When Embryo attacks! But first, nearly naked oiled up Twister time!

What They Say:
Angelise is the first princess of the Empire of Misurugi. She is the celebrated ruler of the Empire until one day she finds out the shocking truth that she is a “Norma” – an irregular being who cannot use “Mana”, and are treated as “things” rather than people. Having her name taken from her, Ange isolates herself on a remote island. There, she finds a group of Norma women who spend their days hunting dragons that have come to invade.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Explanations and background material was the name of the game the last time around and with all that was revealed, I can’t really complain about it. Since they moved to the parallel earth and began to learn what happened there, it ticked all the boxes for the things I like about stories like this as it puts Ange and Tusk into a difficult position of really understanding the scope of things. But it also gave us an easy enemy in the person of Embryo as the ultimate evil rather than something nuanced. Not that we thought he would be nuanced or something more than a stock villain in the end based on what we saw of him before, but there was a glimmer of hope here and there that things could be a bit more. But in the context of the series, it works well enough for the large, sprawling kind of feeling its going for while also being freewheeling in its approach to trying to be epic in nature and scope.

With all of that material revealed now, things take a bit of a quiet approach at first, especially after Tusk getting manhandled by the women who haven’t seen anyone like him before and enjoy the experience, much to Ange’s dismay and anger. That has Ange now ready to just find out what the princess and everyone is up to, which is why we get things shifted to a restored sports arena in pristine condition – that includes bowling balls shaped like a certain Sunrise logo character. It’s an odd turn to present all of this, but what it comes down to is that there’s something that they want Ange to do in defeating Embryo in order to bring peace to both worlds. Ange has been used time and time again since being thrown into all of this chaos, but as much as she denies her wanting to be used again, she knows it’s the right path to the salvation of everyone involved. Naturally, they appeal to Ange’s competitive nature with a series of challenges between her and Sala in order to who will get their way. Can you say costume changes and sports montage material? Don’t forget oiled up bathing suit twister as well.

While this does dominate most of the episode, we do get an action component outside of girl vs girl material as a temporal/electrical whirlwind hits the area like a cruel tornado that dissolves everything it touches, which makes it hard to fight against as they watch so many citizens being torn apart by it. Realizing that Embryo must be behind it makes a lot of since considering his power set and that redoubles all of them to do something. The suddenness of the fight is a bit disconcerting with how it happens, but I like how it progresses and we get Ange and Sala agreeing to what they must do, since Sala is uncertain of which tact to take, but seeing the combination of them singing and attack works well as the chaos spreads in a huge way, causing more and more destruction. With Ange’s Vilkiss basically leveling up here, it goes big in a very fun, if short way while still reminding us of the immense amount of carnage that was caused.

In Summary:
While events in the second half move things where they need to be in a quick and hard fashion as they have to deal with Embryo and his attacks, the first half… is about what I expected. There is a fun to the pandering that’s done in this series from time to time, but this piece just makes me roll my eyes by having a princess that faithfully restored a sports arena with many functions to make it look better than it did five hundred years prior. All of it was in service of having some fun by allowing the main characters in this piece of it to be able to dress up in tennis outfits and more so they could provide those kinds of visuals. I’m more than fine with fanservice that fits the context of things, but this particular approach just takes me out of the show more than it should. Bah.

Grade: B

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.