Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo

The last episode came, many people watched it and at the end one thought was strongly resonating in their brain: "Why did we underestimate this anime so much?". The beginning of this anime may be the biggest hoax in the anime history. Not only it made no sense, but it was like in the middle of night while you were sleeping someone blew up your roof, killed your family and then told you that it was your fault and you should be punished. No sense right? Still, slowly but surely this anime showed that it was a lot more than that. Sometimes surprisingby the deep philosophical understanding of the human nature, and sometimes using its main card, the fighting, the best way possible. Many could say the entire premise of this anime was to not judge a book by its cover. No mater how ugly it may be, what is inside could be worth thousands of time more than a book with a cover that shines like gold. Anyway, lets do it the normal way: Story - 9, The story of this anime centers around a girl, Ange a royal princess, who at her coming of age ceremony is shown to be a Norma, a person not considered human in a society where everyone is using mana to control everything around them, thus making life easier. Everything falls into chaos, many sad things happen around her and after that she is sent to Arsenal, no, not the team, but a place where all Norma are disposed of, or so was believed. A lot of whining, hundreds of screams, enough to make you wish she was killed right on the spot. After a few episodes no one would wish the same thing. Not only because her character became a lot more interesting, but because the purpose of Arsenal is becoming clearer.The story becomes more and more complex as time passes so it should be impossible for someone to try to present the story in only a few words. There are betrayals, there is love, there is friendship, sadness,quite a lot of yuri, and we have an awesome antagonist who appears at the right moment. Still, its not like everything was perfect. There are a few blanks in the story, blanks that not only were not explained but it felt like a railway was missing some parts. For better or worse, we were made to forget about this and move on. I don't know if that part is to be explained in a movie, ova or maybe a second season, but it certainly needs one to explain a few missing parts without going back to the plot of the first season. Its the best ending for this anime and I really do not wish for everything to repeat in the same world as before. Now, after the story comes the art. Art - 9, Sometimes I wonder, how should we describe art? Some anime have such an ugly art that it would not be a surprise of everyone to hate that anime, but instead there are fans saying it receives a ten just because they feel like it fits. Sadly, I do not have the same opinion. Art is about beauty, about fluidity, about complexity, about impact. This anime excels at most, but some may say they could be even better just because .. . Anyway, every characters, robot, dragon looked awesome. Especially the dragons which didn't try to fit in the same criteria we were used to. Each battle was like a movie. They can make you forget to blink or breath. The only problem was its too fast pace. They moved to fast from one place to another and because of this it became tiresome to try to take in everything and instead were are left with the decision to only concentrate only on a few things forgetting about the rest. Sound - 10, extremely enjoyable. The bgm is very important, but its true role is to make you feel attracted to the story, which this one did. If a bgm attracts to much attention, be it good or bad, then it failed in its purpose. Some forget about this and rate it poorly or better only based on this. The ost, op, ed and especially the seyuu's are the most important. And all of them are doing their job perfectly. Characters - 10, Vivid, strong, beautifully. Each and everyone of them had what you could call charm. Their personalities, feelings, point of view were attractive mostly because there are so many that its impossible to not see at least one that shared your emotions and state of mind. I can say that in my opinion this anime strongest point were the characters. Enjoyment - 9, there is not much to say about this. It was a gem found in the garbage. If you can watch it with an open mind you will not only not regret doing it but you are also going to remember it as one of the most surprising anime in the entire history. Overall - 9, The story was not perfect, this is clear. A story that is short but also complex can hardly manage what Cross Ange did. Its divergent points were not only large in numbers, but also had its own characters which had to do their job in a way that wouldn't hinder the progress of the story. I'm going to re-watch it later this year for sure. Until then I can only recommend it to anyone who loves anime.

