2014
11.23

Cross Ange Episode 08 – Bitch Party at the Threshold of Hell [The Juude]

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This needed to be used a second time.

I don’t even know where to start with this episode.

The very beginning of it, right after the intro, gave me such dread, discomfort, and possibly made me dyspeptic. For some reason, the humans of the world have deigned to give one public holiday for Norma to enjoy without having to worry about killing DRAGONs, and true to Japan it necessitates a swimsuit festival episode. All the Norma doing happy things, with gaudy Hawaiian BGM playing, brought memories of those dark first few episodes. The big tonal shift made for a rather big whiplash effect and I wondered if I would get over it if this week’s show would be what I thought it was.

Then the plot kicked in. It turns out one of the overseers of the ‘Festa’ is none other than the competing player in that spirited hoverball lacrosse game in the first episode. She desperately wants to meet Ange badly to verify that she is all Norma-like. True to Ange form, she’s incredulous of any familiar face in her past life, but finds some use for her former sports rival to escape and help her younger sister, who we’ve learned was in trouble last episode. Also she reconciles with the Alpha Waifu-est of the Alpha Waifu trio, the red-headed Hilda, who apparently has her own reason to escape Arzenal. Like… not just any reason, but a reason that makes her… a character? The fuck?

They’ll dress all the girls in skimpy attire but they’ll keep the old shopkeeper decent. Not only are you sexist and misogynist Cross Ange, but also ageist!

I wouldn’t venture to say this episode was exceptional, but I do appreciate how the characters are being handled and the overall kinesis of the plot development. I was totally expecting this episode to be another wash where hijinks make way for bonding, and that Ange would either go rogue in a nuclear kind of way to get back her sister or she would finally become privy at the end to this ‘Libertus’ thing mentioned in past eps. Nope, this episode surprised, and everything that happened in its episode preview successfully deflected any and all anticipation on what to expect. Ange and Hilda come to an accord after all the harassment the latter has done to her, and we finally have our heroine on the mainland, ready to rescue her sister. Again I have to give credit to how the show was able to sneak in such plot progression in the backdrop of a stupid anime festival episode. This is what I’ve been waiting for ages to happen, and now it has and I’m… strangely satisfied. That can’t be right.

Given how the series has started to where it is right now, every step of progress towards addressing how messed up its world is, is an accomplishment to be at least… acknowledged at best. I’d recommend the lot of us do that so it can get better but… You know the rest of the story.

Rondo of Notes:

  • Apparently the uniforms and paramail suits are considered TOO stuffy. You’d think with the amount of skin shown they would not be but nope.
  • After this week, and next week’s previews, the more I don’t really give two fucks about mecha battles. The human element continues to be much more interesting than the robots.
  • Human treatment of Norma is still weird. Gotta put them in the glass boxes, gotta use the scary dungeon and put the device in their ass, gotta set one holiday for them to have fun and shit even though they’re less than human. Curious what other weird-ass thoughts and customs are in store for us next.

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