As an audience diving into the first episode of Cross Ange I can say I remained hopeful but unimpressed. The pacing was rushed, the animation quality inconsistent and the characters felt like a cheap ripoff from Code Geass with an unnecessary sprinkling of fanservice. So many fundamental principles of storytelling were broken in that first episode and the show looked destined to be a trainwreck. Glimpses of rough-cut quality were buried underneath a shockingly paced series of events and an obnoxious protagonist whom reflected the deep-cut nature of racism and bigotry within this dystopian society. However buoyed by the positive things I had heard about Cross Ange, I plowed on. The story writing did not improve. Ridiculous plot twists were tossed around and used at ten times the frequency of a typical Sunrise anime. Whenever there was downtime in the fighting, yuri action littered the story as if to forcefully entertain its audience. The plot went through all sorts of nonsensical ridiculousness from dragons to alternate dimeonsions and fighting an immortal god. In writing it is not possible to make the plot of Cross Ange sound palatable. However, this is an extremely rare example where the sum of the parts far exceeded my expectations.
Firstly, I have to digress that not everything about the writing is a travesty. The willingness that Cross Ange expresses in killing of characters is extremely refreshing and provides a genuine sense of urgency and risk to every single scene. Contrasting this to the last mecha show I watched, Darling in the Franxx, is night and day since that anime collapsed under the weight of a lengthy cast that received neither sufficient character development to make a difference, nor suffered any casualties to fish for some cheap feels.
In my opinion, a huge part of the reason why this anime succeeds is because of its self-awareness. The fourth wall is broken on a frequent basis and as the show continues, it becomes clear that the writers understand that the writing is atrocious to say the least. The show degenerates into self-mockery to the point where as a viewer, it is not possible to treat the story seriously any more. And once that point is understood, Cross Ange truly blooms into a marvellous form of entertainment.
Whilst the writing of Cross Ange never truly improved, there is one thing that Cross Ange did better than any other anime I have ever watched. And that is the manner it was able to believably transform an arrogant pampered princess with a thoroughly condescending attitude into the greatest protagonist in animated history. People often say “no pain, no gain”. Ange is an amazing character like none other and the enormous amount of character development that she undergoes through the course of the entire show is what makes it so sweet. Her surrounding cast is similarly developed far beyond the simple cliched shells that they wore at the beginning of the show into multifaceted characters who evoke powerful emotions in the audience by themselves. On the other hand, the final villain feels like the director’s self-insert as an otaku fan and has truly laughably questionable motivations for wishing to destroy the world. However, the show understands its own farcical nature and makes plenty of self-aware jokes at the antagonist’s expense.
At the end of the day, what truly makes Cross Ange great, is the manner in which the fundamental principles which underline the show are developed and expressed. Despite the mortifying storytelling and writing, Cross Ange expresses masterful control over the themes of racism and information control, prompting all of us to ask ourselves the age-old question of “what is human?”.
Cross Ange is about accompanying Ange every step of the way as she seeks to answer this question herself in a brutal world filled with the most nonsensical of plot devices, and fighting against her own destiny. Ten years on from the completion of Gundam Seed Destiny, Fukuda has truly redeemed himself to the mecha genre with a protagonist as good as any in the business, resulting in the best show Sunrise has made since the turn of the decade.
