Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo

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

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

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

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Ikaruga Misurugi, Angelise Main

Mizuki, Nana Japanese

Schlievogt, Hildegard Supporting

Tamura, Yukari Japanese

Tusk Supporting

Miyano, Mamoru Japanese

Salamandiné Supporting

Horie, Yui Japanese

Vivian Supporting

Kuwashima, Houko Japanese

Salia Supporting

Kitamura, Eri Japanese

Embryo Supporting

Seki, Toshihiko Japanese

Oginome, Momoka Supporting

Uesaka, Sumire Japanese

Chris Supporting

Ogura, Yui Japanese

Jill Supporting

Honda, Takako Japanese

Fukuda, Mitsuo Producer, Episode Director, Storyboard

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

Yanase, Yuuji Episode Director

Itou, Tatsufumi Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Reviews

Mar 30, 2015

Nyron

Recommended

Cross Ange is a travesty. It's a horrible, stupid, illogical trainwreck of a show with shoddy production values that relies almost entirely on pandering to the lowest forms of human life and waving shallow moments of shock value all over the screen. The series has a narcissistic sense of self-awareness, and in each episode you can nearly hear a subtle narration by the director and other Sunrise execs laughing at how much of a moron you are for watching this garbage that they've put in front of you.

"Ha, I bet those glass-eyed imbeciles are getting bored, let's put in another lesbian threesome."

"No, not yet. Only ... after we show the loli whipping someone again."

That said, it's one of the best things I've seen out of this studio in years. With a big "Fuck you, Sunrise.", let's go into this.

Cross Ange is a lot of different things. Cross Ange is a magical princess show about knights and dragons. Cross Ange is a prison drama. Cross Ange is Mean Girls. Cross Ange is borderline yuri hentai. Cross Ange is Gundam Seed. Cross Ange is a catharsis for the type of person who has a Fetlife account. Cross Ange is what would happen if you made a Princess Peach anime starring Ronda Rousey. Cross Ange is proof that not only will Mizuki Nana play any role, but that she is also good at it. Cross Ange is anime madlibs where your only word choices are "lesbians", "dragons" and "kill".

The actual premise of the story is that a pampered princess named Angelise, a thoroughly awful person, is thrown out of her castle and put in an all-ladies jail when it's found out that she's a fraud. She's then forced to pilot a Gundam and fight dragons, because. And then she's bullied, molested or beaten up a lot, until she finally becomes "Ange", the greatest main character to ever appear in a Sunrise mecha show. Then the story becomes about rebellion, alternate timelines and dimensions, fighting god, virtual realities, and uhhhhh... Yeah. The story progresses through a flurry of ridiculous plot twists, comically evil villainous acts, and lesbian sex scenes. It's certainly not boring, but you will hate yourself for watching it. One of my favorite things about this series is what they do with the episode previews, where the characters break the 4th wall and banter about how ridiculous all this shit is.

My other favorite thing is that there are dragons in this show. But they're not dragons, they're DRAGONs, and they're called that because they're DRAGONs and not because they're dragons.

But really, the legitimate thing you're watching this for is Ange. Ange is amazing. She's logical, pessimistic, she cheats, she'll insult you and everything you stand for, disarm you and then shoot you through the face, twice. She's so out of the norm for an anime protagonist I can barely deal. She doesn't want harmony, she wants destruction. She wants to demolish everything that's wronged her. She's not a victim. The show is called "Cross Ange" because she's cross about 90% of the time. She is the one who knocks.

The rest of the cast is surprisingly good too. Cross Ange does a competent job at giving you multifaceted, developing characters to feel things about, even if those feelings are mostly hatred and/or pity. The other central females are almost all emotionally damaged in some way or another, and are in contrast to Ange, very fragile people. I thought this was very interesting, because not only is Ange a strong, domineering, unbreakable character on her own, but those qualities shine even more when you slowly see the deep-seated problems with everyone around her.

This series only has like two male characters. One of them is Kira Yamato from Gundam Seed, except that he's completely useless and a stooge 90% of the time. If you're ever worried about Ange being overshadowed or saved by her boyfriend, don't worry, he's the bottom in the relationship. This was also refreshing. Except for near the end where he actually starts doing things, that was lame and subverted a lot of the good things about his character and the show as a whole.

The other major male character is the central villain, Fetus-kun, who is also the most self-aware jab at otaku I've ever seen. The whole premise of his character is that he's his own OC, and is looking for the perfect waifu. It's insulting and hilarious at the same time, just like the rest of the series.

Animation-wise, Ange looks pretty okay at its best, and pretty bad at its worst. Gundam Unicorn this is not. The character and mech designs are also pretty bland, making the series not seem like anything relevant when looked at out-of-context.

The audio's good. Nothing to write home about. You get a bunch of Mizuki Nana and stuff. I can't recall much of the BGM at all even though I watch this series week by week. The recurring insert song sung by Ange is pretty memorable.