This is possibly one of the most underrated animes from the fall season. You can read my overall + my final thoughts/notes at the very bottom of the review if you're feeling lazy and just want some quick feedback on the anime. I can't lie the first 5 episodes was extremely hard to get through for many which lead to the anime being dropped early on, and also given a poor rating due to its evaluation being solely based off of these first 5 episodes. It is now one of the animes I look forward to watching every week, almost as much as "Your Lie inApril". Anyways, on with the review! Story: 7 The setting of the anime is that of a dystopia, it follows a Princess (Ange) who is stripped of all her rights after being revealed that she is a norma (which are like unwanted humans due to their inability to use "mana"). This is one of the weaker points of the anime, although the story isn't bad, it wasn't done correctly for to be anything too special. Don't get me wrong, the story isn't boring in anyway and is fairly interesting, just not above and beyond (hence the 7). A plus for the anime would be the unexpected twist and turns they have which sometimes really caught me by surprise, they often leave you wondering what may happen in the future. Overall its a decent story, but nothing too amazing. Art: 7 Honestly the art is pretty good the characters, background, "ragna-mail", and pretty much everything looks like it was done quite well. The animation is quite fluid and well done, and I honestly have nothing to complain about in this section. The art isn't exceptionally beautiful but it's pretty good, although you can notice the budget slipping in some scenes, but overall the art for all the characters + most of the animation is very crisp. Sound: 9 One of the reasons why you SHOULD watch this anime. The sound track that they have is amazing in my opinion, both their OST and their opening/ending songs. Their use of music is on point for most of the anime, although there were a couple of times I felt that the music could have been used more effectively. I read one of the other reviews saying how the anime's OST + openings/endings were bad, please don't listen to them and give it a chance BECAUSE THE OST IS AMAZING! Character: 9 Yeah so Ange is possibly one of the most BAD ASS female leads I've seen in a while. She is extremely strong willed and self-righteous and that is the part I love about her. I REALLY like characters that can look strong enough to take on the entire world yet can look really weak and docile the next. The character developments and the revealing of a characters true nature/past is really well done in the anime, although some of the characters story could have had some improvements (cough Embryo). Enjoyment: 9 I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed watching this anime, some parts could of had some minor tweeks, but it was a great anime to watch. To those who are able to watch all 25 episodes of this anime at once, I'm really jealous because you won't feel the pain I had to wait for this every week. :'( Overall: 8 I'll repeat this again, I love a strong female lead that can take on the entire world, but in the next second can be really docile, weak and in need of protection and support. Cross Ange is a mecha anime that is really well made, if you look over a few of the poor things that they have done. I promise all you mecha fans that you will thoroughly enjoy the animes OST, great animation, interesting characters and their unique background story (PREPARE A TISSUE BOX WHEN THEY'RE REVEALING SOME OF THE CHARACTERS BACKGROUND). They do quite a few plot twist and a bit of romance in the anime, however little that romance may be. But with respect to the lifestyle transition Ange has been forced to live in, the romance does feels really 'cute'. NOTE/FINAL THOUGHTS: -Please understand that this anime DOES contain mature content. -This anime is definitely one you should give a chance to (please at least give it until episode 6). -Review may be slightly biased due to my love for mecha animes. PROS: +Has an amazing OST. Really love their opening and endings + their music choice. +Ange is possibly one of the best female leads I've seen in a while. +Highly recommended for those who enjoy the following genres: Dystopia ,Ecchi, Mecha +The anime has enough plot twist to constantly surprise you & keep you interested. CONS: -Personally I really dislike it when something isn't suppose to happens, not going to say who but when someone is suppose to die, they really should die. -You may sometimes notice in the animation where the anime was being "efficient" with their budget. -Although their OST is really good, their timing for their background music could use a little work. -The pacing of the anime is quite good for most of the anime, but some parts could have been slowed down.

