Anime / Symphogear

aka: Senki Zesshou Symphogear

The Superb Song of the Valkyries.^note Top to bottom, left to right: Tsubasa, Shirabe, Chris, Hibiki, Kirika, Maria

"Meteoroid falling, burning, and disappearing, then..."

"In the distance, that day, when the star became music..."

"Believe in justice, and hold a determination to fist."

"By shedding many tears, the reality you face is..."

"Create a history, with the light God could not know."

Symphogear (Senki Zesshou Symphogear, literally "Superb Song of the Valkyries Symphogear") is an original Science Fantasy anime series about Magical Girl Warriors who use Power Armor fueled by The Power of Rock to battle Eldritch Abominations.

Hibiki Tachibana is an ordinary schoolgirl who attends a concert by the Idol Singer duo "Zwei Wing". Unfortunately, the concert is attacked by a group of mysterious Eldritch Abominations called "Noise", and Zwei Wing transform using magical Power Armor- the Symphogear- to battle against them. During the battle, Hibiki is impaled by a fragment of Symphogear armour, which gives her the power to use the armour as well. Recruited by the secret government organization behind the Symphogear, Hibiki must learn how to use her new powers to fight against the Noise on behalf of humanity, alongside veteran fighter and Broken Bird Tsubasa Kazanari while making time for schoolwork and maintaining her relationship with her childhood friend/roommate Miku Kohinata - but Noise attacks are increasing in frequency and a mysterious woman named Finé appears to be behind them...

Originally airing in January 2012, Symphogear was developed by Noriyasu Agematsu (composer of music for games and anime including Wild ARMs and Girls Bravo), published by Kadokawa Shoten, and animated by Studio Satelight. It features an All-Star Cast.

A second season was broadcast in 2013 with the title Senki Zesshou Symphogear G, with Katsumi Ono as the new director going onward. Taking place three months after the events of the original series, the heroines of the 2nd Division face a new threat when a terrorist group calling itself "Finé" emerges from the shadows with an army of Noise and a band of rival Symphogear users led by the singer Maria Cadenzavna Eve and the mysterious man Dr. Ver.

A third season, titled Senki Zesshou Symphogear GX, aired in July of 2015. Now allied, the Symphogears find themselves facing a mysterious alchemist named Carol Malus Dienheim. Aided by four powerful "dolls" known as the Autoscorers, Carol intends to dismantle all of the world's miracles via alchemy - and Hibiki and the rest of the Gear users are the one thing standing in her way. Their only hope, and their only clue to Carol's motives, is a girl named Elfnein and the ancient relic she carries.

A fourth season, titled Senki Zesshou Symphogear AXZ (prounounced "Axis"), began airing in July 2017 as part of the Summer 2017 anime season. SONG, now officially supported by Elfnein, is tasked by the UN to help clean up Val Verde, a South American country under the rule of a brutal junta. Ghosts from the past surface as Chris comes to terms with her parents' death and her own capture in Val Verde. In the meantime, Maria, Shirabe and Kirika must face the shadowy organization that backed FIS' experiments on them: the Bavarian Illuminati, represented by alchemists Saint-Germain, Cagliostro, and Prelati.

The fifth and final season, titled Senki Zesshou Symphogear XV, aired from July to September 2019. As of this writing, the story appears to have been concluded and no plans have been announced for any further spin-offs or sequels.

However, at the 2022 live concert of the show, it was announced that a new animated project for Symphogear was in development.

A game titled Senki Zesshou Symphogear XDU (short for X-Drive Unlimited), developed by Pocket Laboratory (of SINoALICE fame) and published by Bushiroad opened its servers on June 26, 2017, with all Symphogears including deceased ones announced to be playable. Alongside reliving the anime's storyline and new events, the game also has two canon side-stories titled Senki Zesshou Symphogear 3.5 (which takes place between GX and AXZ) and Senki Zesshou Symphogear 4.5 (taking place between AXZ and XV). The game got a worldwide release^notealbeit limited to the United States, Canada, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong on February 14, 2020, but it ended up lasting for about 5 months before shutting down on July 31 the same year. The game would continue in Japan until January 31st, 2024, lasting for 6.5 years.

Right after the announcement of the cancellation of XDU, on Dec 1, 2023, a movie project was announced (presumably the same one announced at the 2022 live). A music project named PROJECT SYMPHOGEAR Next was also announced.

The first season has a manga that slightly changes the story with a few different events (expanding on events prior to the season), but ultimately ends up with the same conclusion. Nearly two years after XV concluded, a spin-off manga, Symphogear: Feast of the Valkyries ~Shirabe’s Cooking~ was announced to begin serialization in June 2021, taking a more Slice of Life approach in an Everybody Lives AU.

The entire series is available for streaming on Crunchyroll. In July 2019, Discotek Media announced the license of season 1 for a sub-only release, but has actually released all five seasons.

Compare and contrast Ar tonelico, Macross 7, Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, AKB0048, Suite PreCure♪, Kamen Rider (Hibiki and OOO in particular) and Super Sentai (Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger and Mashin Sentai Kiramager in particular). At a stretch, you could also throw in the original Bubblegum Crisis (Girls in Power Armor with a powerful rock soundtrack for every fight) or even Saint Seiya (it's arguable that, rather than a Magical Girl Warrior show, it's better thought of as a Distaff Counterpart to the "pretty boys in armor" subgenre of Fighting Series originated by Saint Seiya).

Hibiki, Tsubasa, and Chris also appear in Super Heroine Chronicle, though Chris starts out first as a villain.

Unmarked spoilers ahead!

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This series contains examples of:

