Senhime Zesshou Symphogear - 3 (Feeling Cursed)

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Still don't know why I keep coming back to the show! It must be like one of those guilty pleasures which you will deny until death should you be confronted by it but in the privacy of your own room you can enjoy it all you like - no, that's no even it. Why

I guess the main reason that I keep coming back to watch it is that I still don't know enough about the environmental setting of the series - I don't know enough about the enemy, nor do I know enough about the weaponry or about the other characters (or maybe I shouldn't know more about the characters). Even by the end of the third episode of the series, I am still looking for answers to questions that would typically be brought to light in the first two episode in these types of stories! If the production company's aim was to frustrate me and possibly other viewers by making me watch episode after episode to possibly get the information I desire, then I congratulate them on a job well done. Now I'm the idiot who keeps coming back week after week.

Enough with the rant. This episode did make laugh for a few reasons and made me love Ryoko Sakurai even more as a character on the show - yes she is your typical jokey older woman with a thing for teasing the young an innocent ones but more importantly since she's voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro, who also voices Kuarpika in the new Hunter x Hunter, I couldn't help but decide to link my new found love for Ryoko to the talented Sawashiro-san. If anyone wonder why Ryoko is my new favourite character on the show, probably has to do with the way she teased Hibiki which just made me burst out in laughter. The part where they talk about the Americans requesting access to the research of the new weapon and their potential as the hackers was also funny but only because I have watched enough of western media to know that the story would be the same (Americans would say the Japanese or Russian).

The story does follow the same kind of trend as the previous episode; battles at the beginning, emotion and laughter in the middle and a nice cliffhanger at the end. This time we get a slightly different yet enjoyable display of Division Leader Genjuro's superhuman strength, which he forced to use to put Tsubasa in, only to destroy his very expensive shoes. Got to say I did not see that coming, I mean he wasn't made to look scrawny as a character but I thought his character was more resemblant of a tactician and scientist type than a macho division leader and with that scene I was made to reconsider how the story might eventually play out and whether Genjuro would be in a position to sacrifice himself.

As we moved from that part of the episode we also got to see a little bit more about Tsubasa's character, which apparently is one of a samurai (as she kept proclaiming to Hibiki and herself that she is like a blade). This didn't really do much for me in terms of her character development and more to the point she just ended up reminding me of a completely serious and humour-free Kunieda from Beelzebub. Tsubasa still remains a character which is just a typical "first generation fighter" reluctant to accept her former partner's replacement due to attachment and intimacy issues; pretty standard and understandable but making her appear like a fearless samurai warrior seems to be a strange move.

Final parts of this episode did have more interesting parts to them than the rest of the episode, but before the ending I was still not able to fully understand what type of relationship Miku and Hibiki are meant to have since the tone keeps changing ever so subtly throughout the episodes. I would assume Miku harbours feelings of more than just friendship for Hibiki since the events that have occurred would suggest so but that could just be mistaken for a deep bond between two friends which I presume will remain unexplained for a while since towards the ending of the series is generally when the bearing of the characters souls occurs. More-so Hibiki does have to mature before this can even be discussed otherwise this will just be a blast of over-the-top comedy which the anime already has enough of.

The best parts: when Hibiki actually got mad for the first time! Made me chuckle, especially since I can't take Aoi Yuuki as a voice actress seriously (not disrespecting her talent but this role is fitting for her) and since Hibiki has just been whining this whole time I was a little shocked by her angry face. Though the absolute best part has to go the ending, where we discover a new character; friend or foe It can be either but all we know is that it wields the armour we saw in the first episode.

I can't believe I'm going to watch the next episode. Oh well. Since the only thing that was explained in this episode were vague facts about Noise and the existence of an autonomous Symphogear, I can't help but come back.