Cross Ange

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Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryū no Rondo (CROSS ANGE Rondo of Angel and Dragon) is an original anime by Sunrise that aired as part of the Fall 2014 Anime season.

Since the Magitek power known as Mana became commonplace, humanity used it to make the world a mostly perfect place. That is, perfect for everyone except the Norma, or those who cannot use Mana and unaffected by it, who are treated like subhuman scum.

However, Princess Angelese Ikaluga Misurugi is indifferent to this at the start, as she's royalty, bound to assume the throne one day, and is going to be baptized soon to seal the deal.

And that's when everything goes downhill as a coup d'etat deposes her father, she is exposed as a Norma, and her mother is killed trying to intervene. This leads to her being declared a criminal, exiled to a penal battalion, and forced to fight in machines call Para-Mails against invading dragons from another dimension.

Has a Lighter and Softer spinoff in Cross Ange - Tenshi to Ryuu no Gakuen.

Tropes used in Cross Ange include:

• Action Bomb: All the Para-mail are regarded as flying coffins, more or less, and it's assumed their users will die in them sooner or later, so one of the options Norma have is to turn their Para Mail into literal versions of this trope, if they so choose.
• Action Prologue: The anime begins In Medias Res with a mecha fight scene against a dragon, then we rewind to the beginning of the plot.
• Anyone Can Die: Four named cast members are already dead by the third episode.
• Badass: Most of the cast.
  • Action Girl: Again, most of the cast.
  • Amazon Brigade: All of the Arzenal Penal Battalion characters.
  • Badass Normal: The entire penal battalion, due to their Norma status.
  • World of Action Girls: All Norma are forced to fight in penal battalions, and since the focus of the show is mostly on them, this trope is in effect.
• Bling of War: In a rather cynical gesture of magnanimity, Norma are allowed to deck out their Para Mail with whatever weapons, color schemes, and any other personal touches they desire, since it's assumed it will be their coffin. Explicitly pointed out as one of the few freedoms Norma have.
• Bounty Hunter: The pay scale of the Arzenal Penal Battalion works on this system, with money paid out to each squad member based on performance, equipment expended/destroyed, and kill ratios.
• Child Soldiers: All Norma, regardless of age, are forced to fight. Coco, who died in Episode 2, just turned twelve, for example.
• Clothing Damage: Quite frequent in the intro, and done intentionally in Episode 1.
• Dangerous Deserter: Ange attempts to flee back to the Empire first chance she gets, despite a warning she'll be shot down for desertion. She gets someone else killed as a result.
• Double Standard Rape (Female on Female): Despite some attempts to play off the lesbian scenes as Fanservice, most of them are brutal subversions of this trope, played as serious sexual molestation and abuse.
• Downer Beginning: Episode 1 in it's entirety.
• Fallen Princess: Title of the first episode and the main character.
• Fantastic Racism: The Norma are treated as subhuman and used as expendable soldiers in penal battalions.
• Fun with Acronyms: "Dimensional Rift Attuned Gargantuan Organic Neototypes", or DRAGON. The enemies in question actually ARE dragons, which makes the acronym somewhat redundant.
• Gratuitous Rape: Barely two episodes in, and we get some rather brutal and explicit rape scenes in each.
• Humongous Mecha: Para-Mails, the standard unit used by the Norma penal battalions.
• I Know Madden Kombat: Ange notes piloting a Para-Mail is similar to piloting a hoverbike.
• Laser-Guided Karma: All of Ange's bigotry against the Norma in the first half of Episode 1 epically bites her on the ass in the second half.
• Mythology Gag: The show has several references to Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, including a male character who looks a lot like Kira Yamato.
• Next Episode Preview: Parodied. Features characters complaining the events in the show don't match the genre the anime is supposedly in.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The grandiose acronym aside, they are basically alien invaders in all but name.
• Real Robot: Para-Mails are firmly in this territory, being somewhat frail and require effective use of team tactics to be effective in combat.
  • Transforming Mecha: Para-Mails have a hoverbike like Flight Mode and humanoid Assault mode.
• Sacrificial Lion: Coco, the seemingly naive girl who actually seems to respect Ange and believe in her gets brutally killed by the end of the second episode.
• Situational Sexuality: Only women can be Norma, they are all thrown in a prison situation together, this is apparently the result.
• Shown Their Work: The idiotic amounts of Fanservice aside, the depiction of how a penal battalion works is fairly accurate, and Ange's experience as the New Meat, Fanservice bits aside, quite accurate regarding the hazing a new recruit would get by the rest of their squad.
• Stripperiffic: The pilot suits don't cover very much.
• Suicide Mission: Every combat sortie is basically this for Norma, since their captors don't give a damn whether they live or die. Those that survive essentially keep getting sent out over and over again until this trope kicks in for real.
• You Are What You Hate: Ange makes it clear early on she doesn't like the Norma... ... .. then cruel irony hits when she's revealed as one.