Watch Symphogear (Quicklink)

So now that we’ve mathematically derived Symphogear from its constituent parts, where can you actually watch the show? The phrase “Watch Symphogear” has itself achieved a minor meme status, as everybody’s got that one friend that keeps trying to get them to watch it. Even if you didn’t before… too bad, you’re stuck with ME now!

Shiranui Flare Says Watch Symphogear (Quicklink)

But don’t just take my word for it! Those “vee tubers” are all the rage with the kids these days, so maybe you’ll be convinced if you hear it from a cute anime girl like Flare Shiranui:

(Source: Flare ch karaoke stream)

Watch Symphogear On Crunchyroll Dot Com (Quicklink)

In case I’ve somehow managed to convince you to Watch Symphogear, all 5 seasons are now available on Crunchyroll.

This is something that we do not take for granted - we’ve had a rocky history with streaming. Season 1 was simulcast for only a short time as part of Funimation’s brief partnership with NicoNico, G rode entirely on fansubs until Crunchyroll picked it up after the end of their GX simulcast, and then AXZ fell back into fansub-only land again until Crunchyroll got around to releasing each episode alongside the corresponding episode of XV, a two year break during which time I’m pretty sure their social media guy Miles got asked about it on Twitter several times a week despite not being able to do anything about it. Symphogear fans are a persistent bunch, what can I say?

Watch Symphogear On Blu Ray Disc (Quicklink)

What’s more, Discotek has finally licensed Symphogear for home video release after all these years! They’ve released Season 1 on Blu Ray in 2020, and the rest over the following two years. So now that they’re all out, Symphogear fans can stop flooding the Q+A section of every Discotek Day stream asking when the next one is coming (Symphogear fans are a persistent bunch, what can I say…)

Discotek’s releases are extremely high quality, so it’s absolutely worth picking them up! The series could not be in better hands. They include all the chibi short Blu Ray specials and a few bonus videos of the voice actresses at live premiere events, in addition to having pristine audio/video quality and newly-translated subtitles, complete with character color-coding for the song lyrics. The new translation gives the dialogue more character flavor depending on who’s speaking, adds consistency to lines that gained significance later on, and clarifies some plot points that were a little confusing in the week-to-week subtitles. There are some choices that I liked better in previous subtitle scripts and some that I like better here, but on the whole it’s very well-done.

You can get the Blu-Rays here:

Or, well, you USED to be able to get the Blu-Rays. Crunchyroll has been massively cutting down stock of older titles at their store, and the Anime Corner Store lists it as out of stock. Terrible situation. What does have my attention, though, is that Symphogear is NOT listed on MediaOCD’s official list of out-of-print Discotek titles, which gives me hope that the Blu-Rays might still show up on an upcoming Discotek Deep Dive, where Discotek’s back catalog of releases has been gradually getting added to the MediaOCD store. Keep an eye on the “Deep Dive” posts on their blog to see what’s getting added each month; with any luck, Symphogear could be one of those titles before too long.

Crunchyroll Store (Out of Stock)	Anime Corner Store (Out of Stock)

I used to have a link to Rightstuf Anime’s page to buy the Blu-Ray, but sadly what was once my favorite and most reliable independent retailer has been bought by Crunchyroll and merged into their store. Here’s what the page looked like, in memory of an old “friend” (also note the “Top Seller” label, heck yeah!):

And as a bonus, here are Discotek’s Blu-Ray announcement slides for each season: