Magazine interviews and more shed some light on GX (spoilers)

From now on I will be marking posts like these with a spoiler tag to alert readers that specific details will be revealed in the post. Although the interviews don’t exactly spoil specific plot details that effect the entire series, they do spoil some of the “events” that will occur in episode 1. If you’d prefer to be surprised, I recommend you stop reading. 

Before I get to the magazine interviews, I wanted to post some information from Animate TV’s introduction of GX. This includes a new story synopsis as well as cast comments from some of the new actors.

Synopsis

Ever since the end of the Frontier Incident, there have been no further sightings of the Singular Disaster known as the “Noise.” It was about the time when people had begun to assume that threat of the Noise had ended, and the pain they caused would cease. However, unbeknownst to them, a new series of battles was just on the horizon.

Near the pier at Yokohama’s Osanbashi Bridge a wave form response was confirmed that was different, albeit very similar to the Noise. A combat syndicate possessing mysterious technology of unknown origin make a stand before Hibiki and the other heroes.

Because there had been no threats for an extended period of time, Tsubasa had moved her work to England and is now forced to make a quick return when the other users face an unrelenting battle with no obvious means of making a counterattack.

With the odds stacked high against them, the girls are forced into a war revolving around a song with the ability to destroy the world. 

Cast comments:

Inori Minase (Carol):

In season 1 of Symphogear I voiced some very minor roles, such as some of the girls at the school and other background characters. Now I’m really looking forward to voicing a named character in season 3. At the moment, I don’t think I have enough strength to match the intensity of Symphogear, but I will do my best and put enough energy into it so that I break my limits.

Misaki Kuno (Elfnein):

I want to be able to reflect on my work happily, knowing that I worked with everyone else on the staff to make an amazing show. So I will put my best effort into voicing Elfnein, please help support me and the show.

Magazine interview highlights:

Kaneko has previously stated that the “X” of “GX” is meant to symbolize “an ending to episode of G.” When asked if “episode of G” referred to Maria and F.I.S.’s story that started in G, Kaneko said that within GX, that is only one of the aspects. He stated that in G, Maria and co. were represented as the underdogs, they had a lot of weaknesses compared to the main characters. In GX, part of the story will focus on Maria and co. overcoming those weaknesses that they showed in G. 

Kaneko also once again made the "X" comparison to the mercy rule in baseball, which I've included an example pictured at the top of this post.

GX’s story takes place about half a year after G. Maria and co. were placed in the hands of Div 2 at the end of G, and the first 2 episodes of GX will explore how they moved on from the Frontier Incident and become part of GX’s larger story. Episodes 1 and 2 will also address the reasons why Maria is still able to stand on the stage with Tsubasa and perform a duet. Further, the live scene in GX will be very different from the one in G, both in terms of music and it’s visual presentation. I think this has also been demonstrated by the new art style they’ve chosen for the CD covers. Kaneko notes this will be something to pay attention to during episode 1.

Kaneko says that the songs for GX are amazing and that especially the song that plays prior to the credits in episode 1 will leave fans with the feeling that “Symphogear is back!” At the same time it will also leave fans with an understanding of the tone of GX.

According to Kaneko, one of the themes of GX is “fierce battles against an overwhelming opponent.” He wrote the scenario for GX with particular attention paid to the battle scenes. He said that members of the staff got mad at him for this, commenting things like “Who exactly do think is capable of drawing this?!” and “Do you realize how much of the budget this would take up?!” But he said that when the storyboards were later presented to him, the action scenes surpassed his expectations.

Kaneko also confirmed that GX will be a total of 13 episodes. When prompted to comment on the nature of the enemies in GX, he explained that if you include both seasons 1, 2 and 3 the total number of episodes is 39. Episode 39 is also the length of the original Ultraman series, and in the final episode the main character, Ultraman himself, is overpowered and soundly defeated by his enemy Zetton. Ever since G ended, Kaneko has wanted to make the enemy characters “incredibly strong” in that same way.

It was also mentioned that GX is being developed more closely to the way that season 1 was done, rather than how they did things during G. 

Elfnein and Carol were created with various things taken into consideration, for example, their youthful appearance was chosen as a way to separate them, age-wise, from the established main characters. But in particular they were designed with regards to what was necessary to develop the story.

The song lineup for GX was created to have variety, just as in the previous seasons. However, Kaneko made some specific requests into how the lyrics should be written. It took a longer than normal to complete the songs due to a need for them to be closely matched up with the story. In particular, Hibiki’s character song got a lot of focus and the contents of it are rather dramatic. Kaneko mentioned he stayed up with Agematsu working on it to almost the crack of dawn.