Tropes A-F

• Actor Allusion:
  • Hibiki Tachibana has a lot in common with Madoka Kaname. Including being secretly a pig.
  • Tsubasa Kazanari: A Magical Girl Warrior with a sword that changes its forms and lightning powers? Is that you, Fate? Oh you're a Magic Idol Singer? Is that you, Utau?
    • Tsubasa's drawing in Episode 3 of GX was... exactly the same thing Nana Mizuki drew for Symphogear Live 2013, dubbed by Hideo Ishikawa as 'main event'. Compare here◊ and here.◊
    • In the XDU Lyrical Nanoha crossover event, Ogawa mentions that Fate's voice sounds exactly like Tsubasa's did when she was young. To add to it further, Parallel!Tsubasa's vocal performance is similar Material-L/Levi, Fate's own alternate personality counterpart from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Reflection.
  • Maria Cadenzavna Eve generally tries avoiding casualties in battle and dislikes killing people. Wait, does the latter sound a lot like Sakura Sakurakouji?
  • Chris, Tsubasa and Hibiki are said by Word of God to be modelled on Ryouma, Hayato and Musashi, so who better to voice their commander than Ryouma himself?
  • This isn't the first time Shin-ichiro Miki has voiced a bloke who makes a habit of swanning around in the altogether.
  • During the XDU Kamen Rider 555 crossover event, Kaixa mentions that Hibiki's voice sounds nostalgic to him. Aoi Yuuki played the live-action role of Mari Sonoda as a child, back when she was a child actress.
• Adults Are Useless: Despite being a rather dark Magical Girl Warrior series, where this trope is the norm, this is overall averted. While there are a few hopeless adults, and others that are villains, for the most part the adults involved with the Symphogears are quite competent at their jobs, with one of the Symphogears, Maria, even being an adult herself. Of particular note are Genjuro and Ogawa, who are not only the most competent when it comes to supporting the Symphogears behind the lines, they're also quite capable of holding themselves in combat when it doesn't involve Noise (and sometimes even then, though only with combat support, as touching Noise would still instantly kill them).
• Advanced Ancient Humans: In Symphogear, all relics are the result of ancient supertechnology from various points in human history. Finé herself is a priestess from an ancient civilization who etched her consciousness into her genes, allowing her to revive at any point in the future by hijacking the bodies of her descendants.
  • Taken one step further in GX: Carol implies that both songs and alchemy originate from Finé's attempts to restore the common human language.
  • Explained in full detail in XV: When the Custodians used to keep an eye on earth, their language and Humanity's language were once the same, and some of them, despite supposedly being above humans, became a part of human affairs quite frequently, with Enki and season one Big Bad Finé having been lovers. The closeness between Humans and Custodians is the reason for the advancements they made back then before the Custodians had to leave and place the Curse of Balal on the planet, lest Shem-ha turn Humanity into her slave beasts to eventually build an army big enough to destroy the other Custodians.
• All Myths Are True: Many mythologies are represented in Symphogear's universe. A listing of the major ones are:
  • Norse myths:
    • Gungnir (SG-r03') - the Spear of Odin, wielded by Kanade, Hibiki and Maria.
    • Ichaival (SG-r02) - Ullr's bow, wielded by Chris.^note Ichaival/Ichii-bal actually comes from the Ancestral Weapon of "Ullr the Crusader" in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, with its name likely being a combination of “ichii”(Japanese for yew tree, yew wood bow being the mythological Ullr’s weapon of choice) plus “ballista.” It got into the series due to being erroneously mentioned on the Norse god's Japanese Wikipedia page for several years.
    • Also revealed in GX is the Dainsleif, the sword crafted by the dwarf Dain for the king Hogni. Cursed to always draw blood before it can be sheathed, it inflicts wounds which will always be fatal.
    • Yggdrasil - The tree of existence, it appears in XV as Shem-Ha's current base of operations.
  • Japanese myths:
    • Ame-no-Habakiri (SG-r01) - the blade of the Shinto storm god Susano-o is wielded by Tsubasa.
    • Ame-no-Murakumo - The original name for the Kusanagi, taken off of Orochi's scales, is wielded by Tsubasa's grandfather, Fudou.
    • Shen Shou Jing - forced upon Miku, the Divine Beast Mirror is perhaps less mythological than other relics and more of an archaeological artefact.
  • Irish mythology:
    • Airgetlam (SG-x00) - the silver prosthetic of the mythological king Nuada, wielded by Serena and Maria.
    • The Daurdabla (also known as the Uaithne) - the harp of the Dagda. It features as the relic backing Carol Malus Dienheim's Faust Robe.
  • Hebrew/Sumerian mythology:
    • Kadingir - a derivation of the ancient Sumerian name of the city of Babylon. In Symphogear, it is the name given to the wave motion cannon (which is itself an allusion to the Tower of Babel) designed by Finé.
    • Nehushtan - the healing artefact erected by the Biblical prophet Moses becomes an armor granting nigh-invulnerability and regeneration to its wielder.
    • The Staff of Solomon is not attested in any popular accounts of the Biblical king, but given his later association with acts of devil-binding and devil-summoning, the role of the Staff as a Noise summoner is perhaps all too appropriate.
    • Igalima (SG-i02) and Shul Shagana (SG-i01) - stated to be the twinned weapons of a Sumerian war god/goddess in some translations of Babylonian texts, they appear as Kirika's scythe relic and Shirabe's saw relic respectively.
    • Finé's lover was Enki, who created the Marduk AI in the Lunar Ruins. Marduk was the chief Babylonian god, and Enki is from The Epic of Gilgamesh.
  • French romances:
    • Durandal, the artefact that Hibiki temporarily wields in Symphogear, is the sword of the paladin Roland from the Cycle of Charlemagne.
    • The Chateau de Tiffauges was historically the home castle of the French nobleman, paedophile and serial murderer, Gilles de Rais.
  • Hindu mythology gets a mention too, with the Yantra Sarvaswa, a kind of universal manual allowing control of all machines. ^note In the real world, the Yantra is most well-known for being the manuscript that describes the mythological flying machines called the Vimana. However, the manuscript in question is actually the Vaimānika Shāstra ("Treatise on the Topic of Vimanas"), which claims to be a part (specifically, the fortieth chapter) of the Yantra Sarvaswa.
  • From the Abrahamic religions:
    • It turns out that the Gungnir is also the mythical Lance of Longinus, which stabbed Jesus on the cross. This act made it a conceptual weapon of deicide. The show does acknowledge that Jesus wasn't actually killed by the lance (being already dead); it became a conceptual weapon because enough people mistakenly believed that that was the case.
    • The title of XV Episode 11 is John 1:1: "In the Beginning Was The Word"
    • Shem-ha is derived from the Jewish Kaballah's representation of the many names of God.
  • All mythological creatures and monsters are thought to have existed too, though the majority are theorized to have been Noise.
    • This is confirmed in XDU, as mythological creatures such as vampires, merfolk or spirits do exist in-universe. Additionally, Noble Red in XV are based on the Beast of Gévaudan, Carmilla, and Frankenstein's monster.
    • In AXZE6, a Hydra-like mega-Noise appears. Instead of regenerating twice as many heads if the stumps are not cauterised, this version simply splits into smaller parts with fewer heads, until it's reduced to a snake-like form.
• All There in the Manual: Lots of information regarding Symphogears, relics, and other material can be found in the form of key words which are explained on the show's website (English fan-translations are available). They give insight to things that weren't or couldn't be explained by watching the anime alone.
• Ancient Artifact: All relics are based on ancient super technology from various points in human history —therefore becoming part of several culture's mythologies—, allowing a team of magical girls to fight otherwise intangible enemies called the Noise.
• And the Adventure Continues: At the end of the first season, there are still Noise in the world to be fought and heroines willing to do it. Indeed, the adventure continues in G.
• Animate Body Parts: This exchange from Symphogear Radio:
  Aoi Yūki: At the end of the day, [the XV transformation sequences] all look great!
  Ayahi Takagaki: Even Chris—
  Yuka Iguchi: Oh, yeah. I liked Chris's little bouncy scene.
  Ayahi Takagaki: It was so bouncy that, uh, they asked me to put a voice in there.
  Yuka Iguchi: [laughing] Finally?! Talking boobs?!
  Ayahi Takagaki: "The boobs don't talk!" But... they asked me to improv a line for the boobs, or when the boobs move like this...
  Yuka Iguchi: Hold it right there...
  Ayahi Takagaki: A voice when your boob moves. What does that even—?
  Yuka Iguchi: Isn't it some old guy giving you those directions? That's terrible.
  Aoi Yuki: That's not how boobs work!
  Ayahi Takagaki: I was like, "I don't think I can... What should I...?"
  Aoi Yuki: It's possible because it's Chris.
  Yuki Iguchi: Them wild boobs.
  Aoi Yuki: Finally, boobs get their own VA! "Boobs (VA: Ayahi Takagaki)".
• Animation Bump:
  • Within the first episode of the first season, Kanade and Tsubasa' concert features extremely fluid choreography for both characters, something that goes unrivaled for several episodes.
  • G's animation is much more fluid and better-looking than the first season.
  • Come the third season and the animation is even more fluid, and impressively consistent. Look no further than the action sequences in GX's opening. Continuing with tradition, GX features another duet concert showpiece with Maria and Tsubasa.
• Anti-Magic: Anti-LiNKER, created by Dr. Ver, does the exact opposite of what LiNKER does - forcibly desyncing Gear users.
• Anyone Can Die:
  • Kanade and the main heroine, Hibiki in the very first episode. That said, it turns out Hibiki wasn't actually dead.
  • Of diplomatic importance, Japanese Defense Minister Hiroki is assassinated in Symphogear E5.
• Apocalypse Maiden: The major subplot Kirika and Shirabe deal with in G after it is revealed that Maria is not, in fact, the host for Finé: which of the two girls is Finé going to hijack and overwrite?
• Armies Are Useless: Unlike the Adults Are Useless aversion, this generally holds true for the Armed Forces throughout the series. There are rare excpetions though, such as the branch S.O.N.G belongs to. Even then, while armies aren't capable of fighting off Noise or the antagonists of the season, they still have the ability to potentially hold off Noise long enough for civilians to get to safety, making it a downplayed case.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Elfnein's main ability. She takes all of five seconds to formulate a strategy for the 2nd Div Symphogears to escape the subspace pocket in AXZ E3.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The SSSS.GRIDMAN and Attack on Titan events in XDU have the Symphogear armor as this against their new opponents. This leads to Hibiki and Tsubasa to bond with Gridman and Gridknight in the former and perform Combination Attacks with the Survey Corps in the latter.
• Badass Cape: G: Unlike Kanade's and Hibiki's versions of Gungnir, Maria's black Gungnir comes with a cape. Which she uses to attack people or deflect bullets.
• Badass Family: The Kazanaris. Tsubasa is a Symphogear trained since childhood to become a warrior (or a sword/sentinel according to herself), and her uncle (actually big brother), Genjuro, is a Badass Normal who punches boulders and gets all his training from watching action movies. By extension, the latter is also Chris' legal guardian, who reveals herself to be another powerful Symphogear user.
  • In GX, we're introduced to Yatsuhiro Kazanari. While not a physical fighter like Genjuurou or Tsubasa, he's hinted by Genjuurou and Shinji to be scarily competent in negotiating in international law.
  • In AXZ, the Kazanari patriarch, Fudo Kazanari, finally makes his appearance. Even Genjuurou is intimidated by him, and in a family meeting, he absolutely dominates both of them and reduces Tsubasa to her Symphogear mentality of being a sentinel in front of him. He's also the Big Bad of XV, at least initially.
• Bad Moon Rising: Symphogear: A blood red moon and tinted sky serve as the backdrop for the final battle against Finé.
• Bait-and-Switch: early advertisements◊ had Kanade and Tsubasa◊ as main characters, with Hibiki as an apparent side character, shocking audiences when Episode 1 actually aired.
• Bait-and-Switch Credits: Subverted. The last thing you will see in Symphogear's OP is the interlocked hands of two girls against a starry sky. This is elaborated further in the finale, and it is also the last thing you will in that episode. After Hibiki's return to Earth, she and Miku get to see the meteor shower, holding hands.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy:
  • The first OP has ethereally nude depictions of Hibiki, Tsubasa, and Kanade and Chris, late in the series, entirely without anatomical details.
  • Shower scenes are the same way from the first season on.
  • Extremely prominent in GX. Previously, the transformation sequences used to be rather tame, as described in the Fanservice entry below. With the newer, more, "elaborate" transformation sequences, the camera seems to do quite an unnecessary amount of zooming and spiralling, resulting in clearer shots of the girls temporarily naked before they don their Gears.
  • Played quite literally with Micha, as the Super Mode she enters when Kirika and Shirabe activate their IGNITE mode burns off her shirt, revealing that her chest looks exactly what you'd expect a puppet's chest to look like.
  • Similarly, Tiki is also featureless, though her chest area is a different color than the rest of her torso.
• Battle Couple: Shirabe and Kirika get this treatment in the GX OP, where they are never seen fighting without the other.
• Back for the Dead: In G, after being hinted at for a large part of the season, Finé makes her return... in order to save Shirabe at the cost of her own existence.
• Baphomet: The depiction of him in Eliphas Levi's Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie is claimed to have been inspired by a glimpse he caught of the true form of the immortal alchemist Adam Weishaupt, who it turns out is the setting's closest equivalent to Lucifer.
• Beach Episode: In GX E7. It's a government-owned beach, however, necessitating several trips to the nearest convenience store for food. This turns out to be plot-important later.
• BFS: Durandal. Hibiki activates it in episode 5, which she promptly uses to demolish an entire chemical plant in a single attack.
  • Tsubasa's special attacks get bigger and bigger each season. G had multiple Heaven's Wrath dropped in succession when running from Miku. In GX E1, Tsubasa gets a modified variant of her Flash of the Wight's Blade attack, just without the motorcycle. It's big enough to carve through an entire forest.
  • The 2nd Div Symphogear's new combination attack - Trinity Resonance. It combines a Heaven's Wrath-sized sword from Tsubasa with Chris' Megadeth Fuga rockets to form a launching platform for Hibiki. And the rocket-powered sword follows up with a second strike after Hibiki too!
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Professor Nastassja and Dr. Ver in G, until their plans diverge - Nastassja wants to save the world, Dr. Ver just wants to rule it.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Tsubasa for Maria, in GX E1.
  • Kirika and Shirabe for Chris in GX E3.
  • Chris and Tsubasa, in their newly repaired Gears, for Kirika and Shirabe in GX E5.
• Big Good: Tsubasa's uncle, Genjurou Kazanari, leads the 2nd Division. In true Big Good fashion, he battles Season 1's Big Bad, Finé, prior to the finale.
• Bilingual Bonus: On Symphogear Radio, Ayahi Takagaki — a professional Pungeon Master — recalled how stunned she was when Agematsu told her "Gun Bullet XXX" was a pun on ganbatte.
• Bland-Name Product: They weren't even trying to hide it.
  • For instance, Ryoko's car's logo is the same as the Toyota logo, upside down.
  • At the cinema that Hibiki, Miku and Tsubasa go to, there's a movie poster for the caped and spandex-clad "Suppaman", who is most definitely not Superman.
• Bloodier and Gorier: While there are plenty of instances of High-Pressure Blood, Tsubasa is shedding Tears of Blood at the end of Episode 4.
  • G racks the gore up a notch when Hibiki fights the Nephilim. A moment of distraction leads to the Nephilim ripping off, and then eating, Hibiki's left arm. Which prompts her to go berserk, beat the Nephilim to death, and then tear out its heart.
• Blood Knight: Prelati in AXZ, although you wouldn't know it from her appearance.
• Book Ends:
