Sunday, December 14, 2014

Cross Ange Episode 11

Episode 11 begins with a recap of Ange's escape and scarring of Julio via throwing star, which turns out to be a nightmare of Sylvie's. Since she can't sleep, she hops in her hoverchair and decides to roam the halls of the castle for awhile until she calms down. As she does, she starts wondering if she did the right thing, as apparently Julio convinced her all the crap she did was to make sure Ange could never hurt her again or some shit.

As she passes by Julio's room, he's currently getting laid courtesy of his aide de camp Riza Rundog, and he's looking more than a little emo. Even worse, he apparently he has some sort of mommy fetish, since he's roleplaying some creepy Oedipus complex sex play shit with her, which frankly is just Norman Bates level fucked in the head. Also, his dialogue, on top of having fucked up undertones, sounds like he's reading off a script as he also reveals he really does have a massive Oedipus complex because his mom always favored Angelise.

The creepy factor hits critical mass when Riza drops some weird purple poison like substances in his mouth from one of her fingers, just as Sylvie passes back and happens to see what's going on. Meanwhile, Riza (who is apparently mind controlling Julio via a combination of some chemical shit and playing on his mommy complex) is asking him to do her a favor, and he mentions something about opening a singular point, and that's when Riza notices they are being watched.

And that's when the weird shit o meter goes through the roof as Riza sits up, revealing she has DRAGON wings on her back. Sylvie immediately turns to flee, only to be caught with what appears to be Riza's tail, and as Riza strangles the hell out of her, Sylvie calls out for Ange to save her (oh, the hilarious irony.......).

Before we go on, this is an interesting twist, but it was foreshadowed earlier on the DRAGONs were a lot more intelligent than they seemed, and given that it looks like Julio is the pawn of one that can assume human form, it seems the conspiracy that pervades the show just assumed a strange new dimension.

Anyway, after the opening credits, we cut to the mess hall, where Salia is informing everyone there is going to shift change regarding deployments.Since their squad is down a couple pilots (due to Ange's temporary desertion), they'll be standing down for awhile. Rosalie pissed since this means they don't get paid, and Chris is even more pissed. We then cut to Momoka, who is trying to convince a guard to the cells to give Ange a basket of food (she's worried Ange isn't eating right), but is being stopped cold. Meanwhile, both Ange and Hilda are bemoaning their skimpy rations, and Ange really wants to take a bath. Both of them are also slinging insults at each other to pass the time.

We then cut to Salia near the graves being paid a little hero worship, which obviously pleases the hell out of her, and then we get a flashback to a younger Salia and Jill, and we see Salia hero worshiped Jill in much the same manner. We also see Mei is paying respects to her fallen older sister. We later get another flashback to Jill after she lost her arm, barely making it back to Arzenal, about to pass out from blood loss. W also see a younger Jasmine (who was quite the looker), and it seems Jill once hero worshiped her (explains why they still have so many heart to hearts). Jill is heartbroken over the death's of her squad and who is presumably Tusk's father, feeling she did a pisspoor job. We then see young Salia and really young Mei tell her that's not true before the cut back to the present.

We also get another, slightly more recent cut back to Salia getting herself all fucked up after a failed attempt to pilot the Vilkiss, and Jill tells her to quit trying so hard, or she'll wind up [gestures to the cybernetic arm she got to replace the one she lost]. Jill responds to Salia then asking what it is she's lacking by asking the same thing, then we cut back to the present as she wonders how Ange can pilot the Vilkiss when everyone else can't.

We then cut to the comm tower, where a signal is detected, and Jill and the other soldiers nearly shit themselves when they realize the signal is right above Arzenal. Worse, a fuckton of Scuna class  DRAGONs start a massive ambush attack. Emma pops in, shocked they had zero warning, and Jill wastes no time in basically ordering a basewide 'THE SHIT HAS HIT FAN, EVERYONE WHO CAN FIGHT, GET IN YOUR PARAMAILS" alert. In fact, the alert is so severe they are even passing out assault rifles in the event they have to fight it out on foot as well, even authorizing all their anti-air weapons at the same time.

