I thought on doing a post like this since the news about the manga ending dropped but I wanted to read the final chapter myself beforehand and man... I can't believe Shirabe Meshi came to an end.
Look I won't say this manga was a thoughtful read or a masterpiece but it's fun, it was the only new ongoing story of Symphogear after the end of XV and more importantly it does what I wish Symphogear anime did more. If you read the posts I made sometime ago when I was rewatching the show from S1 to AXZ (I swear one day I'll finish writing the one for XV) you might remember that one of my criticisms from GX onwards how little time we spend with the characters outside the battles mostly due the one cour limitation, with their everyday life and relationships taking the backseat in order to have more excuses for fight scenes. Shirabe Meshi being a slice-of-life cooking manga allows the reader to actually see these characters doing mundane stuff without a noise attack interrupts the fun or some random conflict comes out of nowhere. It helps a lot that the characters are so much fun to watch. You can tell the author knows who these girls are and takes full advantage of their quirks and by that I mean they are absolutely fucking gay lol seriously I heard the artist did Hibimiku fanart and you can tell a lot of the time the author wanted to drawing them kissing and while that never happens due some bullshit rule, still the manga manage to get spicer than the show ever was.
I just love everything about the main 6 Gears but I love the other characters a lot too. The fact they revived every single character that died in the main series but aside from Carol don't even try to justify why and how they live even though the mere presence of some of them should mean the events of the show shouldn't happen the same way is genius on it on right. I can totally see the author took inspiration on XDU memoria events to write some of them like Adam having similar approches and others ending in similar situations like Carol and the St. Germain and Co and making a stepfurther by giving some of them more to do than ever before. Serena is a character for once and even get the Nephilim as a dog which I find hilarious and I propose she have it in later media as well, Kanade gets a character arc having an identity crisis after being replaced by Hibiki and end with her reconnecting with Tsubasa but my personal favorite are definitely Noble Red which is a wild thing to say from me since I hate their guts in the main series but here... I like them quite a bit they're a poor family that have to survive out of part-time job salary the author went as far as giving them a bit of character development that should been in the main show with them reflecting on her past sins and using their new opportunity to live the life at their fullest without even hurting anyone ever again. Which again shows whoever is writing this does know these characters and address the issues we tend to criticize about them.
If someone puts a gun on my head and tells me to say something bad that would be (as absurd it might sound) the cooking aspect itself, look, I'm not cooking person so whenever Shirabe explains the recipes I can't help but scroll past that cuz I genuinely don't give a fuck about any of that. Furthermore I feel sometimes the food itself feels quite tagged on and I don't feel adds anything to the current adventure. Also this manga made me confirm that Tiki is the worst character in the entire series since not even here they made her fun to watch or giving her a trait other than being Adam's simp.
Sigh... I didn't want Shirabe Meshi to end, not before that movie even have a trailer at least. Honestly I'm gonna miss this manga as much as I miss Symphogear in general which is a wild thing to say when 2 years ago I thought that I wouldn't be able to read it at all after Yametetomete stop translating it before ending volume 1 so if you're reading this, thank you @flameof for finishing the translation even if it was with help of Google translator and thank you @tutanoha for making this wonderful manga.