Super Robot Wars Anime Marathon #4: Cross Ange: Rondo of Angel and Dragon

By the time I started Cross Ange, I had already gotten impatient and started Super Robot Wars X, but in this case, I felt it was somewhat justified. After all, I’d already played through Super Robot Wars V in its entirety, a game in which Cross Ange made its debut. Because these games frequently cover the plots of these anime series so exhaustively, I’d already been spoiled on a lot of the crucial details of the plot.

This begs the question: Why would I be compelled to watch Cross Ange? Well, in all honesty, it’s really only because I enjoyed using Ange’s mech, Villkiss, in SRW V and planned on using it again in SRW X. I felt like it was a great design and the attacks were really fluidly animated. That opinion hasn’t changed, exactly, but watching the anime certainly didn’t improve my opinion on these characters or the world they inhabit. 

It’s worth noting that in most of the anime I’ve watched so far, I’ve had things to say about the gratuitous sexualization of female characters. A lot of mecha anime are targeted at teen boys, so it makes sense, even if it bothers me just about every time it happens. Cross Ange is particularly egregious here, though, and often in more shocking ways. Our protagonist, the titular Ange, is subjected to a pretty horrific implied rape/cavity search in the very first episode, for no real reason other than to drive home the point that her circumstances have gotten dramatically worse.

Things aren’t looking so dire for Princess Angelise when we open our story. She’s a celebrated member of the royal family in the Land of Mana, a world in which to be human is to be capable of using magic. Angelise is attended at all times by her fiercely loyal maid, Momoka, who frequently performs magic on Angelise’s behalf so she needn’t exert effort that would be beneath her. Angelise also spends a great deal of time competing in a bizarre Quidditch-like sport in which players ride flying vehicles around scoring goals on each other. She’s quite good at it, which will become important later. 

Not Quidditch

It soon becomes clear that not everyone can use magic. A scene early in the first episode shows a newly-born baby crawling through a magical pyramid barrier, much to the shock and disgust of gathered townspeople. It turns out this is proof that this child is unable to use magic and as such must be exiled from the Land of Mana. Those unable to use magic are dubbed Norma. Years of ingrained cultural tradition portray the Norma as despicably violent subhuman monsters who cannot be allowed to mingle with civilized society. Exiling these children is seen as a kindness necessary to maintain peace. Angelise, as much a product of this society as her subjects, fervently agrees. She witnesses the scene with the infant child and zealously declares that all Norma should be eradicated. From the very beginning, Angelise is a tough character to like.

Predictably, it soon becomes clear that Angelise herself is a Norma. Her brother, Julio, is quick to reveal this to the gathered citizenry. Evidently, this has been an open secret in the family for some time, but it is news even to Angelise herself. Momoka’s penchant for using magic to assist her is revealed to be a farce. Angelise had been unable to use magic all along, and we’re supposed to believe that she had never once even attempted to do so, despite it being a very normal thing for their people to do. We’re also expected to believe that she had never felt any angst or concern at the fact that she had never used magic or considered what the implications were. The alternative is that her privilege is so blindingly entrenched that she never felt the need to think about these things. Again, she is a tough character to like.

Julio

Regardless, Angelise isn’t ready to believe that Julio’s words are true, despite it becoming apparent that she cannot perform magic on command. To further drive the point home, the guards attempt to restrain her in one of those pyramid prisons, and she breaks free from that as well. To add another layer of tragedy to this story, Angelise’s mother, the Queen, throws herself in front of her daughter to protect her when she acts foolishly in front of the guards, only to be shot and killed herself. This doesn’t win Angelise any new fans. 

Angelise isn’t set to be executed, though. Her fate is the same as all Norma. She will be excommunicated from the Land of Mana and will live on the island of Arzenal, where all Norma live—and die. This is where the horrific and unnecessary cavity search scene occurs that I described earlier. It wasn’t a pleasant way to end the first episode.