Cross Ange is a big damn spectacle with one of the best female leads in any anime. It's ridiculous and stupid, and even Sunrise probably hates you for watching it, so that means you should.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Apr 23, 2016

ZachM

Mixed Feelings

I haven't written a review in a long while. Mainly due to the fact that MAL got rid of the "Not Helpful" option for reviews, but I digress. Watching this fucking show enraged me so much that I couldn't hold back from throwing all of my pure, unadulterated hatred at it by writing a review. So sit back and enjoy my review of this shitty Sunrise show from 2014 called Cross Ange.

Hope I'm not too rusty.

[There's spoilers all over this review]

I went into this with whatever can be considered less than no expectations. Really I can't even remember why I wanted to watch it ... in the first place. Maybe it was that I heard the main character was kind of a bitch (she is), or that I wanted to get my monthly dose of bad fanservice mecha series, fuck if I know. Now despite all that, I watched the first 3 episodes, and was pleasantly surprised. It set up this princess girl Angelise as an idealistic prim and proper dunce who would kill a child if it wasn't like the rest of them, only to tear down everything she believed in, and make her change her ways. Violently forced away from her utopian world, and taken to the unfriendly Arzenal. She was beaten, harassed, defiled, and left with nothing but her self left in the world. With nothing left to believe in, she decided that she indeed would change. She cut her hair and turned into Ange, a straight up bitch who takes no shit from nobody. Now whether you believe that to be good character development or not, it's something at the very least. And it's more than I'd seen in a long while from a protagonist. There was actual change there, and I respected it for happening.

Continuing on now, there's a bunch of lesbian sex scenes, ass shots in the mechs, censored tits and whatnot, blah blah blah, and then Ange wants to go back home. Because her bratty bitch of an Imouto calls for help. She doesn't go back alone though, along with her comes Hilda, fiery redheaded twin tails girl. Another bitch who takes no shit from nobody, but has a goal of her own. She wants to get back home to see her mom who she was separated from years before. They both set their differences aside and set out together, then go their separate ways. When both of them realize that they were fools for even thinking of going back, they get captured, beaten, mocked, nearly die, and then go back to Arzenal. I don't know whether or not that whole sequence was like some kind of social commentary on how society becomes moronic and conforms to whatever they're told to no matter how stupid it is, or like how we insult and degrade those who aren't the same as us, I don't know. I feel like the show was accidentally making sense. Anyway, Hilda and Ange are thrown in a jail cell for a week together for deserting Arzenal. Now, these two really hated each other. But being confined in this tight space together for a long period of time would make them have to connect with each other to make sense of all that has happened. They had both gone home, and befell similar consequences, and they were able to flesh themselves out with each other in that jail cell. I'll sit here and say that was the best scene in the entire show. Then, they go and make a promise to each other that they'll destroy this awful world, this world that has wronged them for so long. And then episode 11 ends. And so ends everything good about this series.

I'll be honest. I loved the first 11 episodes. I really did. Sure there were tons of things that were just all over the place, but I found a way to really like it. Every character put on screen had some kind of genuine motivation to them, and they felt like real characters for once. They all developed in some ways, no matter how subtly, and it was very interesting to watch. They even began touching upon a possible relationship between Hilda and Ange, which would've been very very interesting, due to how they originally acted towards one another, and how they're lives had intertwined since. But alas, everything I could've wanted to happen, just, well...didn't. And there's one man to blame for it.

Tusk.

Tusk, I wanted him dead the entire show. This guy, this fucking guy. He comes in early on and helps Ange out of a jam, and I'd hoped I'd seen the last of him, but knew that couldn't be the case because he was so prominent in the Opening. I knew that he would drag this show down. There was no doubt in my mind. And low and behold, he did. The basis of his character can be summed up in few words. He's a guy (there's only really 2 in the whole fucking show), he falls in love with Ange after meeting her once, he inexplicably falls on her crotch 1534289069 times, and...nevermind that's it. He comes in as this living, breathing, infectious pile of generic blandness that single handedly destroys everything good in this show. Ange had new found morals, a new found goal, and was bound to turn into a regular ol anti hero we could all get on board with. But no, Tusk comes in and ruins everything. If you remove him from the show entirely, it wouldn't make a single difference. If you just replace everything he did, with Hilda doing the same, or Ange just being alone, it would've made the show much better. Rather than delve deeper into this budding relationship between Hilda and Ange, they throw Hilda away for a while in order to "strengthen the bond" between Tusk and Ange. Every time he was on screen I was filled with anger. He could not be more generic, and I've grown to absolutely disdain generic male characters in anime. There was no effort made towards making him into a decent character. If he wasn't so generic I probably wouldn't mind as much.