Disclaimer: This review is my own opinion, take it for what its worth. I will be breaking this down into the stages MAL uses for rankings as there is a lot to cover with this one. As normal I will do my best not to spoil and keep it to the broad strokes. In addition I will worn you now. Watching this with friends is a no no. YES it is a bit risque, YES there are some very confronting things about this show, but that is not what I am talking about. There are a lot of girls in this one, to the pointwear there are like 4 male characters. And this mas of girls is hot and I mean HOT. I am telling you this now because I will not be held responsible for starting waifu war 4. Why 4? Simple! Because we all know waifu war 3 started when HuniePop was released, get with the times people. Que theme music aaaaaand GO! Cross Ange: Tenshi to so on and so forth is an action, sci-fie, ecchi... ish anime that dose a splendid job of just about everything. It was a masterfully crafted peace from start to finish with only a small handful of what one might call "glaring" flows to it, but I don't want to scare you off it so I will leave them until later, like right at the end. For now, I must gush like the fan boy I am. This was without question one of the best things I have watched in at least a year. I was in love with this anime right from the first episode. It was fast paces but was not afraid to slow down the tiniest amount when it wanted you to feel things. It plays with the full gambit of emotions. Love, hate, sorrow and a hole bunch of others I cant seem to name coz well... I'm a guy, but trust me they are there and in spades. Not going to lie, there was a point in time this show jerked a tear out of my eye. Other times I was literally laughing out loud, right before being angry for the same reason. It was like a roller coaster of emotion, not a crazy one but from episode to episode it definitely gets you. Some of the time the feelings are not the sort you should have for animated girls but hey, that's never stopped us before am I right internet? The big kicker to it all though is that its all about the basics of human nature. The need to be in control or how we don't relay function alone. The fact that they tell the story with fuck off robots is just gravy. Ok that may have been a bit of spoils but if you haven't gotten that from the first two eps your likely watching this anime for the wrong reasons. 10 for 10 on enjoyment. Moving on... This first thing that hit me about this anime was the outstanding use of colour. I am a devout follower of the high and mighty "Lord Vivid Colours" and I can say without a doubt this anime would pleas him. The pallet was vast, all the colours and not just a splash on a brown back drop modern day FSP style. What starts as a peaceful setting drenched in bright pinks, yellows, blues and whites gos down a darker path as the mood of the show changes. The are quickly replaced by blacks, grays and reds but stay with me I am not taking back what I said earlier. It takes an episode or two but the colours return in full force as the disposition of the characters improve and the reality of the world sets in. When the mood is good the colours are bright. When it is bad the pallet changes to reflect it. It is as much a part of the story as anything else and it helps immensely with the fast pacing of the show that there are visual ques like this to help keep the viewer on track. On a less ranty note the art over all was very well done with a lot of sharp lines and easily identifiable shapes, nothing just blended into the back ground. Each peace of furniture and the people on screen were easily recognizable but it very rarely felt cluttered. The distinct lack of copy and paste throughout the show was also very refreshing. 