What follows are a series of episodes setting up a significant chunk of the anime’s setting. Angelise—who decides to go by Ange from now on, to distance herself from her former family—soon discovers that she must now live a life of forced servitude. Her other option is to starve since the only way she can get food is to buy it. To make money, she has to hunt dragons. That’s right, the purpose of Arzenal is to fight off enormous dragons that come pouring out of the sky from arcane portals. Fortunately, the Norma of Arzenal are well-equipped to fight these dragons, as they’re outfitted with an array of combat mechs that seamlessly transform from what I could only describe as an air bike to a more traditional, sleek, humanoid figure.

Dargons.

For reasons that are initially unclear, all Norma are female. As a result, most Norma who live in Arzenal grow up only interacting with other women. It makes sense that in a setting like this, romantic relationships would still develop, and I personally think it would be weird if the anime didn’t explore that. As one might expect, though, these relationships are often framed in as lascivious a way as possible. There are bath scenes aplenty and a surprising number of sex scenes too. After the first episode featured a sexual assault, the very next episode features another assault from Zola, a superior officer in the Norma Paramail Squadron. It’s implied that this character has assaulted other members of the squad as well, and has created a weird Stockholm Syndrome dynamic in which her former conquests have become dependent upon her. This is just a gross plot point that doesn’t disappear when this character is violently slaughtered in a mishap in the following episode.

Zola, vile predator.

Speaking of violence, this anime has that in spades too. The early episodes seem to want the viewer to feel bad in as many ways as possible. Ange is the victim of two separate sexual assaults in the first two episodes, but on top of that, she inadvertently gets her mother killed. After that, she tries to escape Arzenal in one of the ParaMails when she’s still learning how to use it. As a result, one of the other rookies, entranced by Ange’s stories about the Land of Mana, gets off course as well. She is framed as a cute little girl somehow still holding onto her naivete even in the brutal conditions of Arzenal. She is dramatically torn in half by one of the dragons because the others aren’t around to protect her. Ange gets blamed for this, of course, and obviously, she doesn’t succeed in escaping. Now, Ange is hated by the people of her homeland and hated by the Norma as well. The viewers also don’t feel great about her because she spends much of the first few episodes insisting that she’s not a Norma and that she still continues to believe the Norma are subhuman garbage.

It’s hard to come back from indirectly being responsible for two squad members’ deaths, but this is a 26 episode anime, so you know things have to turn around eventually. Ange eventually distinguishes herself as an extremely skilled ParaMail rider, thanks to her previous experience in Not Quidditch. In fact, she gets so good that she ends up hogging all the dragon kills, making far more money than her fellow riders. It’s a good thing she makes so much money because one rule of the land in Arzenal is that if you’re responsible for another squad member’s death, you have to pay for their gravestone. 

During the ceremony for Zola and the other girl’s deaths, a fellow squad member laments Zola, claiming “her only flaw was her tendency to womanize.” Meanwhile, I’m thinking, “she wasn’t a womanizer, she was a rapist! There’s a difference!” 

About six episodes into the anime, we meet one of the only important male characters in the anime, who still only pops in now and then. Fellow squad member, Hilda, thought it would be funny to stuff a bunch of underwear into Ange’s mech’s exhaust… port… or whatever, which results in an unexpected crash landing during a routine expedition. She ends up marooned on an island, where she meets Tusk.

Hilda the Grump

Now, Tusk is framed as a nice guy who happens to be a great mechanic, but much of the “humor” surrounding his characterization is due to his unwanted sexual advances, even if these advances are frequently portrayed as accidental. I’m of the opinion that he knows what he’s doing at every step of the way but feigns innocence to get away with it. For example, the day Ange awakens on the island, she’s been stripped of all her clothes, and Tusk, a stranger, is sleeping in the same bed with her. There’s no way to explain this away as anything approaching appropriate. Throughout the anime, there are pratfalls in which Tusk somehow ends up with his face buried completely in Ange’s crotch. This happens over and over. And over. Here’s a choice quote from their first meeting when Ange expresses her feelings that Tusk is some kind of pervert. 

“Do I really look like the kind of guy who’d take advantage of a girl? To feel up her ample, well-shaped breasts while she’s unconscious? To enjoy her unresisting flesh every which way? To explore the most intimate secrets of the female body? Do I really look like that kind of guy?!”