My main issue with him is the relationship between he and Ange. See, Ange comes off as this strong, independent, fearless girl who can do anything she wants and get anything done. But once she meets Tusk, all of that is thrown out the window. She completely changes her goal, and completely forgets about everything that's happened to her along the way. "Oh I've been beaten and spit on and psychologically damaged and possibly raped and nearly died at the hands of all humans, but I met this one guy so everything is okay now". It shouldn't have gone this way. It could've been something special, but no. Leave it to anime to add generic bullshit to something that was getting interesting only to ruin everything they set up. Fuck. Anyway, later HE DIES. He fucking blows himself up (or at least that's what was implied). All of my prayers were answered. But then, of course, for no explainable reason, he comes back, without even a scratch. Doesn't even tell us how he got back to his house, he must've just teleported there or something I don't fucking know.
And then they have 12 hours of intercourse.

Tusk ruined this show. And, while I may be overstating how good I think the first half was, it still was really captivating, even if for all the wrong reasons. If this had just stayed true and turned into a yuri fanservice mecha series throughout, with Hilda as best girl, than this would've been something I'd hold near and dear. But no. Fucking Tusk. Not only the worst character in this show, but I'd argue one of the worst in anime period. Never have I seen one man bring down an entire show just from his mere existence. Just tragic. I don't know if I'm the only one who feels this, but, whenever a romance happens on screen that I really don't like, it like, genuinely hurts to watch it unfold. Like, you know it's going to happen, and you know you can't do anything to stop it. I don't know man, it was painful. Shows that need no romance and yet have romance thrown into them just to appeal to more of a dumbass audience that appreciates these contrived relationships really irk me. I really wish romance could've just stayed out of it completely to tell you the truth. This originally felt like Akatsuki no Yona without Hak for a while (they both cut their hair too). Though I liked it even more when they isolated Ange as opposed to giving Yona a shoulder to cry on. Ange was left alone, and had she stayed alone, it could've made for better storytelling.

Oh well.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading my review (If this can even be called a review). I was more so venting my steam ranting than trying to make a compelling argument but I hope you had fun reading nonetheless. This felt like by far the most elitist I've sounded in a review, I guess I'm evolving. I'm becoming more and more aware of how bad the anime coming out are, and am starting to lose my faith in the industry as a whole. This show did not help with that. I never drop anime, which leads to me torturing myself with bad shit a lot. And this show just teased me, made me think it was good for a while, only to crumble under itself later. If I ever quit watching anime, I'll look to Cross Ange as the show that really did me in. If that is ever reason enough to tell you not to watch a show, well, then I don't know what is.

Goodnight everybody.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jul 17, 2019

Grain_of_Salt

Not Recommended

Cross Ange is a series that could’ve been really memorable and enjoyable. Sure, it was grimdark and dirty, with gratuitous fanservice and violence. But if that’s your cup of tea, the initial setup and writing was pretty good. Ange’s determination to be the best mercenary prisoner was engaging, her rivalries and battles with fellow pilots were interesting, and the underhanded prison setting was different with its bartering and infighting. It was by no means ever high art, but it was fun to watch and only seemed to be getting better. When Ange and Hilda bond, become a duo, and plan on destroying the rotten world, ... I was thrilled.

But…as a lot of stories do, Cross Ange tripped. Then stumbled again. Then fell flat on its face, drug anyone around down with it, and shoved its viewers faces into the dirt. Cross Ange became a disappointing, joyless, and uninspired show to watch, and the only thing that kept me going was the fact I used to enjoy it SO MUCH, surely there was SOMETHING good left in it? But no, Cross Ange only got worse and worse, and the latter half and finale almost feel like a personal and vigorous middle finger to anyone who enjoyed its first cour.

While degenerations like this aren’t unheard of, it is rare for such a clear highlighting of what caused its downfall. But in this case, it seems to be Mitsuo Fukuda and every change he made. Fukuda created the massively popular Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny that reinvigorated a dying Gundam franchise in the early 2000’s and seemed to have been given complete – or at least way too much – control over this series. Despite being the producer, in interviews the director and writer seem to be mere yes men, and nod and smile as they watch Fukuda discuss mangling their original concept. Plotlines were dropped (like Ange/Hilda, Ange’s entire character development, and…whatever was supposed to happen with Salamandinay and didn’t) to make room for Fukuda’s self-insert Tusk, who according to interviews was initially supposed to be a minor character who died and left the story. Tusk takes away any character’s development, agency, and even sexual orientation and embodies everything wrong with the worst bland harem power fantasy leads…despite this not even being the genre for that? And any rewrite, character or plot, was only made worse, and then made worse again once holes came up, if they were addressed at all. (Remember when Salia was a character and not a literal joke?) Every character that was either good, passable, or had decent moments becomes hollow, cliché, and usually contradictory to the majority of the story. The ending feels like a completely different story, and not in a “look how far we’ve come way”, but a very obvious hijacking of artistic integrity that was rushed to with no coherent effort. The finale left me wishing I never wasted time on Cross Ange, but unable to hate it fully because while the ending is one of the worst things I’ve seen in recent anime, the initial cour, or at least first 8 episodes were so good, even on rewatch. Cross Ange is a cautionary tale of giving too much power to producers who have no investment in the original product without drastically changing it to…whatever Fukada did with it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo Episode 25 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Mar 28, 2015	336 replies	by emeraldarcana »» Dec 6, 6:35 PM
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