Cross Ange Episode 18
Bringing the old crew up to speed.
What They Say:
Angelise is the first princess of the Empire of Misurugi. She is the celebrated ruler of the Empire until one day she finds out the shocking truth that she is a “Norma” – an irregular being who cannot use “Mana”, and are treated as “things” rather than people. Having her name taken from her, Ange isolates herself on a remote island. There, she finds a group of Norma women who spend their days hunting dragons that have come to invade.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With a decent focus on action the last time around, especially in the second half, Cross Ange got to shine in that regard as Ange and Tusk ended up back in their world armed with a lot of knowledge and understanding of what’s going on, but the loss of the help they had from Sala with the way things closed out there. But it’s not all bad as they got the first stages of reconnecting with some of those that they can sort of call friends, or at least comrades, with the way they’ve managed to come across some help there. The show has given us our main villain and showed how the sides can come together to go after Embryo, but there’s a few stages that have to be achieved before they can really get to that point and truly confront him, especially considering the powers he seemingly commands.
Filling in everyone on this side of the portal as to what Ange has learned is at least something that gets covered a bit and while you get your doubts and concerns over it, they’re at least receptive to what Ange has learned rather than just writing her off as a nutcase. They’ve all seen too much at this point to be so certain of the world. But even though they’re getting a clue as to what they’re facing, there are serious issues ahead to deal with in terms of being able to face it, which is what sets Jill off about getting too involved in all of this, though she knows that it’s essentially a must and that they have to find a way. Jill’s one of those hardass types that’s hard to read in some ways, but it works well in establishing her as the forceful top presence for those she commands. It doesn’t make her an engaging character to get involved with though, which also kind of covers most of the cast here unfortunately.
While we get some decent setup material and explanations and plans being put together, and an understanding of what must be done, we also get Hilda coming up behind Ange in the show and feeling her up pretty hard. Our fanservice quota has been low for awhile and it’s amusing that after the way these two were at the start, that there’s this weird kind of situation here where Hilda does this, but she does it without malice or cruelty like she would at the start. It’s a strange sort of way of saying she’s come around to Ange in a way, and through the social mores of this particular group (i.e, not us in our real world), this has a kind of accepted behavior aspect about it.
As events start to pull together with what Jill is planning, the time talking with everyone else about it leads to a pretty disturbing sequence where things turn violent, particularly as Jill nearly strangles Ange over the tension that rises. But learning that they’ve been gassed explains it away, though it’s a surprise that Tusk is the one that’s done this in order to secure Ange and get her away from everything as he affirms that he’s not the knight of Vilkiss but rather Ange’s knight, changing the dynamic a bit in general. Jill’s perceptions of what Ange is, and what she represents, is interesting as it pushes the two of them to attack each other, and for Ange to make it clear she knows who Jill really is, since in a way you feel like Jill has put that part of her life so far behind her that she’d almost forget herself that she was Alektra.
In Summary:
Cross Ange does a bit of circling of events here in a way, bringing things up to speed on this side of the world and storyline and making sure the main characters are all understanding what’s really going on. There is the background push overall that’s putting Embryo in the position of being the big bad in everyone’s eyes and that’s pretty much expected and warranted at this point based on the information that we have so far. But the episode has a kind of chaotic feeling to it in some ways as though it’s cramming as much as it can in while not having a smooth enough flow to the narrative to let it build and brew properly. It’s definitely moving forward at a quick pace though. Well, outside of Hilda feeling up Ange in the show. It knows how to slow things down for that.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