10/10 art team, well done. Next down on the list of numbers is the characters. Good ol' characters. You know what? There are lots of them and they are good. Not what you might call amazing but considering the pace of the show (fast as hell), I think they have done really well. Almost everyone has at leas a minor bit of character development no matter how short there life span may be or how close to the main story they are. And on the off chance they don't get developed they are acknowledged strongly enough that you know they are real. No single character feels phoned in and aside from the occasional mob there is no mas melding of opinion, people are always butting heads over something. There are plenty of twists in the development of the main toon pile as well and most of the time it is a bit of a surprise. I say surprise and mean it but occasionally there are some ill timed or even impossible shifts in mood. This is another factor the dev team seemingly utilized in the telling of the story that mostly worked in there favor... mostly. As I mentioned before in my disclaimer there is a lot of girls in this one and it IS a touch ecchi so there was bound to be a good amount of.... let us say lesbianism going around. This is not entirely forced though. On many occasions it is in fact used to make a point about the world they are living in or to legitimately build character. Some times it works quite well as a point puter acrosser, but other times it falls short, and then there are times when it is just strait up fan service. It was unavoidable but it is also mostly good..... 8/10 characters let us move on. SOUND! Not a lot to say on this one. I am not one to pay much attention to the sound in anime, or anything really. Due to my work I have a gift for hearing when something is wrong but that is about it. With that being said I didn't hear anything wrong as fare as the soundtrack went in this one. The action pacing of it did mean there was always some sort of music going so a lot the background was drowned out but the fight noises were responsive and seemed different enough that they didn't just meld into explosion. Normally this sort of thing would only warrant a 6 or 7 from me but in this case its a solid 8 from the theme music. It just fits. I don't know what the words are in English, I didn't have that sub file, but it sounded right. So 8/10. Now the hard sell. Story. I say hard for what seems like a number of reasons, but relay its just one. I found it SUPER hard to pick up and follow over all. It seemed to take forever for the story to kick in and then it would piss off for an episode or two and come back. The hole thing was just so fast paced that each episode up until the last third felt like individual events that some how strung together. It was a simple mater to pick up on the "foreshadowing" for me but I cant say if that's because it was obvious or just my veteran status picking up the right bits. I know I have already told you how much I loved the different methods used to tell the story and I do stand by what I said. But telling a story well doesn't make it a good story. The problem being that this IS a good story. It is deep and full of emotion, conflict and real issues that face the human race, though it is a tad embellished (meh its anime). They just over paced it. It felt like they had something truly great in the works.... and then they gave it to Michael Bay. All being said there were no plot holes for me to dig out and the last 8 or so episodes saved it hard. I will be re watching this one down the line, probably after its dubbed, just to see if I can follow it a bit better. It dose have a somewhat "Blade Runner" feel to it in that I think I would understand more the second time around. So right now I am going with a soft 6. It was a good story when I could find it and it was told brilliantly and in interesting ways. But I can say it irked me how long it took to kick in and was defiantly not my favorite thing about this show. So to cap it all off. Right from the start this show goes hard. Balls to the wall. It's speed setting goes from about 8 up to 11+. It throws things at you constantly in what I assume is an attempt to keep you from following the story 100% but keep you entertained enough to keep watching, and it dos it SO well. All is grand with this show and I would say to all seasoned anime watchers to get on it. On the flip side though, if you are new to the sport of anime watching I would let this one rest till you have a winter or two under your belts. I have been at this game for almost twenty years (that's right I started animes when I was 7), and it took me a bit to latch on to this. I mean, I may just be a dumb ass. Stranger things have been proven true. But as a rule of thumb I find I pick up on things in anime quit well. I stand by the Masterpiece ratting I have given and defy any who think otherwise, but that's what the Internets are for and as I said, personal opinion. I have been Kergen and you have been reading this review. CONGRATS and go forth to bigger and better anime.

