YMMV / Cross Ange

• Adorkable:
  • Poor Tusk just can't seem to do anything without it coming off as pervy, even walking, despite his best intentions.
  • Salia, the nerdy bookworm when compared to the cool-girl likes of Ange and Hilda, and desperately wants to find a boyfriend in her boyless world... and then there is her Magical Girl Cosplay hobby for relieving her stress.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy:
  • Some people actually felt sad for Sylvia towards the end of the series, especially after Ange scares her into getting out of her hover-chair by threatening to shoot her (which some fans say was too cruel even for Sylvia), and afterwards when she realized that Embryo killed Julio and the fact that she's never going to see Ange again because of her actions. She has no one to blame but herself. It's also a sad, yet touching moment to see her follow in Ange's footsteps.
  • Some fans also felt sympathetic to Jill after being used and ultimately killed by Embryo. Not only did she lose her comrades, but her Roaring Rampage of Revenge turns out to be All for Nothing.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Was Sylvia's jerkassery her own fault or instilled by Julio's emotional manipulation of her? The show takes the latter stance, while the fans take the former stance.
  • Was Embryo a formerly well meaning individual as presented in the backstory by Jill, or given how good he was at hiding his evilness at present, already evil even then? Additionally, his decision to restart the world: Is it because he's being an egomaniac as usual and also made it part of his eventual plan, or he realized that the decadence and rampart racism and bigotry of humanity majorly represented by the Mana society that he created were genuine failures in his part and he wanted to do better next time? The show and most of the game take the "pure evil" stance, while his route in the game has him demonstrate the "good man at heart" side since he finally had someone who understood his goals and his recreated new world turns out to be the angst-free lighthearted High School AU manga.
  • Did Hildegard's mother come to hate her norma daughter because of shame and trauma, or did Embryo mind control her to despise the memory of her norma daughter? If it's the latter, what does this imply for Serra's mother in episode 1? Was she fighting hard to keep her daughter out of unconditional love like Ange's mother did? Or was she driven out of shame to somehow hide her daughter was a norma, like Hildegard's mother?
  • The nature of the seven World Wars that turned Embryo into the way he is right now also brings alternative characterization: How much culpability does Embryo have in there? Was he truly innocent in that department (before eventually succumbing into utter villainy) and not causing wars, it was all caused by the humans around him that his desire to create a new world with new humans was a genuine attempt to not repeat the horrors that he has witnessed? Or did he actually secretly engineer those wars so he could get on with his nastier desires (which would make him even more monstrous than he already is)?
  • Tusk is also viewed as either an incompetent comic relief/harem lead who isn't the lead that Ange needs to hold his hand for, or a smooth operator who does these fanservice hijinks deliberately.
  • The Norma of Arzenal regarding whether all of them are actually lesbians, potentially bisexual, or just the product of being kept isolated from men the majority of their lives including their developmental years.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Ange recovers amazingly well from the traumas she endured in the first episode, namely her mother being killed before her eyes, her father being imprisoned and herself bent over a table and given a "physical" from a mechanical hand, spending much of the second in complete denial of her situation, convinced her people will return her home while continuing to express prejudice toward Norma. In fact if one hadn't seen the first episode, they might not know these things even happened—although, of course, it's all a mask. She simply converted her angst into anger and hatred towards the world that discarded her. As such, she remains a deeply broken individual until the final episodes.
  • Sure she was shocked that she was a DRAGON all along instead of a Norma, but Vivian is still as cheerful as ever. Even when told that her tail and wings had been surgically removed long ago, her reaction is less "How could you do that to me!?" and more "Oh, that explains it!"
• Arc Fatigue: As much as the DRAGON/Earth arc was interesting, fans felt it dragged on for a long time. It didn't help that Word of God stated that Episode 14 (at least the second half) was a filler.
• Ass Pull:
  • We're initially shown Ange as a privileged princess who cannot even dress herself yet after a series of extreme trauma, she suddenly becomes stoic badass, she is cutting up another of the girl's pilot suits with enough precision as to not even graze her skin, and using weapons she likely didn't even know existed a few days ago. You'd be forgiven for assuming there was a time skip the writers simply forgot to mention.
  • Momoka and Tusk survive with Momoka apparently surviving thanks to a frying pan blocking the bullet. Tusk's reason for survival is not stated in show, however the preview and Fukuda's Twitter state that he survived because he is a ninja.
  • Sylvia's true nature comes completely out of nowhere, goes against all the buildup she had throughout the series as being set up as a major ally for Ange, and seems to serve no other purpose than to make Ange's life even more hellish than it already was.
  • We're also supposed to believe that Sylvia was never crippled, that her injuries had healed years ago. And that Ange had known the entire time and just didn't bother to mention it. Or that apparently, the doctor who treated her didn't bother to mention this to Sylvia's parents.
• Awesome Music:
  • "Kindan no Resistance", the first opening of the series sounds like a typical Nana Mizuki song. Suffice to say, it's awesome. The show's soundtrack is composed by Akiko Shikata. In other words... also awesome.
  • "Towagatari" ^note "Eternal Story" in all of its incarnations.
    • "Hikari no Uta" ^note "Song of Light" is sung by Nana Mizuki within the show's first minutes, and reappears when appropriate. Given some Autobots, Rock Out! treatment when Toshihiko Seki reprises it as Embryo while giving Julio what he deserves.
    • "Kaze no Uta" ^note "Song of Wind" first appears as Sala makes her glorious entrance by blowing up half of Arzenal with the Enryugo's Golden Super Mode.
    • "El Ragna" ^note "The God", a duet between Ange and Sala that happens to fit as they ready up for an epic Beam-O-War.
  • "Villkiss ~ Kakusei", the main activation theme for the titular Para-Mail's asskickery. The fact that it uses Ominous Latin Chanting will induce goosebumps upon playing.
  • "Shumatsu no Love Song", the second ending theme, also sung by Nana Mizuki, gives off similar awesome vibes as the first opening, combined with a more hopeful, uplifting feel.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Depending on the viewer, Ange is either loved for her fierce independence, developing sense of justice and hotheadedness or is an entitled, self-important bitch who pushes everyone away and Kill Steals and takes the subsequent monetary reward despite not caring about the money. In addition, there is her hatred of the Mana people and her decision to abandon them to their fate in the ending, which is either seen as entirely justified given how horrible they all are towards Norma, or as hypocritical bigotry that makes her no better than those she despises.
  • Salia is either a sole voice of reason trying to do her best in a lot she didn't ask for while trying to do her leader proud (and for some, hopefully find her true love), or an envious egotist who can't get over her idolization of a mentor that has since admitted to using others, or losing the Villkiss and perceived role as her idol's protege to Ange, a person who she often comes to blows with and in particular refuses to be played by Jill. Salia trying to force Ange to sneak out via the sub and play her role in Libertus instead of staying behind to stop the Arzenal siege, to the point where she went after her when Ange already deployed in the Villkiss to do so which ended in Ange knocking her into the ocean, split people even further between the two. And then there's Episode 17. Asking "who won" will cause an argument so loud that can drown out a jet plane.
