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Rody One Half
Feb 18, 2011

Code Geass is a multimedia franchise spawned off the 2006 anime series Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion. It is, thus far, Sunrise's only successful venture in their ongoing search for a brand besides Gundam that can make them money in the 21st century.

Animated Entries


Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion is, as mentioned, the 2006 anime series that kicked off all this nonsense. The central conceit is that it reverses the usual real robot dynamic of the idealistic, prodigy pilot main character (i.e. the Amuro) and and the ruthless rival character (i.e. the Char). Main character Lelouch Lamperouge is a vengeful schemer who piles together a truly impressive body count after being given a magical eye power called Geass by a mysterious girl, but is a mediocre pilot himself. His one time best friend turned rival Suzaku Kururugi is a dreamer who believes that peace can be brought about through legal means and is the one whose prodigious skills land him in the prototype Knightmare Frame (the rollerskating mechs of Geass) Lancelot. Lelouch uses his power to dress up like Batman and rally the Japanese people in rebellion against the occupying Empire of Britannia (the British won the American Revolution but were kicked out of Europe by Napolean, its a long story), while Suzaku joins up with the Empire aiming to rise through the ranks and bring peace back to Japan that way.


In Lelouch of the Rebellion R2, the second season, Lelouch Lamperouge, noted fashion designer, having conquered Japan with his personally created label "TBKS," turns outward, seeking to expand his brand's power in foreign markets. Opposing Lelouch's attempt to use the Open Door is old rival Suzaku and an expanded cast of Britannians serving the mysterious "Mechazawa," and an overhyped chinese guy.


The Code Geass Picture Dramas are, for the most part, short slideshows with voice acting taking place between episodes with various levels of seriousness, mostly serving either purely comedic purposes or for fleshing out bits of backstory the shows themselves don't cover. There are, however, two full length ones that were released as OVAs, Miraculous Birthday and Nunally in Wonderland. The former is apparently an adaptation of a strange live event Sunrise put on, taking place after the end of R2, but it's largely pretty boring. Nunally in Wonderland however...

You should probably watch Nunally in Wonderland.


Akito the Exiled is a 4 episode sidestory OVA (two episodes of which have been released so far) taking place between the two main TV seasons, this time focusing on the battlegrounds of Eastern Europe... although none of the main characters are actually European, instead being a Britannian ex-pat and a team of Japanese teens used as suicide troops by the European Union. It's directed by Kazuki Akane (Escaflowne) and has the battles are 3DCG, which oddly enough for Japan, looks totally awesome.

There are also some other, smaller shorts, such as ones focusing on the point of view of Sayoko, a side character, but that covers the major stuff.

Manga

Code Geass also features quite a large number of manga spinoffs, most of the alternate universe pieces. The first, sharing the original anime's title, is completely ignorable as it's just the same plot without robots and with some weird edits to cover that.


Suzaku Of The Counterattack, as you might guess from the title, shifts the focus from angry, old Lelouch to Suzaku, while also changing genre from mecha to toku. Instead of Lancelot being a knightmare, it is instead Suzaku's own codename given to him when he tons a special combat suit made for him. Counterattack also replaces a member of Suzaku's pit crew from the anime, the Kikuko Inoue-voiced Cecille Croomy, with a younger girl, which I'm given to understand was a demographic decision of some sort. I think it's pretty boring but I don't like Suzaku so that's not surprising. It's very short so if you're curious about it, you can read it in a single sitting.


Nightmare of Nunally is probably the weirdest thing on this list and is completely amazing for it. Again replacing Lelouch in focus, this time with his younger, blind and paralyzed sister... who is given the power to summon an Eva, which both restores her sight and lets her see the future in combat. Also Lelouch, initially thought dead, shows up later kicking knightmares around Master Asia-style. And another character is thrown out completely, his name being used instead for an even more melodramatic evil twin of Lelouch. Nightmare of Nunally is Geass on all the drugs.


