Weak. Totally weak. Come back and blog Cross Ange, they said. People are dying left and right, they said. Uh-huh. Naturally, Tusk and the annoying maid don’t stay dead. But those little children, though! How else is Ersha going to learn her lesson? And Marika! She’s so important, too:
Anyway, all I really get is a bunch of quasi-rapey scenes…
…quality animation…
…and incredible logic.
And to be honest, Cross Ange is like one of those throwaway basketball games during the regular season. You don’t really want to watch the actual game. The actual game is so bad, you really just want to hear Charles and crew bitch about it during halftime. Sure, I’ve “missed” the past five episodes. That’s over a month’s worth of content! Plot development! Character-building! But let’s be honest… did I really miss anything?
lol
Fukken got’er. But seriously, I could’ve skipped the past five episodes (I watched them anyway), and I wouldn’t have missed a beat. It’s like coming back for the final two minutes of regulation. I’m totally ready for the nail-biting finish only. Oh, there’s no execution here. It’s just going to be one endless trip to the free-throw line.
Had this been a playoff-caliber game, it’d be one thing. But Cross Ange is not a playoff-caliber series. And honestly, I only blogged it initially because for some reason, people cared enough to click on the show’s posts. It didn’t really matter that the anime itself is cheap and exploitative, because truthfully, I was only exploiting it in return for views for the blog. Deep down, every reasonable viewer out there knows this show sucks like hell, and only the contrarian asshole out there wants to moan on and on about how it’s entertaining in a “stupid” way like Seikon no Qwaser, the last ironically epic anime series. Ironically good, man. Ironically good. So bad, it loops itself back to being good! Uh-huh. Sure. Whatever.
But once I got busy with life, the anime quickly became an afterthought, and that’s because nothing in it truly entertains me. Nothing. The trashy drama between the girls? Please. One of them went rogue, and a hair clip played a huge role in her decision-making. A hair clip. The fanservice? Not even well-animated. Shit, Forget being well-animated. It doesn’t even look good in still-motion. Slick mecha action? What? Hell, even the sound effects sound cheap. Have you paid particularly close attention to the gunfire in this show lately? I feel like some kids could put forth a better effort. Long story short, the show is trashy enough to turn too many heads, and I jumped on the bandwagon for a good two-thirds of the way. Anyway…
I honestly thought she was going to hand him that ring.
But this is much better. Mm-hmm.
Embryo, the lizard king.
Jill emerging from the Aurora with guns-ablazin’ is like some half-assed MLG parody. Well, if only…
It looks like Salia’s got a joke for us.
Uh, okay. Let’s hear it.
REKT
But she’s crippl–
It’s a miracle! It must be the power of Mana!
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got, because c’mon. What am I going to analyze? Nothing. There’s nothing to analyze or comment on. Remember when people thought that this show was a good reflection on discrimination and racism in modern society? Right. See you guys this upcoming Sunday. We’ve got some free throws to watch, and I have a feeling Rajon Rondo is coming to the line.
Moe Sucks 
I’m pretty sure the whole thing is satire, but people eat it up anyway, the amount of people who actually think this show is good if you ignore “the random fanservice” is crazy, who knows, maybe the creators were just like “let’s try to make the worst show we can and see how much it sells just because it was made by us… wait we already did that last year and… it worked! ok! let’s do it again then”, I can imagine them laughing on their way to the bank.
‘only the contrarian asshole out there wants to moan on and on about how it’s entertaining in a “stupid” way like Seikon no Qwaser, the last ironically epic anime series. Ironically good, man. Ironically good. So bad, it loops itself back to being good! Uh-huh. Sure. Whatever.’
How does this square with your Guilty Crown post from way back when?
I gave plenty of justification.
rofl
Sorry, got nothing else to say. I think it’s what they call the trickle-down effect? Half-assed show -> half-assed post -> half-assed comment. And it’s all thoroughly entertaining in its half-assed, dumb nature. Even the disgusting attitude shown towards female characters is an important piece from which I derived my enjoyment from Brynhildr, and probably Cross Ange if I were watching it, no matter how demeaning & seemingly dispiriting it is.
Or rather, the more disgusting the subtext, the more enjoyable such a trashy show becomes, which my being a feminist makes all the more baffling. And I’ve only been in the anime fandom for ~2 years! 18 months ago I’d be greatly offended at the very notion that I’d derive such perverse pleasure from it, but I guess I’ve come to internalize that typical anime subtext, along with many of its nonsensical tropes, largely because of my constant exposition to them. Thus, my “framework” now is significantly different than it used to be a while back. I guess this must be similar to the systemic cultural oppression women face across the world (I’m male), and to the assimilation of cultural values in general.
Uh… Since this is going nowhere I’ll ask a question you’ve no doubt answered 100+ times. What do you think of the terms “guilty pleasure” and “ironic enjoyment”, particularly when it comes to demeaning subtext? I feel like the latter is somewhat disingenuous because of the distance and superiority one puts between himself and both the work & others who’d claim to enjoin it earnestly. As for the latter, I do think it accurately portrays what I’ve portrayed above, i.e. the sense of guilt that comes along with my enjoying subtext I’d find offensive. Which leads me to another question: should fans in my predicament feel guilt about enjoying such shows for their subtext if they’re well aware of its nasty nature? Should they cut themselves off of such shows altogether? Is it better if they just accept that it’s become a non-negligible part of their enjoyment, part that they might largely curtail given a certain change in habits, both anime-related & life-related, but decide not to for some reason?
Now, I know this probably needs a large, nuanced answer that depends on the individual. Even the question itself is reductive. But at the moment, I’m tending towards “as long as you’re aware of how problematic the subtext is, of yourself as a responsible individual, and of how the subtext might influence you, it doesn’t matter if you enjoy & seek it”. Yeah, that seems like the obvious short answer to my question. What do you think?