  • Fan opinion is split with Tusk. Yuri Fans hate him for being a guy in the main cast full of women (which has since caused more conflict with newer fans accusing the yuri fans of trying to erase bisexuality and polyamory), while some see him as a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass Knight in Shining Armor, and others find Tusk's clumsiness resulting in him diving on Ange's crotch to be pretty annoying.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • Granted the point of the scene was to get Ange acquainted with Sala and the DRAGONs, however some of the scenes in Episode 16 are just bizarre even for the series that viewers could be forgiven for thinking the series underwent a Genre Shift.
  • The parallel universe vision shared by both Ange and Sala after their beams clash in Episode 11. Aside from fan theories about alternate universes and a destined rivalry, nothing comes of it in series.
• Bile Fascination: A large portion of the viewers in the show's initial run were people who remembered Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny and were hoping to see a train wreck. Afterwards, a not insignificant portion number of people checked out the series to find out what all the complaining is about when they hear of the series, and a portion of them agree and had fun with it, or instead sees it in a different way and enjoying it in its own way, in cases of those Bile Fascination instead causes a Hype Backlash on its bile.
• Broken Base:
  • Mitsuo Fukuda's involvement can make and break it for people. For some viewers, especially in the West, his work in Gundam can turn people off due to the obvious influence. Then again at the same time his work in Gundam is also immensely popular, so his named tagged onto it also draws attention to it for viewers to be interested in it.
  • The second opening can have this reaction from fans, especially the opening sequence used in Episode 13^note According to Word of God, they had to rush it out because the music had to be released 3 weeks after the episode aired, but assures fans that the opening itself will be fixed on Episode 14. Some love the music and hate how the opening looks more like a fan made animated music video, some hate that the opening song itself isn't as energetic as Kindan no Resistance, and some think that the opening and the ending should have been switched. And then it turns out they only added a few scenes while recycling the rest and the ending unchanged. Cue the fans accusing Fukuda of lying and rampant Lazy Artist accusations ensue.
  • There is a noticeable divide among the fandom as to whether the first half of the show was better or the second half. Fans of the former point out noteworthy episodes such as 9-10 and favored the absurdly gratuitous content. Fans of the latter believe that the show began Growing the Beard once Ange left Arzenal and became friends with fan favorite Sala. These fans usually came to the conclusion that the show is actually pretty good, but it has a 'big fat content warning' for the early episodes in order to prune out those who cannot see past the warning.
  • It speaks volumes that several fans argue that the version of Cross Ange's story in Super Robot Wars V and/or Super Robot Wars X are the definitive versions to experience the story, despite the involvement of many other series. Though this itself has also caused a fairly age-old arguement of fans arguing if the original or the Super Robot Wars version of the story is better.
• Cargo Ship: Salia is very fond of the Villkiss. Unfortunately for her, it was sunk by Villkiss who refuses to use its full power for her.
• Cliché Storm: Has this as one of the main complaints given by detractors. It's about a Fallen Princess who initially is cold and mean but undergoes a Defrosting Ice Queen process, thanks in part to a male Love Interest who is essentially the generic harem protagonist except he’s just comic relief, complete with her acting Tsundere and beating him for being an Accidental Pervert. She joins the all-female La Résistance against the Evil Empire that exiled her; said empire is a clear Nazi-analogue, displaying Fantastic Racism against Norma, and is populated by an Always Chaotic Evil race (the Mana people). The heroes are forced to also fight dragon-like monsters (creatively called DRAGONs), before finding out that they were Human All Along and that Humans Are the Real Monsters. The initial Big Bad is a generic evil emperor with no redeeming qualities, before it is revealed that he is a Disc-One Final Boss being controlled by a generic evil god who also has no redeeming qualities and tries to brainwash and rape many female characters, including the heroine, to show how evil he is. He is eventually beaten by The Power of Love and a happy ending is had for all- except the “evil” race, who are left to die off because there's a need of the presence of karma that hit right on the target.
• Common Knowledge: Many detractors tend to be the type of people that described the whole series based on the earlier acts, where it really cranked up the disgusting factor before eventually Growing the Beard, because they dropped the show in disgust and thought that everything that came afterwards are always like that. Those who watch completely, regardless of their opinions later, can spot out some misconstructed statements from there:
  • While the series does delve into some gratuitous Fanservice, it does not glorify rape. The earlier prison rape scene wasn't something that happened a lot nor does it get repeated a lot (not to mention, prison rape tends to happen in real life), and from Ange's POV, it was a horrific experience, but from Jill's POV, it was more or less a standard prison procedure applied to prevent possible prison breaks, and she doesn't necessarily enjoy the action. The sexual predator captain, Zola, died quickly, and while there were some mourning for her work ethics (even if it's mostly Unintentionally Unsympathetic, see below), she's quickly forgotten and Hilda revealed that she was only faking consent on her. Not to mention that while the ultimate Big Bad, Embryo, really gets around with rape innuendos, he's not at all portrayed in sympathetic manner, he has reasons for doing his other bad things, but his desire for rape has no grounds and thus always shown in a disgusting light (though some claim the only reason his rapes are taken seriously is because he's a male while Zola is an attractive female).
  • The show isn't about "cute girls getting brutally, bloodily and messily devoured by demonic dragons". The messy deaths were to show what was on the stake when it comes to fighting DRAGONs as the Arzenal crew members, they're fighting to risk their lives. And eventually, these DRAGONs were revealed to be a victim of misunderstanding, while they had their own flaws, they had their positive traits, and coming to an understanding between them and Normas became one of the goals that Ange sought and achieved. Come halfway of the series (or even a quarter), 'messy death by dragons' no longer happen (messy deaths by explosions or mecha fighting? That's what happens, and it was already a common occurence in mecha anime).
  • Despite what claims have led people to believe, Tusk isn't a harem protagonist by any means. While he may fit the archetype quite a bit, Ange is the only character that he ever gets ship tease with (and Hilda's moments with him tend to be throwaway flirtation, as she sees him as an opponent for Ange's affections). In fact, it would be more correct to say Ange is the harem protagonist, having multiple characters she gets plenty of Ship Tease with (Tusk, Hilda, Momoka and Sala are the main frontrunners).
  • As funny as the boasting scene was, Ange and Tusk did not have sex for 3 days and 3 nights, as there was simply not enough time for it to happen. The episode they do have sex says it was 12 hours. Impressive, but nowhere near the claimed amount of time.
• Complete Monster:
  • Prince Julio Asuka Misurugi, heroine Ange's evil brother, betrays her at a ceremony to expose her as a "Norma"; Normas are humans without magic who are shunned and sent to become glorified cannon fodder in a war against interdimensional DRAGONs. This results in the death of their mother. Julio has their father arrested and promptly executed to seize the throne himself. He manipulates their crippled sister Sylvia into baiting a trap for the now battle-hardened Ange, so Julio can capture her, torture her and murder her himself. When she escapes, Julio, taking advantage of a proposal from the mysterious Embryo to destroy and recreate the world, eagerly decides to simply "purify" the Norma, regardless of age, and launches a brutal attack on their home of Arzenal to kill all of them, including Ange.