Strange Tales of the Bakamatsu vies with the regular Lelouch manga for worst part of this mess. Set exactly when you'd think it would be, Lelouch supports expelling the black ships, Suzaku doesn't, Admiral Perry's the main villain, and Geass summons knightmares in this setting. It's a lame comedy overall, skip it unless you're a die hard fanatic.


Renya of the Darkness is Nightmare's competition for the weirdest entry, and is fittingly by the exact same author (I guess Nightmare did well in Japan). Possibly the strangest element is that unlike all the Geass manga before it, this is actually set in the same timeline as the anime, starring Suzaku's ancestor, Renya the murder ninja, and his struggle with Sir Dash, who seems to be Lelouch's ancestor. It's intention is to explain the connection between Suzaku and CC, hinted at several times in the anime but never explained.


Oz The Reflection is the second manga to be set in the anime timeline, joining Akito in-between the two TV seasons. I've not read it myself, but my understanding is this: It shows the global rise in anti-Britannian terrorism after the end of season one, and does so through focusing on a pair of twins, one of whom works for Britannia and the other being a terrorist himself. Apparently it also has a strange multimedia element involving serial web releases? I'll change this if someone knows a bit more.


Queens For Boys/Knights For Girls are a pair of anthology series with submissions by... well I've never been totally sure. Near as I can tell the various artists are just doujinka that Sunrise tapped on the shoulder. The stories themselves are almost all 100% parody nonsense (like when Lelouch's Knightmare specialist builds a super robot that his team has to pilot by posing in concert), though there are the odd serious entries.

And yes most of the covers are like that. Actually these are probably the least suggestive.


Barcode Geass: Lelouch of the Sales is a weird comedy manga where Lelouch works at 7-11 and gets into poo poo with the neighboring supermarket Britannia. It's dumb.

Games
Putting aside appearances in other series such as Super Robot Wars Z2, Code Geass got three games of its own. The last, based on the second season, is a dime a dozen Mario Party clone, but the other two have story content so they merit mention.


The first game simply shared a title with the original anime, and was an DS RPG which seemed to simply follow that storyline. However, upon completing the game, it opened up some storylines with a considerable amount of original content, primarily courtesy of new Britannian princes Castor and Pollux. Has a very basic English patch, but the project was dropped before they actually worked on the story script.


Lost Colors is a PSP/PS2 visual novel, with each platform getting an exclusive route. In Lost Colors the player takes the role of a young man named Rai, who has a variant of Lelouch's own Geass. After completing the game's base storyline surrounding Rai himself, the player is then given more less free reign to run around Geassland causing as much havoc as possible. The PSP version has an in-progress translation, which you can try yourself.

Other
Geass also has a variety of light novels, audio dramas, and other small things, but these are mostly either untranslated or basic adaptations of the anime storyline. As always, if I've missed something major, let me know and I'll add it to the OP.

Rody One Half fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Mar 5, 2014

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RocketSurgery
Feb 11, 2009
Code Geass was a fun show, but R2 was a trainwreck
its kind of jarring actually

after the show ended I remember reading the knightmare of nunally manga
Id recommend it if you watched the show and want more cool but stupid stuff

overall I think its weird how the show was super popular and they havent capitalized on this other than dumb spinoffs for the most part
so far akito seems cool but the CG is ugly like it had no budget

ZeusJupitar
Jul 7, 2009
It's hard to see how the really could have capitalized on Geass more after R2 finished. It was absolutely Lelouch's story and once that story was told, there was nowhere else to go.

Rody One Half
Feb 18, 2011

ZeusJupitar posted:

It's hard to see how the really could have capitalized on Geass more after R2 finished. It was absolutely Lelouch's story and once that story was told, there was nowhere else to go.

They could have not hosed up R2 super bad. Or done a reboot.

e:
V People always talk about R2's executive meddling, but all that stuff was supposed to apply to the early pacing, needing to introduce an audience to the cast (a questionable necessity but that's another issue). But early R2 wasn't hugely problematic, it was just more Code Geass for the most part. All the truly shithouse stuff about R2 came in towards the END of the series, especially R2 19 which manages to top S1 22 in sheer stupidity.

