At last, our grand mastermind has been revealed! After several seasons of blustering for a return to Imperial Japan and being a general dick to all of his relatives, Fudou Kazanari has revealed himself to be an even more heinous figure than anticipated, and an outright traitor to the Symphocause. This time, victory for our heroes might demand outright rebellion against the Japanese government, as warmongers at home and abroad squabble over the fruits of alchemical research, and the terrible relics left by those who came before.

In structural terms, this reveal aligns the whole Symphogear organization on a dramatic axis the franchise has been favoring from the start: the perpetual conflict between duty and desire, as your orders contradict your human emotions. Most of Hibiki’s allies joined her after discarding the shackles of duty, and even many of her enemies have walked that same path, regardless of whether they joined the team or evaporated in a cloud of narrative-simplifying mist. Now it looks like the Symphogear team as a whole will have to shed the patriarchal bonds of its Japanese stewardship, in order to… join the larger, chosen family of our global alliances? Yeah, I’m pretty sure that metaphor works. Anyway, we’ve got punches to get to, so let’s not waste any more time poking at Symphogear’s thematic architecture. LET’S GET TO THE BATTLES!

Episode 4

“The Name of the Flower is Amalgam.” Hell yeah, confusingly bombastic phrasing of meaningless word salad. Five Bikis out of five for this episode title

We open on a check-in with our sickly villains. “When we use our power, the panacea fluid in our blood becomes impure,” the succubus girl announces to no-one

These enemies seem fragile right from the start. Not too much of a surprise – with both the architects and Kazanari in store, we don’t really need to hype up the obvious first-half enemies

Oh god, the OP features Hibiki firing her golden fist at the moon. Please Hibiki, the moon has suffered enough

With Miku, Hibiki can admit that she’d rather be having fun than performing her duty all the time

Nice, extremely fluffy Hibiki art as she plans some time off with Miku

The remnants of the Bavarian Illuminati have renamed themselves Noble Red, because if your nefarious organization is dismantled, you might as well get a cool new title out of it

“Their three leaders were much tougher. So why…” It is an interesting choice to actually open this season with weaker opponents than last time, flying in the face of conventional shonen logic. With the right framing, they could actually make the Symphogears seem like the oppressors here – which, given Kazanari’s machinations, might actually come to pass

Hibiki invites Tsubasa to karaoke, but unsurprisingly, Tsubasa is determined to throw herself into training, presumably to “repent” for her failure at the concert

Kazanari stops by to watch Noble Red activate the bracelet, using their kickass planetarium thingy

He apparently has superhuman strength

Ooh, love this cut of Millaarc turning with her face drenched in shadow

Also some nice, sparse compositions as we return to Tsubasa, with the barren tatami room and minimalist color design essentially echoing her attempts to quiet her thoughts

“Songs… cannot protect anything.” THAT’S NOT TRUE TSUBASA DON’T SAY IT

And yep, normal colors return as her concentration is broken

“They got here so fast, too…” Yeah, this season’s alchemical villains are really interesting. They don’t come across as confident or nefarious – they seem exhausted, and acknowledge they’re outgunned at every moment

MARIA TRANSFORMATION TIME

Ah, clever. Playing off her extending chain sword, they frame her transformation as a rhythmic gymnastics routine

God, she really has one of their best voices. Maria and Tsubasa have a deep, resonant tone that their allies just can’t compete with

That dastardly villain! Vanessa quickly deduces that Hibiki is gay as hell, and distracts her with aggressive flirtation

Maria gets some beautiful action cuts. I like how they’re playing into her flower motifs with the morphing shape of her armor

But yeah, it still seems like these alchemists can’t possibly fight our wielders. Vanessa isn’t even close to a match for Maria, in sharp contrast with the Faust Robe-empowered alchemists of last season

“Are you sure we can’t reach an understanding?” “We can’t. People reject and isolate that which is different.” Oooh, that’s a charged line. Okay, that seemingly slots the theming of this season’s alchemists into place: each of them are representative of a classic literary monster, some creature that was hunted and isolated for its difference. Millaarc is a twist on a vampire, Elsa is a twist on a werewolf, and Vanessa is a twist on Frankenstein’s monster. Each of them were persecuted and isolated from society, and cannot believe in Hibiki’s words

This whole following scene feels extremely Evangelion – Hibiki floating in a chemical void, reflecting on her failure and what she learned, leading into the end of the test and a distant voice telling her there’s a meeting to attend. That particular mixture of intimate self-reflection contrasted against clinical, dehumanizing mechanical procedures is one of Eva’s signature tricks

Meanwhile, our “villains” are sharing a blanket and sleeping in a broken-down car. Yeah, I can’t feel even slightly negatively towards these folks – they’re social pariahs, people who have so fully internalized the fact that society doesn’t want them that they can’t even feel angry about it anymore. And their actual experience of persecution is conveyed in such a matter-of-fact way, as they blankly accept that they’ll be sleeping in old cars for the foreseeable future

In spite of their efforts to mask it, SONG figures out that they activated the bracelet

The party listens to Vanessa’s ambient euro-house mix, but no one is impressed by her beats

Vanessa’s crew are only able to compete through careful preparation, setting up multiple tiers of boobytraps as they draw our heroes in

The wielders are trapped within a labyrinth of alchemical symbols! I like how the eerie blue lighting plays off their complex designs, resulting in some evocative tricks of shading in these compositions

“The greatest work of Daedalus is here.” I suppose Daedalus would likely count as an alchemist within Sympholore, and more specifically, his labyrinth resonates with the persecution these characters have faced. Society has treated them just like the minotaur

Yep, they outright acknowledge that they have commandeered the weapons of their oppressors

Even their victories are framed as reflections of their frailty. “Even our weak power can do this,” “don’t corner a wounded animal,” etcetera. Really feels unsporting to beat up these alchemists

Spectral St. Germaine shows up to give Hibiki a pep talk, as you do

“I won’t forget to open my fist to connect the feelings that passed each other by and to clutch tight the justice I believe in!” That sentence is completely incomprehensible, but I’m glad you’re feeling better, Hibiki

“Even if that’s true!” And Hibiki roars out with the battle cry she shared with St. Germaine

Oh damn, some wonderful transformation cuts as Hibiki’s suit forms a pair of golden gauntlets. Praise be to Symphogear, one of the last refuges of mechanical animation

Damn, St. Germaine’s just spectrally fighting right there alongside her, like a SymphoStand

Hibiki blows up Elsa’s detachable tail, but she wisely has a spare in her luggage

“We seek the power of the gods to return our human bodies!” How can you fault those motives, Hibiki!?

She can’t, of course. She extends her own hand in response – but just then, the Japanese government takes over SONG headquarters!

And Done

We are really racing along, huh!? With both Kazanari’s villainy and the specter of the architects looming in the distance, XV has wasted no time in shuffling its new villains along the foe-to-friend pipeline, towards that crucial point of Hibiki extending her hand. Vanessa and her companions already seem like sympathetic victims in this whole scenario, and I’m looking forward to seeing the wielders befriend the shit out of them over the next few episodes. Meanwhile, Kazanari is finally making his move, and now we’ll get to see SONG operating as an unsanctioned guerilla operation – a fun conceit in basically any super-team narrative. The engines are firing at full power as we roar through Symphogear’s final season!

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