Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo – 25 (Fin)

One of the question marks last week was what, if anything, would bring Salia back into the fold. That turns out to be Alektra, whom Salia brings to the Aurora. All Alektra wants is a cigarette and the chance to say what she needed to say to Salia, whom she regards as a little sister, if not a carbon copy of herself, complete with the same mistakes. But as Aura halts the world-merging, there’s still a chance to beat Embryo.

And is there some villainy thee vile Embryo hast not committed? Why, forcable rape, of course! His final move is to return to his own timeless “in-betweeny space”, where he gives Ange more of his backstory in between slapping and stripping her. He won’t be refused, and aims to “purify” Ange, who was “sullied” by Tusk. Now Embryo is just pathetic, though who can say this wouldn’t happen to any man kept alive for a thousand years, with the power to control everything?

But yeah, in it’s last episode, Ange “goes there”, just it has not been afraid to go there throughout its run, for good or ill. He binds her arms and legs with vines so she’s spread eagle, but is kind enough not to gag her, so Ange takes advantage and sings the song of Villkiss. Tusk boards it, and with his tears of love he’s able to activate her ring, and the Villkiss teleports him, Hilda, Salia and Salako to Ange’s location.

Tusk is just in time to stop Embryo from going too far, and rescues Ange in their now trademark position of his head in her crotch. This time, Ange is too scared and happy he’s there to blush or slug him. And he even has the panties she gave him so she can cover up. I wondered when those panties would come in handy.

There’s still Embryo to content with, and Tusk crosses swords with him, as is expected of a knight, and we also learn this is Embryo’s original body. He’s still a tough customer, so Tusk keeps him busy as Villkiss upgrades again to a Ange/Tusk combo paint scheme, and cloaks Ange in a crisp, white flight suit.

Hilda (riding Chris’ mail), Salia, and Salako prove to be a good group to have accompanied Tusk to this place. They’re kept busy fighting duplicates of Embryo’s Ragna-mail. He tries to brainwash Salia and briefly takes over control of her mail, but as Ange and Salako monologue about how they’ll allow themselves to be controlled (by a man, no less) over their dead bodies. Hilda and Salia join their voices.

Salako even figures out why Norma exist—judgment for Embryo thinking in his hubris he could control human genes—and why they’re all women: so they can re-populate the Earth with a population of humans he can’t control. Life Will Find A Way, Cross Ange-style. It holds together pretty well.

As Tusk runs Embryo through and Ange delivers that dynamite one-liner in the top-right, she runs his Ragna-mail through, and it’s over. No more dirty old man. Good game; let’s go eat!

The world Ange & Friends return to is the “true” Earth of Dragons, now freed from Embryo’s tinkering. There, with no one left to fight, Ange declares she’ll build a new nation, and at this point everyone at her side is fine with that. She was born to lead, after all, not to mention she’s the reason they’re all alive.

When Momoka asks what’s to be done about the other world, Ange basically shrugs and says it’s not her problem, which she’s well within her rights to do. The people of that world are humans; they’ll figure it out.

Sure enough, we see Sylvia embracing the fact that she really can walk, and arms herself with friends and weapons to protect the weak. The show didn’t have to do anything else with Sylvia, but I’m glad they did. She is Ange’s sister, and Ange herself was once an insufferable brat, so it stands to reason Sylvia had that same strength within her.

As the credits roll we get a great epilogal montage that shows us what everyone is up to now that there’s peace: Ersha, Salia, and the surviving rookies meeting Vivian’s parents; Ange opening her dream cafe with Tusk; Momoka and the bridge crew; hanging out with Salako on her time off; paying respects to the fallen, and building their new nation.

Left out of the end montage, in a rare showing of restraint for this show: Hilda-Roselie-Chris makeup sex, Ange-Tusk baby-making, and other potential bedroom formations, such as Ange-Salako-Tusk or Ange-Tusk-Hilda-Roselie. Gotta leave some things to the imagination, I suppose…but I imagine at some point they’ll want to populate this new nation, and there are only so many men. Gotta watch out for inbreeding.

And on that somewhat inappropriate note, it’s time to say goodbye to Cross Ange, at least until the OVA or film, if they come to fruition. It was a very fun ride, and I’ll miss the show’s shameless raunchyness and shlock combined with genuinely compelling character drama and feminist commentary.

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo – 24

As you can see, a lot happened in the second-to-last episode of Cross Ange, but not a whole lot was resolved; most glaringly the Embryo problem: dude just won’t die. Perhaps they’re leaving that for the last episode; though as Ange remarks in the preview, they could also hold that off until a special or movie…which would make me as cross as Ange usually is (if it’s to be believed the show’s title is a pun).

While the fate of Ange, Tusk, Salia, and Embryo remains up in the air for the finale, this episode focused on secondary characters, as many as it could, and tied up some loose ends we were hoping wouldn’t end in tragedy.

The Aurora takes a beating, but Jasmine, Vivi, Riza, Momoka, and Ersha (taking to the cockpit again) manage to keep it together long enough for DRAGON reinforcements to arrive (sent by their empress to back up the Norma).

Embryo also shows his Diamond Rose Knights exactly how little he really thinks of them by using them to bait the Dragons so he can go grab his “wife” Ange. Two of Chris and Salia’s comrades, whom I could never remember the names of, are killed off in quick succession.

In the episode’s best act, this latest betrayal basically breaks Chris, who just fires wildly at everyone wishing they’d all die. A nifty combo of Hilda’s tough love (“Give it a break, you emo bitch!” is particularly cutting, but apt) and a desperate stunt by Roselie, who plucks Chris right out of her cockpit and won’t let go until she’s heard.

Hilda manages to catch them both, by which time Roselie has reiterated her love for Chris, and the fact she can’t live without her, and wants to be her friend again more than anything. Chris, back to her senses and thinking like the Chris of old, uses this opportunity to make Roselie agree to several conditions, which will have the effect of balancing their relationship.

If nothing else, I’m glad these girls made up and no one had to be killed (well, except Marika).

While all this feel-good making up is going on, Salako and Ange succeed in releasing Aura from his cage. Jill also smells defeat on Embryo and tries to get him to take her with him…wherever he escapes to. It’s a trick, but one that doesn’t work out for Jill, as she wrongly assumed she was dealing with Emby’s original body. She’s injured, but not dead, so we’ll see what becomes of her.

There’s not a lot of her here, perhaps because she’ll factor so huge in the finale (Embryo plucks her away in the end, sans clothes), but the fact large swaths of time pass where we’re not sure what she’s up to was troublesome. Furthermore, Salia has seen her comrades be betrayed by Embryo, but she doesn’t quite wake up like Ersha and Chris.

Emby doesn’t seem to care about either world anymore, and as they’re 97% converged when the credits roll, he may not have to care about them much longer. Ange remains his top priority, and he seems genuinely pissed when Tusk boasts deflowered her. Which when you look at that flashback and see Embryo with Tusk’s mom, adds a somewhat icky sheen to this whole affair.

Then again, it wouldn’t be Cross Ange if it wasn’t a little icky.

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo – 23

Even though two more episodes remain, this had the feel of a second-to-last episode, with a lot of character housekeeping leading into the start of the final battle that will decide the very fate of the world(s). With such a tangled web of character connections, any housekeeping episode in which many were either resolved or set up to be resolved soon could run the risk of feeling overstuffed and unwieldy.

