tell if Symphogear is being ironically stupid or just stupid, and also if there’s a meaningful difference

“Valverde” is our made-up unstable South American country, which seems to be where Chris was with her parents

Welp, time for a shower scene

Incredible transition from “Shirabe is jealous that Kirika is looking at Hibiki’s boobs” to “Chris grappling with her childhood in a war zone”

We see the death of Chris’ parents, as well as a woman named Sonya who seemed to take care of her, and who Chris blamed for their deaths

God, this show’s transformation sequences have gotten so good. I love the way Hibiki’s transformation here uses the orange beads of her mechanical suit, as well as how it integrates her distinctive martial arts style

What the fuck is with these banana-Noise. Bananoise?

The Noise have served this franchise pretty well, conceptually. They’re basically just videogame enemies, the fodder designed to demonstrate just how awesome the protagonists are. They’re like zombies without the emotional baggage of looking like or formerly being people

Ooh, Tsubasa’s “Soaring Phoenix Flash” is a nice one. Blue fire complements her aesthetic very well, unsurprisingly

God, Hibiki is so cool. Her billowing scarf and mechanized bracer make for such a striking visual combo

Even the steam discharge after the attack is awesome. Hibiki’s big attacks understand the drama of mechanical ceremony – the engine charging up, the struts bracing for her impact, and the discharge of excess heat all resoundingly emphasize how impactful her strikes are, while possessing a sort of inherent visual lyricism or rhythm

This season’s villains are introduced: Saint Germain, Prelati, and Cagliostro. All famous alchemists, though digging any further into this show’s historical references than that will probably give you a headache

Oh no, the alchemists betray the evil president, who could have predicted thisssss

We meet a local boy named Stephan

WHAT KIND OF NINJA DOESN’T PUT HIS LAPTOP ON MUTE WHILE ON A TOP-SECRET MISSION!? Ogawa, I am very disappointed in you

And the B Team arrives, just in time to fight the alchemists’ giant serpent!

And Done

Ah, what a perfect Symphogear episode that is. This franchise always pulls out all the stops for its season premieres, and this one certainly didn’t disappoint. Just wild, incredibly enthusiastic visual and dramatic escalation from start to finish, with that initial raid standing as a flawless “get in fuckers, we’re blowing up the moon” reintroduction to everything this show stands for. I also love how this episode is paced like the opening act of a full-length action movie, rather than a standalone episode; things never resolve, they just get even more hype, up until the very last moment of the episode. I put this show off for too damn long, and it’s a pleasure to be back. LET’S SING THE SONG OF OUR HEARTS!

This article was made possible by reader support. Thank you all for all that you do.