Senki Zesshou Symphogear XV Episode 11 Discussion

FateHero said:
Really curious how the fight with the Cyborg is going to go next episode. And what they plan to do with the Vampire and Werewolf now that they aren't combat ready anymore.

artesox said:


Werewolf was always shown to be more vulnerable and less willing to fight. In their battle itself Vampire was smug while the Werewolf literally started to cry while she was still winning, way before amalgam. Then in the finisher, the gears were aiming to outright kill the Vampire but the Werewolf was clearly spared and then given a talk about changing.

I feel like the Werewolf will either be important to help Vanessa come to her senses next episode or is an actual potential new SONG member.

DarknessReality said:
Ok I want to get this one thing off my chest first. GOD NO THAT NEW GUY LOOKS SOOOO NOT SYMPHOGEAR!!!!! Like jesus christ he looks like he's out of yugioh or something. I feel ever since after season 1 they keep adding stuff that just moves further and further away from the base Symphogear with alchemy and stuff but that guy just screams not from Symphogear.

Before I go any further Im giving you a warning here. Im going to be complaining, ALOT. So if you're really sensitive to negative comments on Symphogear skip to where I say "Ok Ive ranted enough" (even though its not hugely positive either)

Now one thing Im hugely thankful for is SHEM HA IS A GIRL! I was so worried about Shem Ha being a boy because it would ruin all the good fan art of her with Hibiki and Miku but thank god shes a girl.

So we got to see more about Shem Ha and they havent ruined her like Fudo yet which had me greatly worried looking at that evil smile in the previews like Fudo did. I swear if they ruin Shem Ha Im done.

We got to see 3 seconds of Miku, shame. I saw the scene in the previews which was a huge bait. Shem Ha is leaning more towards the Adam side of villains which is greatly worrisome. I know Symphogear have never had great villains but dont ruin one that seemed interesting. To me as long as she stays logical and has that god attitude shes fine. Just please I swear to god dont do a Fudo and make her psychotic. I really hope Miku comes back on episode 12 so she can join in the fight against Shem Ha. I swear if Symphogear makes Miku the main focus and A)Doesn't give her a song and B)Doesnt finally allow her to fight side by side with Hibiki I'M GONNA BE PISSED!!!

In Symphogear fashion we got more power up things (Dont know how to spell it so not gonna bother) and this time it was Maria. Was really hoping they'd to Chris's and Maria's together so we don't have this predictable formula of one per episode and have more time for Shem Ha and varied battles.

This episode really highlighted a thought Ive had for a while. They really do just use Maria as a plot device to proceed the story. Now Im not saying anything bad about Maria herself here so dont get angry Maria fans. Its just I feel ever since she was introduced Maria has just been that character that Symphogear just say "Ok we need to test this new thing. Ok give it to Maria" and go with it. The mind reading thing in S4 (I Think it was that season If I remember correctly) the heritage for S5 which could have been with anyone and personally would have made more sense for Shirabe since she had that previous Fine connection so she's already got a link to them. Now If someone is going to tell me that her gear is an actual thing that is linked to them then maybe that would make more sense. But I feel all this linking to mythology is really making it annoying to follow since you'd need to research it to know who these are and how they're linked. I had to go search what Enki was cause I had no idea what Maria being a decedent of them meant for the series.

I'll just say this. Making Maria, Shirabe and Kirika main characters was a bad decision in my opinion and they would have much much better as side characters. This has really forced Symphogear to have to coup with dividing time between 6 characters which is never a good thing. Part of the reason I think season 1 was so good is because it focused on three girls who all had their respective arcs during the series. Whereas most seasons after that are forced to split the seasons into sections to cover all characters or outright miss characters out for that season (essentially relying on the fact that Symphogear has multiple seasons) and split the characters into groups which I'll mention later.

I'm gonna have a paragraph to complain about that power-up so you can skip this part of you don't like negative comments against Symphogear.

I don't like it. It looks pretty, but that's literally it. I've seen sooo many people saying they prefer Ignite and for good reason. It was built up, explained and tested for the heroes to finally overcome and use. With the XV one they kinda just had it cause............why not? It will always bug me no matter what people say that they didn't even take the effort to explain this new power-up they can do at will. At least X-Drive had a limit. Plot convenience I guess.

Them on the moon wasn't surprising and as expected they happen to be split up in pairs of two.........yeeeeey. I swear plz Symphogear Im trying to love you but you keep recycling the same formulas over and over again. Also its the end of the world yey. It'll probably all settle down once they've beat Shem Ha and got Miku back.