Not so here, and you can chalk that up to the show’s genuine care and concern for each and every one of its characters, with the possible exception of Embryo, who has been painted pretty consistently as a transparently evil pervert of late.

Because Cross Ange cares so much, so do I. So even when minor characters like a sober Emma and Riza Randog achieve redemption, it lifts my spirits as much as Ange returning to the Aurora with Tusk aboard his mother’s paramail, or Ersha returning to the fold. Everyone is getting into the right place.

As Ange later remarks to Salia, she has a lot of “errands” this week, which starts with welcoming Salako back and thanking Riza, and continues with trying to slap some pride back into a sulking Jill. Hilda now sees fully what she’d only seen glimpses of before; how inspiring and natural a leader Ange is.

To that end, she offers Ange the command, and to Hilda’s credit it feels more like a correct and practical decision rather than any kind of emotionally-driven concession borne out of her inadequacies. She just prefers to run around with a gun, which is true.

As for Hilda’s feelings for Ange, well, now is the time to confess them, and when Ange insists, Hilda doesn’t hold back: she sees Ange as her knight; her Tusk. When she laughs away these feelings as strange because they’re both women, Ange leans in for a kiss, and tells her the world where such things are strange is the same world they’re going to destroy.

Ange will need Hilda in that world as much as Tusk and Salako. This suggests it will be a society in which relationships need not be monogamous. It’s another credit to the care with which these characters’ roller-coaster history has been portrayed that this corridor exchange hits all the right emotional notes. Tamura Yukari also turns in a great performance as Hilda here.

When chewing out Jill, Ange pointed out that many lives were destroyed in her failed missions for revenge and revolution, and that even Salia had to latch onto Embryo when Jill spurned her. When we see Salia saluting Embryo, you can tell that Embryo himself is now secondary to her own desire to rid the world of Ange once and for all, hoping that will make her special and desired. It’s a misguided motivation that I simply don’t see unfolding.

As Ange’s “errands” continue, she and Tusk have a quiet tender moment on the eve of battle, when Ange insists on giving Tusk something back for his undying devotion. Something more than being safe, that is, which is enough for him. But being light on the possessions, she decides to give him the panties she’s presently wearing, which Tusk accepts graciously and promises to return “so she doesn’t catch cold.” It’s the same kind of risque sweetness that has defined so much of their romance.

After Ange delivers a stirring pre-battle speech that only demonstrates Hilda made the right decision in raising her to the command, the Aurora, with Jasmine at the help and Ersha on the weapons, heads to the Dawn Pillar for a frontal assault. The conventional Misurugi military units don’t put up much of a fight, so as the enemy nears, Embryo sends his harem of ragna-mail pilots out to meet them, and the battle’s stakes heighten accordingly.

Such a wide-ranging battle with everyone involved means we get some nice matchups: Hilda and Roselie against their former lover Chris, who’s still in Embryo’s court; Salako’s two lieutenants we can’t remember the names of versus the other two Embryo girls we can’t remember the name of, and Vivi inspiring the rookies with her usual kick-ass combat skills. And then Tusk takes on Embryo, who is amused that Tusk isn’t dead.

Jasmine and Ersha successfully fire the Aurora’s cryo-cannon at the Dawn Pillar, destroying it and opening the way for Salako and Ange to free Aura beneath the ruins. But Ange has to get past a hate-fueled Salia, who may yet again be ignoring her natural shortcomings in her obsessive quest to destroy her rival. Note that her arc has gone in essentially the opposite direction of Hilda’s.

Salia tosses Ange into the palace, where Ange happens to come upon her sister Sylvia, who is being harassed by commoners furious that nothing’s being done to protect them. Ange has nothing for these people but contempt, and in one case, a bullet to the head. In what she believes will be her last encounter with her pathetic little sister, Ange fires warning shots at her, forcing her to stop pretending she can’t walk and run away, taking care of herself for once.

It’s pretty harsh treatment when you consider that like much of the rest of humanity, Sylvia is simply a slave to her genetic abhorrance of Norma and Dragons, and a victim of her weak, brainwashing-susceptable mind. But alas, this is not a fair world; that’s why Ange’s going to destroy it, giving rise to a fairer one.

With that last “errand” taken care of, Ange returns to her duel with a patient Salia, and it’s pretty clear at this point there’s nothing Ange can say that will make her see reason. Enter Alektra Maria von Levenherz, who has taken Ange’s words to heart, suits up, and pilots Ersha’s ragna-mail to join the fray, doing her part for Libertus.

Perhaps Jill will be able to succeed where Ange has thus far failed vis-a-vis Salia. She certainly knows how to press Salia’s buttons, as the first thing she says to her is that she’s disappointed, the kind of tack that drew Salia away from her in the first place.

Is she provoking Salia to throw her off the game so she’ll break off from Ange and start attacking Jill? Is Jill’s goal to atone by snapping Salia out of it, or simply by letting Salia kill her, if she can? Did Embryo really set up this whole world-merging threat simply to draw Ange to kill him for realsies, using the Villkiss’ inter-dimensional ability.

Will the battle end next week, making episode 25 an epilogue? Who will live; who will die; who will reconcile? The housekeeping and table-setting is over: it’s time for the big dance.

P.S. In the adorable preview, Vivi celebrates Ersha’s return by demanding food, and Ersha headbutts her, but the preview ends before she can tell us what happens next week. Drat!

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo – 22

This week somewhat inauspiciously begins with Salia being spanked like an insolent child by Embryo, for letting Ange get away. But as painful and humiliating as this experience is, there’s still a glint of defiance in Salia’s face and words. Chasing after Ange the Chosen One like an obedient errand girl is not what she signed up for; in fact, it’s one of the very reasons she defected from Arzenal in the first place.

Aboard the Aurora, Embryo finally manipulates Emma Bronson to antagonize what looks like the beginning of a Norma/Dragon alliance, in the midst of Riza’s report that Embryo is trying to merge both their worlds to form a new one, destroying them in the process. Even if Salako & Co. are Dragons, Hilda can relate Salako’s friendship to Ange. Roselie, meanwhile, isn’t looking forward to killing Chris, but it’s her or them; something she laments with great sadness.

Embryo expounds on his grand plans for the world by stating it will be ruled by “strong, intelligent women.” He leaves out “pliable women who will acknowledge his unlimited power and know their place below him.” At the same time, he takes no pleasure in watching Ersha grovel and beg him to restore the lives of her children. He really never intended those children to survive the merging at all. Rather, he intends Ersha to become the mother of the new world’s children, which has some pretty messed-up ramifications if you think too long about it, which, judging from Ersha’s expression, she does.

Like Salia, Embryo essentially warns Ersha that she’s not acting like the “intelligent women” he needs for that world. Unlike Salia, he basically casts her aside and tells her to stay out of sight, whereas he at least gives Salia one more chance to prove her loyalty. Salia won’t be doing that, though.

It looks like her spanking was the straw that broke the camel’s back; she won’t prove her value to Embryo by finding Ange; she’ll prove she’s stronger by besting and killing her, going against Embryo’s wishes in a desperate bid to win his approval.

This is not the best plan, considering Embryo can bring people back from the dead at will, but even if her judgement-quashing inferiority complex is still as strong as ever, at least she now realizes how much of a sack of shit Embryo is. Ripping up her Pretty Salian cosplay is as strong a symbol as any that she’s done playing the heroine.

