Senki Zesshou Symphogear

Based on the anime 'Senki Zesshou Symphogear' which aired in early 2012 to very mixed reviews due to its low budget, the Symphogear manga is a retelling of the events that also serves to fill in some of the blanks from the anime.

We are given a bit more of Kanade and Tsubasa's time together, and for those who did not pick up the reason for Kanade's 'weakness' in the anime it is clearly spelled out in the manga's opening chapters.

From there we jump into the story as we're already familiar with, with a few changes thrown in to the mix - to sum it up without spoilers one could say while this adaptation makes more sense than the anime it is also more rushed.

Although the pacing seems like they intend to get through the manga in only three volumes the time and detail put into the artwork is amazing. Everything looks great, down to the smallest detail.

The one downside to the manga is that the impact of the fighting scenes and Ultimate Song is lost. Even though the anime had a lot of problems, the singing fight scenes and chilling Ultimate Songs made up for the rest of the production problems and that effect is lost in the manga.

Still, if you are already a fan of Symphogear or curious about the story, the manga is a quick and easy way to enjoy it. Personally I think it goes best as a supplemental material to the anime, but I'm one of the few who thoroughly enjoyed Symphogear.

Costing only 580yen from CD Japan it's worth picking up. A scanlation exists on the internet if you take some time to look.