Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo

Angelise Ikaruga Misurugi is the first princess of the noble Misurugi Empire. The kingdom has seen great power and prosperity due to the advancement of the revolutionary technology known as "Mana," an abstract bending of light that has reduced the world's problems of war and pollution to a timeless peace.

However, not all are blessed with the ability to wield Mana. Those who cannot are labeled "Norma," outcasts of society who are considered a threat to civilization and live under constant persecution, and Angelise herself is one of many who want the Norma exterminated. But as Angelise's sixteenth birthday commences, it is discovered in a shocking revelation that she is actually a Norma. Chaos ensues, the public is outraged, and the once adored princess is exiled to Arzenal: a remote military base where Normas are forced into conscription.

Now, the former royal must adapt to a harsh and vastly different lifestyle; piloting mechanical robots known as "Paramail" to fend off large, devastating beasts referred to as DRAGONs. However, a sinister truth about these savage creatures threatens to change everything.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Ikaruga Misurugi, Angelise Main

Mizuki, Nana Japanese

Schlievogt, Hildegard Supporting

Tamura, Yukari Japanese

Tusk Supporting

Miyano, Mamoru Japanese

Salamandiné Supporting

Horie, Yui Japanese

Vivian Supporting

Kuwashima, Houko Japanese

Oginome, Momoka Supporting

Uesaka, Sumire Japanese

Salia Supporting

Kitamura, Eri Japanese

Embryo Supporting

Seki, Toshihiko Japanese

Chris Supporting

Ogura, Yui Japanese

Jill Supporting

Honda, Takako Japanese

Fukuda, Mitsuo Producer, Episode Director, Storyboard

Ashino, Yoshiharu Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Itou, Tatsufumi Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Matsui, Hitoyuki Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Aug 28, 2024

ggol

Recommended

TLDR: It's worth a watch.

This review will be non-spoil so many of the content is cut short to prevent spoiler

Story 8/10
The story sets in a world where humans born with mana can use magic and those who don't are called normans. Normans are able to use Mecha and is believed to be more violent and aggressive than the mana users. Their sole purpose is to be use as weapons of war against the ongoing conflict with the dragons from another world.

Animation 7/10
Now this may make or break this anime for some people, but at least 36% of the anime are fan service that is ... bath scene, sex scene or straight up nude scenes for very strange reasons. The nude scene is weird as the most attractive part of the female body is left blanked not covered. So the animation is not bad as most parts are well-drawn and there is minor tweaks from time to time, but that doesn't impact the anime too much. Some people may not like it, but CGI is heavily used on the Mechas. However, the fights between the Mechas are not bad and CGI is not that bad as well.

Character 8/10
So the main character first started off immature and spoiled within the group that she is designated to. She handled all the missons by herself and does not listen or cooperate with her teams. As time goes on you can see the character is maturing and developing over time and she does redeem herself over all the misconduct that she has made from her past failures. We also get to see the other supporting characters back stories and nothing feels missed out as we can see each characters has their unique own personal story to tell.

Conclusion
If you can ignore the fan service, the story generally is not bad because it gets better over time and each characters has good backstory. The animation quality is good, but there is minor parts that are badly drawn and the CGI is ok. So you can get a reasonable enjoyment from this anime because the start is average however throughout midway to the end it does get a lot better.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jun 24, 2023

whiteflame55

Mixed Feelings

The more I think about this series, the more my head hurts. It's not that it's bad because it knows what it is pandering to and that's the lowest common denominator (hell, even in the finale, Ange just had to jump naked, crotch first into Tusk's face), but so many of the motivations are contrived and the villain does not work for me. Most of these characters don't really work for me. It had some decent action and graphics when it wanted to, and some aspects of it were fun enough that I give them some credit, but this was a pretty frustrating watch for ... me. I enjoyed talking about it in a group watch, but not so much the watching of it. It's better in retrospect, but not the kind of thing I'd give a straight up recommendation.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 30, 2021

Dionkeykong

Not Recommended

Welcome people it's been a while huh?
Warning for our underage fellows..Every single review i write has strong language and over the top offensive tone, so if you're not up to the challenge please leave..Don't want those pesky admins busting my chops again.

So Cross Ange..From what i gather an anime that divided it's fans with it's..Strong themes.Well it divided me too cause i still don't know if i enjoyed it or if it was as stupid as an American President(pick whoever you want).

