Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo episode 2

I know I know folks. I know what you are going to say. How can I be so behind on anime but still make an effort to watch this show? I have no idea. I really don't. Maybe I think it's a train wreck and I can't look away? I want to see how bad things can get? I want something to complain about? Who knows with me.

So how long do you think this togetherness will last? Spoiler alert...not long at all!

What I do know is that I need to get some more posts up tonight as it is October and I barely have any posts this month. Such an empty little month this October. Up now is Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo episode 2. Spoilers for Ange being in denial and hell at the same time.

Well aren't you a ray of sunshine?!

Episode Summary: Dragons. Dragons everywhere. That is what is playing on a screen for tiny children to watch. Their Norma teacher explains to them what the terms Dragon stands for and how it is their duty as Norma (objects) to fight these deadly foe until the bitter end. Ange looks out of place in this class as she was discovered to be a Norma pretty late considering. The leader of this island of Normas Jill and Mana user Emma oversee Ange taking in this lesson but Ange is still going on and on about this all being a mistake. Jill decides that lesson time is over and Ange is to join Troop One. Emma is a little shocked at that as Jill takes the protesting girl away. From a cargo bay Troop One Leader Zola is licking her lips and groping other girls at the idea of Ange joining their squad. Some girls are…jealous I guess of the attention Zola is already showing her while other squad members complain about how Zola is touching them. Zola pretends it is not a big deal and happily awaits for Ange to be brought to them. Ange is still not in a great mood when Jill marches her in there and is told to be shown the ropes. Second in Command Salia attempts to introduce Ange to the rest of the squad, some of whom were happy to meet her for non rappy ways. This doesn’t go over well as Ange still thinks of herself as Mana user, the mana just doesn’t reach this awful island. Most of Zola’s groupies are pissed off with Ange’s attitude and want to slap the stupid off her face. Salia is tasked with showing Ange the rope and apparently the edge of her knife when Ange mouths off. Ange is scandalized at what she is given as a uniform to wear and that it belongs to some dead girl. You know, also there is still blood all over it. Ange decides she rather be naked than wear that and Salia gives her her wish temporarily. Ange eventually decides to wear the clothes but since she is a Princess she has no idea how to dress herself anyway. Salia is like is this real life as Ange realizes all the rumors about Normas were true. Jill has gone to the clinic to get felt up herself (which she is not happy with) and to get her fake arm worked on. She is told to be more careful as she broke in slapping Ange around apparently. The people in the clinic are not sure Ange should be in Troop one either but Jill is like if she dies she dies oh well. Ange gets dressed and immediately is taken to a simulation class that looks pretty real to me. Salia shows her the ropes and off she and the two other new recruits go. At first Ange does worse than the other two girls but then she gets pissed off and really starts to focus. She realizes that this machine isn’t any different than the one she used when playing her sport in school and magically masters it in front of the others. Everyone is pretty impressed that she didn’t splat herself on the ground. Later they all take showers together, with Zola getting…washed from her groupies. The talk of the shower seems to be Ange and her amazing abilities but she pays no mind to them. Salia takes Ange to her room which is empty as there are no other new recruits at the moment. She gives Ange a bit of money and what not and leaves the girl. Ange has delusions of her happy life back home but quickly snaps out of it. She continues to train with the Troop and they find she is above average in everything they throw at her. Impressive…for a Norma Emma says.

Why does my life suck so much?! :(

It is lunch time at the island and the two other new recruits, Coco and Miranda, are happy over pudding it seems. They go to sit down but see Ange being all upset. The girls who are Zola’s groupies join Ange and make fun of her for turning her nose up at the food and proceed to take Ange’s lunch. Ange looks at them like they are crazy for this is pure garbage what they are eating. They bully her a bit more and Ange walks away. Coco comes out of nowhere and is like please take my pudding. Miranda comes up and tries to get Coco to talk to Ange who she apparently idolizes. Coco offers to help Ange with anything and Ange takes her up on the offer since she doesn’t know how to do shopping. Coco shows her and Ange explains how things work in her world, that she got everything and no one was ever discriminated against or suffered. She is…sorta nice to the girls and goes to her room to throw the pudding cup away and write a letter with her newly purchased paper. Meanwhile Zola was busy molesting one of her favorites Hilda when Hilda grows tired of the sex and needs a break. Zola leaves to find more people to molest. Ange has finished her letter and gives it to Jill, stating it is her right as a royal to seek asylum and to please send this letter out. Everyone is like is you dumb as Zola comes in and decides Ange will DO and it will survive as reeducation. Ange is thrown into the prison room as Zola decides that Ange will learn to submit which will help her survive on the battlefield. Ange doesn’t take kindly to the molesting and fights back, accidentally knocking out Zola’s eye. She is stunned but insists she is not a Norma. There is more molesting and it probably would have gone further had the alarms not sounded. Zola is like I will have to rape you later. Ange gets her clothes in order and joins the others in the bay. Apparently there has been a dragon party sighting and Troop One is sent to fight first. Zola tells everyone to remember their training and they will live. Ange joins the group and realizes that she is outside. Instead of going into formation Ange is like I will just fly home and turns away. Hilda goes after her and threatens to shoot if she doesn’t go into formation. Ange is like I am going home bitches and Coco is like take me to this magical place you grew up Princess Ange. Coco smiles happily until blood pours from her face and she is cut in half as the dimensional portal thing forms right on top of her and dragons appear. Both Hilda and Ange are shocked as the battle begins. THE END!

