What They Say:
Angelise is the first princess of the Empire of Misurugi. She is the celebrated ruler of the Empire until one day she finds out the shocking truth that she is a “Norma” – an irregular being who cannot use “Mana”, and are treated as “things” rather than people. Having her name taken from her, Ange isolates herself on a remote island. There, she finds a group of Norma women who spend their days hunting dragons that have come to invade.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Cross Ange worked fairly well the last time around as we largely had an episode focused on action as it refocused with where it wanted to go. The series has done this a few times as situations change along the way and it’s worked well to reorient things so it can go forward and explore new areas and push the story where it needed to go. From the start and then to Ange and Hilda’s escape, and later to going to the other world as well as exploring Tusk and other elements. Now that Ange has managed to get out of Embryo’s hands for the moment, we saw just how all powerful he is in this world with the way he can manipulate others and it really threw things all over the map, even as we amusingly see Ange still trying to kill him by simple means. Which plainly doesn’t work.
The open here is definitely amusing though as we get Embryo putting all his plans together, but he’s frustrated by the fact that Ange isn’t a part of things at the moment. Which is why he has Salia bent over his knee and is spanking her for it. Embryo’s plans involve having a smart, strong and intelligent woman to recreate the world that he wants, but Salia falls short of that and he makes it clear that she’s just his tool, which really makes an impact on her. I can see all the complaints over the spanking thing, but it’s one of those amusing moments that you can see completely happening with a personality like Embryo and how he views everyone as toys for his own amusement while he plans to change the very nature of everything.
A decent part of the first half is working through the various motions of the moment, which has Embryo planning things with his new mother of the new world while Hilda and the rest are facing the struggle that’s ahead of them and trying to figure out what they should do since the fate of the world is at stake. There’s a lot of little interpersonal issues that come up, but most of it is empty and fluffy overall. For Ange, her being sent away last time chained to the skcycle has her back on the island where she lived with Tusk for a time and everything is the same there. Which really does a number on her considering how she saw his end at Embryo’s hands and all that that means to her now. The small movements are decent overall throughout this as it sets the stage, even with the kind of comical anger we get from Salia as she holds Ange responsible for Embryo’s lack of real acceptance of her. It’s small bits, but important bits from bringing it all together.
A lot of what we get here are these bits, but we also get some extended time from Ange as she copes with all her loss and just the time of being alone on the island. It’s good to see her in this form in a way as he lets her really let it all out. But it also takes an amusing and warm twist when Tusk does show up there behind her and embraces her. She can’t believe it, a mixture of anger, joy and sadness, which has her smacking him pretty hard since she can’t believe it’s him. But she intends to prove that he is who he says he is by having some really passionate sex since that’s how she can tell the truth of it all. There is, admittedly, a certain kind of sense about all of that and I can’t bring myself to complain simply because it’s a rare anime series that actually admits its characters have sex and even shows aspects of it. Cross Ange is all over the map a lot of the time, but it’s these aspects that has me enjoying it quite a lot.
In Summary:
Cross Ange follows up its refocus episode with a little more refocusing going on here so that we see the events that are in play, with Embryo getting his ducks in a row and removing some of those he was controlling and manipulating from the equation. The various “sides” are generally given their due, but the real meat of the episode is following Ange through her breakdown after she arrives on her familiar island and has to process the loss of Momoka and Tusk at the hands of Embryo. It works well to give her time to herself, and to really be emotional about it while not wailing like a kindergarten aged kid. That things turn into more positive territory for her is not a surprise as she’s hit her own rock bottom, and those elements play out well even while there’s a decent bit of silliness to it as well with some of the reveals. But Ange’s reasoning for what she tries to prove may make some laugh, but there’s a kind of twisted honesty about it that made me smile. Just the fact that we have characters going through these kinds of events makes me enjoy the show since they’re often not a part of things, or very, very vaguely implied at best.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
