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Best Senki Zesshou Symphogear season
Senki Zesshou Symphogear (season 1)
9.3%
19
Senki Zesshou Symphogear G (season 2)
12.2%
25
Senki Zesshou Symphogear GX (season 3)
7.3%
15
Senki Zesshou Symphogear AXZ (season 4)
6.3%
13
Senki Zesshou Symphogear XV (season 5)
64.9%
133
205 votes
Sep 28, 2019 11:46 AM
#1

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May 2018
3192
So now that this show is over, which season do you guys think is the best and how would you rank them?

Sep 28, 2019 11:53 AM
#2

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Jan 2013
39
For me it would be

XV > G > AXZ > GX = S1

But I can't believe it's over, it was a nice journey.
Sep 28, 2019 11:57 AM
#3

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Oct 2014
251
XV > AX Z> GX = G =S1 for me.
Sep 28, 2019 12:03 PM
#4

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Mar 2019
379
Holy crap XV is at a 8.75 now!
Sep 28, 2019 12:05 PM
#5

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Mar 2018
951
For me, it would be
XV > GX = AXZ > G > S1



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Sep 28, 2019 12:42 PM
#6
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Dec 2018
116
Before I liked AXZ but now it's in second place and now XV it's my first favorite.
Sep 28, 2019 12:53 PM
#7

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Mar 2016
3077
XV's ending was a bit rushed, but it was overall the best season because it took up everything built up from the previous seasons and came to a solid resolution.
I do wish for a separately released epilogue of our girls' individual journeys after that final battle.
Sep 28, 2019 1:52 PM
#8

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Feb 2013
7532
RiverboatRam said:
Holy crap XV is at a 8.75 now!
It's got the Gintama effect going for it. The more seasons a series has, the more distilled the viewer base becomes to the point where the only ones following it are the ones that love it.
Sep 28, 2019 5:16 PM
#9
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Jan 2016
17
XV>>>G>GX=AXZ=S1
Sep 28, 2019 6:51 PM

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Mar 2011
170
For me it's:
XV>G>S1>GX>AXZ
Sep 28, 2019 10:28 PM

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Apr 2015
290
G > S1 > XV > AXZ > GX

There is no denying XV did the best in pulling the seasons together, but to me, G was that season that defined a lot of what modern Symphogear is.
Sep 28, 2019 11:58 PM

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May 2016
2167
For me

XV and GX > S1 > AXZ >G
Sep 29, 2019 4:03 AM

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May 2015
1717
Season 1 by far. It was the introduction to Symphogear and in my opinion Symphogear in its truest form focusing entirely on the main three and Symphogears.

XV however made HibiMiku officially canon so that season is also pretty high up there. (Im on about Kimi Daki Ni which is the continuation of that cliffhanger scene at the end where Hibiki proposes to Miku.)
Yuritopia FTW!!!!!!!!! BANZAI TO YURI !!!!!!!!!!!!
Sep 29, 2019 5:58 AM
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Nov 2014
1
As a really big Symphogear fan, I’d rank them:

1. Season 1
2. Season 2
3. Season 5
4. Season 4
5. Season 3

Seasons 4 and 5 are pretty much a tie for me right now. Four started off strong, but kind of fell a bit flat in the last act. Five is… good. A bit uneven. The finale has an emotional core to it, but the action and plot didn’t really offer much to me. The best part about season 5 are probably the returning characters from previous seasons. I’m a bit torn on how much weight I’m willing to put on aspects that rely on things like nostalgia factor. I’ll really need to hold off until seeing how much rewatch value the season has.
Sep 29, 2019 6:18 AM

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Jul 2017
1021
This one was definitely the best one for me, @Ryuseishun spoke my mind as to why i think this is the best one.
Sep 29, 2019 9:29 AM

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Mar 2016
2038
Seasons 1 and 2 will always be tied at the top for me. AXZ is my least favorite, though not sure how to rank the last two without angering a bunch of autists.
syncrogazerSep 29, 2019 9:33 AM
Sep 29, 2019 9:56 AM
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Jul 2013
621
Season 1 was the best. It had flaws, but overall it was the season that felt like it was actually planned. Characters had character progression, the drama didn't feel forced, and so on.
G was alright... some of the plot twists were decent while others were completely stupid. This season receives extra points for having the best fighting choreography.

GX, AXZ and XV had nice moments, like GX's and AXZ's starting scenes, but overall they were pretty bland. Dumb plot twists, villains with horrible motivations or weak characters, and so on.
It even became "The Hibiki show" which is a shame, as she is one of the weakest characters in this series.