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More like the Molesting Troop.....

I am almost 99.9 percent positive that I hate myself. Why else would I watch episode 2 of this questionable anime? Even peoples on the internet are saying it is special. Not for the over the top fan service though. Well some people were upset at that and how…violent it was. But Christina, you watch The Walking Dead and that is a horrible situation with humans turning on humans instead of zombies. Well I don’t see Rick’s group eating each other. I would think that all these Normas would band together and make a close knit family to deal with the trauma of being cast out of society forced to fight acronym Dragons but no. Since everyone got bullied lets just keep on bullying some more, because who needs love and friendship in this horrible world?

And we are SOOOO gracious for the opportunity to die for those lovely Mana using people.

Lets start at the beginning of this episode though shall we? Ange is now 16 years old. That is pretty old to be starting off as a Norma. Most people are taken to this island of hell at a young age. I am sure once they enter school there is a Mana test. Like okay class lets see how far along everyone is in Mana land. But as we saw in the first episode young babies can be picked up as well. Maybe someone was being a narc. Or in reality it is hard to live in a world that has almost all Mana users and the baby accidentally broke someone’s Mana which caused the Popo to arrive with their billy clubs. The point is no one else is like Ange, going 16 years without using Mana once. Sounds a bit improbable but when you are the royal family you can do what you want. I can see the maid being banished to this island of hell too. So Ange is taking a class with much younger children because she didn’t grow up Norma. She grew up in a super privileged way and I am sure it was eating at her…well to be there at all but to also be in a class with such younger students. She might not have picked up on that insulting fact since in her mind this is all a big mistake and her…well parent is on his way to save her from hell. I like how she only thinks of herself in this episode and not the fact that her mother is dead, her brother turned on her, and her father is probably in massive trouble as well as the maid. I think the younger sister could skate out of this but hello now she is all messed up too.

I think the most surprising thing about this brief class is that DRAGON stands for something. That they aren't just dragons...

We briefly learn in this class (because Ange was in this class for 5 seconds because clearly the little girls just take these filler classes until they are old enough to die) that Normas are allowed to live as tools for the humans (as Normas are not humans). Tools that ride giant motorcycles in the sky and fight dragons. Yeah I can see how killing the Normas might be more humane but I am going to guess that humans aren’t lining the streets to take on these awesome jobs. Like you know what…instead of killing these awful creatures known as Normas we will let them live. How amazing and kind of us. In return for this gift of life Normas will then pledge themselves to the cause of fighting these giant dragons that randomly appear in the sky. A job that has a life expectancy of three years it looks like. Yes this is super fair. I am sure if I stick with this anime long enough it will be revealed that these dragons are appearing because of the Mana users. Like the power actually comes from them or when long ago humans were testing with genetic modification they did something SUPER bad and the dragons are now the results. I think it might be fun to see the dragons go to the peaceful kingdom and it turns out the Mana users can’t refight the dragons at all due to their magic. HAHAS for everyone. But for now the indoctrination must begin at a young age. The teacher seemed…resigned in telling the kids the truth. In nonrapey ways. Like yep we must do our duty as objects and do it proudly. Ange gets about 4 sentences of knowledge before Jill and Mana User Emma drag her not happy self out. I myself might have done other things to get her use to this life as 5 seconds of class and rape didn’t seem to work out that well in changing her attitude.

Oh I see where this is going....

I like how Emma, the only Mana user (I think) on this island of hell (which…sounds pretty bad when you think about it considering she is outnumbered AND her powers don’t work on Normas), is not really on board will all of Jill’s awful ideas. She was pretty much against the rape and now that Jill wants to put new recruit Ange in First Troop Emma is like oh boy. Might as well just kill this one if this is how you want things to go for the girl. Thanks for having Ange’s back Jill. I am sure as the show continues we will learn that all these girls have had it so tough and they are just taking their pain out on other people. Or it will be spun that they were just trying to prepare Ange for what is to come and it was all out of help for the girl. For now I will just feast my eyes on the girls that are in First Troop. Maybe because they aren’t as old or….broken as Jill they will treat Ange with respect. Or….you know…Zola the leader of First Troop is already acting like a bitch, trash talking Ange and molesting her fellow Troop members. It seems as if this First Troop has already gotten some new members as they have complained to second in command Salia about the matter. Skinship it is called. I am sure this Skinship would work better if it was consensual, like I will grow close to my Troop mates so we might be a force to be reckon with on the battle field. For now all these girls live in fear from Zola although she does seem to have some kind of fanclub. An unhappy fanclub that probably puts up with the touches out of fear, maybe at first, but are clearly upset that Ange might steal Zola’s attention way. Clearly everyone is insane on this island.