Rody One Half fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Feb 1, 2014

Redcrimson
Mar 3, 2008

Second-stage Midboss Syndrome
A reboot without all the executive meddling in R2 would be cool, but I think Sunrise is too busy trying to remake Code Geass without actually calling it Code Geass.

Srice
Sep 11, 2011

The choreography of the fights in Akito is pretty slick (though I do wish they wouldn't do that thing with the CG where they cut frames out to make it look like it has the same framerate as the handdrawn stuff. That's one of the main reasons to use CG! It just looks clunky when you do that). Shame the cast has been dull as molasses so far.

Also the 2nd episode had a rocket launch sequence that took around 9 minutes. It was incredibly self-indulgent and even though the fights at the end were cool, that bloated scene really put a damper on things. They could have easily done that scene in a fraction of the time and maybe use some of those extra minutes to actually bother developing the cast or something crazy like that?

I'm not going to say that there's no potential at all for a spinoff, since while Lelouch did carry the show, I'm sure people said the same thing back in the day about a Gundam spinoff that didn't have Amuro or Char in it. But Akito's writing just isn't good enough to capitalize on such potential (Though it's a big enough success sales-wise, which I guess is the most important thing for Sunrise).

Srice fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Feb 1, 2014

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
To be honest I enjoyed both Geass and R2 all the way through, even the extremely stupid stuff. If anything, the extremely stupid stuff just made me enjoy it more.

Monaghan
Dec 29, 2006

R2 got pretty dumb what with Charles master plan being so stupid and everyone in the black knights being completely idiotic (seriously gently caress ougi) but I still maintain that the last 2 episodes of r2 are great.

Elite
Oct 30, 2010

Rodyle posted:

Lelouch vi Britannia Commands You To Post

YES, MY LORD.

Anyway chalk me up as one of those who likes R2 unironically and unapologetically. Actually the only stuff in R2 that I really write off as insane is the Euphinator.

Sakurazuka
Jan 24, 2004

NANI?

What the hell even was Charles master-plan, I remember something about using geass to destroy the human collective unconscious for *reasons* and then it devolved into metaphysical psychobabble.

Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012

Sakurazuka posted:

What the hell even was Charles master-plan, I remember something about using geass to destroy the human collective unconscious for *reasons* and then it devolved into metaphysical psychobabble.

That and the weird way some of the characters reacted to FLEIJA (it killed 35 million people, but only Suzaku and Nina really seemed to care; I have similar issues with Star Trek 2009 and even A New Hope) were the weakest parts of R2. I actually liked R2 other than that.

Pimpmust
Oct 1, 2008

I thought that the European union was called EURO UNIVERSE or something stupid like that, or was it just a bad translation in the original show?

I'd like to pretend Harry Ord works for the European Commission :v:

Elite
Oct 30, 2010

Sakurazuka posted:

What the hell even was Charles master-plan, I remember something about using geass to destroy the human collective unconscious for *reasons* and then it devolved into metaphysical psychobabble.

Charles' master plan was to drag everyone's full personalities into the collective unconscious and then people would just live inside each other's memories or something. This would kinda sorta resurrect the dead and it would mean nobody else could die but on the flip side nothing would ever progress and the world would be completely stagnant. Or at least I think that was his plan but the scheme was pretty much entirely psychobabble right from the start and never made a lick of sense.

Anyway Lelouch used his geass to ask the collective unconscious if people are on board with this plan and the reply is a resounding "gently caress THAT poo poo" so everything explodes and apparently that fixed things.

SSGT Anime
Apr 21, 2012
It was some generic anime plot TO KILL GOD because of all the injustice in the world or something.

Having finished the series just a few days ago, I really wish I had avoided R2. I don't think it was nearly as bad as it gets made out to be, but man did it just drop all the logic and subtlety that made R1 so good. I also really would have liked it if the series had done more to play up the Akira- / Eva-esque 'best friends caught up in the action' angle, instead of all the World's Biggest Pizza stuff that was in there.