As everyone starts loading up, and Emma asks Jill who is going to defend the base if they sortie all the Paramails (basically, are they leaving any behind as defenders), and a techie just tosses her a gun as shorthand for "Welcome to the shit like the rest of us, hope you can use this to keep from getting killed". A truly impressive amount of anti-air pops out of various strongpoints around Arzenal and several Scuna go down in the initial assault. Ange and Hilda realize shit is going down, and then we cut back to the control room where a DRAGON crashes through the window. Ema fails hilariously at being a badass and tries to shoot it full of holes (her shots ricochet everywhere and scare the shit out of the other grunts, since she's aiming in a berserk rage like Ange did in the Tusk debut episode), and Jill knocks her out from behind and expertly dispatches the DRAGON with a well aimed shot to the head. Unfortunately, the command center has been screwed by these events, so Jill orders them to fall back to the backup comm center. Meanwhile, as the pilots are shooting down any Scuna who are attempting ingress into the hangars (with Rosalie still pissed their earnings were stolen by the others), the Scuna start withdrawing as someone starts singing. As Ange wonders who, the weird shit o meter explodes again as what look like several Paramail appear out of the same vortex as the Scuna, and as everyone is like WTF, the Paramail turn golden like the Vilkiss and reveal themselves to be on the DRAGONs side as they obliterate pretty much all Paramail already in the air and hit Arzenal pretty hard in the process. A moment later, we cut back to Salia recovering, only to notice a sizable chunk of Arzenal just got blown away, and as the show is about to cut to the intermission, the Scuna start coming back.

Before I go on, looks like the show is finally entering the "shit hitting the fan" stage where the story really starts to begin.

When we get back, Hilda and Ange are recovering from the blast that just blew a full third of Arzenal off the map, and both Hilda and Ange nearly get hit by Scuna that plunges through the wall. Around the same time, Momoka is looking for Ange, and as she frees Ange and Hilda, she had to hold her nose (apparently both Hilda and Ange are REALLY ripe and really do need a long bath). Both Ange and Hilda decide they'll find out why things went pear shaped if they get to their Paramails, and even though Momoka advocates they bathe first (and Ange agrees), Hilda is like "we have MUCH MORE IMPORTANT SHIT TO WORRY ABOUT!".

Meanwhile, in the backup comm center, the losses are being tallied, and it looks like the new enemy blew up one squad and gravely crippled another, so Jill transfers overall command authority to Salia's squad. She then tells Salia to put Ange in the Vilkiss, citing it's the only thing in hell that has a chance in stopping their new foe. Salia tries to ignore this, but Jill drops the hammer on that. Salia is still frustrated over her inadequacy, and when she basically rants over the radio how Ange is (A) a deserter (B) in detention and (C) a troublemaker, Jill tells her she doesn't give a shit, and Salia jumps out of her Paramail at that one. The rest of the team deploys to buy their allies time to regroup, and Jill orders Ange (who she presumes to have made it to the Vilkiss) to take down the new foe, only to learn Salia finally gave in to her jealousy and jacked the Vilkiss for herself. Jill is understandably pissed about this, but Salia doesn't care, her jealousy have told her wisdom to fuck off so she finally prove she can be a badass in the Vilkiss.

Jill, upon hearing Salia still hasn't grown the fuck up at all is disgusted, and Ange and Hilda enter the hangar in their pilot suits (with Momoka still holding her nose). As both wonder where their squad is, they realize they are outside (and Salia's in the Vikiss). As the rest of the squad is taking down the Scuna, Salia is still charging toward the enemy Paramail. She quickly discovers the limitations of the Vilkiss and is knocked out of the air briefly but recovers, then realizes the Vilkiss has more power but she can't use it. She then get saved from some Scuna by Hilda's Paramail (in which her and Ange jammed into and both are bitching about the limited space). Ange tells Salia to hand over the Vikiss, and Salia decides to be a dumbass again.