Oh this will end well. Just one giant happy family there...

After the nice members of First Troop joke around (you know, what which recruits will die first) Ange is happily introduced to the people she will be fighting Dragons with until she dies. Me thinks that First Troop is…well the first line of defense and therefore the veterans are probably the best. Perhaps they could have started Ange and the other newbies somewhere easier? No? Okay then. Zola starts the meeting off well by groping Ange a bit but Ange decides that she hates everyone and everything, even when Salia tries to be nice and introduce Ange to the rest of the team. Because Ange has lived 16 years with Mana users and has been brainwashed into thinking these individuals are dangerous and defects…well she treats them as such. This is probably new to the girls as they are all raised together and are used to being treated like crap…from Mana users. Not one of their own thinking they are better than everyone else. Ange being a Princess and thinking she is above even other Mana users helps this situation, even when a few of the Troop members try to give Ange a bit of slack. I think that Ange is used to be treated a certain way and of course she thinks these people are monsters on a good day. Given that they have done nothing but torture her since she has arrived I don’t see her changing her opinion any time soon.

Just so casual. Goodbye nametag.

Salia is second in command of this unit and seems to be on the side of the ones who aren’t particularly cruel and aren’t down for Zola and her…..special skinship ways. So when she is put in charge of Ange I was like okay maybe Ange will have a bit of a break with all this….over the top stuff. Well Salia is a bit of a rule follower and isn’t taking kindly to Ange’s ideas that she is still a Princess and people need to treat her as such. Salia might not want to slap the bitch off Ange but she might cut off her arrogance. YAY FOR MAKING FRIENDS! First order of business is to put Ange in some clothes that I think the X-Men might pass on for being a bit too revealing. Ange is like…I can’t wear that in public. I think it was secondary that there was blood all over it and the last girl who wore it still had her dead name tag in it. I guess when someone dies on this island they are quickly forgotten about and washing clothes is just way too hard or something. Just gross. I wouldn’t want to wear that either. But since Ange had already been a brat about other things Salia has no patience for her. So when the former Princess was like um no to the clothes, I rather go naked Salia grants her wish by throwing her naked body into the hallway. Friends. Friends for everyone. Ange quickly dons the outfit although I don’t think it would have been out of line to ask for a clean outfit. The joke was sorta on Salia though as Ange had no idea how to dress herself. Ange really should have known something was up if her maid was dressing her her entire life with the maid’s mana but whatever.

HAHA bishes look how awesome I am in the sky.

Like the lesson on the dragons Ange’s time spent learning about the flying machines was brief. Salia did show her all the controls but I assumed it was going to be an actual simulator. Maybe I am wrong and it was a simulator and it just looked super real. Maybe Ange and Coco and the other random girl were never in any danger. Because it looked like a whole lotta danger to me. Here are the keys to the car, don’t die. Because when Jill was in the clinic getting work done on her mechanical arm she told by others maybe placing Ange in Troop 1 was a bad idea and Jill was like OH WELL SMILE SMILE! Like it might save time if they just shot the girl in the head. But since Ange was captain of that certain sport in school and vehicles are similar she was able to smoke Coco and Miranda who are younger but have been put through this training all their lives. They didn’t die so I guess it really was a simulator and they aren’t as evil on this island as I make them out to be. Oh who am I kidding they are all super evil.

First time eh....

The shower scene was…pretty unnecessary. Of course I think shower scenes are always unnecessary but this one just had all the girls gossiping about Ange in front of Ange while one of Zola’s minions washed her vulva. Like thanks, this show is totally awesome. Ange has a moment of what the hellness when she goes to her new room, like all of this happened on one day and she had been living in that cell before she was introduced to the others. She briefly wishes for her life at the palace before she fast forwards to the good part of the Be A Man song from Mulan. She magically aces at everything thrown at her during soldier training. At first I thought that was odd because she was a princess that couldn’t even get dressed on her own. But maybe since she had no mana she unconsciously had learned how to do things the normal way. Like yes we have magic magical people but there is just something satisfying about running and blasting things away with guns. Or you know Ange is just pissed off to be there and wants to prove that she is the best at everything because she is not like those awful Normas. Ange being great at everything makes people hate her and love her more than they already do. No minds were changed.

This is how much Ange does not care about any of these girls.

