Escape from Embryo seems impossible in a world he controls.
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 a surprising angle for me the last time around as we got a lot of people that were on Ange’s side now ending up in Embryo’s thrall and working for him. So much of it felt like Ange was in dream/nightmare mode that even though you knew it wasn’t, you kept waiting for her to wake up from being shot down back in what’s really going on. Twisting some of her sorta friends into being taken in by Embryo and working for him provides for some decent scenes though, particularly with Sala, and just to watch as Ange continued to try and kill Embryo at every opportunity. While all of that moved along to good effect, those on the outside managed to start pulling together well enough to the point where we see them now attempting to make their own strike on Embryo, and to save Ange, as lead by Hilda.
Action continues to be the order of the day in that regard and it plays out well with the various characters and craft involved. But we also now have Ange and Momoka making their own move, which is still weird to see as Ange is in the uniform she’s got on. With the Vilkiss lost for the moment, and Ange really down and out, things fall to Momoka for awhile and she continues to prove why she’s the head maid. Unfortunately, Embryo is everywhere and that continues to creepily complicate things. With a number of areas in movement here with the different forces and groups moving about, the show covers them decently enough with what’s going on, but the real focus continues to be on Ange and Momoka as well as Embryo, especially since Embryo can take over just about anyone, including Momoka, in order to tweak Ange and make her realize that she’s truly alone.
The swell of events is well played as Ange gets more and more isolated, but also because we see the resistance side making a decent move as well, with Tusk going head to head with Embryo while the battle rages above in the ships with plenty of death along the way. That makes for some good action sequences, though it does feel a bit weak in general just because there’s little investment in most of the characters involved in that fight. It does pick up a little more on the personal side as we see Embryo setting Momoka up against Tusk when Ange and Momoka end up back in Embryo’s realm, and that has a little more weight to it overall, though you do just get a little tired of everyone trying to kill Embryo simply because it’s not worked for so long and it just feels overly dramatic. That said, Momoka does make a bigger play than most and it’s properly dramatic in the end.
In Summary:
Action dominates events this time around and it works fairly well overall as there’s a lot of characters and pieces in motion to make it fairly busy and engaging to watch. And that’s without feeling much in the way of a connection to most of the pilots – on either side – as they battle it out. Visually, it works well once again with some good sequences and characters dying along the way, though you have that background thought that the world is going to get rebooted by the end and several, if not all, will be alive again in some form. Ange and Momoka is what dominates the episode overall and with Ange weakened and just trying to stay alive, it moves surprisingly well overall as they struggle against the ever present Embryo. We’re in the final run now and I’m looking forward to seeing how they’ll wrap it all up.
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.