  • Symphogear starts and ends with Miku visiting Hibiki's grave.
  • Just as Hibiki did in the first episode, in the last episode Miku rescues a girl under Noise attack, they run, she falls, a heartbeat is heard...
  • The final episodes of the first season bring back the following songs: Synchrogazer (as an ending theme specifically) and Gyakkou no Flügel (the insert song from the first ep, now the series ending theme).
  • Done again in the final episode of the second season with: Vitalization (as an ending theme for 12) and Niji Iro no Flügel as the series' ending.
  • Entire series begins and ends when Miku visits a graveyard while reciting a poem, but the circumstances are the opposite. In the beginning, the dreary and in-despair Miku grovels on Hibiki's grave alone, lamenting her loss. In the end, Miku visits the Kazanari clan graveyard along with everyone in S.O.N.G to give Tsubasa emotional support as they begin the first step into a new beginning.
  • The first song sung in the series is Gyakko no Flugel sung by Tsubasa and Kanade, the last song sung in the series is Ashita e no Flugel, a remix sung by all of the wielders in S.O.N.G.
  • In both the first and final seasons, defeating the Big Bad isn't enough to save the world, and the Symphogear wielders must go on a near-suicidal mission to prevent it from being destroyed.
• Body Horror: Noises' mere touch turns people into ashes quickly, but not quick enough for the victims not to feel it.
  • In G, Hibiki's fusion with Gungnir has progressed to the point that it's killing her via golden crystals that start bursting out of her flesh when she pushes herself too hard.
• Breather Episode: A well-deserved one, at that. Episode 9 is a "girl's day out", and Nana Mizuki performs karaoke on an Enka song.
  • GX episode 7 (the Beach Episode) appears to be one at the start, what with the girls getting on with an intense game of beach volleyball. Subverted however, as the Autoscorers decide to attack anyway.
• Brown Note: AXZ E1, where Saint-Germain's, Prelati's, and Cagliostro's song kills an entire room of top junta officials by making them itch and disintegrate.
• Busman's Holiday: GX E7. The "training" session at the beach is really an excuse for the girls to relax, at least until Garie shows up.
• Call-Back:
  • There is at least one Dead Star Walking character, who dies in episode 1 of both Symphogear and GX via Swan Song.
  • Hibiki's Berserker mode in Symphogear is referenced in GX as part of the raw combat power that the IGNITE module taps into.
  • GX E6 serves as a huge callback, thematically, to both Symphogear and Symphogear G. During the IGNITE module activation sequence, Tsubasa and Chris are forced to relive painful memories and emotional wounds, with many of their character development episodes referred to.
  • While they use different weaponry and are designed differently, Carol's adult form and mannerisms are extremely reminiscent of Finé in her Nehushtan Armor, right down to them having Stripperific forms and dangerous ranged attacks.
  • Both Shirabe's and Kirika's songs in G both use the phrase "Kiri kizande agemashou" (I shall cut [the world] into pieces) as a bridge, where as their songs in GX both use the phrase "Kirikizamu koto nai sekai ni yume daki kisu wa shimashō" (Let's kiss and embrace a world which isn't cut apart) as a bridge in a similar melody, signifying their Character Development. Both sets of songs also use the Swan Song near the end.
  • At the end of the first episodes of both Symphogear, and G, a new Gungnir user appears, followed with Genjuro's reaction "Gungnir dato?!"
    • It also gets a mention in AXZ when a big display mentions Gungnir has God-killing properties.
  • XV gives at least one per episode:
    • This season's tagline is taken directly from the first line of the chorus in the lyrics to the song "Wings of the Backlight".^note ...神様も知らない ヒカリで歴史を創ろう, which roughly translates to, Let's make a history, with the light God could not know.
    • The opening credits show things that haunt the wielders from previous seasons: Finé, Yatsuhiro, Fudo, Chris' Parents, Serena, and Prof. Nastassja.
    • Episode 1: The graphic equalizer style transformations return, Finé is namechecked.
    • Episode 2: The Zwei Wing concert is referenced in a horrifying way.
    • Episode 3: Tsubasa's father and grandfather returns.
    • Episode 4: Brings back Saint-Germain.
    • Episode 5: Ends with Miku apparently killed, just like in G.
    • Episode 6: Hibiki, Miku, and Tsubasa go on a group date, much like in Season 1 albeit with Elfnein added.
    • Episode 7: The Autoscorers and Carol's Faust Robe return. Bonus points for also bringing up the GX character songs, with each of the Autoscorers borrowing the cover poses of the wielders that defeated them (Micha even gets to pose twice since she was beaten by Kirika and Shirabe) during the Faust Robe Transformation Sequence, while Carol recreates her own cover as the final shot of the episode.]
    • Episode 8: Hibiki's godslaying returns. And so does Shen Shou Jing
    • Episode 9: Hibiki's dad Akira returns, the lunar ruins activate, and Tsubasa echos the opening line of the first theme song, "Listen to my song!". And Genjuro blocks a nearly fatal strike by Tsubasa on someone.
    • Episode 10: Shem-Ha's tower resembles a red-and-black version of Kadingir.
    • Episode 11: Maria and Tsubasa reprise their song from their first concert together in G.
    • Episode 12: Maria's song at the end of G awakened Shem-Ha. Near the end of the episode, Shem-Ha starts quoting the tag of Season 1 ("Meteoroid falling, burning, and disappearing...") while witnessing what appears to be a failed re-entry into atmosphere by the Gear users, before Hibiki herself caps it off ("THEN!").
    • Episode 13: tons, including cameos by fifteen deceased characters^note Kanade, Finé, Enki, Serena, Dr. Ver, Prof. Nastassja, Carol, her father Izak, Yatsuhiro, the Alchemist Trio, and Noble Red. Most subtle is Shem-Ha's brief Miku imitation causing Hibiki to pause, just like Genjuro vs Finé in the first season. In addition, Hibiki defeats Shem-Ha with a power hug, just like she embraced Miku in episode 10 of G.
• Cast Full of Lesbian: Oh yes. There are at least three more-or-less official lesbian pairs within the series: Tsubasa/Kanade, Hibiki/Miku, and Shirabe/Kirika. Fans also tend to pair Maria with Tsubasa, and Chris as a third member to any of the other pairings. Despite the latter fan pairings. Chris is the only character who isn't explicitly attracted to another female character.
• Catch a Falling Star: In episode 8 of Symphogear, Hibiki dives to save Miku after the latter fell off a roadside that was destroyed by the Noise.
• Cerebus Rollercoaster:
  • Symphogear episode 1 is very dark. Episode 2 is far brighter, focusing on Hibiki's induction as a Symphogear candidate; then episodes three and four go back to being serious... until the very last minutes of episode four suddenly turn into a goofy Shōnen Training Montage. Overall the tone of the series gets Lighter and Softer as the series progresses (Episode 8 even relies on The Power of Love and The Power of Friendship as a plot point) with the international conspiracy subplot and Chris' Dark and Troubled Past being the only "edgy" elements left by the finale.
  • G, on the other hand, goes back to the dark tone of the first 4 episodes, and even more.
  • GX starts out light, with life apparently having gone back to normal. However, a new enemy resistant to Symphogears appears, and all of the Symphogears are taken out of commission at one point or another in combat. SONG HQ itself is nearly breached and incapacitated, and only a desperate defence by Kirika and Shirabe buys enough time for Elfnein to get Tsubasa's and Chris' Gears repaired and back into action. It gets better from there.
  • AXZ dives back into this, with the first episode already promising to visit Chris' Dark and Troubled Past, left untouched since the first season. Additionally, it promises to explore the Bavarian Illuminati, the driving force behind the FIS experiments.
  • XV seems Lighter at first, despite the opener being a fight against something that would be a near world ending threat from previous season finales, but starting in episode 2, the season as a whole reaches the higest levels of dark content in the whole series, surpassing even the original. This is established as a horrifying call back to the horrific Zwei Wing concert from Season 1 ep 1, but taken up to 11. 70,000 people die, including children. It only gets worse from there, though there are still moments of levity now and then.
• Chandler's Law: By the time of AXZ, the studio must've had some kind of mandate that every episode must have the Illuminati burst through the door with some Alca-Noise, no matter how well it flows. It's ostensibly to make things more exciting, but some fights add very little to the story and take focus away from characters when they're not fighting for their lives—poor Miku has nothing to do all season.
  • When Tsubasa and Maria are flying back to Japan with the Val Verde documents, the Illuminati shoot their plane down. They escape safely with the documents and are barely inconvenienced.
  • Cagliostro appears to harass Maria, Shirabe, and Kirika at the Matsushiro site. She's driven off and it contributes almost nothing to the story except a phone call from Fudou which doesn't affect the current plot at all.
  • Prelati and Cagliostro attack the salvage operations at the Undersea Palace, only to be quickly beaten back, whereupon S.O.N.G. return to the salvage like nothing happened.
  • When Chris-chan meets Sonja and Stephan for dinner, rather than focus on the character drama, a horde of Alca-Noise burst through the wall and attack everybody.
• Chekhov's Armory: Although GX was criticized for not having any relevance to the series Myth Arc, in retrospect almost all of the things it introduced (alchemy, autoscorers, ley lines, etc.) would turn out to be important elements of the last two seasons.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Tsubasa calls Genjuro "uncle" exactly once very early in season one, but otherwise their familial connection has no bearing on the plot until two seasons later.
  • Second Division's headquarters is described as being dug extremely deeply into the ground, and designed by Ryoko. The finale of Symphogear reveals it to be Kadingir, the wave motion cannon designed by Ryoko/Finé to shoot the moon.
  • Serena's shattered Gear pendant Airgetlam is saved by Maria as a keepsake. It ends up giving Maria a Gear to don after Hibiki steals Gungnir from her, and half of the Vitalization combined attack is formed from Airgetlam. Come GX, Elfnein is able to repair it, and Airgetlam becomes Maria's battle Gear after losing the Gungnir to Hibiki.
  • Hibiki freeing Miku from her mind control Gear form in G. The laser blast wiped the Original Sin from her body, which is why she could hold divine power; it also means Hibiki and Miku are free of the Curse of Balal!
  • The opening of XV shows Elfnein using the Electromicroscope Beatrice last used in AXZ, although it doesn't appear outside of the OP. Come episode 7 when Noble Red is about to kill Elfnein, Carol emerges as a second personality to save her, having used the device to copy and collect the fragments of her personality left in Elfnein's brain.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • The little girl Hibiki saved during Symphogear E1 plays a role in the first season finale.
  • Elfnein herself is one. At first, her role in the plot is to "atone" for Carol's misdeeds by bringing Dainsleif to SONG and upgrading the Symphogears accordingly. However, when Carol revives in episode 8, it's shown that she can see, hear and communicate through Elfnein.
  • In AXZ the space shuttle (and the pilots) they saved at the start of GX come into play as someone who knows them gives them important information just at the right time to repay that.
  • Also in AXZ, the aircraft that Kirika and Shirabe saved at the end of the Val Verde arc is implied to have been carrying carbon copies of the intel that would later be lost as a result of Adam destroying the Kazanari Institute. This intel ended up in the hands of someone who knows the shuttle pilots, and it is this intel that gets passed on to SONG later in the series.
  • Adam's destruction of the Kazanari Institute is what sets Fudou on his path to being the Big Bad of XV.
• Chekhov's Skill: Chris's sniping move, Red Hot Blaze, summons a giant sniper rifle. She uses it for the first time in G episode 4, to shoot down the bad guys' VTOL. Unfortunately, the VTOL cloaks before she can draw a bead on it. Said skill is never used again until GX episode 10, where she summons the same rifle, with the same move, for use as a giant club.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Philosophical Weapons are items that gain a special property because it gets associated with certain legends. While relics usually get properties independent to their intended function (Gungnir's initial property is 'Always Accurate Attack', while the 'Kill the God' property gained from being used on Jesus Christ) because of their ancient existence, ordinary items can also become Philosophical Weapons (and thus, relics) if they have famous enough notoriety; Sword Breaker and Kresnik were ordinary sword and silver bullet respectively, but they killed so many swords (for the Breaker) and supernatural horrors (for Kresnik) that the anti-sword and anti-monster property stay with them.
• Cliffhanger Copout: Tsubasa and Hibiki's fight never happens: old man Genjuurou comes out of nowhere and stops Tsubasa with his BARE FIST.
• Climactic Battle Resurrection: The massive phonic gain caused by Miku leading the school's survivors in singing their anthem undoes the damage Chris and Tsubasa incurred during their respective heroic sacrifices, in addition to reawakening Hibiki's shattered spirit.
• Co-Dragons: Garie, Micha, Lieur, and Phara in GX. Saint-Germain, Cagliostro, and Prelati in AXZ.
• Colony Drop: This was Finé's last ditch effort as she grabbed a piece of the moon and pulled it towards the Earth. G reavealed that the moon itself is heading towards the Earth.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In season one, Hibiki breaks off the heels of her Symphogear outfit because they're in the way. Season two has Tsubasa accidentally break a heel of her idol outfit when fighting Maria. In season 4 Maria has a close call when falling from a destroyed plane, with no access to her gear, luckily she only gets her heels on her shoes cut off.
  • When Hibiki tries to prevent Tsubasa and Chris from fighting in episode 4, they say "Shut Up! This is a battlefield!". This happens again in G, this time it's Shirabe and Kirika.
  • Episode 12 from both seasons start with the ending theme and end with the opening theme. At the end of the episode, Hibiki transforms and she yells "SYMPHOGEAR!" and "GEKISŌ ・ GUNGNIR DA!" in response to Finé and Maria, respectively.
  • The first season starts with the song Gyakkou no Flügel. G ends with Niji Iro no Flügel, a remix of the former.
  • When a flashback shows how the Shenshojin was acquired, there is a brief appearance of Kanade, revealing that the acquiring of this Relic was the reason the Noise attack the dig site her parents worked at she was visiting.
  • As freeze frame bonuses, the transformation sequences in AXZ contain text appearing on the Armed Gears. The 2nd Div girls retain their relic designations from Symphogear, but as the FIS Symphogears have never been part of that ordinal designation, the sequences in AXZ are the first time they are revealed:
    • Gungnir - SG-r03' (the prime sign indicating that Hibiki's Gungnir is not the "true" Gungnir held by Kanade)
    • Ichaival - SG-r02
    • Ame-no-Habakiri - SG-r01
    • Airgetlam - SG-x00
    • Igalima - SG-i02
    • Shul Shagana - SG-i01
  • In Episode 5 of GX, Shirabe and Kirika attempt a Combination Attack on Micha by holding hands and performing a dual dive kick with their weapons attached to their feet. Unfortunately, Micha's defenses prove too strong for them to cut through. In Episode 6 of AXZ, they perform the same attack on the alchemists, only this time they succeed in driving through their defenses and destroying their airship.
  • Later seasons have Tsubasa using a Heaven's Wrath sword as a means of blocking her opponents (Carol in GX and Cagliostro in AXZ), just that said opponents don't realise at first that the obstacle is a sword. The camera cuts out to show the sword and Tsubasa standing on top of it, then angrily telling off the opponent for calling her sword something else.
• Contrived Coincidence: All over the place. The way the important characters keep running into other important characters, you'd think the city they live in was about two blocks in size.
  • In "Where Omens Lead", the Lydian library has a perfect view of Tsubasa's hospital room, just so Miku can spy Hibiki and Tsubasa hanging out.
  • "No Shadows in the Sunlight":
