Anime: Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo c6c6b

• Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo, or “Cross Ange: Rondo of Angel and Dragon” in the language of imperialism seems really similar to Soukou no Strain at first glance. Indeed, both of these anime feature a female protagonist coming from a privileged background who looses everything after being betrayed by her brother, and both involve piloting CGI mechas to fight against an enemy. However, while the latter has pretty decent story and characters, but is hindered by its very average production value, the former is like watching a catastrophic train crash in slow-motion, but with very good graphics, and also tons of sexual content.
  The premise
  The story takes place in a futuristic and technologically advanced civilization, with some sort of magic power called “the light of Mana” as the source of advanced technology. In this society, nearly everyone can use Mana, either for telekinesis or for making vehicles move. Mana allowed to create some sort of utopia where money doesn’t exist, but this is done at the expense of the few people who cannot use Mana, the “Normas” (all females) who are discriminated against and excluded from society. The story focuses on Angelize Ikaruga Misurugi, the first princess of the Misurugi empire. At her sixteenth birthday she is betrayed by her brother Julio, and revealed to be a Norma. Her parents who were hiding the truth are killed, and Julio takes over the Empire. Angelize looses her status and her name, which is shortened to Ange, and is sent to Arzenal, a military base on an island where Normas are forced to pilot mechas called “ParaMails” and fight against dragons coming from a parallel world. Did I say dragons? Ah no actually they’re called “DRAGONs”. Don’t ask me why.
  Of course, later in the story it is revealed that the situation is more complicated than it was presented at the start of the series, and that “DRAGONs” aren’t just evil monsters who want to exterminate humanity.
  The protagonist
  Overall, not a great character.
  In the first three episodes she is irritating as hell, as she is always crying and complaining with her annoying voice, acts dumb, and causes the death of three other Normas. She tries to kill herself by piloting the Villkiss, an old ParaMail that no one can pilot properly, but of course she is the only who can use it to its full strength. Then there’s a complete change of personality: crybaby and weak Ange turns into a tomboy-ish top warrior who tries very hard to be cool and bad-ass, is arrogant, selfish, and sees other people as inferior. Not a very believable personality shift, but at least that made her a less annoying character. Then, in another episode, her ParaMail is sabotaged and she ends up stuck on an island with a dude named Tusk, who later becomes her “knight” and boyfriend. The scenes on the island are very cheesy. They’re supposed to make Ange evolve as a character, but again, it’s not very believable. One thing that I learned with this episode is that, if a generic harem lead falls and ends up his face between your legs, your selfishness and arrogance disappear afterwards! Incredible, huh?
  Fan-service overload
  The first critical flaw of this anime is that it is plagued with excessive fan-service. It is not just an anime with a lot of fan-service, but rather a 25 episodes long shower scene with a plot. Seriously, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of bath, shower and locker scenes. Even scenes where important information is revealed are sometimes bath scenes. At some point you have Alektra, the Normas’ commander, revealing important things to Ange… in a hot springs. Why do people treated as subhumans get the luxury of having a hot springs in their military base, nobody knows. In this anime, there’s always a dumb excuse to make the female characters naked: if they’re thrown into jail they are undressed, if they’re about to be executed they are undressed, if they’re found guilty of treason they are undressed and whipped, et cetera. I don’t a single episode where you don’t see at least one of the female characters naked. They’re also naked in the opening, by the way. Then there’s also a lot of panty shots during mecha battles, the Normas’ skimpy clothing – what is even the point of such clothes? Mustn’t be very practical in winter! – the fact that Tusk always ends up having his face in Ange’s pussy after a fall, as if he was a harem lead, Salia getting her ass slapped as a scolding, and Ange giving Tusk her panties as a lucky charm. There’s also a lot of sex scenes that are completely unnecessary for the plot, with a gang of lesbian Normas whose only purpose for a big chunk of the series is having lesbian sex. If that wasn’t enough, we also get to see anal rape and, at several occasions, sexual assault. And the beach episode… ugh. That one wasn’t needed, it’s not like there isn’t enough fan-service already! This is one of the most cringe-worthy episodes. There’s a dumb contest where the girls have to carry eggs with their chest. And then you have Ange disguising as a mascot to avoid an important woman. And then they talk while she is wearing a goddamn swimsuit. And then she and her friends escape from Arzenal, while still wearing swimsuits!
