Warning, unmarked spoilers for a terrible series (Cross Ange) ahead. Skip this post if you don't want to see spoiler stuff:
Cross Ange feels like one of Sunrise's most furiously rewritten shows and that's coming from a studio notorious for rewriting shows half-way through. I’ve got some fairly extensive thoughts on what I personally believe to be signs of script changes, but before I get to some of my more elaborate theories I’m first going to highlight some incidents which clearly show the writers changing their minds.
Example A:
Riza is initially shown to be Julio’s bodyguard/advisor/crony. Later on it’s revealed that she was secretly a Dragon all along:
There’s only one problem with this twist – in her first appearance Riza is blatantly shown to be a Mana user, and Dragons certainly cant use mana:
This is important because if Riza was originally just a human in the 1st draft of the script, then the Dragons were never secretly investigating the location of Aura and nor where they looking for a way to control the portals. This is quite a significant change.
Example B:
When Embryo is initially introduced he explains that the only thing that can be done to salvage the world is to reset it and start over. However, Embryo clearly lays out that there are some requirements that must be met before this can be done. Requirements which I had completely forgotten about because they are never mentioned again:
So, this seems like a pretty key plot point. Before Embryo and the World Leaders can activate this plan they need to acquire all the Ragna-mail and mail riders. This raises two points: A) Embryo does not yet have all 7 Ragna-mail (yes, there are specifically 7 Ranga-mail as shown in episode 14) and B) There are specific mail riders that can use Ranga-mail (I happen to believe these are people of royal blood, more on that later). This suggests that the ‘baddies’ need to go on a quest to acquire these things.
However both A and B are completely ignored. Around episode 21 it’s shown that Embryo has all the Ragna-mail in his possession and apparently pretty much anyone can rider a Ragna-mail (as long as you give them a completely unexplained ring, another dropped plot point).
This raises even more questions such as, why did Embryo only begin to merge the worlds in episode 21? If he’s had the equipment and people all along why wait so many episodes? The answer is, because this was clearly written as the climax of the story and presumably in the previous epsidoes we were supposed to see these Ragna-mail collected and the pilots assembled. But that entire story arc completely disappears and instead, for LITERALLY no reason at all Embryo begins his plan in episode 21. This is shockingly nonsensical.
Example C:
Now, this might appear more minor but I find it rather stupid.
So, everyone knows that everyone is racist against the Norma. It’s been a part of the series since the first episode – everyone who isn’t a Norma is basically an asshole to Norma’s forever. At the end of the show, Ange judges the humans who hate the Norma and decides to completely ignore their suffering.
Now, this might be acceptable given how they’ve treated Norma throughout the show but that’s forgetting a pretty important piece of information that Riza explains:
So, Embryo genetically engineered everyone to hate the Norma. In a fairly significant way they aren’t totally responsible for their actions. Many of them are, in fact, innocent people. Therefore when Ange abandons all of them to live in their shitty destroyed world she’s committing a fairly immoral act.
Example D:
Sala clearly describes Aura as a man, like all the large male dragons. Later on, Aura is clearly a woman.
Example E:
When Jill is explaining the backstory to Ange she never gets around to explaining where Dragons come from and why they fight them, however she appears to know. As soon as it’s revealed that Dragons are somehow created from humans, Jill makes it pretty clear that she knew this all along:
However, a few episodes later Ange returns from Dragon-land to tell everyone about Dragons and the other Earth. In this scene, Jill appears fairly sceptical of Ange’s explanation and doesn’t appear to have any idea of where Dragon’s come from or the other Earth.
This doesn’t make sense.
So what did Jill know about Dragons? Well, she probably knew about a very different plot surrounding Dragons, one that we never actually saw play out in the show. Jill’s dialogue in the two scenes just doesn’t match up.
Example F:
So, let’s not beat around the bush. This series was clearly designed to appeal to fans of smutty yuri action nonsense. From the (nearly) all girl cast to the outfits to the copious amounts of lesbian sex and general nudity its pretty clear who this series was targeting. Based on how the show depicts the main characters it would seem that Ange’s main romantic interest was supposed to be Salamandinay.
She appears heavily in the OP for many episodes before her onscreen debut and has dominant screen space with Ange in both the OP and ED title cards. The characters seem to be similar in some respects, they have a certain rivalry and they both excel at similar things (such as piloting robots). In a show as simple as Cross Ange this basically means they are meant for each other. What really confirms this, though, is Sala’s introduction:
I don’t know if I can make this any clear than the show has. Across multiple universes and (apparently?) thousands of years Ange and Sala are shown to be rivals/friends/lovers. I mean, you can’t get really get a bigger sign that two people are ‘destined’ for each other. The show doesn’t hit you over the head with this as much as crack your skull open with an anvil. So these two are going to end up with each other by the end pleasing, I assume, everyone (both the staff and the audience).
Yet, for some reason, after her interactions with Ange on the other Earth Salamandinay becomes a complete and utter nothing character. She’s basically one of those people at the back of an action scene who occasionally shoots someone. She has no role in the plot or in Ange’s life. This makes no sense to me. I can only assume this has to do with the rise of Tusk.
I don’t think anyone likes Tusk. The intended audience of the show certainly don’t want to see him busting into their ‘Garden’ and the staff appear to crap all over him as well. He’s regularly humiliated on-screen and in terms of key art (such as the OP title card) he’s reduced to a tiny character at the back as if to say “ignore this asshole”. It really feels like he wasn’t supposed to be Ange’s main partner at the end of the series but instead he got forced into playing that role by exterior forces.
(See, Tusk is barely even in this picture!)
Example G:
Speaking of Sala's introduction this line makes no sense given the later context of the show:
What? No, it isn't. Aura has nothing to do with the truth. This line only makes sense if it refers to some other plotline that got changed in production.
Anyway, I have a much longer post that will go into detail concerning:
1) Royal Houses, Royal Blood and Magic Rings
2) Singing Powered Mecha
3) Embryo's Whole Character
4) Cross Ange's insane and nonsensical timeline
But that's for another day.