Symphogear, or Senki Zesshou Symphogear, or if you want to call it by its ridiculously long "well this is certainly an anime title" name, "Symphogear: Meteoroid-Falling, Burning, and Disappear then..." (I'm not making this up, this subtitle is literally featured in the opening and is completely official) is a magical girl (?) action anime from 2012. It has 5 seasons, along with a new project which was recently announced, but this review is only about the first season.

I wanted to watch this because I was interested in watching some magical girl anime, and saw this had the tag. I watched one of the later season’s OPs and thought it looked pretty cool. This isn’t really a typical “Magical Girl” anime, as it’s also a sci-fi action show.

To describe it, it’s about a group of girls who protect the world from creatures called the “Noise” with the power of singing and friendship using weapons called “Symphogears”. If that sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is. Without getting into spoilers, expect plot twists, mostly towards the end.

The main character, Hibiki Tachibana, is an ordinary girl who’s at a music school called Lydian Academy with her friend Miku. Hibiki is one of the 3 Symphogear wielders in the show. The second one is Tsubasa, a pop idol who Hibiki is a fan of. The start of the show also has a concert of hers where the other member of Zwei Wing (Kanade) is killed by the noise. Tsubasa describes herself as a “Blade” and uses a sword. The third member who only really appears about halfway through the season is Chris, who’s like an slightly angry character with a dark backstory. She uses guns, and although Tsubasa is my favourite character overall her attacks are a lot of fun to watch.

Oh and there’s also Genjuro, some guy who just appears occasionally to punch stuff.
The characters are generally pretty fun, and my favourite was definitely Tsubasa.

The action scenes themselves are really enjoyable. They’re completely over the top and ridiculous, which is exactly why they’re good. Like, they literally BREAK THE MOON, it might as well be a super robot anime.
The art and animation in this show is… not the best a lot of the time. It’s kind of cheap looking and there’s a good amount of typical “QUALITY” anime moments. It’s not horrendous or anything, but I’ve definitely seen much better. It does seem to improve in the later seasons. The series also has some fanservice, but I don’t really have a problem with it and it generally didn’t get in the way of anything.
Another flaw this show has is the more “dramatic” stuff. Throughout the show there seem to be some attempts to be really dramatic and serious, but most of it is honestly just stupid and it sometimes feels out of place.

Overall I enjoyed this anime quite a lot and I’d recommend this anime if you like ridiculous action shows. 8/10