Ersha, meanwhile, realizes how appallingly naive she’s been, and how easily she allowed Embryo to win her obedience by manipulating her powerful maternal instincts. In both her and Salia’s case, they were girls with ambitions (albeit very different ones) that got their way, and now that they’ve seen how thin the veneer of Embryo’s goodness extends, They’re both well and truly disillusioned, and will no longer follow him.

Chris is different, in that nothing happened to her this week that suggests she’ll be going against Embryo. Embryo is her best bud, after all; the one person who would simply be her friend the way no one else ever did. Her ambitions are far smaller by comparison, and so easier to both fulfill and maintain. Are Chris, Roselie, and Hilda doomed to try and kill one another without ever reconciling the often twisted shit they’ve all been through? Or will something Embryo does cause CHris to revolt as well? I hope it’s the latter.

Meanwhile, Tusk’s chopper-thingy deposits Ange on his island and releases her, and it doesn’t take long for the same crushing loneliness Tusk must have felt in the years he was here to sink in for her, combined with her grief over losing both Tusk and Momoka. Ange can’t see the purpose of trying to save a world she can’t share with those two very important people.

She even considers taking her life, before remembering Tusk’s final words to her about her having to live. But reading Tusk’s diary, including the entry when she arrived (not Ange’s best outing), at which point he’d already chosen to be her knight, only makes Ange more upset. She may have spared her own life for now, but she still can’t see the point of sparing it indefinitely.

And then, all of a sudden, as she remarks on how she’d have gone all the way with Tusk if she’d known he’d sacrifice himself, Tusk pops up behind her, alive and well! She thinks it’s another of Embryo’s illusions at first, but I had a pretty good idea it was Tusk. Am I going to defend this ridiculous plot twist? No, but I can understand it: You don’t know what you have until you’ve lost it; we never saw Tusk actually die in the explosion.

Having tasted the bitterness of losing Tusk, Ange isn’t going to side-step the issue of the furtherance of their relationship any longer. On the contrary, she has sex with Tusk right then and there, under the stars, to prove it’s really him. Afterwards, it’s as if all of that sexual tension had simply melted away, leaving two far calmer, less distracted people.

Momoka’s back too, because Hell, why not? She had a frying pan in her clothes that stopped a bullet. I’m more on the side of happy than angry they’re back, even if it’s very sudden. The why isn’t really important, only the that. And that Tusk and Momoka are alive means Ange has far stronger motivations to stop Embryo.

I just don’t see how she’s going to do it considering how easily he dispatched them last time. Maybe these two finally getting laid was the key?

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo – 21

Hilda leads a team composed of herself, Roselie, Vivi, Tusk, and the three new pilots to invade Misurugi and rescue Ange, in an action-packed episode that satisfactorily juggles all the involved parties and all their individual stakes and relationships, both forged and shattered. Ange is ultimately freed from Embryos clutches, but it’s only another temporary victory, and it comes at the greatest cost yet.

To think Hilda, Roselie, and Chris started out as an annoying “popular girl clique” that shunned Ange. They’ve come a long way. Hilda is fighting for Ange, Roselie is fighting for Hilda and her novice riders, and Chris is fighting for her new, true friend, Embryo-sama. She looks back in retrospect and concludes that even before Hilda and Roselie “left her for dead”, they were never really her friends. Despite Hilda’s harsh words earlier in the show, I don’t think that’s true, but tempers are too high for any hope of reconciliations.

Chris knocks out Villkiss’ power, and it ditches in the river. Momoka rescues Ange and tries to get her away by car before Embryo unveils another one of his little tricks: the ability to turn any mana-user into a homonculus. Ane manages to snap Momoka out of it, but throngs of zombie Misurugi citizens converge. Embryo proves as tenacious as ever in cornering Ange and bending her to his will.

While Hilda and Chris value Embryo as a lover and best mate, respectively, Ersha is doing everything for the kids, not him. So when, in the crossfire of the battle, all those kids get slaughtered, Ersha too loses all possible compunction to ever side with Ange and her cohorts again. Now, I imagine, whatever is left of her life will be dedicated to making sure those kids are avenged.

Chris, meanwhile, takes a sadistic amount of relish in killing off Marika, one of Roselie’s novice riders who came to cover her teacher’s escape. Her end is neither as surprising or as gory as Coco and Miranda’s, but it again escalates the conflict between these former comrades-in-arms, and even proves Embryo’s point that with or without the light of mana, it doesn’t take much to turn once somewhat reasonable humans into monsters.

Embryo’s intention to punish Ange are thwarted by her trusty, horny knight, who stalls Embryo so Ange and Momoka can escape. After getting in a dig about how Tusk, the final member of “ancient people”, is nothing but a monkey, Embryo ends the stalling by shooting himself in the head.

Just when we think Ange is home free, with the ocean and skies sprawling out before her, Momoka is taken over by Embryo once again, as he sips tea down on a balcony below them. You have to credit Embryo with being so damn hard to foil, though that’s a given when you have the powers of a god. Frankly, anyone who attempts to oppose such a powerful being has never seemed to have a very good approach for actually doing so, and the fact he’s immortal makes that unpreparedness understandable.

Ange is then forced to watch as Momoka, whom Embryo has powered up to the very limits of her body, slashes at Tusk with a sword. Ange is able to break Embryo’s hold on her once more, saving Tusk, but then Momoka goes after Embryo while using her mana to make a huge truck hit them and push them off a cliff. It’s one final act of valor and love from Momoka, but I wonder if she didn’t squander her life trying to take out someone who couldn’t be taken out. Ange did tell her and Tusk that Embryo can’t be killed, right?

No matter. Even if she did know she couldn’t kill him, she could slow him down, and prevent herself from being used as a homonculus again. Tusk does the same thing, sacrificing himself with a suicide bomb in order to buy time for Ange’s escape, which isn’t her choice, as he sets auto-cruise and cuffs her to his ship.

And just like that, Momoka and Tusk, two of the people Ange cared about most, are gone. Seeing the stunned pain in Ange’s face and voice at this realization, one almost can’t fault those who surrendered and sided with Embryo, because this is the price of opposing him, with the final cost yet unknown.

Stray Observations:

• I know it’s indicative of far more insidious elements of their dynamic in the past, but Chris is kinda overreacting over the other two making her lose one of her braids when they only gave her a clip for one. She could have, you know, spoke up for herself regarding her hairstyle preference.
• The fact Embryo can make any one, or any number, of mana-users into his own zombie army seems like a wildly underused power up to this point.
• Continuing with its utterly irreverent theme of the previews, Ange considers simply replacing the fallen Tusk and Momoka with Hilda and Roselie…but ironically that’s essentially what I see happening!
• Tusk may have died a virgin, but no one can say he didn’t have his share of interesting experiences with women.
• I assume Salia was knocked out this entire episode.

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo – 20

The above scene is a blatant, laughable lie, one proven to be one mere minutes later when Embryo puts the exact same moves on Ange (Also, why does he always get fully dressed before her? Can’t he snuggle Pretty Salian once in a while?). But Salia accepts it, because talk of love or destiny aside, Salia’s made a deal with Embryo.

She gets to live out her fantasy, and he gets to have her mind and body. Embryo is essentially an immortal pimp, and he makes each woman he manipulates feel like they’re his queen, through offering things they want most.