Guess the average viewer cares about whether the main cast has an official lesbian relationship or not, instead of quality. At least some of the songs were good...

Also, Kaneko clearly didn't know what to do with Maria, Kirika and Shirabe as they were bland and felt like they don't have an actual purpose in this series. Maria cries for half of her existence about how useless and weak she is, Kirika and Shirabe had no real purpose other than being used as comic relief and showing how dumb they both are, and so on.
Sep 29, 2019 10:01 AM

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Jul 2013
15642
G is overall the season I enjoyed the most. It had best villain Dr. Ver, introduced best girl Maria, and it is the point when the series starts to become truely awesome and embraces how truly ridiculous is (Ogawa's ninja skills, by example). The final battle was also pretty dope.

GX and AXZ are equal for me. Both were pretty fun and had some nice twists, it introduced Top Dad (who was one of the highlights of GX), and Dr. ver returned in all his glory for both seasons (even if his appearence in AXZ was short). I however found the antagonists (other than Carol and Adam) to be pretty meh. I also didn't liked how AXZ's final fight relied too much on Hibiki's power ups, though it was entertaining despite that.

XV is pretty weird, since it was pretty good, but the ending... felt lacking to me. I feel like they rushed content worthy of two episodes into one, and the final battle ended being a letdown compared to other season finales. I blame it on the fact that the series changed of main antagonists too many times through its run (from Noble Red, to Fudo, to finally Shem-Ha), and they gave too much spotlight to Noble Red especially, who despite their potential at first, ended being a worse version of the alchemists from AXZ (and I didn't liked them either), and their redemption ended up feeling flat after the atrocities they commited. Also, Shem-Ha, the final boss of both this season and the series, ended coming as a typical megalomaniac, self-righteous villain who thinks the universe is wrong and she's right, with the only interesting thing from her being that she used the body of Miku as her vessel for some drama with Hibiki (that ended being meh due how much they rushed the last battle). I could forgive it if we were talking about another season, but considering it was the ending, I wasn't impressed at all.
At least I liked how they handled Tsubasa this season, especially since I remember her not doing much in AXZ. It was nice to see the original remaining Symphogear receiving some closure in the end.

The first season is the last because I found it very angst-ridden and boring, with its main saving grace being the final fight. I also hated Tsubasa's behaviour for a while, she was way too angsty, and not in a fun way like in XV. Thankfully they made her become the older sister figure of the group in later seasons.

Overall it would be something like:

G > GX = AXZ > XV > S1
Sep 30, 2019 1:00 AM
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Oct 2016
217
GX > XV > AXZ > G > S1. While XV is the best season, my favorite is still GX, for nostalgic reasons.
Oct 5, 2019 1:16 PM

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May 2009
9173
1 and G had best songs and twists overall.
Oct 14, 2019 4:00 PM

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Dec 2012
1607
GX for free, best songs, best villains by far, best character bonding.

I don't watch as much anime as before...
Oct 14, 2019 9:04 PM

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Apr 2012
418
For me, it goes XV > AXZ > S1 = G > GX
Nov 29, 2021 8:45 AM

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Nov 2019
2211
G>=XV>AXZ>GX>Original

At Ep 8, XV was better than G, then it slowly died out though the ending was still good. G blessed us with twists, Chris supremacy, Dr. Ver and a finale I consider probably the best in all of anime.
"All truth is meaningless. In the end, 'meaning' comes from the mind of each individual human. Even when there is a single truth, it can mean different things to different individuals. The truth has no meaning in itself!" - Erika Furudo
Dec 21, 2021 11:17 AM
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Jul 2008
23
Honestly I feel like S1 was the most coherent experience. Feels like a lot of things just happen or get written in without any particular rhyme or reason.
Agree with #17.
TemuthrilDec 21, 2021 11:31 AM
Dec 27, 2021 12:42 AM
Offline
Jul 2018
564074
As someone who has been following the franchise since s1 in 2012 I gotta say that the first 3 were the best in my opinion.

s1 - 10/10
I loved it (duh) because at the time it was definitely something special to me and the most unique anime I have ever seen. Also felt like the character writing was the strongest here.

s2 - 9/10
The best sequel to anything I have ever seen. It improved everything from the first season and was just lots of fun. Nobody expected it to be this good or for Symphogear to even continue past s1 (even the creators themselves). I remember following every week of G and being really hyped for it and just having a really good time with the community as well.