  Ange’s boyfriend is a generic harem protagonist
  The second critical flaw of this anime is Ange’s boyfriend, Tusk. As I said earlier, he is basically just your average harem protagonist, except from the fact that he is not the protagonist. Tusk is, along with the antagonist, one of the worst characters of the series. He shouldn’t even be here. What is a harem lead doing in an anime about girls piloting mechas? Simple, he’s here to save the damsel in distress, for example by fixing Ange’s ParaMail, saving her multiple times, complimenting her, and having sex with her. Tusk is annoying. He has absolutely no charisma. He has an ugly and generic character design, and I swear I have seen his face dozens of times in other garbage series. He has an irritating voice. He isn’t likable. He is a white knight who sees females as weak beings who need his protection. His relationship with Ange is boring and predictable. Seriously, there were several other girls with a better personality and better looks in this series, so why did the plot-writers have to make Ange fall in love with this garbage character? It could have been with Hilda, after all their experience and personality are somewhat similar. It could have been with Salamandinay, since they seemed to get along so well after playing golf in a parallel world! Heck, it could even have been with Salia, or just anyone in Arzenal, really. But certainly not with this pathetic excuse of a white knight who just can’t avoid putting his face in Ange’s pussy every goddamn episode! Tusk shouldn’t be in this series. Without him, the show could have been much, much better.
  The antagonist is a rapist god
  The third critical flaw of this anime is the antagonist, Embryo. He is the man who created this nearly Utopian society, but he thinks that it has become corrupted and wants to destroy it, killing the whole of humanity in the process, to create a new and supposedly better society. He is, more or less, a god, as he is nearly immortal and has overpowered abilities like time and space manipulation, controlling people who use mana, brainwashing, bringing people back to life, and… making females super horny. It seems to me that his goal of creating an ideal society is just an excuse for him to have his own harem of Normas. His only objective after he meets Ange is to have sexual intercourse with her, and for that reason he will abduct her several times, attempt to rape her, and torture her, but of course Tusk is always here to save the damsel in distress. As you can guess, he is a pretty garbage antagonist. He is also stupid. Towards the end of the series, he doesn’t even hide the fact that his goals are selfish anymore, and looses the of his harem of Normas, making him loose the battle. And yes, despite the fact that he should be unbeatable, the good guys still find a way to beat him in the end!
  The plot is random and ridiculous
  The fourth critical flaw (yes, that’s a lot of critical flaws) of this anime is that the plot is random and full of ridiculous elements that makes you want to jump out of the window. I have already mentioned some of them earlier, such as the fact that the antagonist is a rapist god and the revelations in a hot springs among others. But there is more, here are some examples:
  1) Characters like Ange, Salamandinay and Embryo have mecha battles where they sing like Disney princesses, because this apparently makes the mechas stronger. There is no proper explanation for this, and anyway, hearing girls sing stuff like “lulalalila” when they’re trying to save the world is just infuriating.
  2) Towards the end of the series, Momoka and Tusk sacrifice themselves to save Ange, and then you have half an episode where Ange re about them, and cries about the fact they’re dead, just for them to come back miraculously, so that she can finally have sex with her boyfriend.
  3) Normas get paid for their kills and buy their own things, including weapons, fancy clothes, ParaMail customization, etc. They even lose money if they take a break when they’re sick. This would make sense if Normas were mercenaries, but that’s not the case since they are considered as subhumans and are forced to fight.
  4) In the few early episodes, you have a scene where Ange’s outfit is teared apart by bullies, and she wears it anyway. I am pretty sure this scene is stolen from Soukou no Strain.
  5) Momoka cooks onigiris during a battle where the very existence of humanity is at stake. Doesn’t she have better things to do?
