Impression
Once again this was a fairly lacklustre episode – and once again I blame the Siblings arc. I suppose if there was anything that hyped up this finale for me, it was Chiffon’s display of awesome power. Not only was she blocking beams (and redirecting them away from that ill-positioned photon generator) she was able to stand up to the Type-Amelia Nova all by herself! Even amongst the Top 5, Chiffon’s truly way above the rest – I love how everyone else just sort of stood around aimlessly, gawking up at each new power-up she pulled out. Her eyes pretty much gave away the fact that she’s never been human all along (if her abilities didn’t already suggest that) but that was only supported by the Anti-Nova she pulled out, as well as how easily she kept her sanity despite using her Nova form to that sort of extent. Chiffon’s probably an artificial creation of some sort, perhaps using Maria Lancelot’s DNA – not completely unlike what Scarlett Oohara’s been trying to do with her cloning, but successfully instead.
I have absolutely no idea what was going on with the giant blue Maria Lancelot, nor what it ended up doing – to me it just seemed like a cheap way to stop the battlefield fighting so everyone could pay more attention to Chiffon. I’m not sure whether it was in the manga or not, but I doubt that was the case. In the end, I suppose it helped to amplify Amelia’s hatred and make the Nova transform, prompting Chiffon to take drastic measures in order to save everyone. I feel as though they sort of butchered Chiffon’s sacrifice scene too… it was far more emotional in the manga, while here it just seemed really rushed. That’s only reinforced with Kazuya narrating the ending scene (I’d forgotten he even existed until that moment) in a hasty attempt to wrap things up. With Rattle, Amelia and even Scarlett Oohara surviving (very conveniently) all this arc really did was kill off Chiffon, which is pretty depressing.
Overall Thoughts
You see, this is what happens if you decide to scrap the manga and do your own thing.
Of course, I understand that it shouldn’t end up being a word-for-word copy in TV format – it’s an adaptation after all, and restraints and limitations means that, inevitably, things have to changed. But wild diverging from the manga and terribad production decisions (i.e. the Siblings arc) isn’t really the idea… I don’t think you need to have read the manga to realize that this could have been a lot better. Although admittedly I quite liked the first half of Vibration, I very much preferred the original season – and thus Freezing becomes a great example of the sequel pitfall that countless series have fallen victim to; not only does it fail to live up to its predecessor, it’s just bad in general. They end up riding on the coattails of the franchise’s former reputation, and bring it crashing down horribly with its complacency (I hope to god that this is not what happens to next season’s Saki). I love how they even had the audacity to even tease the new, badass version of Ticy we see in the manga right at the very end, as if a possible Season 3 might be in the works. I very much doubt that.
But you know what? After all’s said and done, it was still better than Infinite Stratos 2.