Angelise is former royalty, so he continues to treat her as such with lovely invitation letters, second flush Darjeeling, and more honeyed words, many of them recycled from speeches with the other women. Salia doesn’t even care what Ange wants or does from this point on, as long as she’s not there to steal her spotlight and her man.

“These are the implants I’ve had designed for you. We’re gonna make you a STAR!”

But the same flattering, nurturing faux-kindness doesn’t work on Ange. She’s the same warrior she was when she pulverized that dragon back when she got stranded on that island. If she has a blade and a threat, she’s going to take it out. This time, Ange tries to make her point clearer by making Embryo suffer.

Little does she know Embryo is going easy on her out of real kindness, preferring to turn her with a minimum of suffering. When he pops back again, alive and well, he reluctantly resorts to stronger measures, and it’s here that we start to take Embryo a bit more seriously.

He did create Ange’s race of humans, after all; it stands to reason he has all the tools at his disposal to manipulate them at will. Playing nice didn’t work on Ange, so he makes things far more elemental: zapping her brain with 50xPain, followed by 50xPleasure. It’s not a pretty sight, even for an eavesdropping Salia.

What makes this episode the best in a long time is just how nicely it balances development of the careening plot with a bevy of truly great character moments, and because there are so many of them, the pacing is brisk and thrilling. Take Roselie sneaking into Hilda’s room, where Roselie comes to terms with the fact Hilda has fallen for Ange, while she herself admits she loves Chris, and always had the wrong idea about who looked out for whom. They want to be with Ange an Chris again, and Hilda knows that’s not going to happen as long as Jill is in command.

To do something about it, they’ll need help, which means recruiting the gaoled Tusk and Vivian. Hilda initially tries to seduce Tusk, but despite the rumors his head is almost constantly in Ange’s crotch (a gross exaggeration), Hilda is almost disappointed to find that he never slept with her, confirming what Ange said, and is in fact saving himself, like a true knight. Hilda just calls him a “loser”, but he’s also a useful loser, so they make an accord.

Jill, meanwhile, can’t get Embryo-sama out of her head, so she dons her flight suit and attempts to fly off, leaving Libertus and her crew behind. Hilda organizes and stages the most necessary mutiny ever, and in Jill’s fractured state she’s no match against people with far clearer heads. It’s an awesome bring-down, especially since we learn soon after that Jill needed and wanted to be saved…from herself.

“How was I supposed to explain? That I went to kill Embryo, but instead he took my body and mind?”

This is the crux of Jill’s sad story, which there’s no point in concealing from her crew any longer, and it really nicely explains all of her actions and attitudes to this point, helping us see her in a far more sympathetic light. Jill may have been an ace mail-rider and royalty and pilot to Villkiss but she’s still only human, and able to be reprogrammed into submission by her creator, the very same curse that befalls all other humans, mana-using or not.

This is a fact Embryo wishes to impart onto Ange in no uncertain terms, as he enjoys another cup of tea in Dave Bowman’s 2001 Bedroom as a topless Ange flails about on the floor in rapidly fluctuating states of acute pain, pleasure, and amusement. It’s a sickening scene, like watching one of the replicants in Blade Runner go berserk before blowing up.

This is no longer a battle of wills, but a battle of science. Even if her will continues to resist longer than Jill’s or Salias, Ange’s body and mind will only hold up so long against this punishment. When Embryo leaves her, Salia comes in, pleading with Ange again to go away, for both their sakes.

Salia isn’t going to excuse what she did to get to where she is. Even if Jill deserved to be betrayed, Salia still chose to do so. She traded her pride, duty, and chastity for pleasure, the illusion of true love, and utter dependence on Embryo, just like Jill. But Salia did this because she felt she had no other choice but death, and she’d be right. Embryo is a repellent slimeball, but he’s all Salia has left. She’s either abandoned or revoked everything else.

They may have had their differences, but deep down Salia has always known that Ange was stronger than her; even the sweating, shambling half-naked wretch at her feet is stronger than her (the bit about ‘without having to transform’ is particularly devastating). In Salia’s self-narrative, Ange has been cast as her nemesis, so it does the heroine no good to see the nemesis in such a pathetic state. She’s not just begging Ange to flee Embryo out of the kindness of her heart, but because she needs Ange to continue to be strong, or all the rest of that fantasy falls apart.

Salia isn’t brainwashed. She’s just chosen the path that she thought would give her the most happiness, and accepted the steep costs. She hasn’t really even transformed herself: the garb and weaponry and love Embryo showers her with is just another form of cosplay, and Salia remains hidden behind those facades because she fears if they were all torn down there’d be nothing at the core. I hope she’s proven wrong.

Ange thanks Salia for freeing her, and even repays her by putting her in a sleep hold and stealing her uniform, hoping it will lessen Salia’s punishment for letting her get away. I’m not convinced Embryo will be so forgiving to a tool that turned out to be defective.

Plot and character really went hand-in-hand in this well-composed episode, with the anti-Embryo parties starting to coalesce. Jill gives Hilda command of the Aurora and Libertus; Tusk, Vivian, Roselie, and the rest of the crew are behind her plan to rescue Ange. Ange is able to summon Villkiss and escape with Momoka.

Her escape is covered by Salako, which would be an awfully convenient effect, if it didn’t have such a solid cause: Momoka shows an act of kindness and forgiveness by freeing the battered Riza Randog, who is able to contact her Dragon commander. So nice assist from Momoka, an unsung heroine of the series.

Even if Embryo has control over the bodies and minds of all who oppose him, in the case of Hilda with Jill, Momoka with Riza, and Salia with Ange, the capacity for genuine kindness, forgiveness, and love may be effective weapons against him. But at the end of the day, while his methods repel, Embryo is no entity of pure evil. He too a victim of his own immortality, arrogance, and the belief he must bear the entire weight of the world upon his shoulders.

That means if his creations find a way to really kill him, he may not necessarily resist that chance to be freed from his curse, thus ending obsession with “getting humanity right this time.”

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo – 19

Back from her DRAGONcation, Ange saw the Arzenal/Libertus “new normal” aboard the Aurora last week, only to learn that Jill wasn’t someone she could count on to accomplish her goals. When she leaves the Aurora with Tusk, Momoka, and Vivian, they’re quickly captured by Ersha, Chris, and Salia, and we travel back to Misurugi, where it all began, and to these girls’ “new normal.” Of course, first the show acts as if Ange was fatally shot, but obviously she’s not dead.

Momoka couldn’t be happier to be back in the capital, dressing and tending to her princess. Ange is looking for escape. She finds it when Salia comes in throwing her weight around; the new captain of the “Order of the DIamond Rose.” (So lame.) Salia explains how Embryo saved her and gave her everything she ever wanted because he loves her. Ange’s response is why she’s not called the Burn Princess for nothing: “You were adrift in the world, and then a new owner picked her up.”

She pokes Salia in her boob with a pen and quickly overpowers both her and her two subordinates, even getting in a dig at Salia’s new uniform, saying the Pretty Salian cosplay suited her better. In terms of physical and psychological dominance, Ange really rules the day in this scene, even if I still have quite a bit of sympathy for poor Salia, who was raised to obey, not dominate. And Embryo did save her from a terrible drowning death.

