Jul 12, 2015
Cross Ange is one of those anime i was eager to watch yet dreading at the same time. Eager because I've always loved Sunrise mecha anime that comes with a original storyline, Escaflowne and Code Geass being prime examples of greatness that was achieved in the past. Dreading it also due to negative comments from my friends who watched it and said it was full of fanservice, ecchi and only worthwhile to watch if your into Yuri. I have nothing against any of those things but in high dosage they can be off-putting, and so finally with lots of mixed feelings I began to watch
...
Cross Ange.
-----LONG REVIEW BELOW------
Cross Ange starts off as a very innocuous anime with no particular theme, focusing on a fantasy Earth where people use 'magic' and hates on Norma 'muggles' who don't have magic. The main character Angelise (Ange) is discovered to be a Norma and shipped off to an isolated island where the government keeps other Norma. Seems simple enough, on the island the girls (because only girls are born Norma) have plenty of time on their hands to indulge in Yuri sex and the anime is not afraid to showcase nudity. The premise of the anime seems set, viewers are treated to episodes of near naked girls with curves who grope and have sex with each other for fun. Definitely heaven for any (horny) guy. Battles and mecha fighting appears to be a natural addition to the fanservice and ecchi appeal of the anime because mecha suits are naturally skin tight and skimpy and leaves nothing to the imagination. The mecha also happens to transform into a motorbike thing and so the girls naturally fall into a hands&knees ass up position when controlling it, fantastic for any guy who have a thing for tough girls and motorcycle fantasy.
Just when it seems things can't get any better for the men who are watching Cross Ange, it gets worse. A guy is introduced, named Tusk (note this anime has horrendous naming sense) to ruin the Yuri fantasy and to add a Het. element to the show slowly driving it toward a multi genre anime of Yuri and Het. Tusk to note has only one stand out quality, and that is the ability to face plant whenever chance happens into Ange's crotch. Ange and Tusk's interaction is the running gag of the anime, and appears at times to be satire due to the frequency of Tusk's face plants, and at others parody of famous het pairings in Sunrise's production most notably when Ange screams at Tusk 'Osuwari' to sit. You can also draw a similarity to Kira Yamoto who Tusk bare a strong resemblance to and naturally his relationship with a certain 'princess'. Thankfully Tusk is a minor character and only appears infrequently to ruin Yuri fantasy for men watching Cross Ange.
If the first half of Cross Ange is about Yuri, ecchi, het, nudity and fantasy. The second half of Cross Ange is about harem, sci-fi, mecha, war and romance, think Code Geass crossed over with No Game No Life taking harem, romance, alternate reality, magic from No Game No Life and war, mecha, sci-fi from Code Geass. It feels like the writers were experimenting with the anime not knowing what theme to focus on yet wanting to have everything. Ideas were being tossed together into a blender and being thrown out worse than before and hopelessly tangled with other strands of ideas. Time became a constraint since the anime only started developing story and plot 1/3 of the way in. So in terms of pacing Cross Ange feels like it was running a marathon only to realize it was in fact a 500meter race and they have fallen hopelessly behind. Therefore the later half of the anime became a mad dash towards the finishing line disregarding any attempt at pacing, and with no attention to detail for the story which was full of holes and unanswered questions. The closer the anime got to the finishing line each episode felt more random and pieced together with no prior thought, as if the the writers were deciding on a whim 'the next episode will be a battle scene' and 'the one after will be sex on a beach'. Any attempt at rationalizing the anime was thrown out the window as characters seemingly died under circumstances that were impossible to escape yet ten minutes later emerges completely unharmed.
The crux of the shoddy plot in large began with the emergence of the villain Embryo, who posses a god complex with a name to match that implies the opposite, as if only to exacerbate the running gag that is Cross Ange. Embryo's appearance spearheads the plot into a world wide, cross species, trans-reality war between three races; the Norma, true humans, and fake humans. Minor characters who before played no further role than being exploited as fan service and Yuri suddenly became important, both as chess pieces and as material for the developing harem revolving around Embryo and his fantasies. Ange who received the bulk of character development in the first half of the anime becomes reduced in the second half. Her determination, fighting spirit, and violence to do justice for the ones who wronged her was what made her an admirable character because viewers found sympathy and empowerment in her cause. However the second half of the anime turned her from a Jeanne D'Arc into a Damsel in Distress who is herself victimized at every turn by Embryo. Tusk thus establishes himself as a main character due to his vital role in rescuing the Damsel in Distress aka Ange from her tormentor and captor.
In the end I didn't regret watching Cross Ange, somehow it fell exactly into my preference for spaceships, and grand battles with mecha blowing things up. The mecha designs were unique being less bulky than usual and compacted with thin limbs to fit a female pilot, and the action was exactly what i signed up for. The music was average in the opening and ending theme, but better during parts where the voice actors sang the verses themselves; the song of choice had a special meaning in the anime and was quite catchy.
Finally one of the aspects of Cross Ange I personally enjoyed the most was the total lack of modesty and things like propriety was thrown out the window. Skin and lots of skinship was shown not always as fanservice but more as a natural part of being self. It's refreshing to watch behaviour wise the complete lack of conformity to social expectations the characters enacted. Freedom is not only in choices but also in the mind as characters like Ange and Hilde shows us.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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