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Girls Band Cry is a real gem that came out of left field to dominate this season, even if it never got an official sub. It is a surprisingly nuanced story, and while it never again quite hit the highs that I expected from it after episode 8, it was consistently fantastic from beginning to end.

To start off, yes; this show is CG. In past years, this alone would've been enough to have most anime fans turn up their noses at it. However, Studio Orange has in the recent past shown more and more that you can make a beautiful show with CG, and with ... this offering Toei has blown even that out of the water. While there are the occasional animation error, the characters are so expressive, both in face and movement, and the backgrounds are so well done that it's entirely forgiveable. Additionally, there are tasteful drops of 2d animation throughout the series that are used brilliantly to emphasize certain aspects (like a flashback or a character you should notice.) Overall, one of the better looking animes I've watched! The music is also phenomenal, and the band has also released numerous songs outside of the show (as this is looking to be a multimedia project). If you have the chance, you should listen to their discography, as if you like the music in the show I can guarantee you'll like everything else they have to offer.

Up next, the characters. Nina, the main character, can be grating at first. However, as the series goes on, and her backstory is fleshed out, it becomes more understandable, and she mellows out by around episode 8. The other characters are all supremely well done, and most get episodes unto themselves that really flesh out their backstories and characters. They're far from caricatures, each having a distinct personality, all of which end up being enjoyable both on their own and how they bounce off eachother.

Finally, the story. While still fantastic, this is probably the weakest point of the show. At points it's among some of the best anime I've ever seen (particularly episodes 8 and 10), though at others it feels like it meanders a bit. I also feel like, though every episode resolved well, there are some which I felt would've been better if certain other story directions were taken rather than what was shown. Still a fantastic story overall, and much more consistent in quality and plot than its main competitors this season.

Overall, I cannot really recommend this show enough. If I could I'd give it a 9.5; almost there, just with a few plotlines that wrap up in a way that's a bit weaker than what I could've hoped. Far and away my number 1 for the season, really hoping that it's officially localized in the near future!

This show is tough, because the first 3 episodes were fantastic - Mahiru and Kano felt like *people*, not characters, and as we were introduced to the other two parts of the band they also felt like they fit in naturally. As the show went on, it continued being pretty good, though the show's biggest flaw started to become evident by around episode 5; the show wanted big drama moments, but either didn't want to, or have the time to, really execute on those stories in a satisfying way. Ultimately, it should've either cut some plotlines or had like 3 more episodes to work with.

Everything ... had to be wrapped up cleanly within a single episode, no matter the stakes to the drama. Spinning so many stories while leaving existing story threads unattended resulted in the ending feeling rush and several loose ends left untied, and ultimately left the show in a situation where one of the emotionally strongest episodes felt totally superfluous and that it should've been cut in order to make room for the actual story. In particular, episode 9 leaves off with an absolute bombshell, but then the next two episodes kind of wander and don't actually resolve anything until it has to be hastily finished up in the finale, which is handled fine but ultimately unsatisfying.

At first, this show held some of the most promise of the season with a series of fantastic character moments, but it just failed the execution on the overall plot. And in those character moments, this show is very well written, and the voice acting is among the best of the season, which is why I'm still giving this a "good" rating. I'd love to see what these characters could be, what this voice crew could pull off, if the episodes were written more like one story rather than told episodically.

To summarize, if you care more about a strong thematic throughline and individual character moments than unified stories, I think you might get more out of it than I could, but if you want a story with good drama and satisfying resolutions then look elsewhere.

I was very excited for this show even when I'd only just heard of the concept; a pseudo-isekai, where the protagonist is a bit on the insane-side and indulges in the genre's power-fantasy aspect in order to single-mindedly concentrate on mastery of the blade sounded like an amazing premise. I was expecting an emphasis on, well, the blade, amazing swordfights, maybe a bit of sword-based magic, with a story from the perspective of the squire, the main character not necessarily being the most important within the frame of the story.

That's not what Reborn to Master the Blade provides; while the first episode is promising with ... good visuals, and the second episode is fine, the show rapidly devolves into mindless overpowered magic drivel, breast jokes, and fanservice of 15-year-old girls. The main character doesn't feel like she fits the archetype she was stated to be, the girl doesn't even use as sword for 3 of the 5 episodes I dredged through, and the OPMC syndrome is way worse than I would have ever expected even with the concept on the tin. She doesn't even act as a squire most of the time, taking the spotlight from her knight constantly.

That's not even to mention the awful, awful pacing of the show. It feels like every three minutes the action has to completely stop so that someone can monologue exposition at the watcher instead of just showing the action; it got to the point where the viewing experience was enhanced by just skipping ahead whenever the exposition began because the core of what was going on was simple enough to understand even without being expressly told.

All of this, I initially figured was a problem with the story itself; that is until today, when I finally decided to give the manga version a read. Night and day, with more actual use of the blade, much more natural storytelling, the MC acting more like the fight-hungry girl she's stated to be, and less (though not none) of the weirdness around the protagonist and her knight. If you want to experience this concept in a version of the story that doesn't completely suck, read the manga (though that's behind where the anime is), and I can only assume that the light novel version is also infinitely better than this absolute dumpsterfire.

Symphogear G improves in several ways over the first season, though in other ways feels like it fails to quite live up to the same breakneck antics that made the first season work so well. On the whole, though, it still maintains the same level of enjoyability, and while it can drag at times it feels very much like a natural continuation of the previous season.