    • Miku returns from running an errand to stumble upon Chris-chan wounded in an alley, reeling from a fight with Noise.
    • When Hibiki rushes to the site of the Noise attack, naturally the first thing she does is immediately enter the one building Miku is holed up inside.
  • In "Symphogear", Ogawa finds a random handful of civilians from a Noise shelter and brings them into the same room as a monitor showing Hibiki's fight with Finé, just so the girl Hibiki saved in the first episode can give our heroines an inspiring moment.
  • At the end of "A Miracle is a Cruel Thing", Hibiki and her friends turn a corner outside of their school and immediately run into Dr. Ver causing trouble.
  • "Hand in Hand for Me, as I Waver" has Hibiki & Miku go on a date to the exact same building where Maria & Nastassja are holding a tense meeting, just in time for Dr. Ver to send a swarm of Noise that endangers both parties. The following episode reveals Maria—purely by chance—stumbled upon Miku and abducted her, despite having no clue she's the best friend of their enemy.
  • In "Carry on the Shining Light, and Stay True to Yourself", Hibiki and the others go far away on vacation to the seaside...where Hibiki just so happens to run into her deadbeat father.
  • When S.O.N.G. travel to Val Verde in "Last Resort", of all the people Chris-chan could run into, she meets the little brother of the woman who knew her and her parents during the tragedy two years prior.
• Cooldown Hug: Two examples in Symphogear, one mundane, one less mundane.
  • Genjuro shuts down Chris's misanthropic rant about her dead parents by hugging her, furthering her Heel–Face Turn.
  • During the season finale, Tsubasa stops Hibiki's berserk rampage with a hug, although she takes a mortal wound in the process.
• Cover Drop: The very last scene of The Stinger of XV, which shows Hibiki and Miku holding hands while watching the sky, was also the main poster of the season.
• Creator Cameo: The book Miku checks out of the library in "Where Omens Lead" is How to be Honest with Yourself by Akifumi Kaneko.
• Creature-Hunter Organization: The Mobile Disaster Response Corps, being the ones with Symphogear users who are the only ones with a fighting chance against the Noise.
• Creepy Doll:
  • Symphogear's ED has Chris in silhouette stalking past hanging mannequins in picture frames with their female body parts ripped out, emphasizing both the fragility of the Symphogear wielders' bodies and alluding to Chris's warped worldview as well as her potential sexual abuse in Val Verde.
  • The Autoscorers are shaped like humans, but their actions and behaviour are distinctly in-human. Also, at least two of them display Cute and Psycho traits.
• Crossover: Symphogear XDU has had crossover events with BanG Dream!, SSSS.GRIDMAN, Godzilla, Attack on Titan, the Netflix Ultraman animated series, Lyrical Nanoha's Movie Verse, Tales of Symphonia, the Gamera Heisei trilogy, Mashin Sentai Kiramager, Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight, Saint Seiya, Stardom, SSSS.DYNɅZENON, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya Movie: Licht - Namae no Nai Shoujo, Assault Lily: Bouquet, Yuki Yuna is a Hero, GRIDMAN UNIVERSE and Kamen Rider 555.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The fate of those attacked by Noise: they get reduced to carbon compounds over the span of a few seconds.
• Curse of Babel: The Custodians inflicted this on mankind over 5000 years ago, and caused humanity to lose its original language that they shared with each other and the Custodians. The goal of Season one's Big Bad, Finé, is to try and destroy the Curse, which she states is anchored on the moon, believing they did so to intentionally screw over humanity and believed one of them, Enki, her lover, did it specifically to abandon her. Turns out her attempts at doing so actually screwed over humanity by XV, the fifth season. The Curse of Babel is not a mystical curse, but actually a computer program from the Supercomputer, Marduk, that was inflicted on Mankind from the moon, like she said. However, there was a really good reason for this. This is because the Custodians had a traitor, Shem-ha the Great Surgeon, who attempted to turn Humanity into Monstrous slaves for herself to try and raise an army to destroy the others. After she failed, she converted herself into words and etched herself into humanity's DNA via the original language. To counter this, the Curse of Babel was created to suppress the original language so that she would never rise again. Unfortunately, due to Finé's attempt to Blow up the moon, uncovering the Lunar Ruins of Marduk, and then in Season 2, when Maria Sung Apple, a Piece of the original language to give humanity a chance to connect for a brief moment to save the world from the rampaging Nephilim, jumpstarted her resurrection into the mortal plain. Oopsy poopsy.
• Cutting the Knot: A villainous version - Saint-Germain tells Adam that they need more time to figure out how the Symphogears could destroy Yohualtepoztili in one punch, but Adam simply tells her to destroy the Symphogears instead.
• Death by Origin Story: Kanade for both Tsubasa and Hibiki, and Serena for Maria.
• Decon-Recon Switch: At first it seems the series is going to play the Magical Girl Warrior as strategic weapons, villains being honestly deadly, heroines never getting a break and lacking Plot Immunity. By the final three episodes, the Power of Friendship and the Power of Rock trumps all. It's quite epic.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Other than Tsubasa, Hibiki and Miku, all other presently allied Gear users started out as enemies.
• Description Cut
  Tsubasa: "Smiles have no meaning where we're going."
  Beat
  Cue the next scene having the bureau celebrating Hibiki getting there.
• Detonation Moon: In Symphogear, the moon is a relic that is the source of the confusion of tongues - the reason all humanity speaks different languages. The moon gets physically weird by G, where it's missing a huge chunk and has a ring system of dust and debris due to Finé's actions during the previous season finale.
• Diabolus ex Machina: In GX, Carol is saved at the last minute by Dr. Ver. It's even lampshaded as how out of nowhere it is.
• Distaff Counterpart: The series is probably best described as a female-led version of the "pretty boys in armor" shonen fighting anime subgenre, such as Saint Seiya.
• Downer Beginning:
  • Symphogear starts off with the apparent future death of the main character, Hibiki, and a flashback to the death of Kanade as well as the villains slaughtering an entire concert hall.
  • G begins with another flashback, this time to the death of Serena, the little sister of Maria.
• Eagle Land: Extremely obvious by the phone call and the assassination of Hiroki by an Ahnuld look-alike. — In-universe, Japan and America relations are tense due to sheer competition and its authority present around the world. At least until it is revealed that America and Japan were working together to get information about Ryoko.
  • Further invoked in AXZ, where the suspciously blond/golf-playing president orders the launching of a nuke EVEN after the threat had been announced as defused by the UN.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Symphogear's transformation sequences were very different in style and visuals from its sequels. All the wielders simply had yellow rings of light around their bodies, then a short sequence where their armor attached around a silhouette which slammed into them. GX onwards used the white background with lyrical circles and coloured ribbons and hexagons that viewers today would find familiar.
  • Chris' attack card different in Symphogear compared to how it is in the rest of the series; In Symphogear, it has a Wild West-esque theme, complete with a brown overlay you often see in said genre, from G onwards, it is a metal plate with the title of the attack engraved with the plate surrounded by roses.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Kadingir was designed for blowing up the Moon. It only fails because the beam is knocked off course, and even then it takes a significant chunk of the Moon with it.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Noise are mysterious monsters created by mankind that kill people just by touching them.
  • While the Dragon of the Apocalypse is simply one really large Noise, the Nephilim, the Yohualtepoztili, and the various minibosses the Bavarian Illuminati summon in AXZ give the Symphogears new flavors of abomination to fight each season.
• Empathic Environment: Since singing songs is a key idea in the anime, the background music changes depending on who is currently singing and/or in their Symphogear. It is rare for songs to be pure orchestra.
• Enemy Without: The Chateau de Tiffauges' automated defense system, which takes the shape of Maria's regrets, first taking the form of Nastassja, then of Maria wielding the black Gungnir, and finally Serena.
• Evil Counterpart: The sinister, shadowy, American FIS to the helpful, if secretive Japanese 2nd Division.
  • The FIS's lack of ethical restraint also contributes to creating another Evil Counterpart, though not one to any of the living heroines: in addition to wielding a black version of Kanade's Gear, Maria is essentially what Kanade could have become if the government organization that took her in hadn't been as genuinely dedicated to her well-being as the 2nd Division.
• Evil Costume Switch: Subverted by the IGNITED Symphogears. While they cause the Symphogears to change to sleeker black forms, the Symphogear wielders don't turn evil just by using them, and rather than having their costumes bare more skin in these "evil"/"berserk" forms they actually cover up more.
  • Also Subverted by Maria when she temporarily wields Gungnir once more in GX E4. Her Gungnir's still black (although she loses her Badass Cape, but she's definitely fighting for good this time. Justified because, unlike the other 5 Gear users, she hasn't possessed her relic since G's ending and hence her Gear form would not change.
• Evolving Credits:
  • Chris is added to the final group shot in the OP in episode 11.
  • In Symphogear G, Episode 5 adds portraits of the legends the gears are based on and episode 10 adds Miku with her Symphogear.
• Exiled to the Couch: A variation occurs between Miku and Hibiki in the first season. When Miku is mad at Hibiki for keeping secrets, Hibiki is sent to the bottom bunk since the two share the top.
• Expy: The Noise; they're the Gnosis in all but name. They resemble featureless humanoid or animal-like abominations, shapeshift, can go right through walls and conventional projectiles, turn humans into swiftly crumbling statues on touch, and may only be harmed in the split second while they attack - unless specialized weaponry based on ancient artifacts is used. Never mind that Chris strongly resembles Kos-Mos with her signature dual gatling guns.
• Fanservice: The series has added more and more fanservice over the seasons. Symphogear kept the henshin sequences simple with just coloured outlines of the girls "slamming" into their Gear form. G added much more detail to the sequences, mostly how armor was manifested, and took the opportunity to have Hibiki's chest area do a bounce. Come GX, Chris' sequence gets in on the bouncing, and there are a lot of panty shots in both Chris' and Tsubasa's sequences. XV has Kirika literally pole-dancing as she transforms, ending with a long shot panning over her legs and butt.
  • Some of the girls end up covering their chest with one hand while looking at the camera. This crosses over into Squick with Shirabe's sequence, where she cups her chest with both hands and bends over to look at the camera. Mind you, this is a 14-year old girl we're talking about.
  • During the sequence where Phara intercepts and cuts Maria's and Tsubasa's taxi in half, there's a close-up sequence on how close Phara's Sword Breaker comes to cutting Maria herself, resulting in quite a fair bit of bouncing.
  • When Carol herself takes the field in GX E6, she morphs into her adult form when donning the Faust Robe of Daurdabla, after Tsubasa and Chris indirectly object to beating up a child. After she transforms....
  Carol: (cupping a breast experimentally) "This should suffice, I assume?"
  • When Chris, Maria and Kanade are deployed in XDU, their battle models have their breasts constantly bouncing up and down.
• Faux Fluency: The beginning of episode 5 has a conversation over the phone done in full English. And it's very obvious the voice actors aren't very fluent in the language. Watch it here. Invoked on the Japanese side of the conversation: she was performing that gratuitousness as an insult to her American interlocutors.
• Females Are More Innocent: Whenever the Gears go up against a female antagonist, said foe will at least have a sympathetic backstory to explain their actions, if not pull either a Heel–Face Turn or Redemption Equals Death. By contrast, all of the male antagonists in the series (Dr. Ver, Adam Weishaupt, and Fudou Kanzanari) are shown to be irredeemably evil for one reason or another. Only the Final Boss of the series, Shem-Ha, is both female and lacking in a sympathetic motive or reason for her actions, but she is ultimately convinced to stand down by Hibiki.
• First-Episode Twist:
  • We see the tombstone of a main character a minute into the first episode. Midways through that episode another main character is dead, becoming a Posthumous Character.
  • Similarly for G, we see the moon cracked open and the competing Idol against Tsubasa possessing a fragment of Gungnir and being The Dragon.
• Flanderization: The OVA exaggerates some traits of the characters. Justified, it's a gag series.
  • Hibiki being dumber than usual.
  • Miku's love for Hibiki is less ambiguous.
  • Tsubasa's stoic Samurai personality reaches freaky levels.
  • Chris' Hair-Trigger Temper is even shorter, and gets set off even more as she's the only sane woman. Even though the character design for the OVA is simple and Super-Deformed, Chris is still noticeably shorter than most of the other characters and is still shown to have large breasts. (The other character with noticeably big breasts in this OVA is Maria.)
  • Kirika's Verbal Tic is basically a Catchphrase, which she repeats over and over again every time she gets shocked. Which happens often.
  • Shirabe displays even less emotion than usual.
  • Maria's role as the Team Mom and Cool Big Sis is much more pronounced, as well as her low self-esteem.
  • Ogawa is willing to do a lot more stuff to make Tsubasa more popular, whether or not he has Tsubasa's co-operation.
• Flashback : The first episode has an extended flashback to Kanade's death.
  • GX E2 adds two flashbacks from Maria, Kirika and Shirabe to show How We Got Here after the Frontier incident.
  • AXZ E6 has repeated flashbacks from Maria to her training under Nasstasja.
• Foreshadowing: In season 1, Ryoko hints at having had a hot-and-heavy love affair when she was younger, but doesn't finish telling the girls the story. During the finale, when Ryoko is revealed as Finé, she tells the rest: she's the reincarnation of an ancient priestess from a civilization older than history, the man in the love affair was God, it was totally one-sided, and her attempt to reach Him and tell Him how she felt resulted in the confusion of tongues and not only the events of the series, but all human conflict.
  • In G, Shirabe tells Genjurou (who she has never met before) that he "never changes", and later tells Hibiki to "believe in the song of [her] heart, both things Ryoko said in the previous season. There's a good reason for this: Shirabe is the actual host for Finé's soul, not Maria or Kirika.
  • The very first Zwei Wing Concert song shown in the series, “Gyakko No Flügel”, has the lyric “Create a history with the light God could not know”. The Tag Line for the final season, XV, not only references this, but it ends up being the ultimate goal of the whole series as a way of stopping the Greater-Scope Villain, Shem-ha.
  • A really subtle one from the first series to XV. When talking about the Symphogear system Finé at one point says "If a person became capable of using the Superb Song without any repercussions, and could freely wield the power hidden within sacrists it would be proof that they have been released from the curse that the custodians put upon us in the distant past." When the inverse happens and the curse of Balal is lifted by Shem-Ha, the Symphogear wielders become able to use the Superb Song without reprecussions, despite lacking the phonic gain normally needed to do so.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: "Murderer of Miracles" has some Engrish flavor text detailing the Symphogear wielders saving people from natural disasters, including an incident where they went in to save some Greek miners who got trapped inside Daedalus's Labyrinth and ended up fighting a minotaur.
• The Future: ZigZagged. Technology is clearly more advanced than our own, yet the first few seasons explicitly date the events to year the series aired. However, XV instead dates it to 2045.

