Well, here’s come the gratuitous torture scenes…

— Ange’s imouto just has to whip her, huh? The torture has to be quasi-sexual, huh? Any subtext that the show might have built up in last week’s episode has immediately flown out the window. The show’s right back to being exploitative for the sake of it. The slavery comparison doesn’t even work, because while slaves do get whipped, this is the wrong context for it. Institutional discrimination makes sense. These comic displays of barbarity, however, simply serve to distract and obfuscate the true horrors of discrimination in the developed world.

— In fact, the show’s just boring now. You might not think that, because a half-naked girl is being whipped before your very eyes, but it’s true! The show is incredibly boring now, and it’s because the hate in this show says nothing. It’s just hatred for the sake of hatred. Silvia blames Ange for everything that has gone wrong in her life, but again, her logic is so stupid, her hatred ends up saying nothing. It’s thus one-dimensional and bland. I mean, hate is certainly wrong, but in both the real world and other stories, it’s also meaningful. For instance, hate can tell you about the insecurities of the haters. Dracula is roughly about the fear of Eastern European men stealing our precious women away from us. It’s ludicrous, but it’s also provocative. In Cross Ange, however, the hate says nothing. It’s just there.

— Julio’s proportions are… off. And apparently, he’s not satisfied that Ange has not died yet on Arzenal. He intends to kill her now, but why didn’t he just kill her to begin with?

— Like I’ve said, the context makes no sense. The onlookers are like, “This is what you get for lying to us!” What? Lying is punishable by death now? I’d expect this from a rundown society, where daily life is ugly and brutish. When people are just struggling to survive, they wouldn’t naturally have time for logic. They will thus rely on superstitions and misguided beliefs. But that’s not what we have. The Misurugi Empire is supposed to be a utopia. These people have so much free time on their hands, they should be well-learned and cultured. That’s not to say that well-learned and cultured people can’t be racist. They certainly can! But their hate would be more insidious… more institutional. In Cross Ange, however, nothing makes sense. The context is all wrong, and as a result, the show is boring the hell out of me. It’s like listening to white noise.

— Even Ange is like, “Uh, nothing I’ve done warrants an execution.” But remember the girl she had tied up in last week’s episode? She falls to her knees as if she had been raped and violated. This is just stupid.

— “Julio says you get the death penalty, so what’s your problem?” I think we’re all dumber for having heard that.

— Ange: “They’re all unreasonable, ugly, stupid pigs.” Naw, man… naw. Even pigs make more sense than this. In fact, the simpler the creature, the easier it is to understand. And pigs are smart, gentle creatures. This is just stupidity pouring out of some writer’s mind.

— Our heroine starts singing the song that her mother had sung to her, and of course, this freaks everyone out. They can’t help but react ridiculously: “Don’t ruin it, you Norma!” And here’s the thing: I’m not even mad at the mana-users. That’s how hard the story has failed. If you’re going to do a story about discrimination, you bet your ass I should hate the people who perpetuate hate and pain in the world. But here, the mana-users don’t even remotely act human, so how can I hate them? Their words and actions are so illogical, I’m completely removed from the story. Instead, I just hate the show’s creators for producing something so utterly nonsensical.

— Naturally, Tusk shows up to save our heroine, because this story needs a male savior that badly. Needless to say, his services do not come without a hefty price.

— I love how the guards just stand there and watch as Ange and Momoka free each other from their cuffs.

— And even now, Ange still magically manages to not take a life. Yes, she lobs grenades in the direction of her foes, but always in a way that allows them to escape just in the nick of time.

— The animation here is absolutely horrible.

— And Ange’s reaction after whole ordeal? She’s actually in relatively good spirits: “I realized I don’t have family or friends or a home.” C’mon, she just lost a dear sister. No, Sylvia isn’t dead, but she’s just as good as dead to the heroine. Nevertheless, she’s just like, “I feel refreshed!” No one’s human here. This isn’t even anything new, too. Hilda’s behavior made little sense in last week’s episode, but it still didn’t stop people from defending the show’s terrible writing anyway. So I wait with bated breath for someone to comment that the actions in this week’s episode make total sense to them.