As soon as I saw the little Arzenal orphans running around the palace grounds with Ersha, I knew why she went over to Embryo. He literally brought the little ones back to life and let Ersha bring them to Misurugi to care for them.Ersha has what she’s always wanted: to be able to protect the children, and like a momma grizzly, she’ll show no mercy to anyone who threatens them, even Ange.

Like Salia, Chris was abandoned and left for dead, only to be saved and befriended by Embryo. And all Chris ever wanted was a friend. Embryo even lets Sylvia, who is still very much insane, lead a naked Riza around like a dog and whip her when she brings her the wrong book in the library.

It isn’t until halfway through the episode that Ange comes face to face with Embryo, who immediately gives Salia pause when he asks to be left alone with the princess. Just like Jill, he’s far more interested in Ange, who is the first human in a long time who has interested him more than the characters in his beloved books. That’s another way of saying the likes of Salia don’t interest him. He’s given her everything she wants, but in exchange for her allegiance, and with the understanding that there isn’t anything deep or profound beneath any of it.

Embryo takes Ange far beneath Misurugi to show her Aura, whose plight she’s already learned from Salako. Ange uses Embryo’s lowered guard to pull a gun on him, but no matter how many times she kills him, he comes right back, like a bishonen Kyuubey. It’s clear this is an enemy unlike any other Ange has faced: one with the powers of a god. A god who “tunes the sound of the world” can’t be defeated with guns.

Embryo turns the tables by putting Ange into some kind of hypnotic trance, telling him all of the love, peace of mind, friendship, trust, and belonging he’s given her former comrades. He offers those same things to Ange, and even gets her to undress before him so he can get a good look at what is to be his prized possession and tool.

Then he kisses her, Ange remembers her true knight Tusk, and snaps right the fuck out of it. Far from being hurt that she’d rebuke him so coldly, the mere fact that she could resist him is, arguably, even more preferable to her easily falling under his spell. Ange is a part of the world Embryo created and should be able to tune her like anyone or anything else…but he can’t.

This golden-haired, fiery-eyed princess is living proof his powers aren’t limitless, a claim that hasn’t been challenged for thousands of years. Perhaps those centuries have made him weary, and this is what he’s been seeking all along; what Salia and even Jill couldn’t provide (as it’s clear from her nightmares she was under his thrall): a human heart and will that can truly resist him.

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo – 18

Ange arrives aboard the Libertus flagship and mobile HQ Aurora, with her knight, filled with flowery ideas about convincing her former Arzenal comrades to join forces with the DRAGON to put out the Light of Mana. Unfortunately for her, Jill isn’t going to fight with people she doesn’t trust, and she sure as hell doesn’t trust the DRAGONs; nor does anyone else aboard the sub. Why would they, after all the death and destruction their raids caused?

The Aurora is shiny and bright and being run just as Arzenal was, but I’m glad the episode shows us that wasn’t always the case. Seeing the state of the Arzenal survivors when they first set off, it’s not surprising that if Jill kept them alive they would rally around her cause, even if the odds were hardly in their favor.

Jill held the crew together…well, most of them; Salia, Ersha, and Chris deserted and joined Embryo, which will prove telling later in the episode. I was also glad for the “slice-of-life aboard a rebel submarine” after. Momoka’s role as ship’s cook; the three bridge girls becoming mail-riders; a drunk and depressed but still grateful Emma; and especially Hilda, who’s really happy Ange is back, and even happier she hasn’t slept with Tusk yet. Hilda and Ange have had their spats, but they’ve come out of it all as something resembling friends, and it’s clear Hilda wouldn’t mind if they became something more.

But I knew something about Jill’s mission is off, and we should have seen it coming when Roselie, one of the most oblivious and least informed characters on the show, says “Jill is only one we can trust in the world.” An enraging memory of being beneath a nude Embryo seals it: liberating the world isn’t as important as her personal vendetta, which twists into an obsession within the cramped confines of the Aurora. Whenever she says “Libertus”, she’s actually referring to her own selfish whims.

She tells Ange she’s changed her mind about working with the DRAGON, but only to use them as cannon fodder, one more tool to reach her goals. Ange refuses to obey, but Jill is ready for that, having endured the bitter taste of the princess’s insubordination many times before, by threatening to toss Momoka out of an airlock if Ange doesn’t fall in line. And now we know: Jill has become Admiral Cain.

Tusk’s very suspicious late-night visit to the paramail hangar (this is a submarine carrier,  donchaknow) is explained, as he releases gas throughout the ship while he, Ange and Vivian don gas masks. Tusk may be a horny fake-klutz, but he’s also one hell of a knight for Ange, preemptively preparing an escape route should their encounter with Libertus go sour, which it surely did, and in a breathless hurry.

But, again, it’s all because of Jill. The other Arzenal elders didn’t know about the hostage, nor did they know how bad Jill’s obsession had grown. Because this isn’t just about her killing Embryo for some wrong he perpetrated against her. This is about righting the wrong that was her failure. She failed as Vilkiss’ pilot, but she can save face if she makes Ange succeed for her. It doesn’t matter to her anymore how many of her own people or how many DRAGONs have to be sacrificed.

Jill recovers from the gas and blocks Ange’s path, but Ange puts the still-woozy ex-commander down with a slick-looking kick, obviously the product of her military and athletic training as princess. Ange’s response to Jill’s scheming: “No one knows what’s right…But I hate the way you get things done!” She then takes to the air with Tusk, Momoka, and Vivian, and enjoys the gorgeous blue sky and warm sun, and even flashes a cute Nausicaa pose before Ersha zooms into range…and not to say “Hi.”

Ange decides she’ll destroy Embryo herself, in her own way. Jill is right that Ange has been through all kinds of hell and torture and has every right to want to destroy the world, regardless of who’s giving the orders. But Ange has changed. She wants to create a world where she can look Momoka, Vivian, Salako, Hilda, and Tusk in the eye without the shame of having used them as tools to satisfy her thirst for revenge. She wants to protect and preserve, not exploit and punish.

Stray Observations:

• “If you want to play with your boyfriend in a pink flower garden, do it after our mission is accomplished!” – Harsh burn from Jill.
• The Opening sequence has been tweaked to include new shots of the Aurora crew, and one interesting still of Hilda holding a nervous Tusk…as Roselie holds Hilda’s hand. I know, these images bear only slight resemblance to actual events in the show, but it’s an interesting choice
• Tusk casually points out he’s not actually a Norma, but no one is listening.
• Jill is awful this week, but the show makes sure as villain-y as she gets near the end, she’s far from pure evil, merely incredibly wounded and misguided, with a great weight on her shoulders.
• I’d say she still has compassion since she let Emma stay with them, but that’s probably because you can never have too many magic-users in your quiver. Another tool, in other words.
• In the preview, Hilda laments that she only got a little screen time this week, only to be missing from the events of the next episode. Poor Hilda.
• That same preview shows a naked Salia in what I assume Embryo’s bed, proving Ange’s burn/guess correct.
• If one considers that at some point in the past Alektra was also in that bed, the romantic web and its resultant emotional fallout grows ever more complex. Like A/Z, Ange has taken a more space opera vibe in its second half: All the conflict begins and ends in bed, or more generally, in people’s hearts.

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo – 17

Yeah…he’s definitely going to trip on that screwdriver

While the idyllic limbo of the DRAGON world just suffered a brutal assault, it remains an idyllic limbo, one where Ange must decide whether to stay in, or return home. Tusk, committed to being her knight, will support whatever decision she makes. This is what a knight does: his life is no longer his own.