Tropes G-M

• Generational Trauma:
  • The central conflict is essentially generational trauma that spans the entirety of human history and then some.
    • The Custodians are aliens with extremely advanced technology who create life on Earth. Shem-ha, in particular, is the one responsible for the existence of human beings. When she conceived them, they all share the same language but are very prone to infighting. She also programs them to be a biological supercomputer with which take over the other Custodians. When Enkidu discovers this, she defeats her and creates the Curse of Balal, condemning humans to not understand each other anymore and spurning endless wars and suffering. This culminates in the Noise, monstrosities that kill on touch.
    • Enkidu's lover, the priestess Finé, isn't aware of the reason and devotes her life to breaking the Curse to end all conflicts. She goes as far as encoding her consciousness in her descendants' DNA, allowing her to overtake those most compatible and carry one with her purpose even if immoral means are needed. Her intrusions and knowledge of Custodian technology have triggered both great innovations and even more suffering. She's behind the creation of the Symphogears, the only counter to the Noise, but used countless kids as test subjects in the process and kidnaps and abuses Chris. The FIS organization originally came to be to discover one of her descendants.
  • Fudou Kazanari is an overzealous Japanese patriot who regards his offspring as tools for him to use and discard. He ensures both of his sons, Genjuro and Yatsuhiro, end up in high-raking positions related to the government's Defense Department. Yatsuhiro inherits this worldview and when his daughter Tsubasa is revealed to be a Symphogear candidate, he lets the government turn her into a Child Soldier and makes her believe she's nothing but a sword. Genjuro rejects this mentality and even though he doesn't have kids, he becomes the Symphogear wielders' supportive paternal figure. More horrifying truths about the family are later revealed. He's not actually Tsubasa's father but her half-brother, because Fudou raped Yatsuhiro's wife to preserve the purity of the Kazanari bloodline.