— And the animation continues to plummet. Just look at Ange’s face during this scene. It completely loses its form.

— Tusk claims that his job is to protect Ange. Also, you just knew he would ask whether or not the carpet matched the drapes. Of course he would! Anything else would require a modicum of originality from this show’s writers!

— When they finally return to Arzenal, Tusk is all, “I’ve got things to do… bye!” And they just watch as he conveniently exits the story.

— Sure, we saw this already in last week’s previews, but let’s look at it again! That’s what I want to do to this anime right about now. Jill wants Ange to reflect, but reflect on what? Yay, I’m a slave, and now I get to battle dragons again?

— Oh good, not only was Ange thrown into a cell, she had to be naked too. You can’t reflect if it’s too warm. And because Arzenal is a commodity-driven society — in stark contrast to the land of plenty on the outside — Ange loses everything in her possession, including the Villkiss. Does that include Momoka?

— Salia’s all, “I shouldn’t have trusted her!” Sure, sure, the squad needs all of its members to survive their dangerous encounters against the dragons. By deserting, Ange essentially left her teammates to die. Still, nobody even bothers to hear Ange’s reasoning. Oh, they will ask Ange why she left, but they don’t bother to wait and listen for our heroine’s answer. Y’see, their question was simply rhetorical, and you’re apparently an idiot if you expect them to listen to what you have to say. For the umpteenth time, no one acts remotely human in this stupid anime.

— Surprise! Hilda’s here, too! And because her former friends now hate her, Ange can befriend Hilda, her former enemy! Oh, the days of our lives!

— Hilda proudly claims that she had beaten down fifty men. We all know she’s lying, but at least she still has her pride. She probably thought Ange was making shit up too with the whole “I was stripped naked, whipped, and hanged.”

— Likewise, Hilda’s former lesbian lovers have abandoned her, too. But unlike Ange, she sort of asked for it. For no reason whatsoever, Hilda felt the need to taunt them: “I was just playing with you.” Is pride worth having no friends? According to Hilda, yes. The answer is a resounding yes. Some writer sat there and ultimately decided, “Yeah, she would totally act this way!”

— Haha, Chris is even like, “I bought back Zola’s stuff, ’cause you don’t deserve them!” Yeah, the rapist’s stuff is too good for you! I won’t let you desecrate the rapist’s memories!

— Ange: “Is it that bad that I can’t use mana?” Are you really just asking this now? What? Even a five-year-old child — when faced with discrimination — can’t help but ask intelligent questions: “Why do we hate so-and-so? Why do we have to be mean to others?” But in Cross Ange’s universe, you have to sexually assault the heroine and threaten her with death before she wonders why discrimination exists!

— Finally, someone makes some sense: Ange suggests that they “destroy this bullshit world.” I agree. It is a bullshit world. And of course, I would never advocate mass murder, But these are not people. There isn’t a single soul in the entire Cross Ange universe.

— This entire time, someone is listening in on the two girls.

— Oh boy, a singing performance to cap off the episode! Thanks, Sunrise!

— And lesbian sex! We can’t end the episode without some lesbian sex!

— To all the people who are like, “This is a parody,” then what is it a parody of? If this is satire, then what is it satirizing? Yes, the previews often show that the writers are self-aware, but that’s not enough. Admitting that you know you’re acting stupid doesn’t mean you’re justified in actually being stupid. Last but not least, “They’re just trolling you,” is the dumbest statement ever. This is the real world, not the Internet. People don’t spend tons of money creating a TV series just to “troll” their viewers. Just because you have all the time in your life to sit on your ass and troll people on the Internet, it doesn’t mean that grown-ass adults would actually waste the limited hours in a day that they’ve been given to earn money. At the end of the day, they still want you to buy the blu-rays to this show, and they’re not going to accomplish that by trolling their viewers. At the end of the day, the show is just bad.