  6) While fighting, Tusk and Embryo talk about Ange, and Tusk says stuff like “I know her better than you do, because I know how many moles there are on her thighs” and something which translates to “I fucked with her and you didn’t, Ange accepted my d*ck”.
  7) Alektra has the Aurora, a huge submarine that can fly, hidden under Arzenal. How could she hide such a huge thing under a military base? And why the hell is it named the same as the Russian cruiser Aurora, a symbol of the October revolution?
  There are many other annoying elements and events but I will not talk about them because the review would be too long.
  The other characters
  So the antagonist is shit, the protagonist isn’t great, and the protagonist’s boyfriend is garbage. What the about the others characters, then? Well, they are pretty bad.
  First, we have Momoka, Ange’s former maid. If you’ve watched enough bad anime, you know that when there’s a master-servant relationship, it means that they’re actually friends. Unsurprisingly, this is also the case here. In ep.7, she comes to Arzenal to find Ange, as she still wants to serve her, but since Ange isn’t a princess anymore, she no longer needs a maid. Despite that Momoka harasses her until she accepts, and she continues acting as her maid and wearing her maid outfit… in a military base. Ridiculous.
  There are many annoying characters such as Vivian, the archetype of the energetic girl, who is made annoying by her high-pitched voice and her catchphrase. Ange’s sister, Sylvia, is also very annoying. Once Ange is revealed to be a Norma, she starts hating her and turns into a little bitch who enjoys torturing people. Ange’s brother, Julio, is also a bad character. He is just your average evil character who is easy to hate because he is a coward with a punch-able face, like Joffrey in Game of Thrones. And Rosalie? Her only personality is being dumb.
  Finally we have Chris, a girl with an exaggerated childhood trauma, which boils down to this: “when I was a child, my friends gave me a single hairband, and I had to cut one of my pigtails to put it on, waaaaah!!!”. That’s it. That’s the trauma. And she betrays her friends because of this. I’m not joking.
  There are a few characters that aren’t utter trash
  Which doesn’t mean that they are good either.
  First we have Alektra, aka Jill (TL note: aka means “also known as”), the Normas’ commander. Since she is supposed to be a serious and bad-ass character, she smokes cigarettes, because you know, having lung cancer makes you cool. She does have a legitimate goal: to create a world where Normas aren’t discriminated against. But at the same time she isn’t a completely white character as she is ready to sacrifice others to achieve her goal.
  We have Hilda, who leads the lesbian gang whose only purpose for an important number of episodes is having lesbian sex and bullying Ange. She gets some character development around ep.9, but sadly her background is cheesy.
  Then we also have Salia and Salamandinay, who could have been decent characters if they weren’t made ridiculous by things like Salia role-playing a magical girl when she is alone or Salamandinay playing golf, tennis, baseball and other games with Ange… in a parallel world.
  Animation & sound: the only aspects of the show that aren’t a complete failure
  Overall, the animation looks good, though there are face inconsistencies in a few episodes. The mechas are in CGI, and the CGI is pretty good, but good CGI will always look uglier than good 2D animation. Tusk has a generic character design, with the face of an idiot you can find in dozens of harem anime, but apart from that the character designs are well done and easy to recognize. For example, Salamandinay has a pretty cool character design. They are very similar to the character designs in Code Geass, which is nothing surprising since both series are made by the same animation studio. The backgrounds look good. Most of them are a bit generic but they are well drawn. There are some buildings and landscapes that are original, such as the “Dawn Pillar” or the Arzenal base.
  Sound-wise, the background music can be bad at times, but not horrible. The main problem is the bad music placement. The two openings are pretty meh and forgettable, both in of music and graphics. Ange has an annoying voice in the few early episodes, but after that it’s alright. The other voices are mostly good, but there are two characters with irritating high-pitched voices, namely Tusk and Vivian.
  Verdict
  Cross Ange is a very bad show overall. The plot is dumb and plagued with invasive fan-service and dumb elements. The characters are absolutely terrible. Without the good animation, watching it would feel like a chore. Either avoid this show or watch it to ire the train crash, since that’s the only way it can be remotely entertaining.

