Embryo makes his new move.
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 wasn’t exactly bad the last time around, but since it served more as a catching up kind of episode as Ange brought Alektra/Jill and the others up to speed, it didn’t exactly set your mind on fire with what it did. Well, maybe the Hilda groping material did. But the rest of the episode was fairly standard material that put everything in place to start working towards the conclusion of the series at the usual breakneck pace that it’s gone for the most part. We get that right at the start here as we pick up with the fight against the other powerful craft and the overall attack that everyone is under as they’re just trying to plan out their next move. And yes, all that alcohol is in some real danger here too, as we get from a really cute bit in the opening montage on board the ship as they cope with the fight.
And then we have Momoka’s magical panties during her Light of Mana moment. I can’t even.
Anyway, the prologue does a decent job of setting up events as they happen and some quirky bits before it opts to have Ange get shot outright as she tries to help the softly falling Momoka and her glowing panties. That in turn has her falling into a sea of flowers that allows us to get the expected dream sequence to help her process a lot of information that has gone on for her since everything went to hell, but in a quirky light because it’s a far too positive look at how the world would work if she stayed in the empire and Embryo made his movements there in his own way. Or at least that’s what you would think, but rather we see how Embryo has made all of this real and has brought various people into positions within his trust and is essentially swaying them to his own side in order to control them. There’s some amusing aspects to this with some who move over to Embryo’s service as Ange continues to prove she knows how to not make friends – but accomplish her own goals.
While we get some amusement with Salia and her turn here, it takes on a fun and dramatic tone as Ange spends time with Embryo. His showing her his plans for the world is pretty simple overall as he’s not exactly a grand thinker, but he plays to big events and ideas overall. And Ange is just interested in defeating him, which means she doesn’t quite understand the power that he is. That in itself is what’s dangerous overall because she continues to just try and solve things by shooting him at each opportunity while he’s just using the opportunity to talk calmly while also drawing out her emotions in a really fun way. His manipulation is very much the type that goes to the core of how you are, and seeing his calm intensity forcing her to strip herself down for him just makes it all the clearer.
In Summary:
Cross Ange goes into some fun directions here as we see how Embryo works everyone for his goal, which at the moment is just playing with Ange herself. When he makes a comment that he may have been alive all this time just to meet her, it certainly sets up the importance overall in the dynamic between them, and with what Ange has been able to do in a short period overall is certainly makes sense. While the idea that this could all be a dream still feels like a possibility, just having fun running with it here definitely works as we get to see how several people have taken to what Embryo offers. And we got magical, glowing panties as well. So it’s all good, all good.
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.
