Hibiki Tachibana

**Hibiki Tachibana** is the main character of the *Senki Zesshou Symphogear* anime series.

## Biography

Two years ago, while attending a Zwei Wing concert, she was nearly killed by the Noise, barely surviving thanks to the sacrifice of Kanade, who taught her never to accept death. Years later, when she becomes cornered by the Noise, she sings the same song she heard Kanade sing and ended up gaining Symphogear powers due to a fragment of Kanade's armor that entered her body that distant day: a fragment of The Third Relic - Gungnir. However, since it was only a fragment, she possesses less armor compared to the original and has no weapons or Armed Gear, but she is able to defeat most Noise with her fists, thanks to the training of her teacher, Genjuuro Kazanari. When she becomes really angry, the fragment in her body would overload, causing her to go into a berserk state.

## Personality

Hibiki is outgoing, friendly, and perhaps overwhelmingly optimistic. She treats everyone with kindness, even those that used to be enemies. She doesn’t want to fight unless she necessarily has to and wouldn’t want to have pointless battles when she believes the problem could be talked about calmly first. Otherwise, she gladly dons her Symphogear in order to help people who are in danger that otherwise can’t be used by ordinary means. At other times, she is sensitive about certain topics, her father and the past being two of them. Hibiki hides her feelings about specific things and rarely shows herself being sad to anyone whenever it’s a problem related to herself, even her friends. In this regard, she forces herself to keep a smile for others. The only person that can normally tell she’s pretending is Miku. This can hinder Hibiki when in battle, as she allows her emotions to get the better of her. She can also make a bad habit of running away from her problems and bouts of self-doubt.

## Attacks and Abilities

### Abilities

Hibiki owns the Gungnir relic as a fragment inside of her, as a Symphogear user she has the ability to fight Noise with the use of the anti-noise armour that clads her in battle. As a candidate for the Symphogear, she can activate relics with her song and summon armed gear in battle.

Since Hibiki's relic is but a fragment of the Gungnir relic originally owned by Kanade, Hibiki does not have access to the lance Armed Gear characteristic of other Gungnir users. However, she does not need the lance, as her Armed Gear as described by Genjuuro Kazanari is her own hands. This appears to gradually become more literal, as by the time of Season 2 she is able to transform the gauntlets that would normally detach to become an Armed Gear into more powerful weaponized forms.

Because she does not use an Armed Gear, Hibiki is the only character who does not have names for her attacks. Hibiki uses martial arts learned from training with Genjuro, combined with channeling the energy normally used for an Armed Gear into pistons created out of her gauntlets to produce extremely powerful punches. Hibiki can also use the pistons in her boots to leap very far distances at fast speed. By the time of *Symphogear G* Hibiki's increased control over her armor allows her to utilize rockets instead of pistons, eliminating the drawback of needing to manually pull t Italiche pistons back for each punch and giving her a wider array of attacks.

However at the end of *G* Hibiki no longer has the shard of Gungnir in her chest due to being purged by the Shen Shou Jing. However, Maria gave Hibiki her Gungnir to replace it which she uses in a normal manner as a necklace to transform and fight. Elfnein theorized that Hibiki being able to progress from a human-relic fusion to a full-fledged attuned so quickly was a because the Shénshòujìng also purged her of the Curse of Babel.

## Trivia

* Hibiki shares several traits with Madoka Kaname, including their same voice actor.
* Hibiki's battle song genre is Celtic music.
* She is the only user with no personal named attacks, until XD Unlimited.
* She is the only one who keeps singing both of her character songs in each season.
* She's never had a boyfriend in her life.
* She is a big fan of Zwei Wing.
* Her favorite food is rice.
* In a flashback in the second season, it is revealed that she lived with her mother and grandmother after Akira left. This forms a core part of her motivation for the rest of her life, as living with just her frail grandmother and mother after surviving the concert caused them to receive a great deal of harassment from others. Hibiki thinks it is her fault and uses good deeds as a method to cope and self validate.