  • Embryo, the "Creator" of the world, was a scientist who grew tired of warfare and kidnapped the mighty DRAGON Aura to power the creation of a new world. Embryo creates a system where those without magic are oppressed and used as Cannon Fodder to kill DRAGONs trying to recover Aura, while discarding and recreating humans when they fail to impress him. Embryo seduces many of the pilots to his side, using Salia sexually while lying about how he loves her. When Ange herself refuses his advances, Embryo tortures her by forcing her mind to undergo overwhelming pain and then physical need. When Ange tries to escape, Embryo shows his true colors by taking over the mind of her faithful maid Momoka and even tries to fatally shoot Momoka when she resists. Upon the final battle, Embryo simply decides to obliterate all of humanity again, coldly rebuking one of his subordinates for caring about others, and tries to sacrifice his loyal followers to buy himself time. When he is through trying to seduce Ange, Embryo tries to beat and rape her before trying to kill her for not "accepting his love."
• Crazy Is Cool: Ange has done so many crazy things after her Important Haircut moment. She's crazy enough to force feed someone via kissing, buy her mana user best friend and maid by Arzenal rules and thus giving the first middle finger of the racism between mana users and Norma, kill all DRAGONs all by her lonesome self to buy said mana user, tell the person running Arzenal as to whether she's embarrassed by a bug or not, pilot her Para-mail despite being sick, break out from prison to save her sister by kidnapping a princess and buying out Jasmine's guns, takes on an entire police squad and win with nothing more than guns, a hoverbike, and her maid (though it ended with a Pyrrhic Victory), sing to shut up people, finish the job of her rescuer, free fall with no parachute to get to her Villkiss, and toss the person who was on Villkiss and tell Hilda to catch her. This is even acknowledged in-universe by Hilda who thinks she's crazy but she should have expected that.
• Critical Backlash: As mentioned in Bile Fascination, several fans watch because they heard about the negative reception of the show on how awful it supposidly is. Generally speaking, while opnions on the show can be divided, the general camp is that it is nowhere near as bad as detractors describe.
• Crossover Ship:
  • Quite a few fans enjoy pairing Hilda with Junko Enoshima of Danganronpa, (though, ironically, Junko is very close to being a Distaff Counterpart of Embryo in terms of evil, giving the pairing a Foe Yay Shipping vibe).
  • One of Ange's popular crossover pairings is Lelouch vi Britannia from Code Geass. A fellow Sunrise mecha protagonist and fallen royal, with Ange often being considered his Foil (while Ange is a physically fit Action Girl, Lelouch is a tactical genius that's physically underwhelming). Super Robot Wars X absolutely runs with this, from Lelouch helping Ange become a better person and saving her on a few occassions, down to the characters calling Lelouch "Boy-Ange" and one one accasion, Ange getting called "Girl-Lelouch".
• Die for Our Ship: Tusk has been reviled by the yuri fans for even existing. It doesn't help that all of his appearances so far have been him digging himself deeper, getting his face in Ange's crotch, and isn't as interesting as Ange. The fact that he's billed as a main character despite being only in a handful of episodes at this time of writing hasn't helped his case. Escalated even further after Episode 14, where almost the whole episode is dedicated to Ange and Tusk. It cultivates in them sharing a kiss and very close to making love directly after had it not been the timely arrival of Sala's minions to answer their earlier distress signal. Needless to say, the yuri fans are practically begging for him to die.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • With his entire first scene, fans already were clinging towards Embryo despite being a really nasty man, proclaiming that "he's god."^note Though Jill does claim that he is one, he himself would prefer the title creator. It probably was thanks to him being a really nice friend to animals and the fact that he legitimately cares for humanity as a whole. Even the Norma concept itself was something he didn't see coming and was an accident. The fact that he is very disturbed at the slaughtering of Normas and threw a few Pet the Dog moments for other people makes viewers really question whether he's evil or not. And then there's the entire thing he did at Episode 19, save for brainwashing Ange, only for the latter to overcome it. And then Embryo bows down to her. Even after this is all revealed as simply acting on Embryo's part and after he attempts full genocide of humanity while trying to rape or murder Ange out of spite, he still managed to retain fans and for a lot of them, consider him actually the Lesser of Two Evils compared to the ridiculously racist Mana people he created, because he did acknowledge that it was a genuine mistake on his part and with how over the top racist/decadent and unreasonable they were, it's one of the few points that Embryo could be agreed with.
  • And in a more Well-Intentioned Extremist sense, we have Liza, who has gained a bit of fandom lust, and following her capture by Embryo, pity, even though she was responsible for enabling Julio to engage in his plot of taking over the empire, the death of Ange's mom, and Ange's resulting struggle, which included instigating a siege on Arzenal that decimated half the island and resulted in many Norma deaths. That she was helping the [DRAGONs] as a mole doesn't completely absolve her. (Sala apparently didn't approve of the methods being used.) There are even fans who hate Sylvia for whipping her in Episode 19, even though for ruining her family and torturing her, she did kind of ask for it.
  • The DRAGON race as a whole, with the exception of Sala. Remember that with the exception of the former, all of them agreed to execute Ange upon making contact with them for the first time (Of course, Ange was an unknown entity who showed up out of nowhere at a time when they were embroiled in a costly war, but still). And this was after they tried to destroy her former homebase, Arzenal, along with all the other Norma, even though they were all pawns and victims of Mana society and Embryo, which might as well count as a war crime. They also don't seem to care that returning Aura to their world will bring about immediate societal collapse for the denizens of this world. They are also this in-universe for Ange, who has begun to trust them very quickly, even when they haven't completely stopped suspecting her.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: While most of the characters are very controversial, there are a few who even detractors of the series admit to considering the only likable ones:
  • Vivian seems to be quite popular due to her cute design and cheerful personality despite the circumstances of the show's setting. Even the staff has admitted to liking Vivian since she's such a Genki Girl even in the darkest of times.
  • Hilda became a sudden favorite for many after it was revealed she wanted to get out of Arzenal to reunite with her mom. The tragic results earned her even more sympathy points.
  • Momoka also is this when she shows how loyal she is to Ange when she stood up against the crowd of people who wanted Ange to die. A lot fans do wish that she pilot a Para-mail so she can finally fight alongside Ange. The fact that she was a lot helpful to Ange despite not being able to fight certainly helped her case. Though in hindsight, her piloting a Para-mail may be a bad idea. She is basically the shining example of how the Mana users could rise beyond their decadence and prejudice and deserved saving (though she and a select few did earn their salvations, unfortunately the same couldn't be said for the rest of the Mana people who chose to stay decadent and bigoted despite karma catching up to them), thus was beloved for it.
  • Sala has a huge fanbase as soon as she showed up in the opening. Then her appearance kept getting teased till she was shown in Episode 11 and even only for a few lines. Her formal appearance made her more popular when she curb stomped Ange (if one-sidedly so via flying dropkick) and her popularity hasn't dwindled down since. It helps that the Yang Dragon has a pretty sweet design that is a bit more plausible due to having an enclosed cockpit instead of being exposed like a Para-mail, have seat belts, and generally safer to pilot than a Para-mail. Or how in the middle of many many flawed characters, while Sala does have her flaws, hers simply wasn't that overblown or offensive to a lot, making it easy to root for her.