The enemy Paramail (one is red, one green, one blue) decide to respond to the challenge and Salia finds herself being quickly outmatched, but is too stubborn to want to admit it. Jill's words about how she shouldn't do shit she can't do keep reverberating in her head despite her stubbornness, and as Salia continues to be a fucktarded moron, the red Paramail kicks her out of the sky.

Ange immediately tells Hilda to haul ass so she can do a mid-air jump over to the Vilkiss. Hilda thinks that crazy, but figures "fuck it, you'd do something like that", and as Ange grabs Hilda around the waist so she doesn't fly off, Hilda's a little surprised, but she charges ahead, and Ange does a midair flip right into the Vilkiss. Salia has thrown in the towel at this point, but Ange tells her not to give up, as no sooner does Ange grab the reins does the Vilkiss flare to life, and just as it looks like they are hitting water, Ange pulls it back up into the air, and in what looks like Ange is molesting Salia due to the angle (she just trying to get Salia out of her seat), she then tosses Salia out towards Hilda and tells the WTF Hilda to catch. Salia screams her head off but Hilda pulls it off, albeit pissed Ange had her do something so batshit insane.

Ange then goes off to do what Salia couldn't and she more than holds her own against the red enemy Paramail, and as the rest of the squad is all 0_0 at Ange's badassery, the red paramail joins up with it's buddies, and that song goes off again as it's charging it's laser from hell, and Ange decides to sing her mother's song again. (for those that forget, this is the same one that pissed off everyone at the gallows last episode, especially Riza). This triggers her ring to glow again like it did first episode, the Vilkiss goes all golden, look like a really spikey, glowy version of the Hyaku Shiki from Zeta Gundam, and it also has it's own bitchin laser cannon, as as Ange continues singing and facing down her opponent's also charging laser cannon, her HUD screen shows the image of what looks like a flying angel as they fire their lasers at the same time.

A flash of light later, it seems both Ange and her opponent are nose to nose, and the female pilot of the other mecha asks "why does a false citizen sing the true Star Song", and then she pops out of her mecha, revealing she looks some dark haired priestess type in her own pilot suit (with a kickass crown like helmet). They both appear to be floating in some weird energy vortex at the moment, as as Ange returns the favor and asks what the other woman means, some weird flashback appear in the background showing what looks like various incarnations of Ange and the other woman (and some of the other characters as well) throughout history/alternative universes or something, which includes a blink and you'll miss it Gundam SEED Destiny shout-out with what looks like Athrun Zala and Dearka Elsman in the background, as well as a Kira lookalike from behind (could be Tusk) and someone who looks like Hilda wearing Lunamaria Hawke's pilot uniform from Destiny (basically, the whole sequence at the end is a massive Gundam SEED reference), and that's when the sequence ends as a klaxon goes off from the other woman's Paramail.

At that, the other woman withdraws, leaving a cryptic message about how "the truth is with Aura" as she leaves, and as the portal closes, Ange is staring at it in shock.Meanwhile, Jill realizes that Ange's song was the final element needed to make the Vilkiss be totally badass.

We then cut to Salia still on Hilda's Paramail, realizing she has to accept that Ange and the Vilkiss go great together. She then leans against Hilda, who makes a comment it feels different (basically another 'Salia is flat joke'), but Salia doesn't seem to notice the subtle insult as she's finally accepted her limitations. Then it turns funny as she tells Hilda she stinks (who takes obvious offense).

Later, as Jill and Maggy are checking out the massive hole where a third of Arzenal used to be, both agree things have gone FUBAR, and they have apparently lost their power plant, which makes it worse. We then cut to Vivian who found hers and Salia's room was jacked up, but she's still cheerful as ever as she muses on how pretty Ange's song was.