Tusk with big fuck boy energy.

Yes. You do.

I could rant all day about how annoying and gross the sexual content of the anime is, about how unnecessarily violent and gory the anime is for no real gain, but it’s worth talking about the things I do like. On the surface, the premise of the anime is interesting. I like the broad strokes of Norma being exiled from human society and their mandated struggle against the mysterious invading dragons. I like the idea of Ange coming into Arzenal as a teenager when the other Norma have been in Arzenal since birth. It does create an interesting dynamic between the characters. Unfortunately, none of the characters ever end up being very likable. Ange is arrogant, annoying, and selfish for a good chunk of the anime, only to evolve into a generic protagonist that still somehow manages to be a damsel in distress on many occasions. 

There is less emphasis on the other members of the squad, but a few of them do have moments of character development. Salia is appointed leader of the ParaMail squadron after Zola’s timely demise, but her character arc mostly amounts to her feeling inadequate for not being the Chosen Hero she always expected to be. She feels Ange, an outsider, is the one getting all the glory, and she can’t reconcile that with how she feels about herself.

Salia

Hilda is the one most affected by Zola’s death and feels she should take it upon herself to follow in her despicable footsteps. As a result, she spends a significant chunk of the series being a huge bully. Her only redeeming traits come after she dares to hope for more than what can be found in Arzenal, only to have those hopes dashed.

Jill

Rounding out the squad are Vivian, Rosalie, Ersha, Chris, and Jill, all of whom mostly fade into the background. Vivian frequently serves as a comic relief character who springs nonsensical “pop quiz” questions on others. Rosalie and Chris essentially serve as members of a polyamorous relationship with Hilda, but only have important character moments very late in the anime. Ersha is a mother figure that similarly only becomes more important later on. Jill is the de facto leader of Arzenal, but her importance beyond this fact isn’t clear initially.

Most of the cast, including Rosalie, Chris, Ersha, and Vivian from the left.

Cross Ange becomes much more than the story of Arzenal and the defense against dragons in the anime’s second half, but I also feel this is the point where the story really falls apart. An omnipotent villain is introduced and despite a principal plot point of the anime being dragons, the story becomes significantly less grounded and more sci-fi. Although there were a lot of things along the way that repelled me before this point, this was the part of the anime where I no longer really resonated with the story, and that didn’t change at any point on the way to the finish line.

What’s framed as an interesting twist is really just nonsensical at the end of the day. The extreme power of the villain is also disconcerting because it’s not clear at any point why this villain doesn’t utterly destroy everything in his way. I’ve never liked villains like this. Just as heroes with no weaknesses aren’t interesting, neither are villains without weaknesses. As a result, any effort to defeat or destroy this villain ends up being a series of convoluted contrivances. Cross Ange is no different in this regard.

Ultimately, Cross Ange is a bizarre and often disturbing anime that frequently made me uncomfortable. There’s a skeleton of an interesting premise in there but I couldn’t recommend that anyone slog through it just to experience it. Play the Super Robot Wars games in which they feature and you’ll have a much better experience than actually watching the anime.

Cross Ange in Super Robot Wars V and Super Robot Wars X

I used the following units in Super Robot Wars V.

Villkiss - Ange

I used the following units in Super Robot Wars X.

Villkiss - Ange

Enryugo - Salamindinay

Both of these games feature a whole lot more of the ParaMails from this anime and although I experimented with some of them, I found that I didn’t feel it necessary to slot in any more of those units. I had briefly considered using more from Cross Ange in Super Robot Wars X, but after actually watching the anime, I quickly changed my mind. Having said that, Villkiss was a powerhouse in SRW V and one of my best units, but it didn’t quite rise to the top in SRW V, even though it remained a solidly reliable choice. Salamindinay is a character I didn’t even get around to since she mostly features in the anime’s second half, but her red ParaMail was often useful in SRW X due to its extremely long range. I don’t have too much more to say about them than that, but I can say that the SRW adaptation of the Cross Ange story is significantly less disturbing than the anime’s variant. Again, I can absolutely recommend skipping this anime.