• Epileptic Trees: Whoever was SFHHHJG GFTHK◊ that was shown during the graveyard scene in Episode 3 really had a very special name.
• Escapist Character: Ange, in an unusual overlap with This Loser Is You. She expresses very well the many hardships that youths today struggle, such as a lack of time to grow up properly by being forced to act as an adult way too early, overly eager and reckless behaviour which leads to fatal mistakes, an inability to talk about their problems with other people, because it is liable to get one labeled as wangsty, both by the environment and one's own conscience, or an overwhelming sense of frustration with the world.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: The Norma and DRAGONs are finally rid of Embryo, the epicenter of their respective struggles, and finally get to live in peace. The surviving Mana people however are forced to struggle in the aftermath of the dimensional fusion, which has left their world in ruins, and fight amongst each other for survival. While this may be considered by many to be their just desserts, this did not sit well with others who saw that many of the people were Unwitting Pawns of a sociopath with a god complex and left in the dark regarding the truth behind why Norma were discriminated and where the Mana came from, and blamed them for being rotten and complacent while doing nothing to help that complacency in the first place. This argument definitely has a point regarding a few of the Mana users who were or became privy to the truth, namely Ange's own parents, Momoka, Emma and perhaps also Misty Rosenblum, who proved that Mana people could be equally kind towards the Norma if they were enlightened enough. Although the majority of these Mana users that got their just desserts tend to fall into the "unreasonable ones" category rather than the enlightened ones.
• Evil Is Cool: Embryo is the villain of the series. Considering he made his pilots wear cool looking suits, awesome weaponry, treated them more of a human than the other factions, himself wearing a nice suit, making several valid points about the state of the Mana world that he created and then there's the entire Draco in Leather Pants treatment and you've got one awesome villain. That said, his incredibly heinous actions has given him more of a Love to Hate relationship to some of the fans by the end of the series, while just as many people flat-out dislike him as a villain, finding him too over-the-top and ridiculous to take seriously.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The Japanese fandom's nickname for Tusk is "Kirito", because he looks like Kira Yamato but acts like Rito Yuuki. Has no relation to Sword Art Online.
  • Also "Super Kira", owing to Mamoru Miyano's other notable role.
  • Tuskete on the other side.^note Ange saying "tasukete" (help me) + Tusk's name = Incredibly Lame Pun.
  • Tusk F. Yamato for another. Not only does Tusk look like Kira, but he is also voiced by Mamoru Miyano who voiced another Gundam protagonist named Setsuna F. Seiei. ^note I am Paramail!
  • On the english side for some, Fluttershy for Ersha. Out of strange coincidence, Ersha looks almost indentical to a humanized Fluttershy, merely lacking the yellow turtleneck.
  • Angelise for Ange, pre-Characterization Marches On where she rejected Normas and wishes to eradicate all of them. Some also use Hitlerina.
  • Stripper vision guy for Embryo, thanks the opening where he stares at Ange who's running and somehow strips her clothes. Alternatively, he also garnered "Fetus-kun", in relation to his name.
  • Twitter bird for the bird that latches on Embryo in his first scene since the bird looks like the same logo from the Twitter website.
  • Top Meido for Momoka
  • Salamandinay might have been a victim of many many Accidental Misnaming (until most officially goes with either 'Sala' or 'Salako'). Still, that didn't stop many people to come up with any other creative misnaming for Sala as her nickname.
• Fanfic Fuel: Due to certain ambiguities regarding the context of the setting, some fans wonder how the Norma of Arzenal would react to suddenly having sympathetic male characters other than Tusk in their midst such as an underground resistance movement of Mana-users that are sympathetic to the Norma or even the discovery of a Male Norma, things that the show itself got criticism for not exploring in favor of a black-and-white “Norma good, Mana bad” narrative.
• Foe Romance Subtext: A one-sided part on Julio towards Ange as Julio is so obsessed with killing her while Ange herself doesn't care about him or Sylvia anymore.
• Genius Bonus: All the Ragna-mails are named after historic queens and princesses, with the sole exception of Embryo's Hysterica. This may seem random, until you realize that the word "hysteria" is derived from the Ancient Greek word for "womb".
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Ange proclaiming in Episode 1 that she wishes to wipe all Norma in hopes of helping the World of Mana, after Julio himself shows up with fleet in tow at the end of Episode 12 with the intent of doing the deed himself, even if he's doing the bidding of Embryo. Even harsher now that we the viewers, along with Ange herself, now know the reality of what the Norma have to deal with over at Arzenal ^note which for added points has just been half destroyed by an invasion from Sala, with many Norma killed or healing from wounds. Julio by contrast has known and wants to obliterate everyone, especially because it means he can get rid of Ange, the bastard.
  • Also the Norma baby comment from Ange in the first episode. Guess what Hilda's mom did after Hilda was taken away from her?
  • The "friendly fire" incident in Episode 5. A lot of fans laughed at how stupid the pilots and the staff were when they encountered a DRAGON and just basically killed themselves. Now that Episode 11 aired and it turns out that anyone who can use mana and hears a DRAGON's roar gets overcome with a dose of Berserker Rage, suddenly the entire sequence made a lot of sense now.
  • The Episode 11 preview after the events of the episode itself. While none of the named characters died, Sala's attack on Arzenal vaporized more than a few Para-Mail pilots, as well as half the island itself!
  • Embryo's "Fan Nickname'' became one as well when he makes Ange strip for him in Episode 18 and actually makes her disappear with the intent to rape her.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The relationship between Nana Mizuki and Yukari Tamura is hilarious because it went from one of the biggest yuri ships of anime history into one full of hatred with each other as Ange and Hilda. In other words, Nanoha is abusing Fate and Fate hates Nanoha's guts. As the series progresses, the relationship between Ange and Hilda softens up, and by Episode 23, the Les Yay is stronger than ever, with Hilda claiming that Ange is her "prince". Considering respective voice actresses Yukari Tamura and Nana Mizuki once said that Nanoha would become a wife for Fate...
  • Nanoha is an Expy of Amuro Ray and his Gundams while Fate is an expy of Char Aznable. They are enemies once again. Made even more hilarious is that they seemed to swapped roles. Yukari Tamura is the one piloting a red mech this time and Nana Mizuki a white mech. So if everything is reversed, what if the opposite of love? Hate of course. Kinda makes you think the dev team really thinks of everything.
  • The Fan Nickname for Tusk became one of these after the Episode 13 preview shows off a red Villkiss◊.
  • A fanart of Ange and Tusk featured Ange wearing the suit worn by Tusk's mom with Tusk being the dad and wearing the Ancient People's uniform◊. Guess what suits Ange and Tusk wear at the end of Episode 22.
  • Detractors of the show have been quoted as saying "The only thing it did right is that it wasn't set in a high school" as is often seen as a cliche setting for anime and manga which was very abundant during its airtime (while a more war-based politic-heavy theme like this show was not that commonplace). Cue the self parody manga taking place in just such a setting.
  • As mentioned under the shout out section on the main page, Villkiss' Michael Mode makes reference to the Zeta Gundam and its Biosensor abilities, while its Ariel Mode's teleportation is often compared to the Boson Jump. Cross Ange's Super Robot Wars debut, in V, sees it featured alongside those two exact series.