Ok Ive ranted enough so lets talk about the good stuff about the episode.

Good, good, good, good, lets think. That last scene with Shem Ha in her gear was nice. The design still looks as beautiful as ever with its shining silver and Miku's purple parts.

I guess the earth looked nice when Hibiki and Chris were running. Chris calling Hibiki cool was nice. Emmmmm what else. I genuinely struggling for this episode.

I skipped the transformations so nothing to say on that front.

AH! Milaarc's clone thing was cool. Saw it in Overlord so I guess it was nice to see something similar here. Tsubasa has also finally decided to come back to us and it was nice of them to mention Hibiki's courage in taking Tsubasa's hand to show how she's grown throughout the series, both Tsubasa and Hibiki. These two have my favourite friendship in the series. They're the original two (not including the immediately killed Kanade) and seeing their interactions this season was beautiful so glad they decided to bring this back.

Visually the fight between Enki and Shem Ha was nice (except his design of course) and Shem Ha's original body design looks REALLY nice. I love the white (which is my favourite colour) armor and hair contrasted by her purple eyes. Whoever designed both the Miku Shem Ha and original Shem Ha you deserve the utmost praise.

We got to hear Maria and Tsubasa's original duet song from G which was a nice touch, more callbacks to previous seasons (to add to the billion this season has). I'd probably say that duet is my favourite between them so it was nice to hear again.

Ok this one ended up being A LOT longer than other episodes with a lot more ranting. Just my tolerance on repeated things hitting its peak is all. If you actually bothered to read through all this, props, you know me well now and I bet you wish you didn't XD. Dont let my comments effect how you enjoy the series I know many people just love the stupid action and absurdness of Symphogear and thats completely fine. Im just more of a critical Symphogear fan.

I am curious how they will end this and how Miku will come back so I guess we'll wait for the next episode. I dont think I'll rant as much next time since we'll be getting to the meat of the action.

Overall an ok episode. (My main complaints were of the series as a whole and not just this particular episode).

JustAnAnimeList said:
I'm gonna start by saying I absolutely hated Enki's design. I know that the director of Symphogear has also directed some seasons of Yu-Gi-Oh and this was probably him paying homage to that, but I don't like it and wish he didn't do it. On the other hand, I loved Shem-Ha's original form, so I guess it balances out...kinda sorta.

I also don't like how they're mixing mythologies so much. But then again, after "Gungnir is akshualy the Spear of Longinus" I guess this stuff is par for the course for Symphogear. And yeah, I'm never going to stop being butthurt about that. But seriously, Airgetlám being related to Enki is purely plot convenience, there is no basis at all for the connection. And no, his arm being turned into silver by Shem-Ha is not enough of an excuse to mix the two, that's just retarded.

And can't they just turn Maria into the protagonist already? Ever since the new trio was introduced they keep pushing Maria to the center of things and giving her more and more screen time and relevance in the story compared to any other character. It's clear that the director and the script writer really like her, while Tsubasa must be their torture doll. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I dislike Maria, but I don't like the fact the she's been getting all this attention while the original trio have basically become side characters at this point.

The episode was nice, this season has been fucking amazing and definitely the best one so far, this is still the Symphogear that I've always loved since the first season. But for some reason I'm finding more things that I don't particularly like in this season compared to the previous ones. I guess this kind of thing happens once a while...¯_(ツ)_/¯

@DarknessReality I guess I'm not the only one that had a lot to rant about after this episode hahahah.

AsuraDestructor said:


The guy at the beginning is reference to Wild Arms, the people who made symphogear previously created in the video game scene.

And you are taking this campy series way to seriously, bub.

JustAnAnimeList said:


As the saying goes, great minds think alike. But seriously, I was reading the comments after posting mine and when I read yours I was like "this guy knows what's up", so I had to give you a shout out.

Stark700 said:
THIS IS AN ANIME ONLY DISCUSSION POST. DO NOT DISCUSS THE MANGA BEYOND THIS EPISODE.
----------------------------------------
Hibiki and Chris kicking some ass. Cool.

We also got Tsubasa and Maria teaming up again fighting the good fight. It seems this episode is progressing towards the final two after the the amount of setup this season. Kinda exciting imo.

JustAnAnimeList said:


I've been annoyed about some stuff ever since last season, like how they keep pushing Maria to the spotlight while making the original trio almost into secondary characters and how they use mythology in this show purely for a "coolness factor". I just finally decided to let it all out before these mild annoyances started to affect my enjoyment of this show. But yeah, it was interesting to see that someone else shares a similar opinion to mine about the flaws of this show.