• Genre-Busting: The above description is correct: a music-themed Science Fantasy Magical Girl series.
• Good Costume Switch: A subtle example in the second season. Chris' Gear design was changed (just like everyone else's), and it now has more white trim instead of black ones. It also reflects in her default civilian clothes (when she's not wearing the school uniform) that are now a brighter shade of red, lose the black parts and are overall less stripperiffic.
  • GX also goes this way but far more blatantly, with Kirika and Shirabe getting redesigned Gears with more white on them. Maria switches out the Black Gungnir from G for Serena's white Airgetlam.
• Gory Discretion Shot: When Chris is forced to shoot off Stephan's leg to save his life, we get a shot of her cursing and aiming, then the camera snaps up to show the moon when she actually takes the shot.
• Grand Finale: Season 5, XV, is stated to be the final season of the series.
• Gratuitous English:
  • The subtitle for the logo is "Meteroid-falling, burning, and disappear, then..." This is supposed to reference shooting stars, which show up in Episode 3 as a Youtube video.
  • In G, the subtitle is "In the distance, that day, when the star became music..."
  • GX continues the tradition with "Believe in justice and hold a determination to fist."
  • The subtitle for AXZ is "By shedding many tears, the reality you face is..."
  • Many Symphogear abilities (and the word "Symphogear" itself, a quite well-constructed English portmanteau) have English names, including "Ignite Module" and "S2CA Triburst" ("Swan Song! Combination Arts! Cent Harmonics!"). Their main enemies are the "Noise," and later the more confusingly-named "Alca-Noise."
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Custodians, who are stated outright to be the reason the Curse of Balal exists, and thus are responsible for all the motivations of the Main villains of each season of the series (Finé, Carol, and especially Adam's main goal all revolve around dispelling the curse) In the last episode of AXZ before he dies via explosion, Adam calls them the Annunaki, which are Mesopotamian Deities that supposedly helped create man, as well as himself. Though, XV revealed that it's Shem-ha who is truly this and not the Custodians as a whole.
• Hair-Contrast Duo: Kanade (orange), Hibiki (creme) and Kirika (blond) are cheerful, Tsubasa (blue), Miku and Shirabe (black) are calm.
  • Specifically, the applicable duos are: Kanade and Tsubasa, Hibiki and Tsubasa, Hibiki and Miku, and Kirika and Shirabe.
• Headbutt of Love: In GX episode 8, between Shirabe and Kirika.
• Heroic BSoD: Symphogear E7 is a good contender for the most BSODs in one episode.
  • During the finale: Chris has sacrificed herself to stop the Kadingir's first shot, causing Hibiki to go berserk with grief and turn on Tsubasa. Tsubasa snaps Hibiki out of it by screaming her name just as she sacrifices herself to destroy Kadingir. The school is in ruins and Miku is nowhere to be seen. The shock of losing everything dear to her leaves Hibiki catatonic on the battlefield, and Finé takes the opportunity to toss her around like a ragdoll for foiling her plans.
  • Hibiki has one at a crucial moment in GX E3. After three episodes of attempting to hold to her belief that the Symphogear is meant for protecting people and not fighting, despite multiple challenges to that belief, she finds herself unable to transform when Garie corners her and her friends after school.
  • Hibiki has another one at the start of XV Episode 9, when Miku is taken over by Shem-Ha. "My Sunshine was taken away from me."
• Heroic Sacrifice: Every season features either a hero or a former antagonist pulling one.
  • Symphogear: Chris and Tsubasa to stop Kadingir. They survive.
  • G: Serena to stop the awakened Nephilim, Finé to save Shirabe, and during the climax, Professor Nastassja to stop the fall of the Moon.
  • GX: Dr. Ver to stop the destruction caused by the Chateau de Tiffauges, and Carol to merge with Elfnein.
  • AXZ: The Alchemist Trio, to stop the nuclear missile aimed by America.
  • XV: Noble Red to help the wielders return to Earth, and Carol, again to save Elfnein.
• He's Back!: Dr. Ver returns at the end of episode 9 of GX. It's so out of left field even Carol, the season's Big Bad, is shocked by this.
• Hide Your Lesbians: Hibiki and Miku very much behave like a couple throughout the series, but it is never outright stated that they are an item, although the final scene of XV heavily implies that they get a Relationship Upgrade.
  • Averted between Kirika and Shirabe if GX episode 8 is anything to go by.
• High-Pressure Blood: Any meaningful impact will release a humongous burst of blood, as seen for example when Hibiki gets hit in the first episode and the government official in episodes 5 and 6 of XV.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Symphogear seems to like subverting this trope.
  • The second season implies that Finé will be the ultimate Big Bad again, but when she finally appears she immediately does a Heroic Sacrifice for the good guys.
  • GX has Dr. Ver reappear suddenly, but the current Big Bad quickly betrays him, so he also ends up pulling a Heel–Face Turn and Heroic Sacrifice. Finé apparently reappears in GX and has returned to team evil, but she doesn't last very long or overshadow the current Big Bad.
• Hold the Line: Shirabe and Kirika team up to defend S.O.N.G.'s power generator against Micha and an army of Alca-Noise. Even though they eventually fall, they manage to stall her long enough for Elfnein to upgrade Tsubasa's and Chris's Gears.
• Hope Spot: Hibiki is finally able to sing and transform thanks to a speech from Miku, and she gets fired up enough to curbstomp Micha. However, she gets fooled by an illusion created by Garie, and the actual Micha breaks her Relic Pendant.
• Howl of Sorrow: Hibiki tends to let one loose whenever something bad happens to either her or someone in front of her.
  • Symphogear: At the end of episode 11, after Chris sacrifices herself to stop Kadingir.
  • G: At the end of episode 5, when the Nephilim tears off her arm.
  • GX: At the end of episode 6, when Carol kills herself after Hibiki defeats her.
  • XV, when Miku gets possessed by Shem-Ha, screaming her name as she falls down from above trying to reach for her, cratering the ground and going unconcious afterwards.
• I Am Your Opponent: Garie declares this to Maria, when the latter intervenes with the Black Gungnir after Hibiki and friends are attacked.
  • Garie's declaration runs off the paired duels in GX's OP. The pairings are Garie vs Maria, Micha vs Shirabe and Kirika, Phara vs Tsubasa, Leiur vs Chris and Hibiki vs Carol.
• Iconic Sequel Character: The other 3 Gear users(Maria, Shirabe and Kirika) don’t appear until Symphogear G(Season 2) along with Dr. Ver. While Carol, Elfnein, The Autoscorer, Fudo, Yatsuhiro and Akira don’t appear until Symphogear GX(Season 3).
• I Did What I Had to Do: Chris in AXZ E2. After Stephan's leg gets hit by the Alca-Noise, she shoots it off to prevent the disintegration from spreading and killing him. His elder sister Sonya doesn't take it lightly, especially coming from Chris.
• Image Song: Runs off this trope. Even minor characters get image songs in G.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: In G E12, no less than three characters suddenly find themselves naked in various circumstances. Two of them are even displayed in their glorious nudity to the whole world!
  • In GX, all the Symphogear users (except Maria thus far) have been forcibly stripped of their Gears, winding up naked in the immediate aftermath.
• Invincible Minor Minion:
  • The Noise are truly dangerous Mooks. They can actively adapt, morph, mutate, and combine to form some of the strangest kinds of Eldritch Abominations. The concert scene destruction in the first episode, for example, was comprised fully of Mooks and several Elite Mooks. Episode 4 is the first episode to actually show a Mook Maker and a Boss, if you would call it that. Noise are nigh-unbeatable for anyone who doesn't have a Symphogear. They can kill in a single touch, and are only vulnerable to conventional weaponry within the split second in which they need to physically interact with their target.
  • In GX, the Alca-Noise lose their non-alchemic counterpart's phase-shifting ability but are also now capable of affecting the Sypmhogears, even though they remain vulnerable to them.
• I Will Fight Some More Forever: Every time the Noise show up in the first two seasons, local military units are always seen shooting at them little to no effect because of the Noise' phase-shifting abilities, and as a result die in droves.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Dr. Ver is an absolute scumbag who uses the Noise to kill a trio of children who happen upon the FIS base, slaps Maria around when she proves less than amenable to his delusions of grandeur, and casually insinuates she's going to become part of his breeding harem to repopulate the Earth. He also launches Professor Nastassja into space, leading directly to Maria's Bodyguard Betrayal: she tries to cut him in half with Gungnir, only to be stopped by Hibiki.
  • In XV, Millaarc manages to one-up Dr. Ver in the Kick the Dog department, with even less justification.
• Kudzu Plot: FIS's plan in season 2 is needlessly cryptic, but they're also forced by circumstances to change the plan and wing it without explaining what it's been changed from. As a result, it's never clear what they're actually trying to accomplish at any given time and whether it was part of the original plan. Akifumi Kaneko had to use the series's website to publish six paragraphs of exposition explaining what the hell was going on and how it's related to Finé's plan from season one.
• Leitmotif: Apart from each Symphogear's individual themes, duets, and group songs (under Awesome Music), the song "Hajimari no Babel" is the leitmotif for the entire Symphogear series. "Hajimari no Babel" provides the backing melody for every single shown activation chant, and includes the Swan Song at the very end. It's more obvious in the remix, "Axia no Kaze", where the lyrics are simply the activation chants and the Swan Song, set to the melody of "Hajimari no Babel".
• Love Makes You Evil: One of the main motivations for villains in the series, aside from Dr. Ver.
  • Symphogear: Ultimately, Finé's goal is to restore the world to a pre-confusion state so she can confess her love for God in the original common language of humanity. Unfortunately, part of this plan involves the destruction of the moon and her ruling over the survivors of the catastrophe with her power.
  • G: Maria's regret over her sister's sacrifice pushes her to what she herself refers to as the "path of evil" in order to save the world. In addition, Kirika and Shirabe fight for Maria solely because she was kind to them.
  • G: Miku's love for Hibiki and desire to create a world where Hibiki will never have to fight again allows Dr. Ver to manipulate her into donning the Shenshou Jing Symphogear.
  • GX: The entire plot is driven by Carol's desire for vengeance against the world that killed her father, as well as her total inability to understand the meaning of his final words.
  • XV: Miku's inability to express her (presumably romantic) feelings to Hibiki is what allows Shem-Ha to take control of her body. The ending implies she's gotten over this.
  • But lest readers and viewers walk away with the impression that Symphogear's writers think love is bad...
• Love Redeems: One of the main themes of the show is that love and friendship can save people.
  • Symphogear: Genjurou's persistent kindness and the memory of her parents are what complete Chris's Heel–Face Turn.
  • G: Professor Nastassja's love for Maria, Kirika, and Shirabe, who she's been using as weapons throughout the series, is what begins to persuade her that she is trying to save the world the wrong way.
  • G: Hibiki's bond with Miku, along with a big heaping dose of her customary badassery, are what allow her to free Miku from the Shenshou Jing.
  • GX: Elfnein and Carol's shared memories of their father's love provide a crucial chink in Carol's armor, allowing Hibiki to finally stop her omnicidal rampage.
  • XV: Hibiki and Miku's love for each other ends up redeeming the entire human race!
• MacGuffin Delivery Service: In G, Hibiki and Chris' battle to secure the by-train delivery service of a relic is rendered moot when the Noise attack the party who receives it just as those two leave. Both the relic and the scientist who handles it (Dr. Ver) are missing. Episode 3 reveals that this was intentional, and that Dr. Ver is actually in league with the Big Bad.
• Magic from Technology: The relics are explained as ancient supertechnology by Ryoko. Then again, she's a reincarnated Sumerian priestess who wants to break the Curse of Babel.
  • Subverted in GX, which states that alchemy is a hyper-advanced technology from before science and magic diverged.
• Magical Girl Warrior: It maybe be summoning Power Armor instead of a Leotard of Power with Frills of Justice, but the Symphogears otherwise qualify.
• Maybe Ever After: Hibiki and Miku's relationship at the end of XV. Miku tells Hibiki that she wants to confess something that she's wanted to say for a long time, and Hibiki tells her that she hopes that it's the same thing that Hibiki wants to confess to Miku. What they say to each other isn't shown, but is heavily implied. The piano rendition of Kimi Dake Ni makes it even less ambiguous that the two get a Relationship Upgrade due to the lyrics of that song being about how Hibiki wants to respond to Miku's "eternal love".
• Meaningful Name:
  • Chris' mother, a singer, was named Sonnet Yukine.
  • The four Auto-Scorers have surnames derived from the Turkish tarot, and use the suits of the tarot (cups, swords, coins and polo sticks) as their weapons. Their first names are corruptions of the names of 4 Archangels in the Abrahamic religions, and the elements they wield correspond to the element their namesakes are said to wield in esoteric traditions of magic.
• Medley: The song Axia no Kaze, used as the ending theme for AXZ E6, sets every single activation chant in the series, including Kanade's and Maria's Gungnirs, to the tune of Hajimari no Babel.
• The Men in Black: The government agency handling the Symphogears actively keep their existence from the public eye, as they are considered a strategic resource. But their tactics are pretty nice and polite, like making witnesses sign Non-disclosure agreements.
• Monumental Battle:
  • The fight in episode 10 takes place around the Tokyo Tower.
  • In season 2 episode 7, the battle between Nastassja's group and the US military takes place in what is obviously Tokyo Sky Tree, probably as a Shout-Out to fellow Magical Girl anime Dokidoki Precure and Vividred Operation. The tower blows up with Miku still inside.
  • GX opens with a more natural version, when the Symphogear team attempts to save a shuttle from crashing... but not without some collateral damage.
  Sakuya: The K2 is now the third highest mountain in the world!
  • And yet again in the final battle in GX, where the Chateau de Tiffauges descends right over the distinctive dual-tower Tokyo Metropolitan Government building.
• Mood Whiplash: It's extremely hard to keep a straight face when transitioning from an Idol concert to a Bloodier and Gorier battle in under 12 minutes and then to high school Slice of Life.
• Musical World Hypothesis: Symphogears invoke the AU variant to activate and power themselves. The idol performances also bring in Diegetic elements.
• The Multiverse: The main idea behind the special events of the XDU game that introduce cards for Gear users who either died or lost their powers in the canon timeline, i.e. Kanade, Miku, and presumably Serena. Through the use of a special relic, the girls are able to travel to parallel worlds that are based on events that occurred differently. To date, here are the current events:
  • "Hen'yoku no Sousha"^note "The One-Winged Performer" - A universe where Tsubasa was the one who used her swan song during the Zwei Wing concert of Season 1 and died, with Kanade living on instead.
  • "Kageri Saku Senkou"^note "The Flash of Light that Cuts through the Gloom" - A universe where Miku moved away some time prior to the Zwei Wing concert and thus not being there to support Hibiki in the aftermath, leading to Hibiki closing herself off from others and working alone.
  • "Senkaku no Kyoryokusha"^note "An Enlightened Collaborator" - Instead of Symphogear, Finé developed a pseudo-Armed Gear as weapon against Noise. Genjuro more or less successfully redeems her, and the two now are now fighting as masked superhero duo.
  • "Innocent Sister" - Serena survives her Superb Song because Prof. Nastassja put her in a cyro-stasis. She wakes up 6 years later finding out that she's the sole surviving Symphogear user in the world.
  • "Kikaijikake no Kiseki"^note "Miracle of Mechanical Work" - America ended the one who developed the Symphogear theory, but their sole successful user died fighting the Noise but not before giving birth to a human-relic fusion named Sharon.
• Music for Courage: In the Darkest Hour, the school's anthem rallies the forces of good.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: Even after Carol seemingly dies by self-immolation in GX E6, the Auto-scorers continue to attack, something pointed out by Shirabe in the following episode. All the Auto-Scorers seem to be aware that part of their mission involves self-sacrifice to further power Carol's plan, and we're shown the resulting changes in the Chaffeau des Tiffauges every time one is destroyed.

