Cross Ange is an anime about titties and explosions and mechas too. Its gory its funny its entertaining and it usually doesnt pull its punches well get more into that later. Now I get why this show wont be for everyone as with its weird tone the mix of silly fanservice and gory/crude drama will be a turnoff for many. That said I honestly thought it made the series twice as entertaining and funny and the tonal whiplash can make for some seriously impactful scenes. The plot of Cross Ange is nothing youve never seen before the classic story about a privileged person who loses everything until they hit rock bottom and how they deal with it. In this case Ange the princess of the kingdom is outed as a Norma a person without magic on the day of her coming of age ceremony or something because of some conspiracy plot coming from her own brother. Ange is detained after her mother is killed and is brought to a concentration camp where she is stripped of every last piece of her human dignity. 600https://ur.com/50UneNa.png Now Ill get on with the positives and negatives about the show: Positives: Great character development and progression and not only for Ange. Great fun mechas explosions titties unga bunga and all that. Interesting enough setting. Great villain until a certain point. Musics great Some types of character interactions that Ill later get more into Negatives: Some weird logic jumps and a couple situations requiring a little bit more suspension of disbelief than normal. It has one of the worst decisions of anime direction Ive seen in my life. Ending is alright but villain is nerfed. Now as Ill explain some of these pros and cons Ill get into some minor and later some major spoilers. Character development yeah Ange is great she starts off as the most sheltered and spoiled brat on possibly the whole planet. She never had to do anything by herself so she didnt even know she couldnt use magic and her maids did literally everything they could to cover it up. Now she gets sent to this concentration camp for Normas people without magic where you get abused raped and all that for sport and either you fight some literal dragons or you die. Ange being the spoiled little shit that she is doesnt want to do anything and actually still believes that all this is just a misunderstanding and that her family will soon come rescue her denial and all that. The thing is every selfish sheltered action Ange takes will later become a slap in the face for her getting other girls and even her own commander killed who had actually raped her before whoops she will be obviously hated and ostracised. 600https://ur.com/NHuGzLd.png Ange after being forced to pay for the graves of her fallen comrades This lends itself to a constant but sufficiently slow character progression to be credible where Ange ends up becoming the chaddest of them all. Some other characters get their own share of character development and progression and its decently well done but obviously Ange is the main focus of the series and in my opinion its just great. 600https://ur.com/KE7fcos.png shell learn to be strong independent wahmen and make friends Major spoilers for villain but hes kinda great. At least up until episode 22. Hes menacing hes clever he has everything under control. Hes one of those villains that will be waiting for you drinking tea everywhere you go. Hes op has control over space and time is immortal basically and can control human sensations with a mere touch. Dont forget he can also control all magic users telepathically. Hes in no rush to accomplish his plan and revels on manipulating people and taking them to his side. I was actually invested and wondering how they were going to defeat him he seemed too powerful to even defeat. But oh well he kinda got nerfed for the finale and thats it. 620https://ur.com/z5hETz8.png casually sipping tea while torturing the protagonist Before I get into the great stink I have to point out something that actually surprised me involving some character interactions. With anime and actually also western media it usually happens that when there is a confrontation everyone is very polite and listens to every word the other has to say as if it was a Dhar Mann video. For example lets say some character betrays another and usually youd expect something like wah you betrayed me yes you see: cue the 5 minute flashback or whatever explanation they come up with. Not in Cross Ange though people get interrupted or shot without a word when their intent is made clear and that was honestly refreshing to see. Now drumroll for the actual reason i made this review to vent about the shittiest decision the biggest stinker of them all and this involves some major spoilers. How great was episode 21 how intense it was how fun and unexpected and all that great sacrifices from some important characters to save the ones they love etc just to be shat on by the last 5 minutes of episode 22 in one of the most glaring fuck you moments Ive seen in my life. You see Momoka and Tusk werent really dead and didnt sacrifice themselves to save Ange. Even though Momoka was shot in the heart then ran over by a car then fell down a cliff then the car fell on her then exploded she had a literal pan like a cooking pan on her breast so she was fine : . And the biggest offender Tusk he literally blew himself up terrorist style with an explosive belt and everything. But no its actually revealed in the episode preview for chapter 23 that in the exact moment the explosion went off he ninja changed into some anti explosive armour and then used a body double technique to get out of there and this is canon Im not even making it up i swear. 620https://ur.com/KYEErSS.png nobody likes persistent men So yeah while this anime isnt usually afraid to go all the way and doesnt really pull its punches this happened which i gotta say took me out of the experience for the rest of the ending. 620https://ur.com/JmXa5K8.png hey babe did you miss me that plot armour sure came in handy Overall a great experience has the best and worst of anime really fun to watch with friends or family loved it and hate episode 22 with all my soul: 8/10 Feel free to disagree with me of course but know that if you do youre wrong and have no taste.