JustAnAnimeList said:

while Tsubasa must be their torture doll.

DarknessReality said:
Ok I want to get this one thing off my chest first. GOD NO THAT NEW GUY LOOKS SOOOO NOT SYMPHOGEAR!!!!! Like jesus christ he looks like he's out of yugioh or something. I feel ever since after season 1 they keep adding stuff that just moves further and further away from the base Symphogear with alchemy and stuff but that guy just screams not from Symphogear.

Before I go any further Im giving you a warning here. Im going to be complaining, ALOT. So if you're really sensitive to negative comments on Symphogear skip to where I say "Ok Ive ranted enough" (even though its not hugely positive either)

Now one thing Im hugely thankful for is SHEM HA IS A GIRL! I was so worried about Shem Ha being a boy because it would ruin all the good fan art of her with Hibiki and Miku but thank god shes a girl.

So we got to see more about Shem Ha and they havent ruined her like Fudo yet which had me greatly worried looking at that evil smile in the previews like Fudo did. I swear if they ruin Shem Ha Im done.

We got to see 3 seconds of Miku, shame. I saw the scene in the previews which was a huge bait. Shem Ha is leaning more towards the Adam side of villains which is greatly worrisome. I know Symphogear have never had great villains but dont ruin one that seemed interesting. To me as long as she stays logical and has that god attitude shes fine. Just please I swear to god dont do a Fudo and make her psychotic. I really hope Miku comes back on episode 12 so she can join in the fight against Shem Ha. I swear if Symphogear makes Miku the main focus and A)Doesn't give her a song and B)Doesnt finally allow her to fight side by side with Hibiki I'M GONNA BE PISSED!!!

In Symphogear fashion we got more power up things (Dont know how to spell it so not gonna bother) and this time it was Maria. Was really hoping they'd to Chris's and Maria's together so we don't have this predictable formula of one per episode and have more time for Shem Ha and varied battles.

This episode really highlighted a thought Ive had for a while. They really do just use Maria as a plot device to proceed the story. Now Im not saying anything bad about Maria herself here so dont get angry Maria fans. Its just I feel ever since she was introduced Maria has just been that character that Symphogear just say "Ok we need to test this new thing. Ok give it to Maria" and go with it. The mind reading thing in S4 (I Think it was that season If I remember correctly) the heritage for S5 which could have been with anyone and personally would have made more sense for Shirabe since she had that previous Fine connection so she's already got a link to them. Now If someone is going to tell me that her gear is an actual thing that is linked to them then maybe that would make more sense. But I feel all this linking to mythology is really making it annoying to follow since you'd need to research it to know who these are and how they're linked. I had to go search what Enki was cause I had no idea what Maria being a decedent of them meant for the series.

I'll just say this. Making Maria, Shirabe and Kirika main characters was a bad decision in my opinion and they would have much much better as side characters. This has really forced Symphogear to have to coup with dividing time between 6 characters which is never a good thing. Part of the reason I think season 1 was so good is because it focused on three girls who all had their respective arcs during the series. Whereas most seasons after that are forced to split the seasons into sections to cover all characters or outright miss characters out for that season (essentially relying on the fact that Symphogear has multiple seasons) and split the characters into groups which I'll mention later.

I'm gonna have a paragraph to complain about that power-up so you can skip this part of you don't like negative comments against Symphogear.

I don't like it. It looks pretty, but that's literally it. I've seen sooo many people saying they prefer Ignite and for good reason. It was built up, explained and tested for the heroes to finally overcome and use. With the XV one they kinda just had it cause............why not? It will always bug me no matter what people say that they didn't even take the effort to explain this new power-up they can do at will. At least X-Drive had a limit. Plot convenience I guess.

Them on the moon wasn't surprising and as expected they happen to be split up in pairs of two.........yeeeeey. I swear plz Symphogear Im trying to love you but you keep recycling the same formulas over and over again. Also its the end of the world yey. It'll probably all settle down once they've beat Shem Ha and got Miku back.

Ok Ive ranted enough so lets talk about the good stuff about the episode.

Good, good, good, good, lets think. That last scene with Shem Ha in her gear was nice. The design still looks as beautiful as ever with its shining silver and Miku's purple parts.

I guess the earth looked nice when Hibiki and Chris were running. Chris calling Hibiki cool was nice. Emmmmm what else. I genuinely struggling for this episode.

