So what exactly is so bad about Senki Zesshou Symphogear?
Imagine you go into this show, hearing from all sides about how good it is and then you watch episode 1 and you think: "Wow! This is intense, dark and dramatic!" and then you watch the rest of the show and think: "Okay... what?"
The first episode is the best episode in this entire franchise and you cannot prove me wrong, afterwards it just turns so incredibly bland and boring, with a predictable plot, some semi-interesting fight sequences and songs that are at best comparable to an average idol show and characters like you've seen them 1000 times in anime before. Shush, don't come at me like "But this anime is from 2012!", that doesn't change the fact that there isn't one(1!) character in this entire series, that is so extremely different from the rest, that they make a memorable impression on you.
It is honestly hilarious how this show feels like it's originally aiming for kids, not even teenagers, just kids and then someone in the production team thought: "hey let's add some dark elements", because this is essentially what this show is. A story written for an audience that does not expect a deep plot and deep plot twists.
While the first episode was indeed the best episode, the show still managed to absolutely ruin it for me by the end of this season.
When for no reason ever Hibiki had to pretend she's dead for solid 3 minutes at the very end of the season, followed by everyone being happy and blah blah blah. Like what do you even tease that sad grave moment in the beginning of the series when it has the worst conclusion I've ever seen in anime?
Now let's get back to one of the initial selling points of the show: The dark aspect.
We saw in episode 1 Kanade dying a tragic death, after protecting a stranger (Hibiki), because apparently that's the kinda person she is.
Kanade died from using her Climax song, which is the strongest ability a Symphogear has with great destructive, but self-sacrificing power. Wouldn't you imagine that this makes indeed for a "climax" situation in the anime? No, because after Kanade died, the writer of this series made it so it's incredibly inconsequential using this ability, like absolutely every supposedly risk in this show turned out inconsequential and essentially boring, because the heroines just win and win and win and whenever they're on their knees, someone sings a song, they power up and just defeat the enemy, like no big deal ever.
I wouldn't even have to be so critical about this show if they hadn't given us episode 1 and absolutely ruin my expectations for it. Don't pretend your show is dark, if all you want, is to sell a half-assed wholesome story to the viewer.
To this day I don't understand why this anime was greenlit for so many seasons, especially because I went into it thinking they are all coherent in a way, but turns out they're all own original stories. I've watched 3 seasons and I've given it way enough episodes to turn into something that I now know I will never expect to see.
The producer must have seen Madoka's success and thought they could replicate it, especially seeing Hibiki and Madoka share the same voice actress, there's no other reasonable explanation.