Review
Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo (Cross Ange) is yet another filler by Sunrise targeting Gundam fans, or so you might think. In this case, however, there are so many twists to the basic shounen template that sustains the famous mecha franchise that you may end up watching something completely different and weird. Basically, I could classify Cross Ange as a girls only Gundam with high doses of cheap erotism, high amounts of cheesy ecchiness, and an also great degree of nonsense. Because of that, I prefer to classify this as a girls only Linebarrels of Iron, which is far easier if you know that crappy show.

Cross Ange tell us about Angelise, princess to a fantastic kingdom whose peace was achieved by eradicating any human that could not control the power of Mana, some sort of magic that greatly aids in many daily shores and also act as an energy source. Angelise, whoever, is a hoax. She is one of the aberrations that cannot control Mana, but her parents sheltered her until her cerimony of adulthood, when the lie is finally revealed and the nation is thrown into turmoil.

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1. An impactful start
   Cross Ange starts nicely. Amidst the colorful and sharp artwork that remind us a lot of Code Geass and Gundam 00, there is an intricate scheme full of backstabbing and royal influences. A quick turn of events brings us a nice starting tragedy to Ange's life, and the background of a kingdom brought down by unmasking a terrible lie makes us expect great things from it. However...
   
   Let's forget that stuff
   Why not focus on girls in skimpy clothing battling dragons while piloting mechas that turn into air bicycles? Yeah! Let's give the audience some boobs, clever camera angles to show the girls on their tight swimsui... I mean, pilot suits, and add some anal rape in the process! Political backstabbing? That is for children!
   
   Ergh! This all happens when the show throws Ange into a women-only prison that enslaves those who cannot use Mana to fight dragons from another world randomly popping in the sky. That's some hell of a premise, huh?
   
   It turns into mindless fun, at best
   Instead of exploring whatever depth the tale could have, Cross Ange instead turns into one big ecchi fest. Tons of girls, lots of ecchiness, and infinite dumb fanservice make Linebarrel of Irons feel kinda lazy in that department at many points. The show does try to tackle Ange's adaptation to her new environment and at many points does a decent job at that...
   
   But then she is caught by the harem lead
   When Ange's development starts to become something to entice you... bang! The show throws into the scene a random militia guy that instantly turns into a harem lead, tripping over Ange, licking her crotch by accident every episode, blushing and feeling dumb every scene. Damn. There's even an accidental blow job by Ange with this guy. Seriously? And no, nothing is treated with maturity or even with plain dumb sillyness, this all happens in the most uninspiring ecchi way possible.
   
   Strike Freedom and Infinite Justi... what?
   Well, this change to mindless ecchi is not everything Cross Ange has to annoy you (or surprise you, if you are still surprised by this standard). At mid-season the uber mecha Ange pilots, which is insanely similar to Strike Freedom, meets its red anathema, which is insanely similar to Infinite Justice. Damn, even the launch sequence of the mechas is ripped of Gundam.
   
   Anyway, like Valvrave, this is a poor tribute and even a lack of respect to Sunrise's own great franchise. Things become even worse when they turn the dragons into girls from another world, which turns out to be our real world, devasted by warfare, where mankind turned into.... dragons. Oh, and everything in Ange's world was created by some guy, whose power is manifested by his chosen mechas. Yeah.... ok.
   
   Some deaths to inspire you?
   No thanks. When the show is already a mess of nude nipless girls, a few unexpected deaths happen to give you one final tease that it may yet manage to salvage at least a tiny bit from all the trash. But no, no. The very next episode the dead return, miraculously saved by the script and there goes all the new chance to give Ange a bit of development. This is ridiculous...
   
   Cast?
   Most Gundam shows have respectable characters, full with emotional dramas, complex pasts, and typically more tied to real people than cardboard stereotypes. It seems Sunrise cares for that no longer, as the cast in Cross Ange manage to be even dumber than in Valvrave. Although there is no high school in the setting, the military academy turns out to be just that and from there you have a bunch of forgetabble girls with skimpy clothing and always ready for yuri scenes. The villain? Plain useless and uninspiring. Oh, of course, be ready for some girls with really annoying voices and an overall sound direction of mediocre quality.
   

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Comments
Okay. What the hell I just watched? Seriously. I do enjoy dumb shounens from time to time and I tend to watch everything that reminds me of good old Gundams, but this one tries very hard to take the podium of silliness with Valvrave and Linebarrel of Irons. It also reminded me of Simoun, an yuri adventure with a very similar template, but that lacked the skyhigh degree of shame Cross Ange has... it was an average mess of yuri love and airship battles, not.... this.

It surprises how even the production value of the show is lacking to Sunrise's standard. The artwork is sharp and colorful and it reminded me a lot of Code Geass, but the background is plain and simple, there is an inconsistency over the episodes and the mechas are so absurdly detailed they feel completely misplaced with everything else. There is also a weird coloring in the later episodes changing the work with shadows and making everything feel as if some web-flash artwork from the 90's.

Anyway, one of Sunrise's worst attempts at filling time for Gundam/mecha lovers. I could only think of recommending this if you really have nothing else to watch in the action/shounen genre... otherwise you should avoid this at all costs.

Cross Ange, another amazing production by Sunrise, keeps the studio's traditions predictably close to heart, yet those very traditions are clusterfuck and inconsistencies. What's the result?

While, of course, it's another steaming pile of hot garbage, yet it's the kind of garbage that feels like an almost dying breed in the modern anime landscape, and I can't help stopping and yearning for more of this shit.