  • With Added Actor Allusion: Chris Patton getting cast as Embryo, considering that he previously voiced Keima.
  • A lot of fans noted that Cross Ange is basically an offshoot of Fukuda's other works Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and its sequel Destiny. Cue the 2024 SEED film, Freedom, which has a lot of references to Cross Ange, such as the Mighty Strike Freedom resembling the Villkiss or Orphee being Embryo's Gundam counterpart. And to top it off, it just so happens to line-up with Cross Ange's 10th anniversary.
• I Knew It!:
  • Fans correctly guessed that the Toshihiko Seki-voiced Embryo would get to sing.
  • Absolutely nobody was fooled by Tusk and Momoka's deaths in Episode 21 and had already guessed they survived due to Never Found the Body. Sure enough, one episode later they show up no worse for wear.
  • Quite a few fans correctly predicted that Emily Neves and Austin Tindle would play Ange and Tusk for the English dub.
• Informed Wrongness:
  • Early Ange was reflected on by the story (as well as herself) as spoiled and racist. Both are debatable, at least when compared to her once-fellow residents in the World of Mana. The worst that can be said was that she had other people groom her, and yet, she was looking forward to becoming a Politically-Active Princess. Being forced into becoming a soldier certainly damaged her there. As far as racism goes, she didn't care for norma, but didn't openly call for their deaths like everyone else did, and had been kept in the dark about it.
  • Her tenure as a dragon hunter at Arzenal was a case of "Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't". Jill coldly forces her to "fight or die" even though she was forced into combat before she could even adjust, a move that also cost the lives of two fellow new recruits, and the squad's leader. Also, she's disgusted at the thought of killing dragons and finds it violent, but only gets used to it after starting to do it. Later, she's put into detention for "deserting" Arzenal, even though as forced conscripts on order of the World of Mana, they really have no moral duty, with no indication of Jill doing it to keep appearances. A few episodes later when she ends up in the True Earth, she is treated like an enemy, albeit somewhat understandably, and beckoned by Sala to quit killing DRAGONs... even though it was never by Ange's own choice and that Ange had already infact very recently learned the dragons were modified humans, but rather because she and all Norma were all pawns of Embryo and the Mana leaders, not to mention the DRAGONs' own spy in the Misurugi palace, Liza, was largely responsible for sending Ange down her present path, and also opened a portal above Arzenal annihilating half the base as well as the Norma in spite of the Norma just being pawns. Not to mention that while holding Sala hostage may have been a step too far, she truthfully couldn't be faulted, because this was what she had to cope with and learn as well in order to survive in Arzenal, not to mention that she had been either betrayed, lied to, or threatened with execution almost every step of the way, and seeing as this was how she had just been given yet another execution threat (even if it was dropped). As such, she had far from adequate assurance to let her guard down. On top of this, Sala has the gall to call their world violent, even though again the Norma are forced to fight the DRAGONs and she and her comrades just pulled the siege over Arzenal, even though a strike over either Misurugi or Rosenblum (the administrators of Arzenal) would have been far more apt.
• Jerkass Woobie: No matter how unethically she has acted, Jill deserves at least some pity; her backstory was even worse than what Ange goes through. She was exposed as a norma at age 9 and discarded by her family (Ange's parents tried to protect their daughter, by contrast), and her attempt at Libertus ended in horrific failure, as she had been raped in both body and mind by Embryo while her comrades all died, and lost her arm, along with the ring she needed to pilot the Villkiss, in her escape and retreat, leaving her a secretly self-loathing empty shell of her former self. She does make up for her attempts to hide away from her past in the final episodes, but loses her life in the process. She still comes across as more sympathetic than the cowardly mana society masses who try to have Ange rescue them.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Many detractors blame the show being full-on World of Jerkass and even DRAGONs exhibiting some Holier Than Thou attitude and forgot that eventually at least the protagonist side (Ange, the Norma and later DRAGONs) showcase positive attitudes and development, which has a nasty tendency of overshadowing the heinous things Embryo have in plans for the world. And if one gets past that, the straight example rears its head: Embryo is a raging narcissistic genocidal maniac, true, but he could merit off some values of Evil Is Cool because his plans are so 'out of there'. On the other hand, Julio, while also heinous on his own, exhibited much more relatable attitudes found in real life jerks: Parental favoritism jealousy, racism superiority, the single-minded desire to see just one person (Ange) suffer just because she's 'different'. This can also be seen to the whole Mana community, who are highly racist and extremely unreasonable, demanding free help while acting like jerks to anyone not meeting their standards. While they ARE the creation of Embryo, even fans would agree that Embryo had some sort of point that he saw them as his failures and wanting to restart the world, and saw the murder of Julio and severing of Mana leading to the community collapse as justified.
• Just Here for Godzilla: The first BD volume, for the Nana Mizuki event ticket.
• Karmic Overkill:
  • Ange's initial prejudice towards Norma, not to mention her abrasiveness, are bad, but nowhere near bad enough for her to endure what she does over the first 15. Not to mention said abrasiveness developed as a consequence of what she endured during her time at Arzenal.
  • Sylvia's final fate of being left behind in the ruined World of Mana seems cruel considering she had largely been a pawn, and like many fellow Mana users, left in the dark about Norma.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Ange has been paired with almost all named characters from her six other teammates in First Troop, Momoka, Tusk, Embryo, Julio, and Sala.
• Les Yay: Has its own page.
• Love to Hate: Embryo. He's a Manipulative Bastard that fans find enjoyable to watch but his actions are absolutely disgusting compared to everyone else. All in all, if one gets past his more offensive part, his fans would acknowledge him as at least a solid villain. Detractors, however, find his evil acts designed to make you hate him so over-the-top and absurd that it becomes impossible to take him seriously and/or that he actually would have worked better as the sympathetic Well-Intentioned Extremist the show initially built him up as before subverting it.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Ange thanks to Word of God stating about a minor but significant animation error.^note In the first episode, Jill was supposed to punch Ange with her metallic hand which would have broke said arm (which is still awesome for Ange since she did receive said punch in Episode 10 and was only slightly inconvenienced). However, it was changed to a kick in the episode proper. Fukuda then noted that it's up to the viewers to figure out how Jill's arm was broken and the only time her metallic arm had contact with Ange was during her cavity search. Fans took it from there.
  • Momoka is also seen as this by fans thanks to her hilariously awesome moment in Episode 13 when she suddenly became a Ninja Maid. Some fans even claim that she'll pilot a Para-mail one day and these people are convinced that she's the better pilot compared to Ange.
• Memetic Molester: Embryo. Only one girl has stopped his advances on her: Ange. Then came Episode 20.
• Memetic Mutation: Everyone is "merely pretending".^note This started when Hilda has admitted that she was just pretending to be in love with Zola just so she can wait for an opportunity to escape Arzenal. Would have died out, had Episodes 9 and 10 also had other characters pretend that they're innocent, only to reveal that they're not.
  • That, or they "did nothing wrong".
  • "Nana wills it!"^note If there's anything bad happening with Ange, this is usually the reaction of people. Carried over from Symphogear.