Ultimately, Ange decides she has to go home. Messed up as it is, it’s where she truly belongs, and it’s where her beloved Momoka is. Salamandinay grudgingly accepts her decision to return, worried that they may have to fight against each other again, but Ange says whatever else she does moving forward, she’s done fighting the DRAGON, so Salako needn’t worry.

Vivian is caught between wanting to stay with her mom and going back home to her friends/sisters-in-arms, but her mother uses a nifty analogy to set Vivi’s mind at ease. She’s grown out of her baby clothes, so it stands to reason she’s grown out of her baby home as well.

Ange, Tusk (whom she finally refers to as her knight, to his knight delight), and Vivi follow the massive DRAGON force through the singularity into Embryo’s world, and find themselves far off course. Turns out Riza’s intelligence was falsified, and they teleported right into an giant ambush.

It becomes painfully apparent Ange’s world didn’t stand still while she was gone; the remnants of Arzenal First Troop have picked their sides. Salia has gone over to Embryo (and Ange even wonders out loud whether Salia’s sleeping with the creep), and in return, she’s been given a ring and a black Villkiss all her own; finally able to be the leading heroine Jill never let her be.

Chris and Ersha are also with her; the former not surprisingly, the latter, a little. They went over to Embryo despite the fact they knew DRAGONs are people, like Vivian, so it’s not like they were in the dark, but it’s also important to remember that all three of these girls were orphans born and raised within Arzenal’s walls, and remain children, who have yearned for a father figure for a long time. It’s understandable they’d be taken in by Embryo’s rhetoric.

Another day at the office for these three

That Salia is now the captain also means she gets to give formations magical girl designations like “Shining Rose Triangle!”, something Chris isn’t that on board with. It’s a great character beat for all three of these former allies.

Embryo orders Salia’s team to take Ange into custody, but Tusk and Vivi aren’t having it, with Vivi pulling off an awesome stunt by dropping out of the sun and C4’ing the cables. Salia’s squad regroups and grabs Ange again, but she’s able to activate its teleporter again (by hitting it and yelling, naturally), just as Tusk and Vivi fly into its radius.

They end up back on the abandoned Arzenal Island, where it all began, with no more of an idea about what the heck they should do next. Then a catalyst for that decision comes ashore in the form of Momoka, Hilda, and Roselie, in frogsuits that give them a start at first, but quickly morphs into elation.

Again, this group makes sense. These three were able to escape aboard Jill’s sub, Hilda and Roselie were able to patch things up where Hilda and Chris weren’t, and Momoka was going to wait for Ange as long as it took, like Hachiko in a maid outfit. In a very Hilda Power Move, she grabs Tusk’s junk and concedes, a bit incredulously but genuinely, that he’s a man after all, as he was able to keep Ange alive to this point.

So where do we go from here? I think it’s probably a given that a world with Mana is unsustainable, and as difficult as it will be, that world has to end. Maybe Jill’s resistance and the DRAGONs can team up against Embryo? Could there be a peaceful resolution? Will Embryo go quietly, or break out some heretofore MEGAmail? Cross Ange still has eight eps to sort it all out.

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo – 16

Cross Ange is completely comfortable changing its tone, mood and focus each week and sometimes what it chooses to be can be interesting and other times… not as much. This week, it was an over-the-top comedy, followed by a dreadfully terrible conflict sequence.

If I wanted Cross Ange to be a comedy, I think I would have enjoyed this week a decent bit. Unfortunately, that’s not really what drew me to the show sixteen episodes ago and I was completely un-engaged from start to finish.

To sum up, this week pitted Salamandinay against Ange at an arena, where we get to laugh at how seriously they take each recognizable earth sport, or how sports-anime-like their rivalry goes.

Then the girls become friends through their rivalry and a space time tornado shows up and destroys things until Ange takes command and gets Salamandinay to fire her world-destroying weapon in a way that saves the day and only unnamed side characters die mostly off camera so all ends well.

Honestly, nothing worked at all in this episode, so I’m going to hop right into what didn’t and that starts with Ange herself. Ange’s spiteful, confrontational personality felt out of place last week and, while the show desperately tries to sell me on the idea that Ange knows Sala wants to use her as a tool, Ange misses every opportunity to use Sala back… or make any workable alternative plan of her own in the mean time.

Worse, after some sports the princesses become best friends, which makes Ange’s outbursts here and last week feel pointless and plot delaying.

Even without Ange’s personality draining my interest, the conflict that consumes the final third of the episode was just a drag. Yet again, we as viewers have to sit through a lengthy scene where characters say how terrible it all is but ARE SITTING THERE not doing anything except telling us how terrible it is.

There’s no sense of tension in the tornado scene. It’s there, doing… something… to the Dragon city but it doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. At least, not unless it’s threatening Vivian’s mommy. Otherwise, it’s just there waiting to be solved by our heroines.

If I had to choose one thing I actually liked, it would be the unintentionally funny scene where we see Vivian’s mother’s family photo where she and Vivian are posed together. Sure, Vivian is younger and happy and we’re meant to accept that this proves that she really is Vivian’s mom.

Except she’s wearing the same clothes that’s she’s worn since she was introduced 2 episodes ago. Which would mean she hasn’t changed in the decade since Vivian went missing…

Braverade’s Take:

Cross Anko is a show in search of a higher score, but my conditions for bestowing one depended on whether we’d be past the crossroads Ange reached: would she decide what to do? Yet, for everything that happened this week, she’s not that far removed from her position at the end of last week. That’s not a lot of movement, so 7 it is. Don’t get me wrong, I consider a 7 a fair and respectable score for what we got.

While Ange still isn’t clear what to do yet, it’s ultimately the desire to protect Vivian that motivates her to heroic action, requiring collaboration with “Salako.” Unfortunately, that teamwork occurs during a spacetime attack, apparently by Embryo, that was very confusing and free-wheeling. If he was capable of wreaking this level of destruction on the Dragon world, why is it even still here, let alone maintaining large sports centers?

Along with the requisite AngexTusk “Rom-antics”, I actually quite enjoyed Ange and Salako going at it in tennis, baseball, ping-pong, auto racing, golf, etc. Heck, even Twister suggested these two were quickly running out of ways to ‘fight’ each other (and was half-surprised Tusk didn’t find a way to fall on top of them).

The games improved Salako’s opinion of Ange, just as her cooperation improved it to the point Salako wants to be friends with her once the danger passes. I like the fact we have two princesses, one of whom is trying to get the other out of forced retirement. But is Vivian, dear as she is, really the only thing Ange cares about protecting?

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo – 15

As Tusk and Ange (who were allowed to dress) get carted off with Vivian to somewhere they know not where, this week begins by acknowledging that yes, it was cruel for the dragon girls to interrupt them in flagrante delicto. The episode certainly makes it up to him later (er…sorta?), but Ange’s “There’s no time for that now!”, while both practical and funny, is utterly unsympathetic to male biology.

Still, there really isn’t time for sexytime. After taking it easy and exploring this strange new world on their own, they now find themselves in the clutches and at the mercy of the dragon girls, who I must say have one exquisitely picturesque capital.

Fish-out-of-water culture shock ensures, as Ange and Tusk are brought before a council of priestesses who all shout questions at her. Our fiery Ange is having none of it and refuses to cooperate, which is great. Why the hell should she? Because they have swords pointed at her and are threatening execution? Pfft. Been there, done that. “Bring it on, if you can.”