Technically speaking, it's ok looking most of the time, executed in the typical sunrise manner, animation + cgi for mechas, but it has a bad habit of regular trash-tier scenery and/or piece of animation, making the holes in budget so obvious you almost feel sorry for the poor animators who had to rush so many scenes. Designs of both characters and scenery are bland and average, yet functional and distinctive enough - you do not mistake one character for another (save for second plan characters, but who cares about those), same goes for scenery.
Audio is, likewise, ok, it employs songs as some plot devices, and they're ok, but nothing extra ordinary. Budget holes here are not as obvious.

But, oh boy, does the plot suck big time. And, oh girl, do the characters make the most stupid, illogical decisions possible. But anything in the name of fanservice!
Really, I could forgive the show many things.
I could forgive the tropey characters who adhere to stereotypes by the letter and have little discernible traits that we haven't seen a thousand times before. Characters are really bad in this show. Motivations are Big Words and Feelings, yet these big words have no substance to back them up, and so everyone sounds like someone from a drama written by a middleschooler. Some characters even have backstories, yet these backstories are vague and convenient for the right moment to advance the plot for some stupid goal.
I could also forgive the wealth of plot holes, which are numerous and almost par of the course for the show. The writing often displays little interest in leading up to events beyond the scope of a single episode, and so convenience rules the day. The few overarching plot elements that the show does possess do not make up for the resulting mess, when multiple parties, who all want vaguely the same thing, engage in battles of stupidity and Drama.

I could forgive these things thanks to two properties this show has.
One, the show is very unpredictable. Partly because it doesn't really care or know how to foreshadow events without them being obvious (there is foreshadowing, but you see right through it), but mostly because of how crazy ass and, dare I say it, epic the setting itself is. Don't be mistaken, it's a setting that allows writers to pull out "magic!" card and do the most random thing, which is excused by some setting detail, yet it also has scope that I often miss from the modern slice of life and even "serious" pieces of anime. When stakes are as high as this, and the world is this weird global Sunrise political sci-fi bullshit drama, I can't help but feel excitement and swallow the next plot hook raw. It's almost as if I'm watching Code Geass again!
Two, it's sex.
Now, don't get me wrong, sex is a big part of fanservice, the root of all most some evil. Cross Ange is, at times, borderline hentai, to the point of being silly/cringey and, mostly, stupid. Yet, fanservice and exaggerations aside, sex feels like part of the setting, part of the lives of characters. And, so in the face of countless pseudo-hentai pieces, who never quite do or even call in the real names the things they constantly imply, Cross Ange elevates itself above the crowd by making sex a normal thing, a part of life. It's not the first to do this, but for its kind, the noble genre of "epic scale clusterfuck", it's a head above the rest.

But what doesn't let me forgive anyhing are also two things.
First, the villain.
[moderately vague, yet descriptive spoilers, nothing unexpected for a sunrise piece, but you might want to save the (lack of) surprise]


second, fanservice rules supreme. I don't mind sexualised characters and idiotic excuses for revealing costumes. I might prefer something a bit more believable, but these are hardly crimes and they're very par of the course for the medium. But I do mind that whenever the show does something remotely ballsy, and not just random, fanservice immediately reins it back in with "tsk, tsk, tsk, enough fun things, back to boobs and stuff!".

ultimately, I was thoroughly let down.

yet I will gobble up next sunrise piece of the "epic clusterfuck" variety, and, hope that someday I will experience code geass again. just by being in the genre, Cross Ange, a show thoroughly average or bad in most categories, stops being average to me, and I do not regret watching it. "Epic clusterfuck" is a Sunrise specialty, that others might have tried to imitate, yet their scale is never epic enough, and their plots too boringly mundane. Sunrise, pls ;_;

In 2006 Sunrise gave up on trying to make serious mechas, after seeing how something actually good like Zegapain doesn’t sell shit, while something as absurd as Code Geass makes enough to buy your own small country. So ever since it tries to top itself again and again, by making progressively more absurd and heavy on fan service shows. Starting with crazy Code Geass, it moved to super crazy Valvrave, and eventually to super duper crazy Cross Ange. The only way to enjoy these types of anime, is to shut off your brain to logic and accept everything they throw at you. This way the complete randomness will translate to fun, because you have no idea what the hell is going to happen next.