  • "______ my ass!"
  • Embryo's no-face in Episode 13, along with his almost fourthwall-breaking "what a boring plot". Also his twitter bird in Episode 12.
  • *FALLS INTO CROTCH*
  • Gas the sub!^note /a/ found the mask Tusk, Ange, and Vivian were wearing during their escape resembled similarly with Bane's mask.
  • STRONG, INTELLIGENT WOMEN^note In Episode 22, Embryo says he wants to create a world ruled by strong, intelligent women. While watching a woman making food wearing only an apron.
  • Crossed over with Gundam:
    • Embryo, he is A RAU!^NoteConsidering that both men are Omnicidal Maniacs, AND they share the same voice actor, the meme was bound to happen...
    • Orphee Lam Tau, he is AN EMBRYO!
    • What is Jesus Yamato doing in Cross Ange?!^noteTusk's near-accurate resemblance to Kira has caught fans' attention, accusing Fukuda of recycling characters from other series that he had a hand in. Came to head with his Unexplained Recovery in Episode 22, with added Twincest Squick, considering the basis for Ange's character design.
    • Gundam SEED Freedom is a Cross Ange sequel. ^ExplanationAn inverse of a meme during Cross Ange's run, where fans joked it was the unofficial sequel to SEED Destiny. Come SEED Freedom having many similar characters, plotlines and even a Shout-Out or two, the inverse started being joked about. It doesn't help that SEED Freedom released during Cross Ange's 10th anniversary.
  • THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS ^NoteTusk taunting Embryo by describing his and Ange's sexual escapades, and Embryo not taking it well, especially since it was supposed to be a dramatic and heartwarming scene.
  • "You made a lot of people uncomfortable and unhappy!◊ So you're being executed!" ^NoteAnge is about to be executed for returning to the her kingdom, by the insanely bigoted Mana people who hate her for simply existing. The image has gotten some use as a sarcastic escalated response to relatively minor/unpopular takes.
• Mis-blamed: Fukuda is seen as responsible for everything wrong with the show. The writer and director are apparently non-entities^note Which isn't helped by both being relative unknowns in the industry - at the time, series script composer Tatsuto Higuchi only worked on Bakumatsu Gijinden Roman in such a position (his previous credits were as an episodic script writer on titles like Inazuma Eleven and Phi-Brain: Puzzle of God); while director Yoshiharu Ashino, a key animator by trade, similarly only had one other anime direction credit with the relatively obscure Tweeny Witches. His other directorial credits being on Studio 4°C's end for Western Animation efforts such as Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox and Thunder Cats 2011. Episode 6's next Episode preview implies much of the show's vulgarity and sexual nature comes from its director's ideas, and not its producer.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Ange's brother Julio crosses it in the first episode by exposing Ange as a Norma at the worst possible moment (her royal baptism), which ends with their mother dead, their father imprisoned and Ange exiled with the rest of the Norma, all so he could usurp the throne and "purify the royal bloodline".
  • Embryo already crossed irredeemable territory ages ago in the past and cemented it when it's revealed that he mind-raped and physically raped Jill to insanity while causing all her squad to die all because he didn't like the love she had for him.
  • The attempt to execute Ange by Julio also counts as one for the whole Mana community, who chose to cling onto bigotry and racism instead of developing decency beyond that when it was possible for Momoka. Ange even agreed on this, it was at this point that she came to the decision that the Mana community is beyond redemption, and no longer gives a damn when Embryo severed their links to Mana and rendered them helpless. And they had the balls to demand her to help just because. As far as Ange and most likely the audience are concerned, they haven't done anything to escape the Moral Event Horizon so they do not deserve forgiveness or help.
  • Jill in episode 18 when she reveals her strategy involved using the DRAGONs as cannon fodder and then using Momoka as a hostage, threatening to drown her if Ange didn't submit to Jill's orders.
• Narm:
  • The Downer Ending of Hilda's part of episode 9 when she is beaten by cops looked a little too hilarious for some. The fact that she's smiling while on the ground doesn't help.
  • The entire burning scene in Episode 12. It should have been a very serious scene and the delivery and execution was decent. Unfortunately, it was ruined thanks to the character models being off.
  • The uncensored version of Coco's death is this as the animators changed the blood from the shocking red thanks to the filters to pink. Double so for fans of Danganronpa, famous for its use of pink blood.
  • Sala in Episode 15 describing her race, the DRAGONs, as peaceful and civilized in contrast to the "barbaric" inhabitants of the world created by Embryo, is too hard to take seriously when one remembers Miranda's death via getting devoured by dragons one cour earlier.
  • The knife fight in Episode 18, already a goofy-looking episode in its own right. Let's just say there's a lot of hilarious moments in that one even if the scene was very serious.
  • Momoka surviving the gunshot because the bullet hit the frying pan she had under her clothes.
  • The butt-spanking Embryo gives to Salia in Episode 22. His absurdly stoic pose doesn't help.
  • When Tusk rides his mom's Para-mail and his round 2 showdown with Embryo. There's just one problem: the color of the Para-mail is pink.
  • The Aurora's take off. Not that one, the one after that at least. To be more specific, it's at the part where after Ange orders the entire Para-mail to take off. Aurora's back in the sea for some reason.
  • Even though it's supposed to be treated as a shocking moment on the whole, Embryo teleporting the Diamond Rose Knights into the midst of the dragon crossfire and leaving them to die momentarily loses a bit of the effect when the first victim, Tanya, collides with a DRAGON and causes blood to splatter. One can too easily imagine a pie splat sound effect.
  • Jill's death has so much Melodrama surrounding it that it becomes more hilarious than anything else, particularly since Jill doesn't actually appear to be wounded in any way.
  • Embryo's forceful attempt to rape Ange in the final episode becomes this as soon as you notice his eyes looking in different directions in some shots.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • For many who saw her as a one-note Alpha Bitch with a grudge against Ange, Hilda was redeemed the moment she explained she did what she did to survive long enough to escape Arzenal and reunite with her mother.
  • Salia has been redeemed by some fans in Episode 20 when she can finally think for herself instead of leaning towards a pedestal, which was the fans biggest problem with her, by telling Ange to escape because she couldn't stand Ange's pitiful state. All while playing up her Tsundere aspect. Ange shows off her respect by giving her a choke hold.
