Cross Ange Ep. 18: Everyone’s a tool

Cross Ange - 1812

I have never been a fan of reunions. Awkward… Especially when they start getting all possessive.

— Ange tries to tell everyone aboard the Aurora that the dragons are cool. In fact, they should team up with the dragons to defeat Embryo. Naturally, this is a tough pill for the others to swallow. I understand how they feel, honestly. They’ve never even so much as conversed with a dragon. Now you want them to just fight alongside a former enemy? Yeah…

— The bigger problem here, however, is that Jill is completely drunk on her own kool aid. Again, you can empathize with just a bit. Just a tiny bit. After all, she’s been at this LIbertus plan for how long now? And she’s failed at it for how long now? Long is all I can say. It’s become a bit of a crazed obsession for her. She’s so hellbent on her mission that she no longer considers anything but Libertus’s success.

— Everyone seems to insinuate that Ange and Tusk have done the deed, though. Furthermore, they seem to act like it’s a bad thing. Like sex with a man — or similarly, becoming a woman — is what has corrupted and rotted Ange’s mind. Truth be told, she’s always had a rebellious streak.

— The good doctor gropes Vivian as if that will somehow tell her whether or not the dragon girl will suddenly turn back into, well, a dragon. She also reveals that she had chopped off Vivian’s wings and tails in her human form. Everyone just treats this like a joke, though. Hahaha, you got mutilated. Funny stuff.

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— Hilda’s all tsuntsun with Ange. I guess distance has made the heart grow fonder, and she’s practically in love (in lust?) with Ange. Weird. They’ve hardly had any development on the romantic front, but Hilda’s mega-clingy with the heroine now.

— There are some new faces since Salia and a few others had left to join Embryo’s side. I don’t think these guys will play a significant role in the story, though. As such, I’m not going to bother learning their names.

— Just more signs of Jill going off the deep end. The episode seems to suggest that Embryo had violated her in some fashion, but I can’t be too sure. You simply see him with bare shoulders…

— Likewise, Emma’s drunk on the kool aid. Literally drunk. Apparently, it takes being abandoned by your own kind to finally recognize that the Normas aren’t as bad as people say they are. It’s funny how people can simply refuse to believe what’s right before their very eyes.

— Later that day, Hilda assaults Ange in the shower, but no one’s going to bat an eyelash because it’s yuri. She demands to know whether or not Ange and Tusk have slept together. Yep… I figure she has no one left. Her mother has abandoned her. Zola the Rapist is thankfully dead. And oh yeah, her former lesbian lovers have also abandoned her in a sense. So maybe this explains why she’s suddenly so attached to Ange, the only person that she can now consider a friend. Obviously, this sort of obsession is not a healthy.

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— These faces… bad animation or not, for the love of Embryo, at least draw a decent face.

— So Jill finally decides that she’ll cooperate with the dragons, but only if she can sacrifice their lives in order for Ange and the Villkiss to swoop in and assassinate Embryo. I like how she thinks it’ll just be that easy. Like Embryo will be too distracted by the dragons or something, and the Villkiss can just shoot the guy in the back.

— It doesn’t even look like Tusk can sit in his chair properly.

— Oooh, exciting mission briefing scenes… yay…

— Surprising no one, Ange doesn’t agree with Jill’s “everyone’s a tool” strategy. Jill’s also not very smart. She should’ve been a little more subtle about her schemes and maybe people would’ve gone along with it. But she’s probably been a commander for far too long, so she just thinks everyone will capitulate. Well, we’re not in Arzenal anymore.

— She has a contingency plan, of course. If Ange doesn’t obey, that precious maid will bite it. Good riddance, I say… but right, right, we’re suppose to care for all of these characters. Yep.

— Ange tries to struggle, but Jill quickly disarms and overpowers the heroine. Tusk tries to help, but he just gets backhanded away. Goddamn, I didn’t know Jill was that strong.

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— But Tusk has a contingency plan of his own: he’s placed gas canisters all throughout the ship, and they’re filled with… some sort of debilitating gas. Shrug.

C’moooooooon.

— Even then, Jill stabs herself in the leg to stay lucid, and as result, she and Ange have a bit of a duel with each other. She loses this time, but hey, the lady has a gaping wound in her leg, and also, she’s suffering from the gas effects. I’m impressed she can even fight so well. So the only reason she can’t pilot the Villkiss to its full potential is because she doesn’t have some dumbass plot reason (the ring).

— In any case, our heroes make their escape. Ange even wants to open a portal back to the dragon world, but they just happen to run into Salia and company. The ocean must be big… it must be enormously big. Nevertheless, Salia and company just happened to be scanning the right place, and the Aurora just happened to surface in just the right case. Ah well.

— All in all, a pretty whatever episode. I’m just here to ride this thing out. I stopped caring about any of these characters a long time ago.

16 thoughts on “Cross Ange Ep. 18: Everyone’s a tool

  1. Snarky

    wow! remember when an anime had so many filler episodes and the animation frames where at least consistent? I wonder how did they pull it off!? think of sailor moon! Think of Dragon ball!! the errors where so rare… or maybe it was because in some cases the whacky animation added to the narrative, who knows, those japaneses are more lazies each time or the koreans aren´t paied enough!

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      It’s because no love and effort is put into these shows anymore. They are just going thorugh the motions for quick bucks. The exception being JoJo where they somehow managed to make an alternate ending for a minor villain episode.

      Reply
    2. SP

      Who the hell is going to put effort in an era where plot rehash, non-sensical fanservice & cliché fest is all that you need to sell your anime?

      Reply
  2. JayF

    Hilda was assaulting Ange? Because Ange’s reaction to Hilda’s attempt to get closer wasn’t her usual response to people who did try to rape her (Zola)

    Sure we can say people IRL may react differently to sexual assault in vulnerable situations, but Ange’s been consistent in interactions with people not Tusk- ie bitchy lashing out.

    Reply
  3. jack

    Animation quality is perhaps the worst amongst recent episodes (one worst than the one before).. seriously the only bits drawn right was the shower grope scene… really wtf sunrise!?… or Fukuda’s CGI mech scene budget for the next next episodes eats up the budget already??

    Reply
  4. Herr Regisseur

    Anime girls used to be somewhat nice to look at, man. Now? Sigh…

    And “DRAGONs”. Oh my god, they’re actually saying “DRAGONs”.

    Reply
  5. Pia

    “She should’ve been a little more subtle about her schemes and maybe people would’ve gone along with it.”
    That’s what I thought, but they needed to make Jill act like a cartoonish villain, characters in this anime has to act like complete assholes every now and then, just to make this retarded and selfish heroine seems likeable.

    Reply
  6. IonCaron (@IonCaron)

    Mate, I don’t know about you but I recognize this show’s abundant plot. I mean just look at that shower image you linked to! So much plot.

    But really that scene was way creepier than they likely intended it to be. It shows how the writers never put themselves in the heads of their characters because there’s no way they’d write that in if they did. Then again, another clue to that would be the one dimensional villain so yeah.

    I wonder if Ange will go berserk again.

    Reply

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