Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo - Anime - AniDB (2024)

Cross Ange, another amazing production by Sunrise, keeps the studio's traditions predictably close to heart, yet those very traditions are clusterfuck and inconsistencies. What's the result?

While, of course, it's another steaming pile of hot garbage, yet it's the kind of garbage that feels like an almost dying breed in the modern anime landscape, and I can't help stopping and yearning for more of this shit.

Technically speaking, it's ok looking most of the time, executed in the typical sunrise manner, animation + cgi for mechas, but it has a bad habit of regular trash-tier scenery and/or piece of animation, making the holes in budget so obvious you almost feel sorry for the poor animators who had to rush so many scenes. Designs of both characters and scenery are bland and average, yet functional and distinctive enough - you do not mistake one character for another (save for second plan characters, but who cares about those), same goes for scenery.
Audio is, likewise, ok, it employs songs as some plot devices, and they're ok, but nothing extra ordinary. Budget holes here are not as obvious.

But, oh boy, does the plot suck big time. And, oh girl, do the characters make the most stupid, illogical decisions possible. But anything in the name of fanservice!
Really, I could forgive the show many things.
I could forgive the tropey characters who adhere to stereotypes by the letter and have little discernible traits that we haven't seen a thousand times before. Characters are really bad in this show. Motivations are Big Words and Feelings, yet these big words have no substance to back them up, and so everyone sounds like someone from a drama written by a middleschooler. Some characters even have backstories, yet these backstories are vague and convenient for the right moment to advance the plot for some stupid goal.
I could also forgive the wealth of plot holes, which are numerous and almost par of the course for the show. The writing often displays little interest in leading up to events beyond the scope of a single episode, and so convenience rules the day. The few overarching plot elements that the show does possess do not make up for the resulting mess, when multiple parties, who all want vaguely the same thing, engage in battles of stupidity and Drama.

I could forgive these things thanks to two properties this show has.
One, the show is very unpredictable. Partly because it doesn't really care or know how to foreshadow events without them being obvious (there is foreshadowing, but you see right through it), but mostly because of how crazy ass and, dare I say it, epic the setting itself is. Don't be mistaken, it's a setting that allows writers to pull out "magic!" card and do the most random thing, which is excused by some setting detail, yet it also has scope that I often miss from the modern slice of life and even "serious" pieces of anime. When stakes are as high as this, and the world is this weird global Sunrise political sci-fi bullshit drama, I can't help but feel excitement and swallow the next plot hook raw. It's almost as if I'm watching Code Geass again!
Two, it's sex.
Now, don't get me wrong, sex is a big part of fanservice, the root of

all most

some evil. Cross Ange is, at times, borderline hentai, to the point of being silly/cringey and, mostly, stupid. Yet, fanservice and exaggerations aside, sex feels like part of the setting, part of the lives of characters. And, so in the face of countless pseudo-hentai pieces, who never quite do or even call in the real names the things they constantly imply, Cross Ange elevates itself above the crowd by making sex a normal thing, a part of life. It's not the first to do this, but for its kind, the noble genre of "epic scale clusterfuck", it's a head above the rest.

But what doesn't let me forgive anyhing are also two things.
First, the villain.
[moderately vague, yet descriptive spoilers, nothing unexpected for a sunrise piece, but you might want to save the (lack of) surprise]

it's literally bad comics tier villain. onesided player at god, that we've seen roughly infinite times before. holy fuck, so bad. when valvrave has better villains, you have a big problem.
[serious spoilers, describing the core conflict and the motivations and technology of the villain]

the villain is basically a quantum rapist, determined to rape the hentai mecha death squad princess.


second, fanservice rules supreme. I don't mind sexualised characters and idiotic excuses for revealing costumes. I might prefer something a bit more believable, but these are hardly crimes and they're very par of the course for the medium. But I do mind that whenever the show does something remotely ballsy, and not just random, fanservice immediately reins it back in with "tsk, tsk, tsk, enough fun things, back to boobs and stuff!".

ultimately, I was thoroughly let down.

yet I will gobble up next sunrise piece of the "epic clusterfuck" variety, and, hope that someday I will experience code geass again. just by being in the genre, Cross Ange, a show thoroughly average or bad in most categories, stops being average to me, and I do not regret watching it. "Epic clusterfuck" is a Sunrise specialty, that others might have tried to imitate, yet their scale is never epic enough, and their plots too boringly mundane. Sunrise, pls ;_;

Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo - Anime - AniDB (2024)
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