Tropes N-S

• Never Found the Body: Invoked for the short duration when the 2nd Division Symphogears are declared legally dead after the ending of Symphogear.
• Never the Selves Shall Meet: In XDU it’s dangerous for alternate selves to meet each other because it forms a temporary mental link between the counterparts causing them to be influenced by each other.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Episode 8 of GX, Hibiki fights so recklessly trying to take out her anger on Micha that she actually causes most of the damage to the building that they were in (which she had been sent there to protect).
  • Despite the personal revelations and awesome moments that happen among the Symphogears as a result, the creation and use of the IGNITE Modules turns out to be this. Carol needed the 'cursed melody' of the Dainslef via the Symphogears' songs; to do so, she sent the Autoscorers to antagonize and fight them repeatedly, forcing them to overcome the IGNITE mode's berserker state in order to defeat the powerful Autoscorers. Once destroyed, the Autoscorers then send the information right back to the Chateau de Tiffauges.
  • At the end of G Maria sings Apple, briefly uniting the world for the phonic gain required to restart the Lunar Ruins. Come XV, this ends up being the catalyst for Shem-Ha's rebirth.
• No-Sell: The subspace pocket the 2nd Div Symphogears find themselves trapped in in AXZ E3 causes this for all the Noise inside. It takes busting out last season's Mid-Season Upgrade, the IGNITE modules, to break through their upgraded defences.
• Noble Demon: In G, Maria refuses to let innocent blood be shed for their cause, to the point of breaking down when Dr. Ver sets the Noise on a trio of children who've stumbled upon their base. Her code collapses when she's forced to kill in order to protect Professor Nastassja.
• Nuclear Weapons Taboo: As demonstrated in XV, nuclear weapons are referred to as "Reactive Weapons" instead.
• One-Winged Angel: Provides the final battle for each season.
  • Symphogear: In response to Hibiki, Chris, and Tsubasa unlocking their Symphogears' unlimited forms, Finé combines the power of three complete relics - Durandal, Solomon's Cane, and Nehushtan - and transforms herself into the Red Dragon of Revelation, giving her an nigh-infinite power source. Which she then uses to spray city-destroying energy beams. They only manage to stop her by separating her from Durandal, allowing Hibiki to use Durandal's unlimited power to nullify Nehushtan's unlimited regeneration.
  • G: Having been deprived of his Dragon Maria's help by his own incessant dog-kicking, Dr. Ver simply sets about making a new one. With his absolute control over the ancient spacecraft/island Frontier, he spawns a new, fully grown, vastly empowered, Nephilim out of the structure of the Frontier itself, which threatens to go supernova. It takes the combined efforts of the entire main cast to bring it down, put it in a place where its death won't end the world, and seal the door behind it.
  • GX: With the Chateau de Tiffauges stopped by Dr. Ver's sacrifice and her plan in tatters, Carol decides to destroy the world with her own two hands, burning most of her centuries' worth of memories in one go for vast power and forming a Humongous Mecha fire-breathing cosmic lion dragon thing around herself. The only thing that stops her is a moment of weakness caused by the memory of her father, followed immediately by Hibiki punching her construct in the face.
  • AXZ: With Adam Weishaupt denied the power of god he sought, he sheds his handsome human form and assumes his true shape, that of a many-eyed demon, in a bid to destroy the Symphogears so that he can try again before it's too late to stop the Custodians, who he claims will return to Earth soon. Unable to access X-Drive on their own, and with Adam using no phonic gain for them to absorb, the heroines instead take the reckless step of using S2CA on his alchemic attack, sacrificing their Ignite Modules to rewrite their Gears into new and more powerful forms capable of defeating him. Even this proves not quite enough until the other five pass their powers to Hibiki, who assumes a Golden Super Mode with the combined powers of all six Gears and enough strength for the final push.
  • XV: Played with throughout for Shem-Ha. Throughout the final fight, the only thing that changes about her within Miku's body is creating a massive ship out of the ShenShou Jing she has equipped. After its broken, she keeps fighting like normal. After being purged out of Miku's body, she tries to emerge from the exploding Yggdrasil system as a giant version of her original self made out of lava, but it isn't fought directly, with Hibiki and Miku proving to her why Humanity doesn't need the custodians to rule over them anymore.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Normally, Shirabe and Kirika are reckless and tend to act without orders. However, once they realize the reasons behind the scoldings they have been receiving in GX E8, they apologize, leaving Genjuuro and Chris speechless.
• Parental Substitute: Genjurou for Chris, Nastassja for Maria, Kirika, and Shirabe.
• Perfection Is Static: This is the big issue for Adam Weishaupt. He was created by the Custodians as a prototype for humanity. But they discarded him because he was deemed "too perfect" and thus couldn't grow or improve.
• Phenotype Stereotype: Notably, given how notorious anime is for this trope, it's averted for the most part. Maria and Serena do have bright blue eyes, but lack the blonde hair that's also typically associated with Americans and other Anglophone countries. Nastassja, Dr. Ver, and Chris all lack both the stereotypical hair and eye color. Background characters who are said to be American aren't overwhelmingly blonde and blue eyed either. However, it's played straight in regards to Finé once you realize that she was apparently blonde and fair skinned even though she lived in Ancient Mesopotamia - located where Iraq stands today. It makes more sense while she's using Ryoko's body if you take Power Dyes Your Hair into account, but she has the same hair and skin even when you see the real Finé during flashbacks and when she speaks to Shirabe from within her mind.
• Poor Communication Kills: Enforced. While there are several isolated incidents of this trope in-series, the overarching Curse of Balal also counts, on a grander scale. The myth of the Tower of Babel says that God struck down the tower and caused all of humanity to speak different languages, thus destroying the original unified language where everyone could understand one another. In-universe, this is discussed as to why humans have been in conflict with each other for millennia.
• Posthumous Character: One major one per season (with the exception of AXZ), generally tied to either a main character's or an antagonist's development.
  • Symphogear: Kanade, for Tsubasa and Hibiki.
  • G: Serena, for Maria.
  • GX: Carol/Elfnein's father, Izak.
  • XV: Finé's lover and Shem-Ha's nemesis, Enki.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: While not too bad about this, the Mobile game has an Attack on Titan event that tries to show the Symphogears as being outclassed by most titans, despite the fact that even some of the strongest titans would be no match for some of the weaker Noise in the Symphogear's Home series by proxy of having no resistance to being Carbonized.
• Power Gives You Wings: The Ex-Drive gives the Symphogear users energy-based wings.
• The Power of Love: In G, Dr. Ver claims that the power of the Symphogear system has nothing to do with will. Its driving force is love. Which he then uses to turn Miku into a weapon, because he's the bad guy.
  • He repeats his claims, this time as he dies in GX, as he hands Maria the key to LiNKER being reproduced.
  • AXZ reveals Dr. Ver wasn't talking nonsense, where Elfnein discovers (with Maria's and Airgetlam's assistance) that the bond that connects each wielder with their Symphogear is their warm, genuine, desire to protect others. She uses this knowledge to complete Dr. Ver's LiNKER recipe with oxytocin, a real-life hormone that is crucial in social and maternal bonding.
• Power Limiter: Turns out that the IGNITE module had these built in, with 3 layers: Nigredo, Albedo and Rubedo (roughly translating to black, white and red). So far, Nigredo is triggered by a single click of the Gear pendant, Albedo by two clicks (with the activation command "Double Drawn Blade" and the intonation "Dainn Dainsleif"), and Rubedo is triggered by clicking the relic pendant once more in Albedo mode. Helpfully, the colour of the aura surrounding the IGNITED Gears matches the IGNITE stage that Gear is in. Going through each stage increases the rate at which Safety Down counts down, with Rubedo tripling the rate and glitching Sakuya's display.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: In GX, Alchemy is powered by memory. Carol's Autoscorers, who have only been alive for a very short time, function entirely on memories Garie has stolen and fed to the other three. Carol herself, with her centuries' worth of memories, is one of the most powerful foes Hibiki and the Gears have ever faced, but she pays a heavy price — each time she burns a memory for power, it is irrevocably gone.
• Production Throwback: The show loves referencing Akifumi Kaneko's other brainchild, the Wild ARMs series. From simply reusing mythological references in similar context (Ka Dingir or Airgetlám come to mind), to borrowing quotes and catchphrases (Hibiki's heiki hecchara/"it's okay, it's fine" comes straight from Lilka), to outright references (such as the Your Honest Self book from Wild ARMs 3 making an appearance, the later forms of G's Nephilim looking more and more like recurring Optional Boss Ragu O Ragula, or GX turning the 2nd Division into an international intervention team called SONG in a blatant shout out to ARMS).
  • Yet another reference turns up in GX E9 where a shoutout to Grauswein appears in the relic lists.
  • The family restaurant where Chris and Tsubasa meet in G episode 9 is named "Ils-Bale", after Illsveil Prison Island, and in GX episode 3 Kirika's Scarf of Asskicking, upon careful observation, is a banner from "Ils-Bale", complete with a fitting tagline: "So delicious you can't escape!" (A clearer image of the banner, or rather The Merch based on the banner, can be found here.)
  • The appearance of the Château de Tiffauges in episode 10 of GX is preceded by the iconic image of a red balloon drifting to the sky as the sky itself cracks like a mirror and rains shards down to the earth, just like during the Ruins Festival.
  • Chris's final attack, ∀∀ De Le Metallica, shares the name of a tome of forbidden knowledge/dungeon.
• Enki's general design as revealed in episode 11 is an homage to Jude Maverick from Wild ARMs 4, of which Akfumi Kaneko worked on. His sword in particular is similar to Jude's sword while in Arc Reactor form. His sword being Argietlam, however, is more of an homage to Ashley Winchester from Wild ARMs 2, who wields the same blade.
• Public Domain Artifact:
  • British, French, and Irish Mythology:
    • Durandal, the corrupted indestructible sword of Hector of Troy and Charlemagne's heroic knight Roland, is a Relic in the form of a golden BFS that grants its wielder unlimited power — so much power that it can possess its wielder or power a moon-destroying laser.
    • Airgetlám, epithet and silver temporary prosthetic arm of the Tuatha Dé Danann's mythical king Nuada, is the relic used to create the Symphogear wielded first by Serena Cadenzavna Eve before her death, then later by her surviving sister Maria. It has a white color scheme and is bulkier on the left arm. While it isn't the most powerful Symphogear, it's extremely versatile, capable of manifesting knives, Whip Swords, Deflector Shields, and a Wave-Motion Gun, and is also able to stabilize Relic energies (the latter of which of these abilities has been used on itself to reduce the stress its use makes its wearer endure, on the living Relic Nephilim to pacify it, and on Gungnir to assist in controlling its larger-scale Combined Energy Attacks.) Unlike most artifacts that appear in the series, 'Airgetlám' is officially just the code name for a Relic which never got fully identified, as only its arm was discovered independently of anything else it might once have been attached to in Iraq with no records and nothing connecting it to Ireland beyond its appearance. It later turns out to be the severed arm of the Sumerian god Enki, which was petrified along with a portion of his battle armor.
    • The Daurdabla (also known as the Uaithne,) the harp of the Dagda, features as the Relic backing Carol Malus Dienheim's Faust Robe.
  • Japanese Mythology: Ame no Habakiri is the Relic used to create Tsubasa's Symphogear. In her hands, it can manifest blades in various shapes and sizes (including Flaming Swords, Armed Legs, and a Storm of Blades,) though her weapon of choice is a simple katana.
  • Norse Mythology:
    • Fragments of Odin's spear Gungnir were used to create Kanade's, Hibiki's, and Maria's Symphogears. The result gives their wielders what else but a spear, except for Hibiki, who can't manifest a weapon independently of her Symphogear and instead uses bajiquan moves to 'strike like a spear' or extends her forearm armor into pile bunkers.
    • Chris's Symphogear is supposedly based on Ichaival, the bow of the Norse god Ullr — except that this was a research failure on the series's writers' part, as Ichaival actually originated as the bow of a character named Ullr in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (where it's usually transliterated as 'Yewfelle.')
    • The cursed sword Dainsleif appears in season 3, where its fragments are used to create the Ignite Module, a Symphogear upgrade that allows the armor's wearer to enter a spiky black Super Mode by forcibly activating their berserker state and then taking control of its power.
    • Thor's hammer Mjöllnir shows up in the video game spin-off Symphogear XDU, where it fuses with Hibiki's Gungnir to grant her a more powerful form with control over lightning. Its Finishing Move, Unlimited Beat, follows the Once a Season tradition of being an ultimate attack named after the opening theme.
• Ragnarök Proofing: Subverted. The thousands of years has taken a toil on the various Relics. It's mostly fragments that remain and require a lot of study and knowledge to make useful. And that was technically only possible thanks to Finé's involvement, as the person who likely was behind the creation of most Relics or at least would have an understanding of how it works.
• Really 700 Years Old: Most of the franchise's antagonists have some form of immortality and have been using it for a good while. Finé manages it by performing Grand Theft Me on any of her descendants who get exposed to phonic gain, meaning she's been alive in various forms for thousands of years. Alchemy can also be used to acquire immortality, as seen with the antagonists of GX and AXZ.
• Red Baron:
  • The relics usually have their leitmotifs describing them with pretty badass descriptions.
    • Gungnir: Striking Spear (Hibiki), Violent Spear (Maria), Radiant Spear (XDU trio).
    • Ame no Habakiri: Absolute Blade.
    • Ichaival: Demonic Bow.
    • Airgetlam: Silver Arm.
    • Igalima: Imprisoning Scythe.
    • Shul-Shagana: Murderous Saw.
    • Shenshou Jing: Distorted Mirror.
    • Dur da Bla: Massacre Harp.
    • Yggdrasil: Blasphemous Tree.
  • Hibiki, after Gungnir is revealed to be the Lance of Longius, a conceptional weapon of deicide because it was used to stab Jesus Christ on the cross, is usually called the God-slayer by her enemies.
• Redemption Equals Death: The show loves this trope. It's easier to count the number of villains who weren't subjected to it, one way (redeemed but not dead) or the other. See Heroic Sacrifice above.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Subverted at the beginning. Tsubasa and Kanade both have tall, striking, color-coded bishoujo designs, elaborate anime hair, and temperaments to match the trope — Kanade is ferocious and wild while Tsubasa is reserved and shy. However, Kanade doesn't even make it to the end of the first episode before dying in a blaze of glory. She's replaced by Hibiki, a cheery Genki Girl with a disparate orange color scheme and a simplistic design with wide eyes and narrow irises akin to something from Poke Mon, immediately setting her at odds with Tsubasa's mature seinen look. Despite how symbolically jarring they are, they become solid comrades and friends anyway.
• Red Right Hand: After Dr. Ver injects himself with the Nephilim variant of LiNKER, his hand transforms into something that looks like the Nephilim's claw. It allows him to absorb and control relics, as well as signifying that he's completely lost it.
• Red Sky, Take Warning: Episode 11, complete with a Weird Moon.
• Removed from the Picture: Inverted Miku removes herself from her selfie with Hibiki from episode 8 to provide a picture for Hibiki's grave seen in the very first episode.
• The Reveal:
  • An In-Universe example: Miku sees Hibiki in Symphogear form fighting off against Chris in Episode 6. This easily changes her perspective on how Hibiki has been acting.
  • In a more traditional way, the Curse of Balal is actually a demonstration of love from Enki, the god that Finé loved, to protect humanity from their progenitor Shem-ha. Shem-ha turned herself immortal by etching herself as the Unified Language, and by confusing the humanity's tongue, the other Custodians prevented Shem-ha from turning humanity into her mindless vessel.
• Rousseau Was Right: Very nearly so. The main villains of four out of the five seasons all get redeemed. Only one main antagonist and two supporting antagonists, out of a total of twenty-two, turn out to be irredeemable, and all three have some kind of justification or reason for their actions.
• Rule of Seven: There are a total of 7 Symphogears seen in the series, matching the 7 pitches in a standard musical scale. This was in fact intentional, as it requires the songs of 7 Wielders to defeat the Mad God Shem-ha and overwrite her control over humanity. Carol is able to serve as a substitute Wielder for a time, until Miku is rescue and able to claim her place as a true Wielder.
• Running Gag: Genjuro's reaction to a relic being activated, usually the Gungnir, is usually done the exact same way. The name of the relic pops up on their central monitor, then cut to Genjuro yelling the name of the relic in surprise.
  • This was actually played with a few times. They used it to announce a special event after the credits of the final episode of season 1, and Genjuro's reaction changes from a yell of surprise to quietly repeating the name of the Relic with a worried look at one point in season 2, when Hibiki uses her Gungnir when it could kill her.
  • If any of the girls plan to do anything that is not serious stuff, expect them to do it at Chris's house. Much to her chagrin.
  • When Chris tries to use Red Hot Blaze, she'll get interrupted or forced to use the sniper rifle in a non-conventional way. In all 5 seasons run of the show, the successful execution number of Red Hot Blaze is grand total of one.
• Say My Name: Most of the main cast screams another cast member's name at some point, but because Hibiki and Miku have the highest tendency to get into life-threatening situations, they tend to scream each others' names a lot.
• Scenery Porn and Scenery Gorn: On both sides of the spectrum, and can change at any moment. Transitioning from a vibrant laser-show concert that ended with a sunset to a battle-stricken concert under that same sun is animated very beautifully.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Dr. Ver exclaims that the energy released by Nephilim's heart that will vaporize the earth exceeds 1 trillion joules. This is roughly equivalent of 1 kiloton of TNT, or a third of the energy released in the Halifax Explosion of 1917. Of course, he does have a few screws loose so his thinking could be off...
• Seen It All: By the time GX rolls around, Miku has seen Hibiki in so much danger that when Hibiki is called out for a mission, Miku's first reaction isn't to worry about her life. It's to buy rice balls because she's worried that Hibiki might come home hungry.
• Secret Identity: Deconstructed in season one with Hibiki. Keeping her symphogear powers secret from Miku very nearly destroyed their relatinship.
• Sentai: The show has a very strong routing in classic sentai tropes, including a third gear wielder that joins near the end of season 1, a set of opposing gears in season 2, and an 11th-Hour Ranger joining in for the finale. The colors even match those of typical sentai (yellow, blue, red, green and pink usually being the main lineup, with silver and purple usually being sixth rangers and extra heroes). The fact that the girls' strength also comes from Power Armor makes it far more of a magical sentai than a Magical Girl show. There's small wonder why it gets compared to Super Sentai so often (as evident by the series listed above), complete with the mobile game collaborating with Mashin Sentai Kiramager.
• Serial Escalation: Each season the antagonists get more threatening. Its especially true for Hibiki, who starts by attending a concert, and by XV, is punching God.
• Series Mascot: The Noise, especially the vaguely humanoid orange one.
• Sequel Escalation: The first season has the "swan song," a Dangerous Forbidden Technique occasionally used to wipe out lots of enemies. Season 2 introduces the "S2CA Triburst" where 3 swan songs from 3 Symphogears are combined into a ridiculously powerful attack. Near the end of season 3, this advances to the "S2CA Hexa-Conversion" which combines 6 swan songs from 6 Symphogears and successfully absorbs the Big Bad Omnicidal Maniac's most powerful attack.
  • AXZ averts it: while the Symphogears do demonstrate new techniques to increase their combat performance, the antagonists are depicted as much less powerful than Carol and the Autoscorers, while the heroines get no opportunity to use their traditional once-a-season Super Mode nor fight the gigantic army of Noise the form would normally be used against. The reduction in scope is justified by Carol's abuse of memory combustion and other self-destructive techniques that the new alchemists forgo in favor of more sustainable powers, and unlike Carol they want the world to still be in one piece when they're done with it. The Final Battle plays this straight, however. Without Access to the X Drive form, the symphogear wielders instead burn their Ignite Modules in order forcefully evolve their gears to a new level, on par with their previous X-drive forms according to the series keywords, meaning that as of the end of AXZ and the entirety of XV, the gears new base forms are on par with their previous uses of X-drive.
  • Reaches a new Level of absurdity in XV with Shem-Ha. Her initial state alone in Miku’s body is already incredibly powerful, around as much as the strongest forms of previous big bads if not more so, but it’s then revealed in her freshly awakened state that she only has less then 1/10000 of a percent of her actual power. Not just 1/10000 of her overall power, just a percentage point of her power.
• Sequel Hook:
  • First, in the last episode of Season 3, Genjuro states that trouble is starting up in Europe, and the members of S.O.N.G., which now includes Carol after fusing with Elfnein, with Elfnein's personality as the main one, analyzing the chip that Dr. Ver gave to Maria in episode 12 before his death.
  • Second, in the last episode of Season 4, the after credits scene shows Elfnein discovering the secret of Hibiki's seemingly divine power. The Shenshou Jing Laser hit from G somehow wiped the Original Sin from her being. Genjuro shockingly notes that Hibiki wasn't the only one hit by Shénshòu jìng that day...
• Self-Plagiarism:
  • "The Sound Called 'Me' Will Play Until It Burns Out" is virtually identical to another song by the same composer, Yui Ogura's debut single "Raise", which was also used as the ending theme to Campione! later in 2012.
  • Bakken -- Dainsleif is a rather overt reference to When the Heart Ignites from Wild ARMs 5, from the same writers.
• Shadow Pin: One of Tsubasa's techniques is Shadow Weaving, which allows her to pin a target in place by throwing a dagger at their shadow. She got the technique from the 2nd Division agent (and her manager) Shinji Ogawa, who is good enough to do it using bullets.
• She's Back: In GX episode 4, after being unable to sing and transform, Hibiki finds her reason to fight/protect and is able to activate Gungnir. It still ends badly for her, though, when she becomes the third victim of the enemy's Symphogear-disintegrator.
  • Comes into play also for Tsubasa and Chris, when their destroyed pendants are reconstituted by Elfnein just in time to play Big Damn Heroes for Kirika and Shirabe.
  • After going in a downward spiral since the beginning of XV, Tsubasa is slapped back to her senses by Maria in episode 9. The immediate Heroic Sacrifice of Yatsuhiro doesn't get her down for long before she's shaking away tears standing up to her father.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Shrinking Violet: Chris, especially in G. With people she doesn't know, she adopts an uncharacteristic shy side. Best shown at the beginning of the season at school where she avoids her enthusiastic classmates and sticks with Tsubasa or Hibiki's clique.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: In the first episode of G, deuteroantagonists Shirabe and Kirika make a cameo appearance steeped in shadow with ominous music. In the second episode, they're sent in to support Maria, and our first proper glimpse of them is scored with . . . whimsical, pastoral music that sounds like it should accompany a pleasant drive in the country.
• Spanner in the Works: When Shirabe managed to destroy the Yantra Sarvaswa in GX Episode 9, Carol had no way of completing the Chateau de Tiffauges without its ability to control machinery. It's just too bad that Dr. Ver with his ability to control and absorb relics happened to blunder in a few seconds later.
• Starts with Their Funeral: The first few minutes of the first episode reveals under Grave Clouds that Hibiki is already dead and buried. The series then flashbacks to two years ago and then forward two years again (though some time before the initial scene, since Hibiki's still alive) to show it got to that point. Also doubles as a Foregone Conclusion.
• Stealth Pun: The Symphogear wielders wear noise-cancelling headphones.
• Super Serum: Compatibility with relics - both complete ones and the fragments that compose the Symphogear system - is rare. It can be artificially induced with the potentially dangerous drug LiNKER, which Kanade, Shirabe, and Kirika all relied upon due to their lower sync rates.
• Super Special Move: There are plenty of ways the girls can access stronger versions of their pre-existing moves.
  • The Symphogear wielders can, of course, improve their own moves. Shirabe's Gamma Style Infinite Firewheels has her throw two spinning buzzsaws from her twin-tails gear. She can split the compartments in two to up the number to four and, thus, launch her Reverse Gamma Style: Reckless Swastika Finish move.
  • Some of the gears can be further fueled by mythology-related conditions. Tsubasa's Moonlit Wind Ring's Fiery Blades are already a more potent version of her Wind Ring's Fiery Blades, but when fueled by the moon, you can only pray to dodge it. This is signaled by how the spinning blades of the normal version go from burning in an orange fire to a much hotter blue fire.
  • Adding new modes to their Symphogears is the most common method. For instance, Hibiki's Spear Thrusting Strike goes from simply being an overpowered punch (normal gear) to a piercing beam able to shatter a Moon fragment (Burning X-Drive gear). Similarly, Maria's SERE†NADE (a slashing move from her elbow) gets boosted in her Ignite Module gear, so it can be effective against Autoscorers who have proven impervious to normal attacks.
  • Sometimes, the reason is a combination of reasons. Chris's MEGA DETH FUGA is a fairly standard attack that shoots a couple of missiles at the enemy. Her MEGA DETH PARTY is a barrage of missiles that, in turn, has MEGA DETH QUARTET as an upgrade. When in her normal gear, the missiles get bigger than Chris herself but need more time to charge. When in her Ignite Module gear, there's no loading period and it adds lots of supplementary fire.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Played for Laughs when Miku tries to record the shooting stars for Hibiki. Nothing shows up on the video, because stars, shooting or otherwise, are much too faint for a phone camera to detect.
  • Another, larger, variant turns up in GX. A space shuttle, with all systems and controls failed, is still going to come in hot, never mind all the abilities of the various Symphogears used to slow it down.
• Symbolism: The series is an (overly literal and very unsubtle) allegory for the power of music to transcend borders and unite the world. In Japanese, the Symphogear wielders are named sōsha (meaning musicians) and they harmonize with their relics to sing songs that repel discordant "Noise" created as weapons to divide humanity into feuding nation-states due to the moon's curse and the confusion of tongues it generates.

