Cross Ange Episode 14 - Turn ∀nge

Note: Because of some strange circumstances on other, my original venue for Cross Ange episode reviews is no longer accessible to me. Until shit gets straightened up, this is the home of any and all future episode reviews.

[Unfortunately this is the most interesting shot in the entire episode]

Feelings are mixed about this episode. On the one hand, Ange and Not-Kira really need some downtime to work on those feelings they have for one another. On the other, there is nothing much spectacular or interesting once the not-quite-startling revelation how a big war messed up der world with the Ragnamails, and that they’re in Tokyo/the Misurugi Empire 500 or so years after the fact. You’d think a revelation like that would have been held with much more importance and be dealt with in the most impacting way possible, bearing the crux of the drama within the 25 minutes of episode airtime. Here it is exposited to us with all the force of a sales representative who lives to be procedurally polite, even if she is only an AI.

I think by and large Gundam fans (or ANY mecha fan) already know the series-defining revelation of Turn-A Gundam, and they’ve already made the comparison to it after watching this week’s episode. If you have not seen it and do not wish to be spoiled, just know it is an event that upended the worldview of the primary cast. When it did so, it was treated with the strongest sense of urgency and importance, from the character reactions, the presentation, and so on. Hell even the original Gundam SEED near the end (Episode 45), understood that, and maneuvered the show’s execution to accommodate the revelations that would be at hand.

But nope, that isn’t really important compared to Ange’s feelings about the matter. I do admire how Ange has to come to terms with her attempts to live her ideal life vis-à-vis a guy like Not-Kira who is duty-driven for a cause greater than his own. Yet once we are slightly over the halfway mark and Ange tries to reconcile and apologize to Not-Kira and DRAGON Vivian, the episode halts. Minds aren’t blown despite their new reality. Eventually they find themselves in the last standing Love Hotel in decrepit Tokyo (IN NEAR MINT CONDITION NO LESS) with Ange and Tusk having a Thank You party where they admit how awesome the other is. Again such developments are welcome, but sheesh they really like to belabor the point.  Then once we finally get the earliest romantic kiss in a current Fukuda property, here come what appear to be the DRAGON Princess’s lackeys saying the two are false citizens stuck on the true Earth.

Again not bad, but did it have to occur in a love hotel around the tail end when it could’ve done so much earlier in the 2nd half of the episode, or at least not be as boring as sin? Given how it we are halfway into the series, I would think they would continue to move forward with greater urgency. Maybe next episode will address that now that DRAGON Princess appears again, and this episode will be remembered as some unspectacular fluke.

Rondo of Notes:


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