The dragon girl Ange once fought, a princess in her own right named Salamandinay (which I’ll henceforth shorten to Sala) emerges from behind a curtain. Amused by Ange’s brash impudence, Sala steps in to take responsibility for Ange and Tusk’s lives. She’s immensely proper and polite, showing the two to comfy quarters and offering tea, but when her subordinates deign to make her repeat her orders to leave, you see a tinge of her own hellfire lurking beneath that serene visage.

With no reason to trust Sala, Ange repays her kindness by breaking what was probably an antique tea bowl and using a shard to initiate a standoff. You have to hand it to Ange, she knows how to handle herself, and has had it with waves of pleasantries obscuring the truth she seeks, whatever the hell it is. She’s also willing to test if Tusk is truly ready to die for her at the drop of a hat.

Sala defuses the situation and bids that Ange accompany her to the bowels of the ruined Dawn Tower (called Aura Tower here), where Sala proceeds to lay the truth on her: There are two worlds, this one being where humans originally came from. After war, some left to create Ange’s world, while others stayed and fundamentally changed their genetic makeup in order to repair the planet’s damage, and their own.

The most damning truth is the fact that the first dragon, Aura, who is essentially mankind’s savior in this world, is no longer there, but being imprisoned on Ange’s world beneath its Dawn Tower, and is the source of the Light of Mana (thanks to Embryo). The Light isn’t infinite, so the powers that be replenish it by slaughtering the DRAGONS who stray into their world.

Ange finds all of this fascinating, but it doesn’t change the fact that the world she’s from and the battles she’s faught aren’t “false” to her, and she has to go back. Sala won’t let her, and demonstrates the gap in power between them by choking Ange out. Sleep, fair, spastic princess.

Ange awakes nude in last week’s hotel room as Tusk brings her coffee, and they have a perfectly casual talk about her dream, and then Tusk morphs into an evil Sala and Ange wakes up again, to find Vivian is back in her human form. The double dream is a nice indication that Ange has just ingested a large about of stuff, and she’s still trying to make sense of what’s real. She also probably wouldn’t have minded if the dragon girls had given her and Tusk just five minutes…

The rank-and-file dragon girls were not idle as Ange slept: Tusk is the first mature male in human form any of them have ever seen (all the males here are big dragons) which is a pretty big deal. As such, he is stripped down and used as a live, unwilling subject for a sex education lesson, which consists mostly of a bevy of scantily-clad dragon girls poking and prodding him every which way.

Ange bursts in, suddenly Tusk’s knight in shining armor, only to trip on a bottle. In doing so, she learns just how easily one’s face can happen to land right smack-dab in someone’s crotch, and just like that, we’re tuned into to Cross Ange: Fellatio of Angels and Dragons.

Obviously it’s not shown, but it’s implied that Tusk’s erection goes straight into Ange’s mouth, after which she swallows, dusts herself off like nothing’s amiss, and then asks what the meaning of all of this is. She blames and fumes at Tusk for this predicament, even though she was out cold, he was all alone, vastly outnumbered, and tied down; and all of this with blue balls. So I ask you: what the heck was Tusk supposed to do?

Knowing the meter is running, the episode promptly tables the smut, and after Ange has calmed down, Vivian is reunited with her dragon mother. Vivi isn’t interested at first, but her nose knows: this is someone she used to know. This underlines the fact that the war between the two worlds isn’t as simple as Us vs. Them; there are children of both sides, and innocents on both sides that must be protected.

That night, Sala spearheads a pretty lantern-launching shindig to celebrate Vivi’s return, Sala’s subordinates relay her wish that Ange and Tusk enjoy their stay and consider joining her crusade of acceptance, forgiveness, and restoration…and Ange finds it in her heat to forgive Tusk for letting himself get captured and sexually assaulted.

A lot happened this week: some of it intriguing, some of it downright silly; but Ange is still faced with the same basic situation she was in last week: she finds herself in a new, less messed-up world where she could live and forget about the messed up world she came from happily ever after, with Tusk (assuming she can keep the other girls off of him).

The difference is, now she knows all the details with which to inform her ultimate choice, which Tusk will surely go along with whatever it is, because he’s her knight. Does she stay here? Does she go home and resume the fight against Vivi’s people (not easily done, considering how tough Sala is)?

She can’t really deny her world is a world of theft, greed, destruction and despair. On the other hand, it’s her world. If there’s a way to eliminate those things, as they’ve seemingly been eliminated in the dragon world, she’s going to want to be on point in that effort, because she’s no longer an the idle Princess Angelise with her head in the sand. She’s Ange.

Stray Observations:

• Sala is voiced by the ethereal Hocchan (Horie Yui).
• Sala heard about Ange from Riza Randog, who we know is a dragon lady. That means the dragons have had one of their own in the emperor’s bed for some time. I imagine she was going to betray him eventually.
• I was able to shorten Salamandinay to Sala because Salia wasn’t in this episode, but it makes me wonder if their names sound similar and they look similar for a reason, as Sala is the chosen magical girl heroine Salia has always fantasized about becoming.
• No matter how much sympathy for their cause Sala manages to build, there’s a part of me that thinks we still don’t know the complete picture. These dragons may yet be the bad guys. This is Cross Ange we’re talking about.
• The mind races to fathom which sexual acts will accidentally befall AngexTusk in the weeks to come. Will the show ever let them just have regular, okay sex?

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo – 14

Ange, Vivian and Tusk awake in the ruins of what was once a great city that is obviously Tokyo. Vivian is in dragon mode and Ange rides her around to gather recon, which not only gives us plenty of glamour shots of blown-up-Tokyo but confirms our hapless heroes’ fears that they are entirely alone.

Then a perfectly functional robot zips by informing them that space is available at the central defense force’s shelter. So Team Ange wanders off to investigate what that’s all about.

Piles of dead people, so it turns out. But also a computer, who’s chipper female avatar INFO-DUMPS us some back story about World War 7, the fall of the human race, and ultimately the destruction of everything by wars end  via BLACK VILLKISS(es)

Also, that this all happened more than 500 years ago, which depresses the hell out of Ange, who’s decided Tokyo is her home country due to the Dawn Pillar being present.

In her funk, Ange is rather unthinking about her criticism of Liberatus to Tusk, who’s parents were both killed fighting in it. She also yells at Vivian.

However, after seeing cute knick-knacks in an underground shopping area, she changes her mind and gives Tusk a necklace and they make up. Then they find a hotel with clean beds and a nice bathroom and spend the night.

Following some soap-flavored Ange-candy (and Vivi-washing) Ange and Tusk have an incredibly awkward and/or hilarious admission of liking each other and try to get some sleep next to each other in the same bed because Tusk broke the couch he wanted to sleep on by sitting on it.

COMEDY GOLD!

