I haven’t written about Cross Ange episode summary since episode 14 and the last time I written anything about Cross Ange was when a post was about suggesting people to re-watch the series if they have dropped it early on. I didn’t really have much to say about the series up until then, the series didn’t bring much to the table for me to discuss much about. I personally still do not feel any emotional attachment to the characters that an audience member would by this time.

I recently watched Mai-Hime for the first time, it was in my backlog for so long, I recall it airing at the time while I was in college but I was busy with other things and just pushed it off for a later time which finally came almost 8 years later. The reason why I finally decided to watch the series after so many years was due to a Cross Ange thread on /a/ and a suggestion came up to watch Mai-Hime as it was another Sunrise produced series which some predict Cross Ange will have the same end situation from Mai-Hime. I knew about the spoilers beforehand, spoilers do not ruin anything for me such as Games of Thrones I have read all the summary of the books and read threads about each situation of the current situation of each season of the show and I still enjoy the show immensely, and I still watched Mai-Hime all in one marathon run which took about 2 days, finished it last Thursday. I enjoyed the series as in it was entertaining but nothing noteworthy in my opinion just another fun action fantasy.

I can now see why /a/ would suggest watching Mai-Hime, so much promise for a series that could have much more emotional impact if it kept with original plot before the spoiler. Cross Ange just did the same thing but was much worst, with no emotional ties that a viewer should have for the characters that dies, mainly Tusk. Why did the writers even choose to “kill” off characters if the next episode they were going to be alive just like another episode, why put up this false pretense that the audience should be shocked and maybe feel sad about losing characters that were very important to the main protagonist of the story, it was just a cheap shock narrative. Some people might say “this show is just a fanservice show, it had no integrity to begin with, so stop complaining”, which I agree with except for the complaining portion, audience member should be freely discuss the media at hand whether it’s in positive or negative light.

Regarding the emotional ties we as the audience should feel for Tusk or Momoka since they were supposedly killed, I do not know why we should have any emotional ties for Tusk there’s a stronger case for us to feel sympathy for Momoka. Tusk had only roughly 3-4 total episode worth of “development” and in most cases where he was involved was just for comedic effect yet Ange fell in love with him from a 3-5 minute montage back in ep5 with some insert song which was basically the writers just forcing the audience that “these two people are in love”, so why should the audience care for him? I can only recall him being in a non-comedic character twice before the dragon world saving Ange when she went to help her sister and when Vivian was being kidnapped and when they came back from the dragon world and had to leave the submarine and finally save Ange. Honestly, with the way these writers are I doubt that they could write Tusk and Ange’s romance well even with more episodes dedicated to them. The only emotional ties I can see that the audience should feel sympathy for regarding Ange’s depression/distraught is Momoka, she is quite the maid (best/top MEIDO) and very dedicated friend to Ange, we see Momoka grow up with Ange since she was little and has interacted with her since the beginning of the series and we can see the emotional ties Momoka has for Ange.

The explanation for how Momoka and Tusk survive we some of the laziest writing I have witness since Gundam Seed and Seed Destiny. These two luckily survived a bullet wound (Momoka’s bullet was blocked by a frying pan that somehow conform to her breast shape, most likely mana was involved), an explosion, and a cliff fall. Momoka has many ways to survive being a mana user (this doesn’t mean we should pass off this lazy writing because they have this convenient excuse), but what is Tusk’s excuse? All I can think that happens is that he used his grappling hook and Just Caused (a video game) the shit outta there before the explosion could reach him but being that he is basically Jesus /Kira Yamato it makes sense, I guess? I didn’t have too high of hope that these two characters would legitimately be dead since it was a “off screen death”, but I did want it to happen to see some progression of Ange and how she would cope with the situation. If this translated Fukuda’s twitter posts are correct, than I can only say their writing staff are very lazy regarding Tusk’s survival: imgur link or pastebin link.

One thing I do enjoy so far is the outrageously fun /a/’s shitposting, reaction, predictions and the usual discussion regarding how Fukuda is a hack or he is the savior of anime. I know people will say that the whole reason we should watch this show is for the “train wreck” that is Fukuda. This show is basically Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny all over again and to just enjoy the “Fukuda wild ride”, well I have to say I do enjoy /a/’s thread regarding Cross Ange at the very least. I will continue to watch the series until it completes and most likely will not post again until the final episode airs unless I don’t feel like it.