Princess Angelise Ikaruga Misurugi is beloved by her empire's citizens. But when her brother Julio discovers her that she's a norma, things take a turn for the worse for her.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Action Prologue: In the prologue, Ange sings the "Endless Song" during a flashback with her family riding on horses. Then, it cuts to her singing the song as a pilot of Villkiss.
- Ass Shove: Jill does a cavity search inside Ange as part of the latter's conscription into the military. The next scene showing a traumatized Ange is played up as serious to drive home how the former princess has sunken to her lowest and lost all dignity.
- Boomerang Bigot: Played with. Ange is an unwitting variation where she doesn't know she's a Norma. Needless to say, her blissful ignorance of it doesn't mean she's any less hostile towards Normas or what they stand for, as she shares with her mother plans to somehow wipe them all out. This makes her reveal as a norma the very next day all the more ironic.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Ange wets herself during her recruitment into the military.
- Character Death: Sophia is killed protecting her daughter.
- Dangerous 16th Birthday: When Ange turns 16, Julio outs her as a Norma.
- Downer Beginning: Ange's influence as a princess is utterly destroyed after the revelation that she is a norma. After her mother dies, she is abandoned by everyone and is conscripted into the military.
- Establishing Character Moment: The first ten minutes sums up who she is and who she will be. Even back when she was a princess, Ange's introductory scene has her play hard at a sport, give her close-knit teammates a rousing speech, and publicly accept her ultimate loss with grace. This sets up that not only is she rather active, but also a natural born leader. And later, when in private, she confides in her siblings her personal belief of how disheartening her loss is, as it doesn't bode well for how she'll lead her people. It hints that despite her rather easy life, Ange has potential to feel heavy-hearted in the face of loss.
- Fair-Weather Friend: Ange's sports team and closest friends quickly turn on her after she is revealed to be a Norma, when not one day ago they were closely-knit and she was giving them a speech about teamwork. If anything, their throwing her under the bus not only drives home the unfairness of Mana society's prejudice, but also how utterly alone Ange will be from here on out, and how conditional their friendship ultimately was.
- Foreshadowing:
- Serra being exposed as a Norma, accidentally breaking the Mana barrier despite her mother's protests, and her mother fighting to keep her from going to Arzenal (and failing) all portend what will happen to Ange the very next day.
- Serra's mother livid reaction to Ange's Innocently Insensitive remark (via throwing a baby bottle at her) is meant to be a red flag that despite belief that they're more peaceful than normas, Misurugi citizens have the potential to be violent, as demonstrated towards the end of the series.
- On the night before her sixteenth birthday, Ange brings up to her mother that she encountered her first norma that day. Sophia acts rather shocked at hearing this simple news. On the surface, it seems like a simple case that even mentioning normas is a shocking topic unto itself. In reality, Sophia was concerned because her daughter's secretly a norma, and she was worried the interaction could've potentially exposed Ange.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Sophia sacrifices herself to cover for Ange's escape. It doesn't work and Ange is captured, anyway.
- How We Got Here: The first episode shows how Ange is sent to Arzenal after Ange fights off the DRAGONs while piloting Villkiss.
- Innocently Insensitive: When Ange tells Serra's mother she can always have another daughter to replace Serra for being a norma, it's framed that she meant to comfort the mother that she has another chance at raising a child. Regardless, it's cold comfort to this mother whose love for her only child clearly outweighs her society's prejudice.
- Ironic Birthday: Her being exposed as a norma happens on her 16th birthday.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Ange is outed as a norma—the species she ridiculed while she was a Princess—and drew public disfavor for it. In an ironic twist, she is taken to Arzenal and forced to fight the DRAGONs alongside the other norma.
- It's even lampshaded (to an unhinged extent) by Serra's mother, in light of how Ange so callously suggested she could always have a new baby to replace the one that was just declared a norma.
- Mama Bear: Sophia is willing to protect Ange, especially when the latter is exposed as a norma.
- Serra's mother fought tooth and nail to defend her daughter. She even had the guts to throw a milk bottle at Ange, who was a royal princess at the time.
- Oh, Crap!:
- The Misurugi citizens get one when Julio reveals that Ange is a norma.
- Ange when Sophia is killed while covering for her daughter.
- Ange has a similar one at the end when Jill does a cavity search.
- Persona Non Grata: Once Julio declares that Ange is a norma, she's no longer welcome as a princess of her empire.
- Sanity Slippage: Strongly implied with Serra's mother. After her only infant daughter Serra is shipped off for the crime of being a norma, the unnamed mother is next seen standing in her baby's unlit room, clearly having been trashed. When Ange is being arrested for being a norma, the mother says the princess is getting her just desserts, but not without an unbalanced smile.
- Symbolism:
- While being contained in a cell of Mana, Ange is gently let down she's being arrested under suspicion of being a Norma. Feeling there must be a mistake, Ange steps forward and unwittingly exposes herself when she accidentally shatters the Mana barrier around her. What instantly follows is a brutal reality where her mother is killed, her closest friends disown her, and she's exiled to Arzenal. All the while, she's exposed to the far less savory side of her society. There's an element to this as though the broken Mana barrier was her shattered innocence.
- Alternatively, the Mana barrier being destroyed by Ange could mark the instant that the lie she had been living (that she could wield Mana like her people) was being shattered after all this time.
- Welcome to Hell: Said word-for-word by Jill at the end of the episode when she recruits Ange.
- Would Harm a Child: This trope is used to establish that there's something terribly wrong with Ange's world if even an infant Norma isn't safe from society's overall inhuman treatment towards them. Ange first-hand witnesses a mother try to protect her daughter Serra from suspicion as a Norma, but to no avail. Once it's confirmed the poor baby is a Norma, Serra's unceremoniously stuffed into a container like an animal and carted off to Arzenal.