I can say with great confidence that Cross Ange is one of the trashiest, garbage series I have watched in quite a while. Its ridiculous amounts of over the top fan service and emphasis on shock and awe scenes are legitimate lunacy. However, after the travesty that is the first few episodes a compelling story begins to rise from the muck that is Cross Ange and give people a legitmate reason to keep watching besides the fanservice and some some good mecha action. The story begins by introducing us to our main heroine Ange, who lives in a world where magic is a used daily,and those without magic are a persecuted group of people called the Norma. Ange is pretty unlikable for the first few episodes, as she clings to the fact that Normas are inferior, despite the fact that she is revealed to be a Norma herself, apparently not realizing that not using Mana once in your life is a tell tale symptom. From there she is shipped off to a Norma prison island and told that she has to fight DRAGONs to save humanity, why in all caps? Apparently Sunrise thought it looked cool. From there Ange is introduced to the other Norma, who are all young girls, and the fanservice begins, and it's literary ridiculous. There's some weird rapey scenes, lesbian three ways to keep the plot moving, and Ange is naked for about 60 percent of her on screen time, a trend continues as the series moves on. The first few episodes will test if you are ready for this series, from going for over the top shock affect on issues such as racism, lots of nudity, and little girls getting lopped in half by giant dragons. It is as ridiculous as it sounds, and it sometimes hilarious to watch the over the top nature, and the series seems pretty self aware of just how trashy and bad it is. The cast of side characters initially aren't very important to the plot or are given much attention, besides the leader Salia and the head lesbian Hilda. There is also a guy named Tusk who lives on an island and rescues Ange at some point, and all of their conversations consist of him accidentally bury his head in her crotch or something like that, than Ange shouts "baka" and beats the crap out of him. That is basically a summary of that episode. However Tusk shows some interesting characteristics as well as brings up some mysteries about the world of Mana. The story starts to pick up near the end of the first half, when the narritive shifts from the island back to the mainland, where we are given a lot more depth into Hilda's character that makes her much more likable and understandable, and we once again see how ingrained the fear of the norma is in the people who use Mana. However a large battle breaks out on the Norma battle island, and during this battle we are introduced to the main villain Embryo, whose main attack as well as the other special mechas is powered by song. I wish I was making some of this up, but it seems like Sunrise started throwing crap at a wall until it stuck. The story starts to get more and more interesting after this point, and has some twists and shows us how exactly the earth has ended up in this state and the true nature of the DRAGONs, and some honestly genuine twist regarding the cast of characters and how they have been manipulated by the great Embryo, and seeing how he played off the weaknesses of each girl makes him a cool character to watch. They start throwing a lot of science jargon around during the end that feels like it could be replaced with a recording of Jesse Pinkman saying, "science bitch" over and over as it seems like they are just sputtering straight nonsense. Also there is a ridiculous deus ex machina near the end that left in tears as it tried to explain how a frying pain stopped a bullet and can also apparently save you from falling into a ravine and getting hit by an exploding car, its like they suddenly realized these characters are integral to the plot and has never heard of the no take back rule. But in all honesty, the second half is a vast improvement and has an interesting plot that can suck you in. The characters are very diverse, with most falling in the categories of being Ange, wanting to bone Ange, or strongly disliking Ange because they want to be her. Ange falls in the being Ange category, and starts off pretty dislikable, but quickly turns into the chosen one who pilots the special mech with great skill and cares deeply for her comrades and friends. Tusk falls into the wanting to bone her category, and is a skilled fighter and nice guy who helps out the Norma and is considered to be Ange's knight, which as a side effect grants invulnerability. Salia is the leader and falls into the hate us because they ain't us category, and is initially a fairly competent leader who keeps a steady head, but is insecure due to the fact that she was not chosen and Ange was. Hilda wants to bone Ange and starts off unlikable, but as she learn more about her and she softens up she is a fairly likable character who goes through some nice development. Embryo wasnt to bone Ange, is the ridiculous Op bad guy with a justified God Complex, and is actually interesting to watch how he toys with others and manipulates them to accomplish his will. i was also impressed with the later development of some of the other side characters, as it really shows what's going through their heads and proves they are more than just boobs and ass. Overall Cross Ange is a train wreck, but is one that you can;t turn away from. It's over the top scenes can make it hilarious, and it seems aware of this fact which is honestly pretty funny. the fan service is up to ridiculous levels, and I would advise if you choose to watch this series do it in a sealed room because if someone walks in on you during some of the more fanservicey scenes you are going to have some explaining to do. The plot really gets going as the show completes it's run, but you have to put up with the trash that is the first few episodes and be able to take a ready helping of fan service. Cross Ange is definitely an experience, and one i would recommend giving a try, even if you can hear cackling Sunrise execs counting their money as you watch the literal crap they put out that somehow turned out to be pretty good. Nest year we'll probably have a mecha series featuring fully naked girls fighting GRIFFINs in space while trying to bring down two gods in a separate dimension, with a healthy dose of lesbian three ways, but that goes without saying.

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