• Retroactive Recognition: The voice cast itself is pretty stellar, but in its time, Reina Ueda would look very unassuming as either Akiho^note Ange's Mana-user 'friend' that showcased how bad Mana is, as she went from an overpraiser of Ange into completely hating and rejecting her when Ange was outed as a Norma. or Tanya^note One of Embryo's two girl-lackeys that never got past her worship of Embryo and eventually died abandoned by Embryo the moment she ran out of uses for him. Given a year, she ended up winning a Rookie Actress awards, then several more years and a few notable roles like Kanao Tsuyuri, Akane Shinjo, Shiori Shinomiya, Ganyu, and suddenly Reina Ueda has gone from those two unflattering roles into an industry powerhouse that could rival the all-star casts of the show.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Ange gets hit with this hard. Some fans will twist themselves into pretzels just for the sake of painting her in the worst possible light. Barring some rather grievous translation error, Ange only proclaims a desire to investigate why a significant portion of her country's population is being born as Norma, and put a stop to it. (Note: She's the heir apparent to a mana based society at this point, doesn't know about Arzenal, and has good reason to believe the lack of ability to use mana automatically causes violent, anti-social behavior.) This is interpreted to mean that she desires the complete extermination of Norma, to the point of calling her "Hitlerina." Alternately, Embryo, despite explicitly stating "Option 2: Exterminate the dragons" is interpreted as merely wanting magi to fight the dragons themselves instead of using Norma as proxy. A fan on Animeshippuden explicitly disregards over a century of legal precedent concerning extenuating circumstances, and the fact that Ange's actions fit very nicely in Zola's order "Try to stay alive" to try to justify demanding that Ange get a harsher punishment because of what she went through at Zola's hands with Jill's permission while claiming to not be a misogynist, and calling anyone who points out this contradiction as being infected with Insane Troll Logic. Episode 23 had some fans completely overlook the fact that rioters were pointing rifles at her and preparing to fire because Ange refused to help the very same people who tried to lynch her less than a month beforehand just so they could complain that Ange fired at the rioters.
  • Heck, Ange gets a bit of a bad rap for her bitch attitude. While she isn't always the sharpest tool or most pleasant person, her life is among the most egregious cases of Mood Whiplash cases in anime history, leading her to become incredibly paranoid and distrustful, one oft-cited example being her first encounter with Sala. But after you've been treated like slaves by another race (Mana society), and this other race admits to have targeted you (see: the dragon invasion over Arzenal) even though the other race (Mana society) was the one more culpable, can one really blame her?
• Scenery Porn: The backgrounds, courtesy of Final Fantasy regular Kusanagi.
• The Scrappy: Jill gained quite a bit of negative reception thanks to her starting the Broken Base of the series, hitting Ange for no reason, withholding a lot of information from Salia and Ange until it's too late, pulling off the biggest Idiot Ball moment in the series, and the only one not to approve of Ange's suggestion to side with the DRAGONs and in fact suggested using them as decoys to kill them alongside the Ragna-mails via bombarding the entire battlefield all so she get her revenge on Embryo.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: A lot of people are ready to ship Ange with Tusk and fight off against any of the Les Yay pairings, the biggest being either AngexSala or AngexHilda.
• So Bad, It's Good: Like fellow Sunrise production Valvrave, but Cross Ange's production shows more explicit self-awareness, mostly thanks to next episode previews. The actual main content of the episodes usually doesn't though.
• Special Effects Failure: The series' CGI ranges from decent (the robots and Mana-based effects) to rather suspect (pretty much everything else).
  • The reuse of the Aurora's takeoff animation in Episode 23 can also count as this.
  • The game meanwhile, has a tendency to make the (now fully CGI) cast move more like robots than the ones they're supposed to pilot, with a heavy dose of Lip Lock to boot.
    • On top of that, the animators seem to have trouble animating breathing. As several characters (this is most noticeable with Hilda) pull this off by simply shrinking and growing the model below the neck and making them bob up and down to achieve the "effect".
    • The hair dynamics in the game seem to be unevenly applied to characters. Some, like Vivian and Naomi, have an obvious swing to their hair whenever they turn. While neither Salia or Hilda's pigtails do.
    • The background art for the game is very visibly all over the place, with some being ripped from the show while others attempt to mimic the style, but wind up looking somewhat off. The endings get it the worst, as it's clear the art department either weren't trying by then or had to rush them out to meet the deadline.
• Squick:
  • All three rape scenes go with this.
  • There's a scene where Salia gets whipped and spanked while being in the nude by Embryo as "punishment".
  • Everything to do with Embryo and what he did to Jill.
• Strangled by the Red String: Tusk has been accused by many of being a self-insert for the sake of getting together with Ange. That Episode 14 was written in halfway through did not help things.
• Surprisingly Good Foreign Language: Props to whoever in the staff wrote Ange's apology letter in Surprisingly Good English in episode 7.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • Jill gets knocked down by Ange in the finale of "Conclusive Ocean".
  • In the final episodes, Ange violently forces Sylvia to walk to give fans satisfaction and pity at the same time.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Almost half the crew of the Aurora, given how a lot of them had names and promising characterization, but very little screentime, but the most outstanding example is probably Zhao Mei, the ship's mechanic; Childhood Friends with Salia, trusted advisor of Jill (for a given measure of trusted) despite a glaring age difference between and her colleagues Marie and Jasmine, and the only other person in the series apart from Tusk who has a proper understanding of Ragna-Mail mechanics (a fact that the two of them even had a short conversation about at some point). Nothing ever comes of any of these relationships. Nothing.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Plenty, it gets to the point where it becomes unclear whether many of the series' plot elements were actually meant to be deeply explored upon in the first place.
  • The "magic" powers that almost everybody in the world apparently has. You'd expect to learn a bit how they work and what you can do with them (and what prevents Norma from having them), considering that most of the plot revolves about a group of people not having them, but instead they remain "Momoka's personal superpower". Not to mention, the entire reason the plot gives is that it's nothing but "an accident from Embryo".^note likewise, we never find out how Embryo himself got his his hands on his own abilities. Or how he was able to put half his mind into Hysterica. The idea of how all Norma are female is similarly not delved into.
  • The idea of the Mana/Norma racism never expands beyond "All Norma are monsters". Outside of Sophia, Jurai (to some extent), Momoka and Misty^note and later on, Emma, there are no other supporters of Norma. Nor does the Mana society at large ever make amends to them after Embryo cuts off their abilities, and it's unknown how many of them are even aware of his existence.
  • We never do find out what would happen if the secret of Arzenal was exposed to the general populace outside of a few very vague mentions.
  • The backstories and motivations of several characters also remain unanswered. Including how Vivian joined First Troop (and also how she was, until Ange joined, the only one with a completely unique para-mail with her Razor unit), Emma and how she got involved with her job at Arzenal and pretty much everything regarding Tusk's parents.
  • The Para-mail/Ragna-mail units were given a brief explanation in Episode 12. But how exactly Embryo built them, or how the dragon species were able to acquire three of their own (the ones used by Sala, Naga and Kaname) are never explored.
  • The other main Arzenal troops, who never get any screen time outside of Episodes 11 and 13. And who never interact with any of the cast, nor are even seen together outside group shots. The two more notable ones after this, Tania and Irma, simply stand around as Embryo's thugs for most their screentime until he uses them as DRAGON bait.
  • The idea of male dragons not being able to turn back into human form was also never touched upon.
  • The multiverse/alternate realities angle was only touched upon in Episodes 11, 14 and 25. It is never explored beyond the existence of it, the episodes which explored the dragon's alternate world, and as part of Embryo's backstory of being an Omnicidal Maniac.
  • Momoka and Tusk coming back from the dead as a cheap plot device just to show Ange's broken self. Could have been a lot better had Ange avenged the both of them instead of coming back from the dead just like that. And it wasn't even an entire episode since they were gone.