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

The real question is who is the wagon man?

E: Charlie's plan was essentially to merge everyone's personality into one. Think evangelion but shoddily explained.

Vermain
Sep 5, 2006



I mean, the Charles plot was thematically pretty appropriate, since it touched upon two of the key themes of Code Geass: the "wearing of masks" that disguises our true motivations (even unconsciously - Suzaku thinks he's doing noble, heroic things, but he really just has an incredible death wish; Lelouch thinks he's acting as a great revolutionary leader when he's really just out for revenge; etc.) and the conflict that results from it (the key conflict in the series really being Lelouch and Suzaku finding themselves completely unable to understand why the other would try to change things in their particular way). The problem is that there's maybe four or five characters who actually directly interact with it, and it's not seamlessly woven in. It keeps stumbling in like a drunken uncle to remind you that it's theree.

Mercury Crusader
Apr 20, 2005

You know they say that all demons are created equal, but you look at me and you look at Pyro Jack and you can see that statement is not true, hee-ho!
I hated the dumb power/tech level spikes that occur during R2. On the other hand, I like how they handled that problem in SRW Z2-2 in regards to having KMFs and ATs being able to compete on a level playing field. Britannian mooks, despite having better mechs, are garbage pilots, so Britannia had to hire Red Shoulder mooks to compensate.

2011 was a good year for fans of mechs that skate around on the ground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LAmRLSO6eU

Mercury Crusader fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Feb 2, 2014

Genocyber
Jun 4, 2012

R2 gets a lot of hate but I've always enjoyed it. Geass is at its best when it's be silly and over the top, and R2 has that in spades.

Also everyone should watch this AMV, it's pretty great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f0oJCMACe0

Rody One Half
Feb 18, 2011

Pimpmust posted:

I thought that the European union was called EURO UNIVERSE or something stupid like that, or was it just a bad translation in the original show?

I'd like to pretend Harry Ord works for the European Commission :v:

In older text materials yes, it is the Euro Universe, but Akito retcons this.


Endorph posted:

To be honest I enjoyed both Geass and R2 all the way through, even the extremely stupid stuff. If anything, the extremely stupid stuff just made me enjoy it more.

Thing is I do like R2 for what it is (and what it is is insanity, insanity which the whole net watched, which made for a great community experience) but as a sequel to the show that I loved it's a complete flop.

Rody One Half fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Feb 2, 2014

chumbler
Mar 28, 2010

Mercury Crusader posted:

I hated the dumb power/tech level spikes that occur during R2.

I am of the same opinion and overall didn't really like R2. The upgrades to the Lancelot and Guren were neat, but the first season's ground battles and slightly higher emphasis on tactics rather than just overwhelming power was refreshing.

Though I do like how R2 made Karen the hugest badass in that she was a completely unaugmented person with no magical powers who was able to beat a guy who was cursed to survive basically anything and knew how to use that fact to his advantage. She was hotblooded as hell and easily my favorite character in the series. She and Graham Aker were clearly parallel universe versions of each other, complete with being in love with their respective series' protagonists.

Rody One Half
Feb 18, 2011

Of course Kallen is hot blooded, nothing else would be acceptable for Domon Kasshu's daughter :colbert:

Also I realized I forgot the anthologies, so I added those to the manga section.

Mercury Crusader
Apr 20, 2005

You know they say that all demons are created equal, but you look at me and you look at Pyro Jack and you can see that statement is not true, hee-ho!
Kallen is great in SRW Z2, since she's essentially a super robot pilot placed in a real robot, and it's reflected in her stats and spell list. In another series, she'd be firing off rocket punches and Getter Beams. :allears:

Too bad about that whole unrequited love thing.

wielder
Feb 16, 2008

"You had best not do that, Avatar!"

Rodyle posted:

In older text materials yes, it is the Euro Universe, but Akito retcons this.

Thing is I do like R2 for what it is (and what it is is insanity, insanity which the whole net watched, which made for a great community experience) but as a sequel to the show that I loved it's a complete flop.