So let's dive into the damn thing, see what's what. First things first. This ain't an anime for the faint hearted nor for the ... people who think sex themes, violence and abuse should not be addressed in any way and all anime should be fluffy cream pies with a cherry on top. So basically my kind of anime...Sort off. Lemme explain guys and girls.

It starts with our protagonist Angelina(later Ange cause it sounds more like a psychotic truck driver murdering prostitutes...Oh wait that has actually happened in real life..Oops.)who plays some kind of lacrosse with machines that use mana to fly..Now mana is the fuel that runs basically the whole world..Here comes the twist, a brilliant one i might add. The racism theme..There people who can't use mana and are called Normas..Well yeah the name bussiness was given to a 3yr old .Normas are the outcasts of society, treated like unwanted trash, believed to be the plague or something..So they round them up and send them to a camp...Remind you of something? Then another twist..Our princess protagonist is also a Norma..Fuck yeah? Yeah..So she is sent to the camp to play with some other prisoner girls. Things get rough, we have some girl on girl action..More like commander Yuri punishes blonde prisoner and things start to take off.

I have to admit that the premise is great for me at least..And as the series progresses it intertwines more themes like rape, sodomy ,s&m, some mecha, dragons and shit..It's a dream come true.....Or is it? You see i like the thought behind the whole thing, it sounds unbelievably interesting..But writers screwed it up in many many areas. They had a story that great all those themes that should excite you in the most primeval way and travel your mind to the darkest of areas, that provokes your very being...And they flash it down the toilet with sooooooo much nudity, unnecessary nudity and face to crotch action and a dude that controls minds of girls so they can orgasm to sweet sweet heaven..It all goes horribly wrong very fast. It's like a rollercoaster, full of ups and downs.Mostly downs...It takes some real patience and strong will to take it seriously sometimes especially when the one moment it's like "oh my giddy aunt WTF was that" and the exact next sec it's like "holy shit why the stupid ecchi crap"..But in the end no matter what, it wasn't boring in the least. Every ep had some twist, some new plot thrown in there..And again the screw ups keep on coming..The cohesion between every ep was terrible to say the least. I really had some trouble following the writer's train of thought. The thing that fucked it up greatly was the last eps. It ended in the most idiotic way possible..At this point i have to get all spoiley so skip the next paragraph if you want.

Our main antagonist who also plays god with people wants Ange as his wife but the day was saved cause.....She wasn't a virgin..Or so she said...NOW COME ON..This should have won awards, the writers and the studio should be showered with lap dancers rubbing them with pig fat...Nah just fucking with you..It's cancerous for god's sake. It's like binge drinking vodka with snake blood in it. Why in the name of all that's holy did they do that? Bored? Stoned? What the hell were they thinking? Compared to the Bible yeah it's much better where our female protagonist was a virgin and got knocked up by a damn flower....All in all our villain went from an intelligent, all mighty god to a whiny, sex crazed molester.
The animation was horrible..The CGI mecha and the CGI dragons were so bad i thought i was tripping on acid. It's not Berserk bad but it's close.
Soundtracks were meh, voice acting was meh..Nothing worthy of mentioning really.
Characters..If the story can't back them up you can't honestly give a flying fuck, can you? They do get development, a lot of it..Take Ange for example..She went from pampered spoiled bitch to badass female Bruce Willis..And the way she gets there is well written. Come to think of it every character(except for the dead ones who got some marble stones)gets nicely developed. The hardships, the death, the psycholical war every single thing adds to the greater picture. Granted the writers do screw things up on that front too with relentless fan service getting in the way.

Overall i enjoyed the first half..No i didn't..Maybe i did,i don't know..No,it isn't me being schizophrenic..For some "big" part it was quite enjoyable. For the most part it was like watching some hardcore porn. It's something to help young, full of testosterone lads get the blood flowing to their private parts. But if i wanted a boner, i have Pornhub for that.
Ultimately this killed it for me. It should have been an absolute masterpiece..Now as to why they went to masturbation valey, only the writers know that. They had the perfect formula, a story that could revive dead brain cells.It had some freakin great potential and it failed so miserably, i can't find the words to describe it. As something to fap to it's second to none..As something that will change your world view? No,not even slightly. Might as well watch some Salieri films for their depth.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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