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 through a lot of back story the last time around and it certainly changed the nature of the show a lot. While a good portion of it could be figured out, getting a lot of brought to the forefront here worked. Of course, it also went big at the end with the arrival of Julio and his forces for a “rescue” mission after what had happened, but the Commander knows that things aren’t what they seem. Julio’s there to destroy them one way or another and taking a defensive position has them fired upon in a huge way. The Norma’s on the base are truly on their own now in this fight, but there’s always a trick to events that will come into play. The first half of the series put a lot of things into motion and managed to make for an engaging story that’s now ready to go surprisingly big.
With them being fired on in full now, it pretty much sets everyone there into rebellion mode, slowly but surely as some realize it quicker than others. Since there’s a wide range of Norma’s in Arzenal, it has a few areas to lightly work with while still going for the overall defense angle. Some of them are a bit surprised by it all in that they’re now being told to fight humans instead of dragons, but most have a history of problems with how they were treated that will help them get past it. The problem comes in that the weapons and craft used at Arzenal aren’t actually designed to work well against humans since they were designed for dragons. And that means a fast incursion and even more destruction on top of what came before. And death upon death as the Norma are being wiped out while in search for those key people that can handle the Vilkiss. It’s chaos in general with a lot of bodies falling along the way as the remains of the installation falls apart.
Ange is finding herself pushed past her limits in a lot of ways as well after making an escape with her maid from the other Norma’s. An encounter with Julio leads her to killing one of the guards in a brutal fashion that really makes you cringe with how intense she’s become. It all pushes her towards getting onto her craft and causing even more destruction, albeit destruction that opens up things for others to fight and follow with her. With so much going on, so many people getting killed and so much blood, it’s all over the map but fully engaging as you see Tusk and others trying to survive. When it shifts to the battle outside, there’s plenty of chaos there as well as not all are trying to let Ange do what she wants as she’s intent on going after Julio. Balancing that with minor supporting characters being killed off and a growing intensity among everyone else makes for some powerful action sequences, as well as tender and sad quiet sequences as other deaths are revealed.
What I do like is that Angelise knows that to get anything done she has to go after Julio in the safety of his command ship. She does it in a pretty big way, slicing off the front of the command section and simply shooting him in the leg to get his attention. He’s such a craven coward of a man that he gives in easily enough, but that just drives her to wanting to kill him all the more for the suffering he’s caused. The twist though is that as she does so, Embryo shows up in his craft and blocks her. But he takes his plan a step further, offering to carry the burden of her sin as he revives many of the Norma’s killed during this encounter and then singing that song that means so much here. His plans continue to be really uncertain in many ways with what he really wants, but he’s shaping events in a scale unseen before, and in a strangely satisfying way when it comes to what he does with Julio.
In Summary:
Cross Ange kicks off its second half in a big way with nearly constant action, chaos and death. It’s a pretty engaging episode that goes all out on a regular basis and stands apart from so many shows that are just so bland when it comes to how they handle action, or have so little going on that when you get a minute or two of an action sequence you get all excited. Here, this is what’s going on and they go all out in showing it, from tight quarters fights to more open areas as well as with the aerial craft that they have. There’s some decent character material mixed in as well with a lot of people dying along the way and reactions to that as well as just the loss of what kind of life had been built around the place for so long. Add in the twists that come into it with what Embryo is doing and the uncertainty there with what the real results and real goals are and it’s very easy to get swept into all of this and just savor it for being bold, fun and chaotic.
Grade: A
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.
