Review of Symphogear G

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-gothan 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!