I skipped the transformations so nothing to say on that front.

AH! Milaarc's clone thing was cool. Saw it in Overlord so I guess it was nice to see something similar here. Tsubasa has also finally decided to come back to us and it was nice of them to mention Hibiki's courage in taking Tsubasa's hand to show how she's grown throughout the series, both Tsubasa and Hibiki. These two have my favourite friendship in the series. They're the original two (not including the immediately killed Kanade) and seeing their interactions this season was beautiful so glad they decided to bring this back.

Visually the fight between Enki and Shem Ha was nice (except his design of course) and Shem Ha's original body design looks REALLY nice. I love the white (which is my favourite colour) armor and hair contrasted by her purple eyes. Whoever designed both the Miku Shem Ha and original Shem Ha you deserve the utmost praise.

We got to hear Maria and Tsubasa's original duet song from G which was a nice touch, more callbacks to previous seasons (to add to the billion this season has). I'd probably say that duet is my favourite between them so it was nice to hear again.

Ok this one ended up being A LOT longer than other episodes with a lot more ranting. Just my tolerance on repeated things hitting its peak is all. If you actually bothered to read through all this, props, you know me well now and I bet you wish you didn't XD. Dont let my comments effect how you enjoy the series I know many people just love the stupid action and absurdness of Symphogear and thats completely fine. Im just more of a critical Symphogear fan.

I am curious how they will end this and how Miku will come back so I guess we'll wait for the next episode. I dont think I'll rant as much next time since we'll be getting to the meat of the action.

Overall an ok episode. (My main complaints were of the series as a whole and not just this particular episode).

UncleJojo said:
Biki or Miku better not die, or we will riot. I wonder how the Hibiki vs Shem-ha Miku fight will be like. Tsubasa (my best girl) and Maria both did great this episode, even if Maria is getting too much attention this season. I love your thoughts on this series, dude. Symphogear XV is probably my favorite show this season, and definitely one of my favorites this year

GenesisAria said:
When is that vampire bitch gonna get hell for that 10k massacre holy shit.

I found this episode an upgrade from last at least. It felt more like what we had before last ep, not great, bot not doing anything blatantly stupid.

@DarknessReality
I somewhat agree with the other 3 being main characters sucks too much spotlight from Hibiki, Tsubasa and poor Chris lovers, barely any screentime or show off. The show is trying to juggle too many things at once for it's style. Though Shirabe is still my fav girl, so i'm mixed.

I also agree that Enki just seems like some kind of tokusatsu/sentai hero, more than some god of the old world. More flamboyant superhero costume than badass (also, why a pata sword?)... Shem-Ha looks pretty godlike and neat tho.

For some reason i vaguely recall Maria's gear having weird ancient relevance over the others from before, so her gear doing hings wasn't completely ass-full.

Overall i honestly had originally had a totally different impression from earlier on in the series. At the very least it has been doing a lot of "subverting expectations" but in that modern popular unsavoury way i guess... When the entity that turned out to be Shem-Ha, i expected some epic like beast of destruction, here comes the monster that ends worlds type thing maybe... Then come Shem-Ha, i was expecting a hyper-goddess to be a lot more badass and extremely pretentious, with an inhuman level of self-elevated perspective... you know that whole "you primitive organisms cannot comprehend my existence" type shit, but now it's more like just some evil mastermind with a many thousand year old plot to do, what exactly? Amass a bunch of weapons using the earth? Then what, fight an interstellar war with someone else? This whole Yggdrasil thing is weird, and actually reminding me of Zetsuen no Tempest haha (better anime at doing the war of trees plot). Also, Shem-Ha, like i said before, should have just utterly dispatched noble red permanently, and just cut Fudo in half as she emerged from underground, demonstrating her overwhelming power as she removes all the prior adversaries at the wave of a hand just in passing simply because they were in the way.
...Once again, not my story, and that's fine. I know i can (and will) be a far better writer and share some of my epic shit with the world one day.


I hope that something like Hibiki or the lot of them knock Miku and Shem-Ha separate, Miku keeps the Shem-Ha gear, and Shem-Ha in her original manifestation for final fight.

And yes, onegai kisu shimasu, chuuuuuu~!

GenesisAria said:

I also agree that Enki just seems like some kind of tokusatsu/sentai hero, more than some god of the old world. More flamboyant superhero costume than badass (also, why a pata sword?)... Shem-Ha looks pretty godlike and neat tho.

AlphaOmegaKnight said:
Next Week i'll review Symphogear XV