This is possibly one of the most underrated animes from the fall season.
Cross Ange is unique. The show about tragedy, harsh reality, and overcoming obstacles await the main character. It's absurd, illogical trainwreck of a show with also absurd production values that relies almost entirely on covers 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 narration by the director and other Sunrise execs laughing at how much of a stupid people like you are for watching this garbage that they've put in front of you, haha.
That said, it's one of the best things I've seen out of this studio in years.
Absolutely unexpected, shit..
Because of this absurd trainwreck, each of episode you'll scream and blaming the director or even the studio, like..
"FUKUDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"PERSETAN SUNRISEEE, ANJEEENG!!"
Cross Ange is a lot of different things. Cross Ange is a magical princess show about knights and dragons, cliche isn't? Cross Ange is a prison drama. Cross Ange is Mean Girls. Cross Ange is borderline yuri ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) hentai. Cross Ange is Gundam Seed. Cross Ange is like you let the Princess Peach on Mario rebel against Bowser . Cross Ange is proof that not only will Mizuki Nana play any role, but that she is also good at it.
Dragons, Yuri ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) and Kills.
The actual premise of the story is that a sporty 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 norma (which are like unwanted humans due to their inability to use "mana"). 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
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 (Dimensional Rift Attuned Gargantuan Organic Neototype) and not because they're dragons.
But really, the nice 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.
You can also saw plenty of dead lolis ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) killed by dragons
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 problems with everyone around her.
This series only has like two male characters. The one is Kira Yamato from Gundam Seed, except that he's completely useless. 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, haha.
The other major male character is the central villain, Fetus-kun, who is also the most self-aware jab at otaku or weaboos I've ever seen. The whole premise of his character is the struggle being god, and is looking for the perfect waifu. It's insulting and hilarious at the same time, just like the rest of the series. 9/10
The Animation, Ange looks pretty okay at its best, and pretty bad at its worst. The mechs, background, and the other stuff is good. Unfortunately Sunrise can't keep the quality of the show, you can spot the miss drawing, budget slipping in some of the episode, mainly on episode 15 above. 7/10
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, it's really fits with the atmosphere and The recurring insert song sung by Ange is pretty memorable. 8.5/10
Cross Ange is absolutely one of the best female leads in any anime. It's ridiculous and stupid, but this is not recommended for all people, and recommended for mechs.....yuri ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), and dragons lover..
Overall
8.5/10
