(CR) Cross Ange [Anticipation]

[MeisterBabylon]

Well I'm gonna save up the first arc then blast through it to make my own decision. Once things start moving then maybe I can go back to enjoying a mecha anime with Nana in it.

[Stark700]

Well that got controversial at the ending there fast. Good music and OP song though and action was decent. But yeah, that escalated....way more than I had thought.

[MisaoFan]

Spoiler for Episode 1:

Best premiere of the season for me so far hands down, I enjoyed it from the beginning to the end. Ange is very interesting even with her flaws, I don't like how she openly shows her pride to everyone but she actually did shows some sign of character progression, I was really reminded by Tsubasa from Symphogear, ironically even featuring the same seiyuu (Nana Mizuki) and had the singing/fighting theme combination in it. What made me shocked is how Ange (as Angelese) reacts to an incident when she sees a woman having her baby taken by the police, but I'm wondering why is that scene even allowed when you rarely see babies being accused when they did nothing wrong even in real life? I really don't like that.

Then surprise surprise, Sunrise shows the balls of revealing the secret that Ange is a Norma, a human being without powers (just like real humans in our world) who is often threatened as a relic from others and when she sees her mother dies, we can finally sees the reason behind her existence when she's kidnapped in a secluded island.

And then comes the anal rape scene that everyone (me included) who has heard of pre-air impressions are awaiting for: personally even with plenty of skin that will attract the male side of the audience, I personally find it rather tame and I just can't see me expecting loads of nudity (as I mean anything with nipple sightings in it like Wizard of the West taught me) even with Sunrise slapping its name in it. Since that particular scene can be speculated, I'm guessing it's either a rather bizarre ritual hard to perform unless it's a sadist who does it or just a straight up cavity search. Unfortunately I did heard some news that Ange forget it next time, I hope I'm wrong. At least in Valvrave, Haruto still feels about how he did the teenage rape with a girl he doesn't want to hold feelings for, so why can't Ange does the same when it comes to her react the anal rape and torture she suffers?

The premise is rather interesting too, I really love the scenery that combines both classy feudal Europe with high-tech elements, how Angelese dresses and is involved in the world business reminds me of a typical English princess and the music sounds pretty good. The opening and ending, while sounding great, have animation sequences that are dull though, it's like Sunrise decides to copy scenes from their previous mecha anime originals and applies it without any dose of originality. I mean, if it's animated by another studio, I can easily imagine it making the animation sequences in the theme songs feel stylish as I've been used to it somehow, but since it's a Sunrise sci-fi anime original, these are the epitome of boredom, might as well just watch the opening parodies of other series with Cross Ange characters in it and it would impress me much better than what we actually got.

It's a rather strong first episode and my level of enjoyment will easily be kept within the following episodes, I can hopefully expect a lot of questions to be answered immediately especially concerning the second half.