Concerning “it’s so bad, it’s good,” just give me a reasoned argument. People bring up my defense of Guilty Crown like it means something, but it’s like, “Bitch, I wrote 2000-plus words on Guilty Crown. The best you can do is something a little more than ‘Hurr, bad show x is satirical!” You may not convince me, but I can at least respect you for giving an earnest attempt. Which brings me to ironic enjoyment. I don’t care if you enjoy something. We don’t usually control our preferences. Yeah, I love a torchon of foie gras. But I can also enjoy some cheap ass mi goreng with cocktail sausages and a fried egg. I’d never make the mistake of calling the latter good. So when it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter to me if someone ironically enjoys something. Just don’t talk out of your ass and call it good unless you are prepared to seriously back it up.
Regarding guilty pleasures, language is just too weak to capture human feelings. The term itself conjures up such all-or-nothing reactions from people, but in all honesty, it says nothing. Take a more extreme example than Cross Ange. Like porn. I know all the baggage that comes with porn. I know some girls are pressured into the industry. I know some porn only serve to degrade women. So sure, porn can be considered a guilty pleasure. But do I flay myself in public for watching porn every once in a while? Not going to happen anytime soon. To me, it’s just all about perspective, and this applies to people on both sides of the fence. I’m going to sit here and poke fun at Cross Ange all day long as if watching it is really a pox on my life, but it’s not. I cover these shorts partly because I can and partly because some people want me to. This shit will never cross over into the real world, because it’s just not that important. Feminists in the real world should be fighting sex trafficking or female mutilation or whatever. The mock outrage on the internet is just that: a song and dance. Vaudeville. Likewise, the show is dumb but it’s insignificant in the grand scheme of things. It’s impact on gender relations can’t even be measured in farts. So I say enjoy what you want… if you can somehow enjoy this. And I’ll keep calling it shit.
Thank you for returning to this, E Minor, even if it’s the homestretch of the show. I’m not ashamed to admit that your rants on these terrible anime are the reason why I visit this blog, and while I know what it feels like slogging through all this crap, I’m not sorry for deriving pleasure from your suffering by doing the same.
Anyways, I hope you come back to some others like Duo and Testament even if they’re already close to ending their cours of tripe.
Sincerely,
Wang Fire
This is a damn anime review site. What in the hell gave you the impression most of us would understand any sports allegory?
Haha! Fair enough, mate. I do get the picture, and though mocking is fun, it’s not good if your heart isn’t in it (or in this case, if the subject of your mockery is just typical and doesn’t have much more going for you to poke at). Guess we’ll see you Sunday.
Though shit, before that, I’d first like to ask:
“Remember when people thought that this show was a good reflection on discrimination and racism in modern society?” WHAT?
HAHAha!! Shut up there’s no way. There’s NO way. I do not remember that being a thing.
Honestly I wouldn’t doubt it considering some of the rebuttals I’ve sees in previous comments, but hey.
To consider this show a parody or a satire or a trainwreak is to give credit that this show had a train of thought. And I refuse to give any credit to this show in anyform
The only reason “fans” are giving praise to this series is because they gotten used to all of the BS in this show.
Next in watching this POS show, it failed to answer me this simple question: “Did this shit replace Buddy Complex?” Seriously, even with its flaws, it was a good, average PG-rated mecha show imo. I wanted to see a second season of that instead of this dreak.
Did anyone expect this show to be good? The second I saw “Mitsuo Fukuda”, I knew it would be bad. The asshole can add pointless fanservice and retcons, but can’t put into context a nuclear explosion. I don’t care if he is a “Creative Producer”, like Harvey Dent from Dark Knight put it “His men, his plan”.
I’m already in too deep anyway, and it will givin the” 0/Fuck this show” as it deserves like Gundam Seed Destiny before it.
At least they didn’t make a Gear Fighter Dendoh reference.
Honestly I was hoping it to fall into the idea of a 70’s B-movie, so bad, so raunchy, campy it is fun, or trolly as hell stupid like Rail Wars. Instead we got something that assaults any sense people could have.
Now people can have different tastes and what makes them like this is up to them, but to me there is nothing to defend in this crap. There is no charm or personality in this anime, nothing matters in this series at all it seems they just took the most lazy approach to anything cause they did not want even put an ounce of thought in it. They did not even try to be bad for fun, to tank the anime for any reason, it is just nothing. It honestly does not deserve a rating or anything like that since it will give it more substance than it deserves. This show is just nothing.
I don’t see how people can see this as anything other than trash. No joke, I’ve read somewhere this is a ”dark and serious” anime. It’s not even so bad it’s good (that’s Mad Bull 34). This is just bad.
I don’t know but lately this show feels like it’s returning to its raunchy-rapey roots, it’s like the producers just said fuck it, we need to sell this crap, so we need to use every means necessary to do so, that includes rape, yuri, mind breaking, BDSM, so on and so forth.
I really laughed when Hilda confessed her feelings to Ange, then Ange proceeded to kiss her “accepting” her feelings just because plot, lol that doesn’t even make sense, I’m sure those feelings are one-sided, if anything Hilda is resigning herself to be Ange’s lover/haremette and nothing more.
To be fair I enjoyed when Ange confronted the angry citizens, then she headshot one of them, that was unexpected and funny, also her imouto isn’t crippled/stupid anymore yey, probably she’s a wild card for Embryo demise, hell he’s surrounded by wild cards now that I think of.
Kinda sucks that you are not going to rip apart the last epidode
yeah i wish the last episode gets ripped apart too