Since Ange is a newbie and didn’t grow up the normal Norma way she is an odd little duck. I am sure everyone knows by now how she insulted Normas so no one would really want to be her friend anyway. So when Zola’s crew tries to join her for lunch you know they are up to no good. Ange is like fine steal my food, it’s not even fit for pigs. Yeppers that might make them mad. Miranda and Coco saw the whole thing and decided to talk to the girl. Coco has a major girl crush on Ange and seems to block out all the negative things Ange says. She is just misunderstood you know! Miranda seems to just want to be friends, that they all can connect on a newbie level. I don’t think she approved of Coco giving up her pudding cup but whatever makes her friend happy. I am surprised they get pudding cups. Actually I am surprised they get paid. That kinda didn’t make sense to me. They are basically slaved that will fight until they die. I mean I understand the theory if you don’t give these girls hope they will all just die on purpose and who will kill the dragons then?! I just found the money odd. Like how about you don’t pay me and keep molesters away from me. Thanks. Ange seems to be used to dealing with annoying people as she clearly doesn’t want to talk to Coco but does so anyway. Or maybe Ange just wants to voice how wonderful her world is and how horrible it is here and someone actually wants to listen to her. Maybe she thinks Coco will treat her with the respect she deserves and that is why she allows the girl to show her how shopping works. I sense hope for these three. Or I did until Ange threw the pudding cup in the trash….

Ange has a whole lot of

So what did Ange buy at this random store at the slave labor camp? Well Ange still has delusions that this is not her life now. I guess that makes sense. She does come from the happy and perfect world of Mana Land but she was THE PRINCESS on top of that. She is probably used to being treated a certain way. And from what she has seen thus far….these are monsters. Normas are horrible even to each other. Surely she is not one of them. So she has written important people letters trying to get herself out of this situation. Like um your hommie brother is the one who helped get you exposed in the first place. Just who do you think is going to help you? This is basically Jill and Emma’s reactions. Like…do you really not understand that your life is basically over and you need to fall in line before more bad things happen to you? Because that physical examination was just the tip of the iceberg baby.

Oh yeah. I totally want to fall in line now....

While this was going on Zola was having a moment with her number one groupie Hilda. I am not sure if Hilda was having a good time or not. It looks like Zola was forcing her to orgasm over and over again and Hilda was reaching the point where she needed to rest or she was going to die. I guess Hilda was getting off on forcing orgasms onto her or something. So when Hilda needs a break Zola is like PSHT I will find someone else to molest since you can’t handle things. I think this actually hurt Hilda’s feelings but I would have been like YES escape time. Zola was trolling for groupies to molest so when she happens upon Ange being a dumbass Zola is like okay I can rape you instead because I will super get off on giving you orgasms that you don’t want. This method seems to be approved or invented by Jill to get people inline. I would think this would just BREAK a person more. Like nope not they really don’t have any reason to live and I am going to let them fly in the sky next to me with a huge weapon that could take me out. Yep yep this breaking the cutie moment will probably not end well. Thank goodness dragons came to attack or Ange would have been rapped. Well again. She did put up a great fight and knocked out Zola’s fake eye. Like bish is everyone made of fake parts?

Peace out bitches.

Whatever the dragons are they must emit something that allows the Normas to detect them before the portal opens up. Wouldn’t want them to attack the Mana users or anything. This means that there is time to suit up and get to the location that they appear. Zola switches from rape mode to leader mode and gives a speech about how if you remember your training you won’t die. She attempts to lead her troops into battle when Ange is like…I AM OUTSIDE. Okay so it was a simulator earlier, leave me be. She is like ha ha bitches I am flying back home. I am not sure how far she would have made it with all the other girls there ready to shoot her down. I guess all the girls could run away but where would they really go? Ange would have been shot the minute she got back anyway. Not to mention Emma might have access to some super weapon that would destroy them all.

The face of happiness and freedom!

The body of death and despair.

Salia tries to get Ange back into formation before the Ex Princess is shot in the face…by her. Salia is super big on rules and I wonder as the show goes on will Ange have her question those rules. For now though it is get back in line or I will blow your brains away. Ange doesn’t listen and soon Coco joins them. She loves Ange and wants to go to this magical place Ange has talked about. I am sure Coco has seen countless girls die and she knows what kind of life she will have on Zola’s rape squad. She just wants to go to the beautiful place Ange told her about. I could see Ange thinking about how Coco is a gross Norma and that place is not for her when….Coco’s smile was painted red and the top half of her body went flying through the air. Um so when the portals open up that let out the dragons out it is slightly dangerous in that area. Just an FYI. Ange and Salia look on in shock as the smiling girl is smiling no more and Ange’s lack of formation might have put them all in danger. What is going to happen next? Maybe Zola can just molest the dragons to death. Or they can all take off their clothes and then the dragons won’t see them at all. Yeah that’s it…..RIP Coco.