  • Whether or not Julio was aware of the Heirloom Ring and its connection to Vilkiss is never brought up. Though his reaction to seeing Vilkiss bearing down on him minutes before his death in "Arzenal Burns" suggests he didn't.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Between the outright cruel nature of the Mana society towards the Norma, and even the long-suffering DRAGONs are by and large a little too self-serving to be outright heroes to the point the setting becomes a case of Black and Gray for a lack of sympathetic or trustworthy people, to the point some fans have expressed the desire to see the whole setting be burned to the ground. It actually happens near the end... only for most of the cast to survive, rendering it moot.
• Ugly Cute: The mascot Perolina does look ugly at first glance, though it does really look cute.◊
• Uncertain Audience: The show is rather infamous for its heavy use of fanservice and sexualization of its female characters, to the point that the titular Ange is repeatedly subjected to sexual assaults that the camera treats as titillating, and much of her initial suffering seems to be treated as deserved for her hatred of the Norma. Yet despite this, the actual story seems to want to be a Feminist Fantasy where Ange comes to sympathize with the plight of the all-female Norma persecuted by a patriarchal empire and eventually fights with them and the largely female DRAGONs in a rebellion against said empire and its god, an unflattering caricature of otaku who is a Harem Seeker that brainwashes women into being his playthings and is obsessed with keeping Ange "pure" to be his wife. As a result, viewers who might actually like the feminist nature of the story will be driven away by the sexualization of the very things the series is supposed to be condemning, while actual otaku viewers who like fanservice are attacked by the show that's being marketed towards them. As a result, the show mainly has an "ironic" following of people who poke fun at it.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The World of Mana displayed extreme Fantastic Racism against the Norma due to their lacking magic, thus the ending where they lose magic and have their civilization destroyed forcing them to go though what they imposed on the Norma is treated as Laser-Guided Karma. But this belief was created by the omnipotent creator of the world, Embryo, who programmed them to be hostile to the Norma, which the few who learned the truth were shown to be able to overcome. In short they're being punished for what was imposed upon them as opposed to anything they brought on themselves. However, the presence of people like Momoka or even Emma, may throw a wrench to the trope: They are an example of Mana people that managed to rise beyond what was imposed towards them; Momoka possessing an Undying Loyalty towards Ange despite the latter revealed to be a Norma and stayed loyal to the end; whereas Emma became disgusted at how much the Misurugi Empire lies to her about Norma in general and the fact that the Norma of Arzenal still gave her shelter despite her prejudice eventually made her ally with them. The rest of the Norma people are instead portrayed as slothful Ungrateful Bastard that expected to be pampered and not bothering with trying to rise above what was imposed on them despite the reveal about Embryo, so the show might intend these group to be considered unsympathetic, whether it works or not will depend on the viewer.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Zola Axberg is one of the captains for the First Allies, and is intended to be a hard yet benevolent leader who, like the other Norma, went through all the shitty tribulations every Norma went through andl resigned herself to the fact that they were only valuable as Cannon Fodder. The others even describe her as a good commander and extol her virtues at her funeral. The problem is that Zola is never actually shown being kind or caring; what we are shown is an unrepentant Serial Rapist who regularly molests and sexually harasses her subordinates and tries to force herself on Ange, with the heavy implication she does this to all her new recruits. In essence, the only reason she gets away with it is because both she and her victims are women and it is played for fanservice. She also died before all of the extent of Norma abuse which would've given her sympathy were shown.
  • The DRAGONs as well, in their Holier Than Thou attitudes and disregard for the Norma and their problems early on, even though the latter have been shown to have it magnitudes worse in many ways. They get a bit better, but hardly apologize. Especially Aura Midgardia, who comes off a bit worse than Jill, and never appears to suffer any in plot punishment.
    • Liza Landog, as The Mole as Julio's bodyguard, is responsible for assisting Julio in outing Ange as a Norma and sending her to Arzenal and having their parents killed, turning his little sister Sylvia against her, and later trying to execute Ange. She also orders a DRAGON siege that destroys half of Arzenal in hopes of helping fulfill her peoples' objective of freeing Aura, even though it's the World of Mana that put the Norma up to this. She also traumatized Sylvia by subduing her when the latter spotted her. All in all though, she seems to do more harm than good, and when Sylvia, after being freed by Embryo tortures Liza, it kind of feels like payback.
    • Salamandinay comes off as self-righteous in her introductory episode, calling the Norma violent, even though she annihilated half of Arzenal and its population, and has the nerve to ask Ange to stop killing DRAGONs, even though Ange and the rest of the Norma were forced to, and have continuously been used as Cannon Fodder, made worse that they are all Child Soldiers. Even worse, Sala knew that Ange was a princess, and thanks to Liza, possibly everything that happened to Ange, leading to Ange being their biggest threat due to piloting the Villkiss, is all on the DRAGON leaders (save the captive Aura), who save for Salamandinay, wanted Ange executed. Salamandinay tries suggesting Ange would do the same for her people, which rings hollow given how Ange now wants to eradicate the World of Mana, and that Ange had a Heroic BSoD when she found out the truth about the DRAGONs she had been killing the whole time. In short, the DRAGONs brought much of this upon themselves for targeting Norma and getting Ange involved, when they could have been doing more to hurt the World of Mana from the inside. Worse, they were responsible for Ange's life getting ruined in the worst way possible, with her parents killed and Ange shipped off as Cannon Fodder, and are almost responsible for the extermination of a race that honestly cannot be held responsible, which would be considered a war crime in real life. Say what you will about Ange at first, but she could be forgiven for being completely out of the loop, and having to outgrow her societal conditioning against Norma, not to mention that she paid disproportionately a million times for it. The most Sala suffers, despite having a better idea from the get-go, yet still killing hundreds of Norma in cold blood, is that her competition with Ange ends in a stalemate.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: While it was assumed that male DRAGONs cannot transform back into normal human size, Episode 16 reveals that Aura is a she.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: It seems like a fun Mecha series with an Improbably Female Cast. However, it's full of graphic violence, nudity, and sexual content, including multiple instances of sexual assualt - the first of which occurs in the first episode. It got rated 16+ in Quebec which is the same as Saw and Game of Thrones. In comparison most R rated films get 13+ over there.
• Woobie Species: The Norma are treated like crap for existing, and are sent as Cannon Fodder against DRAGONs. The fact that Embryo admits that he had to cater to The Needs of the Many when confronted with the Normas' condition and treat their ostracization as a necessary evil, gives you an idea how shitty the series' setting is. And yet this turns out to be a poor excuse for Embryo, for whom the World of Mana is the latest phase of an indeterminate Vicious Cycle where he has tried and failed to create his ideal humanity, and left it to die, and its latest soon to be casualty, when Embryo becomes disgusted with its complacency. Not to mention that he caused the DRAGON invasion in the first place by stealing their most revered figure, in order to power the World of Mana. The Mana which, as it turns out, mostly renders its users incapable of independent thought. And yet, Embryo refuses to take the blame or the responsibility^note and when he DOES... his solution is just an attempt to push the Reset Button, bad news for everyone involved and not too much 'responsibility' taken by him., and forces the Norma to bear the brunt throughout most of the series, and yet expects to be revered by the ones he rescues or takes special interest, before the inevitable rape attempt or abandonment.

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