s3 - 8/10
This one is a mixed bag for me. It has the highest highs of the franchise but also some really questionable decisions and screw up near the end. Either way, I followed this one as it was airing and was the season that had me the most involved with the Symphogear fandom. I have nothing but good memories of it, and a fondness remembering stuff from GX. It was also the peak musically for me.

s4 - 4/10
Here is where my love for Geah began to dwindle. I felt like this season was just boring and had nothing new to offer, where as the previous 3 were all different in their execution, here we just get a safe work that tries to be a second G essentially and failing. The villain group imo is also the weakest here in my opinion. I hated them. Also first season not directly written by Kaneko.

s5 - 3/10
A disappointment on all accounts. Despite both AXZ and XV essentially being the first connected seasons in the franchise they did not have any lead up into one another. The villain group was horrible and on top of that robbed the cast off of screentime, the ending was horrible and rushed to hell, characters acted more and more out of character and got further ruined (that episode with Tsubasa where everyone except Maria abandoned her was a disgrace)... and it haphazardly tried to give us asnwers to stuff we were better off not knowing as it made the setting richer but now is forever ruined and seems stupid in the long run (Custodians etc ), honestly worst season for me.
removed-userDec 27, 2021 12:51 AM
Jan 5, 2022 4:15 AM
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Oct 2021
65
If I were to rate them in order, it would be
3 > 5 > 1 > 4 > 2
Aug 20, 2022 8:01 AM

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Mar 2018
283
I would say XV > GX > G > s1 > AXZ

AXZ ignores a lot of character development GX establishes, which disappointed me as a GX fan, and spends way too much time on its lore and too little on anything else. Anything relating to their normal life or Miku is basically gone entirely, it felt like Shirabe and Kirika are the only main characters who actually got some focus and that focus wasn't as good as some of the character episodes in other seasons. All the fights are underwhelming, after the majority of the season was spent setting up a ritual to summon the power of the gods, I was expecting that to really be something special but I couldn't tell you the difference between it and the incomplete one at the season start, they seemed equally weak. I couldn't sympathize with the villains' motivations, Adam is a cop-out to make it seem like they did nothing wrong because they didn't know the true goal but even their original goal wasn't worth it.

S1 is a bit of a mess but it has its moments. It has a vision but doesn't really know what it wants to be so there's some dissonance between its darker parts and the rest of the season, and most character development feels pretty forced. But it probably does the best job at Miku, and it does a good enough job at setting up the characters for the next seasons. The story suddenly shifting to the curse of Balal felt very stupid when I first watched it but now that I know where that is going and that it's going to be relevant for the rest I don't mind it as much anymore.

G is a fun ride and does a much better job at telling its story than the first season, but there is still quite some character development that feels forced and it's really about the action and the fun ride more than it is about the characters or story. It does a really good job at what it decides to focus on though and Symphogear Miku is definitely a highlight.

GX was the first season that I thought did a very good job at the characters, it gives them all their struggles and shows them overcoming those struggles. It slows down at times to give a bit more focus to that which I liked. I'm also a fan of how it's not necessarily the obvious answers that it goes with, the show has its own view on things and you can agree or disagree. The villains are possibly the best in the franchise, I liked how the Autoscorers were themed after different types of dance, and Garie in particular was very fun. Carol's motivations seem basic on their own, but I think they become a lot better once you realize they contrast with the other characters. Tsubasa had to follow her own dreams instead of the dreams of her family, Hibiki had to learn to forgive even if it's not clear if someone deserves to be forgiven, Chris's arc was about getting along with the people around her. Meanwhile Carol has no dreams of her own, refuses to forgive, and works alone. The season also introduced interesting concepts like memory alchemy, philosophical weapons, and the Ignite module.

XV is just non-stop hype, I may like when a season slows down and gives you some room to breathe sometimes but when you can make every episode as exciting as the last I don't have much to complain about. It combined the best part of every season (often doing it even better) and had a bit of time for everything. It has the Hibimiku moments and darkness of s1, the action and excitement of G, the character focus of GX, and the amount of lore of AZX. I'm a fan of the villains as well. For Noble Red I could relate to their feeling of isolation leading to them rejecting everyone else, and I really liked how they were technically weaker so had to come up with sneaky strategies to win. Fudo gave a nice conclusion to Tsubasa's character arc, and Shem-ha gave a good conclusion to the series as a whole. She felt a bit like a Star Trek villain, an alien trying to make everyone happy, not understanding why humans don't accept that way to happiness. Animation and music are also easily the best in the series.

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