Tropes T-Z

• Take That!:
  • In season 1, Genjuro states that Japan has the upper hand over the crisis-ridden Europe (i.e. the 2008 financial crisis), and thus the Durandal will be kept by the Japanese.
  • In season 2, Genjiro states that the USA can't be trusted. One wonders whether it's because the mess was kickstarted by the American relic lab, or due to the sheer extent of the US' surveillance state in Real Life. In season 4 the US President fires a nuclear missile at Japan out of paranoia, so that might also have something to do with it.
  • Season 5 has Fudou Kazanari promoted to a more direct antagonist role, and a massive take that at the likes of Imperial Japanese sentiment from modern Japanese politicians, right down to trying to keep his own Bloodline as pure as possible to "Make Japan Great Again".
• Taking the Bullet: Several times.
  • Symphogear: Hibiki blocks a noise attack that was meant for Chris.
  • G: After she realizes that her actions have almost cost her Shirabe, Kirika attempts to kill herself with her scythe, prompting Shirabe to intercept the blow.
  • AXZ: Hibiki again blocks a bullet from Saint-Germain aimed at Shirabe.
  • XV: Yatsuhiro takes a gunshot from his own father that was meant for an emotionally recovering Tsubasa. Unlike the previous examples, he does not survive.
• Tempting Fate: Pretty much all of the first half of episode 10. "Boy do I like my school! I sure hope nothing happens to it!" Well guess what?
• The Day the Music Lied: Twice in episode 4 of GX. Maria's image song, "Fierce Spear ・ Gungnir" gets cut off when Garie just manages to block her attack, and then quickly forces Maria to retreat. Hibiki's image song, "Limit Breaking G-Beat", gets cut off when the Micha she was fighting turns out to be an illusion and has her Symphogear Pendant destroyed.
  • The Auto-Scorers have a really nasty habit of doing this, especially given the justification in story that Symphogear users need to sing to continue getting the energy to fight. Micha does this to Shirabe and Kirika's "Just Loving X-Edge" duet as well in episode 5.
• Time Abyss:
  • Finé is older than written history.
  • The Annunaki is a race of space-faring alien who had reached their evolutionary dead end by the time they literally guided the evolution of the Earth's primordial aquatic lifeforms.
• Title Drop: The collective name of the anti-Noise armor is the name of the show. And the Ultimate Songs are translated from the the Japanese word "Zesshou". Also, the first two seasons title-drop their respective opening theme as the final, ultimate attack for that season, while the third season drops the title of a track used as the ending only for Episodes 1 and 12, "Glorious Break".
• Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: Japan as a whole consists of the Research Facility underneath the school, at least three Symphogear users in two locations, and (potentially) two weapons, one of them being BFS Durandal. Doesn't look like Japan will hand over Durandal to the EU, what with Episode 5's revelation that Hibiki can use it as part of her song. On top of all this, GX reveals that it's a major hub of leylines which Carol hijacks to broadcast her world-ending Swan Song.
  • AXZ reveals it's "A great spot to pick a fight with god."
• Tower of Babel: The tower Finé built to reach God is obviously supposed to be it, despite being unnamed within the show. But since she mentions the Curse of Babel too, it's obvious. Finé even transforms into the semblance of the Whore of Babylon when she goes One-Winged Angel, with apocalypse dragon included.
• Training Montage:
  • Hibiki trains with old man Genjuro during the credits of episode 4. Bruce Lee and Street Fighter make appearances.
  • Also in season 2 episode 9. This time, all three Symphogear users are training under Genjuro. And Genjuro also sings!
  • AXZ episode 8 brings it back for Genjuro to improve the girls' teamwork when separated.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: Shown in episode 12, when Hibiki starting her transformation into her new Symphogear creates a shockwave that pushes Finé away.
  • Inconsistent throughout the whole of the series, however. Generally, the transformations into the default Symphogear form are played straight, as there have been at least two instances where the transformation was activated before initiating an attack, yet completed only after the attack connected. However, Played With in regard to the IGNITE module - the transformation into the IGNITED state clearly takes time in the middle of a fight, yet the villains don't exploit the time taken.
  • XV Episode 12 pretty much confirms the notion that the elaborate transformation sequences we see since G are to our benefit. It's when Hibiki runs full-tilt towards Vanessa, while practically screaming her Gear's activation phrase and fully transforming in a matter of seconds before punching her.
• Unmoving Plaid: Sometimes the school uniform skirts move but the fabric pattern doesn't.
• Unusual User Interface: The consoles in the control room include features such as virtual faders/drawbars and turntables.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Frontier has all the trappings of one. It's a mini-Floating Continent, the main characters are Storming the Castle into it and Fighting Your Friend, the Final Boss has taken One-Winged Angel form and is waiting inside, and so on. Glorious!
• Villain Song: Several throughout the series.
  • Chris's Makyuu Ichaival is basically all about how she wants to blow up her enemies (when she first sings it, these would be the good guys) with extreme firepower.
    • Chris's songs generally remain "Villain" songs, even after becoming a good guy.
  • Maria continues the trend in Season 2. Although her first song Dark Oblivion is relatively tame (despite the title), Ressou Gungnir has an interesting double meaning that arguably puts it in this category: "For the sake of justice, enforce/pierce evil". ^note 貫 literally means "to pierce", but often means "to go through" in the sense of "going through with a plan". It also appears in Team Rocket's infamous theme song.
  • Carol gets in on this towards the end of GX with her song entitled Genocide Harp.
• War Is Hell/Humans Are Bastards: The Noise were created by humans in order to fight against rival humans during the early ages.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Kadingir is not a tower - Finé even references the biblical Shinar - even though it is referenced as such, but an humongous energy cannon with the intention of shooting the moon. It works, but not as expected.
  • In G, Miku's most powerful attack is a massive beam that plows right through battleships and has the ability to erase relics.
• Weapon Specialization: Every gear user has one called an "Armed Gear" except supposedly Hibiki (whose Armed Gear is the empty hand, allowing her to join other people's hands together, although she technically uses power fists).
  • Hibiki: The aforementioned power fists. In GX, she can also manifest it as a huge spike.
  • Tsubasa: the sword Heavenrend/Ame-No-Habakiri. Bigger versions of that sword come out when the situation calls for it.
  • Chris: automatic handguns, automatic hand crossbows, twin double gatling guns, missile launchers, really big missile launchers, and a Wave-Motion Gun. Sometimes all at the same time.
  • Kanade: the spear Gungnir.
  • Maria: The same spear as Kanade during G, when she wields the black Gungnir though she mostly uses her cape. When she switches over to Airgetlam in GX, she wields a Blade Below the Shoulder that doubles as a Whip Sword.
  • Shirabe: Buzzsaws and buzzsaw launchers that emerge from mechanical versions of her pigtails. When GX rolls around, she adds a bladed yo-yo to her arsenal.
  • Kirika: A rocket-assisted scythe. With multiple blades when the need arises.
  • Carol: The harp daurdabla, although she uses its strings more than anything else.
• Visual Pun: The headgear on all Symphogears are noise-cancelling headphones.
• Weak Boss, Strong Underlings: The elite fighters of the "Finé" terrorist organization are this compared to their leaders. Professor Nastassja and Dr. Ver only have for themselves ample scientific knowledge about the Symphogears, relics, and Noise. Neither is what you call athletic and Nastassja, despite knowing how to fire a gun, is terminally ill. By contrast, their elite fighters are Maria, Kirika, and Shirabe — a trio of young, physically-trained women capable of wearing a Symphogear, i.e., a music-fueled Powered Armor (three of these things' Finishing Moves can destroy a big chunk of the moon).
• Weapon of X-Slaying: Conceptual weapons, which can destroy anything which falls under its given concept.
  • Phara, in GX, uses a "sword breaker", which makes it effective versus sword wielders, like Tsubasa and Maria.
  • In AXZ it is revealed that the Gungnir has the power of deicide.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 11; the Big Bad and her plan are revealed, bad guys change sides or turn out to have been The Mole for the good guys all along.
  • G:
    • Episode 1: Maria is using Gungnir as her gear.
    • Episode 5: The moon is on a collision course with earth, and Hibiki loses an arm to the Nephilim.
    • Episode 7: Maria didn't inherit Finé...but Kirika does.
    • Episode 9: Miku was brainwashed by Doctor Ver and armed with her own Symphogear.
    • Episode 10: Hibiki and Miku are apparently killed, The Frontier is risen by their fight, and as a last shot Chris shoots Tsubasa in the back while saying "Goodbye"
  • GX:
    • Episode 2: The Noise come back, which is a big enough Wham moment considering the events of the G ending. Then, they demonstrate the power to at least disintegrate Gears (if not severely damage the Relic Pendant(!)), and are revealed by Leiur and Phara to be Alca-Noise. Exactly what Alca-Noise are is still unknown.
    • Episode 4: Hibiki lost the ability to activate Gungnir from the last episode, forcing Maria to take it up again for a battle. Hibiki gets better but Gungnir is ultimately damaged by Micha, causing Hibiki to plummet back to earth in an almost dead state as Miku screams.
    • Episode 8: Carol has revived herself and can see through Elfnein's eyes.
    • Episode 9: Dr. Ver saves Carol at the last minute.
  • AXZ:
    • Episode 1: A mysterious group is supplying rogue militaries with noise-based weaponry.
    • Episode 11: Adam isn't human. Oh, and Hibiki ends up absorbing all the divine power.
    • Episode 11: The Curse of Balal that causes all the conflict found in the series was not actually a curse meant to punish humanity at all. It was a sealing program to prevent the Greater-Scope Villain of the entire francise, Shem-ha, from resurfacing using the original language humanity had learned. Finé's actions back in season 1 ended up screwing over humanity far more then she ever realized, too.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Hibiki's general solution to a problem is to punch it, and if that doesn't work, she punches it even harder. But as she reflects later in the series, the only problems that can be solved by a fist are the simple ones.
• Whole Costume Reference: During Hibiki's aforementioned training montage with Genjuro, there's a brief still where Hibiki dressed like Makoto (the red cloth strip is on her neck and her gi isn't sleeveless) and Genjuro dressed exactly like Akuma, both characters of Street Fighter fame.
• Yggdrasil: Appears in the fifth and final season of the series. It has a much more sinister meaning then most other examples. It's actually a biological computer that uses humans as a source of of its power, humans themselves being their own individual biological computers that can connect to it. Its creators, the Custodians, original used it as a terraforming device, but Shem-ha, a traitor of theirs and the Greator Scope Villain of the entire series, attempted to use it as a way to turn humanity in monsters and slaves to her will in an attempt to destroy the others. Due to not being able to utilize Humans due to the Curse of Babel, she instead uses the World Wide Web to power it instead.

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