On a very superficial level, the show manages to never become stale, by constantly introducing characters and throwing plot twists in almost every episode. The story is nonsensical and the characters are straight out of an eroge, but hey, it keeps you watching, and, supposed, entertains you. I could waste a few paragraphs trying to mention what it going on in the story but by the time I finish you will only something about discriminated lesbian witches in mechas, fighting dragon chicks from an alternative dimension, while a rapist god is torturing naked girls into submission. Who cares about the story? Oh, and they included Gundam SEED mechas and characters as Easter eggs, because why not. It’s fun… apparently.

The first thing most people will notice about Cross Ange though, is not the random storytelling, as is the extreme amounts of sexuality. For a non-hentai show, it is very heavy on fan service. Aside from the occasional sex jokes, you get constant nudity, lesbians, sadistic torture, and male rapists. Very cringe-worthy stuff if you are not into that sort of deviance.

It becomes twice as unbearable if you listen to how people who like that shit try to defend them as meaningful and deep. No sir, it is not deviant fan service, it is means to show the character development of the main heroine, it is about female empowerment as she fends off her assailants and grows stronger, and it is about finding the will to stand on your own feet instead of letting yourself being controlled by men. Now stand still as I chain you naked on a table and shove a stick up your ass to make sure you are not hiding anything in there. I mean, that is how cavity search is done in real prisons, right?

I have lost count of how many tasteless casuals kept telling me how the sexuality is not too much, and is even very realistic, since such stuff happens all the time in real life. Torture and rape is an every day event in many parts of the world, so this anime is in fact far more real than all the other anime which DON’T show such things. I mean come on, look around you, you will find naked lesbians being tortured into submission in every street. So real…

It’s not like these topics are not addressed; it’s just that you can’t possibly take seriously the way they are presented. They make sure to switch from dramatic to comical as soon as they can, so you will never think about something for more than one minute. Nothing lasts long enough to matter and the little bits which do, are ridiculed by done to death ecchi slapstick. This is why the show is pretentious, and those who defend its deviance, are pretentious overthinkers.

Then we have the other side of the spectrum, where other people defend it by dubbing it self-aware. Like, if something happens all the time and in such volumes, it ceases to be ridiculous or sexy and becomes its own thing. Ok, that is true, meta-commentary works for shows that revel in their style and clichés. It’s like shows animated by SHAFT; they are heavy on self-indulgence. But does that make them deep or serious? No, it makes them a circlejerk of people having fun with something so bad, that it becomes good. There is no gravity or theme exploration, since nothing lasts more than a few minutes before it gets replaced by something completely different.

Not even the production values are that good, since the CGI robots and dragons are meh, and the character designs are bland. The only thing that stands out, are the Gundam SEED Easter eggs and the very revealing Norma uniforms. That’s stuff you use in bondage sex. But don’t worry, it’s not like they wear them all the time. Because half the time they are completely naked. I guess the themes of racism and female empowerment do not look real enough if women are dressed.

Despite all this bullshit though, there is something that Cross Ange did right, and that is starting off very low, and gradually building upwards. This is a major contrast to what most other shows are doing; they try to hook the viewer with an amazing first arc, only to fail at delivering in whatever follows it. Cross Ange’s first episodes are meant to make the viewer believe the show is nothing but sleazy fan service and deviant torturing of women. It made most of the audience to drop it right away.

After that though, it begins adding more layers to the characters and to the setting, making it more complex and flamboyant as it goes on. Meaning, it deliberately makes you have very bad first impressions of it, and gradually makes you like it more as you keep watching. Just like Steins;Gate and Shinsekai Yori, it aims to get popularity and prestige as it goes on. It’s a risky move to not to aim for the approval of the majority right away, but it pays off much better in the longrun, if it works out. The few people who follow it to the end, will tell the rest how better it becomes later on, making many to watch it after it’s over. When you marathon a show with the reassurance that it gets better, your opinion of it improves considerably. Having most of the new revelations in the plot affecting the personality of the main heroine, is making it even easier to like it.

Of course the heroine going through lots of changes does not equal amazing character development (as many believe it is) if the script is trash. And it is trash; you can never take it seriously, you are just laughing at it harder and harder, as it gets dumber and dumber. It is still very weak in theme exploration and to the most part it remains fap material with very bland characters and low brow dramedy. This is why it is nowhere as smart or as deep as many of you make it seem to be. Of course, if you still disagree, you are free to think otherwise; it’s not like I am going to stick something in your ass and force you into submission by labeling it realistic cavity search. But it is going to be deep.