As with the last season, the first episode actually sets the ball rolling almost immediately, with a very powerful opening scene. However, after this, the season loses steam much faster than the previous one, and is overall much more stop-and-go ... than the full-steam-ahead of season one. That's not to say that the drama isn't there, as it most certainly is, and one of my favourite sequences of the show occurs around episode 5. It's just more hit-and-miss than the previous season. Like the previous season, the mystery is solved by around episode 5, with the story throwing as many twists as it can in to make the plot finish out the season. Unlike the previous season which makes it work as a (somewhat) coherent story, this season definitely feels more meander-y, with the plot slowing down to a crawl for a few episodes.

While I will defend the characterizations and arcs of the first season, I do have to admit that this season did the characters better than season one, though it feels like at least some of the character progressions are repeats of what had happened the previous season. The background characters aren't given quite as much attention, though the new additions to the main cast more than make up for this, as all three are given quite good characters. Finally, the "twist" villain is... significantly worse than that of the previous season, with poorer execution and an infinitely worse motivation.

The continued brutalization of the Climax Song aside, the season didn't actually do power creep as badly as the previous season. I liked the direction that they went w/ Hibiki's gear, and there are some clever things done with the gears throughout the season. With the absence of a certain character, there's less explanation about how specific systems work, though with how handwavey the systems are anyways I consider that a good thing. As with the previous season, the finale goes just a bit over-the-top for my taste, but on the whole I feel the power levels were much more engaging.

The show, as with nearly all anime, also still suffers from the occasional show-then-tell-anyway problem that cropped up in the last season, with an equally egregious example placed in for the sake of a twist that was easy to see coming from several miles away. And, as with the previous season, there is a shower scene. So be advised if those ick you.

Animation is done way more consistently than in season 1, with fewer of the Jpeg background images that showed up in key moments, though I'd still hesitate to call it great, just good. Which is better than the "fine" of the last season. The soundtrack is also very good, with one of my favourite songs of the series cropping up about midway through the season, the sound design is still done competently, and though the voice acting misses some of the raw highs of the first season, it's still punchy enough to sell it in my opinion.

This review may read like I don't like Symphogear G as much as I do the first season; however, I do still think they both have their merits, and both deserve the same rating. While there are a lot of things G does worse in little ways than the first season, those few things it does better it does so by quite enough that it comes together to the same mile-a-minute don't-think-too-hard package that worked so well for the first season!

Symphogear is one of the better anime I've watched, though I wouldn't say that's because it is a necessarily well-made anime. It certainly has its highs, but it also carries with it a variety of lows... that said, I don't think they actually harm the show that much. It's not the kind of anime you turn on for an overly complex or deep plot, though I can see why people who are searching for that would be disappointed.

The first episode hits like a truck, with a dramatic opening and a much darker-than-expected first half. The energy starts to calm down by episodes 2 and 3, ... but it never really hits zero again, as the writers' concept of a good plot appears to be "throw as many twists as possible at the wall to see what sticks." And, while a bit of a gambit, it's pulled off fantastically, as the show's almost too frantic to let its inconsistencies set in. The breakneck pacing definitely works to keep you engaged; the first time I watched it, I was almost constantly in a state of whiplash! As stated, the plot isn't particularly *deep,* and you have most of the major pieces of it by episode 5 or 6, it's still enough to make an interesting story with an overall satisfying climax.

Also some people seem to have problems with characterization, but... honestly? Reading those critiques seems they completely missed the actual characterization. While I'm hesitant to say the characters are all *particularly* deep, they do all go through some development, 2/3 of the main cast gets a satisfying arc (though the MC herself doesn't quite yet, I wouldn't say she's as two-dimensional as others have claimed), the villain is interesting in motive if generic in execution, and the supporting cast are all entertaining in their own ways.

I will say, the fact that a particular power gets power-crept within a single season of the show is quite annoying, and I feel they should have given it more weight, I overall don't think it's that much of a flaw. Additionally, while a surface-level explanation of the Noise and the Symphogears is given, the... "system," for lack of a better word, isn't really fully explained that well. There's glimpses of a deeper lore (some of which is expanded upon in later seasons), though if you're looking for specifics you better get used to explanations like "I'm just holding the door open for a once-in-a-decade event."

This anime also suffers from an occasional problem of showing, and then later (sometimes within 2-3 minutes) telling you exactly what happened anyways. There is an instance of this that particularly irks me in that there's a really well done conversation where you don't hear most of it, but you see the result, and the emotion and actions of the characters really just sell it in a way you don't have to know what exactly was said... and then they tell you exactly what was said anyway. Thankfully, it's not *too* prevalent, but it does happen. Another little gripe I have is that, like seemingly every anime with a high-school-aged cast, they saw it was necessary to include a bath scene. So, like, be ready for that if you're watching with someone else or just generally find those scenes icky.

Animation is... fine. There are a couple parts (particularly in backgrounds) that are really jpeg-y, and a couple awkward animation segments, though those are usually not particularly egregious, and quality generally holds up more consistently than some more modern anime. It's still obvious more of the budget went to the first episode and finale, but less so than in other examples, and the sometimes-iffy animation is more than made up for by the absolutely amazing soundtrack, the good sound design, and the surprisingly good vocal performances in some key moments.

Despite some of the show's little flaws, it all comes together in a package that makes the most of its strengths and weaknesses. It's high-energy, action-packed, turn-your-brain-off fun with one of the better anime soundtracks out there! Solid recommend, whether you only want to watch this season or go on for the rest of the show.