Then Dragons show up, complete with more elf rider-girls like the one we saw a few episodes ago, and this episode comes to a close…

Good:

• We almost went the whole episode without Tusk jamming his face in Ange’s crotch for once and the lack of exploitation was a nice change of pace.
• We received a lot of information about the world and, while it was via info-dump, things make a lot more sense now.
• It was a nice twist that Japan was destroyed by a nation that invented mecha instead of Japan being the source of mecha, which would be more typical for anime.
• One or two of Tusk’s lines were actually pretty funny! (intentionally or not)

Not so good:

• The pacing was sluggish, with jerky info-heavy moments and none of it reinforced the sense of loneliness, isolation or fear. It’s just another weird place for Ange to be, wherever it is.
• Ange and Tusk have no chemistry and the romance-thread feels as forced now as you would anticipate from Tusk’s first episode.
• I can’t decide if the over-the-top back story, Vivian’s dragon ‘whale song’ talking or the introduction of elves is profoundly stupid or profoundly stupid in a way I should just accept as how Cross Ange does things.

Verdict: This week was watchable, and advanced the plot efficiently-ish with limited skin-ploitation, which are all good things. That said, Ange has become less and less pretty to look at as time runs on and the story it is efficiently telling has gotten more and more ridiculous too.

As a series, I imagine Ange is what I imagine doing Bath Salts is like. At the beginning, it seems insane but straightforward, then it gets twisted and warped and you don’t know what anything means anymore, then you feel ill as the high crashes away and you’re left with a bleak world littered around you and half your neighbor’s fingers still digesting in your stomach.

Braverade’s Take:

When the Villkiss teleported Ange, Tusk, and Vivi away last week, I assumed they probably went to wherever dimension the DRAGON came from. Thus I was prepared for an entirely new and ultimately successful setting for the purpose of teasing a paradise for Ange. 538 years in the future, they’re literally the only two humans left.

This was, in a way, a scaling-up of the infamous island episode, only better in every way. The ruined Misurugi capital, which is actually Tokyo (the Sky Tree, Rainbow Bridge, and Diet are all present) is a far more interesting and awe-inspiring setting, helped by the mystery that initially surrounds it and some of the best musical tracks of the series. Watching Ange soar over the foliage-covered ruins aboard Vivi is a surreal, gorgeous shot. As such I can’t quite agree with Franklin that the show is “getting less pretty to look at”.

Once they learn when they are and what happened from “Shelter Siri” (an infodump, but at least an infodump they tried to present in a practical manner, what with the holo-imagers) Tusk believes it, but Ange instantly calling it bullshit is true-to-character.

It also helps that Tusk—and the show itself—are on their best behavior, as if they’d learned from the backlash to the island episode. Vivi stays in DRAGON form throughout, so there’s no naked loli. Ange never wakes up naked with a Tusk looming over her. They do end up in what looks like the love hotel near Amagi Brilliant Park, but Tusk doesn’t barge in on her bath, and when Ange opens her robes, it’s her decision, and because, well, she has needs just like anyone else…and he is the ‘last man on earth’.

Ange’s advances, along with her sentiment about this whole situation perhaps being for the best, are both dashed when a DRAGON shows up with two Ragna-Mail riders responding to a distress call. The show insists on getting one super-quick facecrotch in—the proverbial insolent child or dog doing something it knows is wrong.

This was a vast improvement over the last Ange+Tusk episode (not a tough achievement, but still). It was helped by its fresh setting, by the presence of Vivian, by the show’s restraint, and finally the tenderness with which it treated the romance of a couple who, let’s not forget, are both greatly wounded souls with vast weights on their shoulders.

No, it’s not Shakespeare, but their pairing at least makes sense and is being treated more seriously. And Tusk, while not ideal, is certainly Ange’s best choice for an opposite-sex romance in the show.

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo – 13

Cross Ange wastes no time getting back into the swing of things, picking up where we left off: an obviously phony ‘rescue flotilla’ commanded by Julio. He’s only after Angelise, Villkiss, and other Mail Riders, and he gives orders to exterminate the rest.

Everyone has to decide what to do quickly. Jill proclaims the official start of the rebellion and orders all of Arzenal’s defenses turned against Julio’s fleet. She also orders Salia to retrieve Ange at all costs. Yes, retrieving the real savior is now pretty much the most important thing poor Salia can do.

Ange isn’t interested in going along with Salia or Jill. At the moment, she’s only thinking short-term: Get Julio. Momoka helps spring her (with pepper, of all things), and after assessing the slaughter (and taking out child-killing soldiers whose defense is ‘just following orders’, which is never a good defense) she races to Villkiss.

Even though she’s totally outmatched, Salia still tries to stop Ange, who is having none of it, trashing Salia’s mail and ditching her in the sea. Salia must watch helplessly as the woman who has all the power and privilege and importance she doesn’t have utterly reject it for her own reasons.

Back in Arzenal’s wreck of a landing bay, Hilda displays bravery and selflessness despite the odds, even literally taking a bullet for Chris, whom she scorned so bitterly not too long ago. As the three reunited girls take off, an errant human solider gets a headshot on Chris. Damn.

However, the cutting back to Chris, followed by Embryo eventually healing her, makes this nothing more than a close call, though at this point both Hilda and Rose still think she’s dead.

Free of Salia, Ange paints the sea red by sinking every ship in Julio’s fleet before slicing off the front of the bridge where he cowers and bargains for his life. Before Ange can finish him, Embryo blocks her blow with his own paramail, not wanting her ‘divine flame’ to be tarnished ‘burning useless things.’ He kills Julio himself, likely pissed off the emperor launched the Arzenal attack without his leave.

While Julio is eaten up by the white light of destruction, and Good Riddance, Riza takes wing and escapes—topless, no less—suddenly down a royal puppet. I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of her, boring a character as she is. Meanwhile, with no one left alive on Arzenal, Jill sets off with the survivors aboard the submarine Aurora (which we’re just now hearing about) to start her rebellion in earnest.

“Own-Agenda Ange”, meanwhile, does something else new with her Villkiss when Embryo targets an approaching Tusk (with Vivian), who says Embryo is a very dangerous dude (and is probably right). Villkiss turns blue, sidles up to Tusk’s ride, and they teleport away before Embryo can destroy him.

Good:

• A great overarching sense of all hell breaking loose, because it does
  
• Nice character beats with Ange/Salia hitting a new low and Hilda/Chris/Roselie reconciling
• Tusk was used sparingly but well this week, kicking ass and saving Vivian.
• Julio’s dead. Who’s in charge of the empire now?
• The new opening theme is fantastic.

Not so good:

• Julio’s fleet and assault force was awfully easy to defeat.
• A lot of people died, and died horribly, but they were all nameless extras.
• Where the heck did that awesome sub come from?
• Another “Tusk and Ange on an island’ episode next week. Oh dear…

Verdict: Lots of huge and exciting developments this week, delivered with confidence, if not finesse. We’ll see where they lead. The Norma are now far less numerous and more vulnerable without a base, but the empire took its licks, too. Not a bad start at all for Cross Ange’s second half.

P.S. I just discovered Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Gakuen, which is a comedy 4koma that puts the same cast in a high school setting. Take that for what you will.

Franklin’s Take:

This week got all the explodey-killy terror we’ve come to expect from Ange and… just sort of flailed around incoherently and undid the most meaningful emotional moments. Dead Chris and children revive, Vivian is rescued, and Ange still gets to win the day no matter how much she runs off on her own.

If i still thought as highly of this show as I once did, I’d wonder if the entire structure was making fun of red herrings. For example, the episode opens by introducing FIVE new mail pilots who, presumably, immediately die off camera.

But thirteen episodes in and I wonder how well thought out or intentionally critical Ange really is? Sure, it can be over the top and ruthless. But is it all just for shock value or is there a point to this?

For now, I’m not really sure…