As the credits begin, both Jill and Maggy wonder how much time they have left.

In the post credits, we see Ange and Jill chilling in the hot spring, a Scuna class dragon scratching it's head, Salia's squad shooting at it, Tusk makes an appearance, and Julio looking peeved as Salia is bitching about her lack of importance in the show (ironic, thought she just moved past that)

......okay, this episode was a massive drama bomb, and it look's like next episode we'll get some more backstory on Jill's past, but this episode has already been a massive WTF game changer and has blown all of my previous theories out of the water, except for one.

There is still a conspiracy going on, looks like the DRAGONs have been in on it, and whatever it is the royal family seems to have been hiding (beside Ange being a Norma), it seems to have a deep connection to the entire plot.

P.S. - Forgot to mention this, but the enemy pilot of the Paramail Ange fought is named Sala. Also, as if we didn't need more references to Gundam SEED crammed down our throats, Sala's Paramail is an obvious Infinite Justice analogue, while the Vilkiss has always been a Strike Freedom expy.

Seriously, we get it already, the same guy who did those shows did this one too.....

11 comments:

  1. I've heard people say that the show's needed a (long overdue) death. And ANN's forum users though it's be either Hilda, Chris or Rosalie. But after watching this episode, I'm half tempted to say that Sylvia's probably going to kick the bucket from that stranglehold at the beginning. Besides that, this is a game changer through and through. And since this is supposed to run two (anime) seasons, I expect a few more episodes like this.

    (Also, not to be a "Grammar Nazi" or anything, but there's a few misspellings in the entry.)

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    Replies
    1. I don't mind pointing out my grammar goofs, I type really fast anyway, so thanks, will clean that up.

      Yeah, Sylvia looks like she's gonna bite it to me as well.

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    2. Hey, it happens to the better of us. Thanks for understanding. And yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they had the balls to pull that death off. It'd be off screen in the grand scheme of things, but it'd be interesting at least. At first I thought it'd be both Julio and Sylvia in a "one-two-punch" sort of thing.

      Delete
  2. How are you watching this anyways?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fan subs. Seriously, they aren't hard to find.

      Delete
  3. Well, I have a fear of Googling for questionably legal stuff ever since I looked for episodes of the second FMA adaptation and got my computer turned to slag.

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  4. Anyways, look what I found lurking the TVTropes Reviews section:

    http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=Anime&target_title=CrossAnge

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    Replies
    1. Can't say I disagree with the summation of the first few episodes (it really was in bad taste, poorly plotted, the tone was up in the air, etc), but having stayed with it as far as I have, the show started to really find itself starting with the latter half of Episode 3 (which somewhat redeems the first two episodes in hindsight, or at least gives them a rationale), has been steadily improving since then, and has finally found what it wants to do as of the most recent episode.

      Yeah, it still tends to veer between comedy, fanservice, and drama, but the writers seem to have found a good balance of those elements now (20% of the first two with 60% drama seems to be the winning ratio they are sticking with), and while I've seen much better, the show isn't as abysmal at I thought it would be, so unless the quality nosedives even worse than the first few episodes started as, I plan to stick with it until it finishes.

      P.S. - For those complaining about the still somewhat blatant fanservice elements like the pilot suits, I've learned to ignore that by now, as compared to the tacky cheesecake the early episodes hit us with, that's fairly tame by comparison IMO.

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  5. What animes do you like? Can you give me links to where I can watch them?

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  6. This site is a pretty good one:

    http://anilinkz.com/

    Pretty massive selection too.

    FYI, I tend to prefer comedies and some mecha on occasion.

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    Replies
    1. Okay, nice find. So does-

      >Kodomo no Jikan

      AAAAUUUGH!!! NO! RUSH FORWARD TO-

      >Shitton of Naruto

      BALRGHGE!!! Almost...there...

      >Neon Genesis Evangelion

      SUCCESS!!! Now to learn the guidebook to modern culture!

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