And it's a good retcon too, since "Euro Universe" sounds kind of dumb and they always just said "EU" in the show anyway.

Code Geass R2 was full of chaotic craziness, agreed, but I think it's also surprisingly thematically fitting in several respects and not just due to the ending...at least when you can look back at things without worrying about any frustrating developments. It's still fairly disappointing after S1, sure, but I'd still rather rewatch R2 than Valvrave any day of the year. I think Taniguchi's direction does a lot to make up for some (not all) of the script issues.

Mercury Crusader posted:

Kallen is great in SRW Z2, since she's essentially a super robot pilot placed in a real robot, and it's reflected in her stats and spell list. In another series, she'd be firing off rocket punches and Getter Beams. :allears:

Too bad about that whole unrequited love thing.

True, although it's not too surprising since Kallen shares Domon's hot blood as well as his hothead attitude yet still lacks protagonist privileges.

Srice posted:

The choreography of the fights in Akito is pretty slick (though I do wish they wouldn't do that thing with the CG where they cut frames out to make it look like it has the same framerate as the handdrawn stuff. That's one of the main reasons to use CG! It just looks clunky when you do that). Shame the cast has been dull as molasses so far.

Actually, I've noticed that the 3DCG for the Akito fights (and, by extension, also in Majestic Prince) for the most part doesn't mess around too much with the frame rate. Only in a couple of the slower scenes, but the majority of the action is pretty fast paced. It works quite well in my opinion.

That said, one of the things to keep in mind about Akito the Exiled is how Kazuki Akane (director and co-writer) seems to place a lot more importance on establishing the mood and on subtle details that flesh out the setting or provide extra bits of characterization, even at the expense of slowing the pace and limiting character development per se. The rocket launch sequence, which I think was pretty well done just on a purely technical front, seems self-indulgent at first glance but also serves a few of those purposes.

Regardless of this...I agree that the cast needs more dynamism. I don't hate them, but they're lacking charisma. I presume upcoming events will force the main group to develop (or at least die trying), based both on what's already been set up after episode two and what's expected to happen next. Episode one might have been a little too much of a prologue, in retrospect, yet episode three seems to be where things finally get real.

Overall, I think Akito the Exiled has some oddities derived from the fact it's merely a medium-sized OVA/film series rather than a full length TV show (or even a TV series with 12 to 13 episodes)...but what keeps me watching is how it's reasonably competent and, more importantly in my opinion, trying to do something different in interesting ways. If it's successful enough, then that just confirms there will be more Code Geass animated spin-offs later on.

wielder fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Feb 2, 2014

Elite
Oct 30, 2010

Vermain posted:

I mean, the Charles plot was thematically pretty appropriate, since it touched upon two of the key themes of Code Geass: the "wearing of masks" that disguises our true motivations (even unconsciously - Suzaku thinks he's doing noble, heroic things, but he really just has an incredible death wish; Lelouch thinks he's acting as a great revolutionary leader when he's really just out for revenge; etc.) and the conflict that results from it (the key conflict in the series really being Lelouch and Suzaku finding themselves completely unable to understand why the other would try to change things in their particular way). The problem is that there's maybe four or five characters who actually directly interact with it, and it's not seamlessly woven in. It keeps stumbling in like a drunken uncle to remind you that it's theree.

That's an interesting way to look at it and it fits with the Emperor's extreme hatred of lies (despite lying all the time himself) but the problem really lies in the execution. It's a drunken uncle that hangs around for 2 whole seasons doing nothing, then suddenly tries to burn the house down and immediately gets arrested never to be seen again.

Another interesting thought is that what Charles does to Lelouch is kinda the same as what Lelouch does to Nunally near the end of R2, though Lelouch's hand was forced a little more.

chumbler posted:

the first season's ground battles and slightly higher emphasis on tactics rather than just overwhelming power was refreshing.

That's something I really liked in Code Geass.

Lelouch doesn’t fight his rebellion with superior strength, he fights it with superior planning... and that means becoming the smartest, dirtiest and most brutal strategist. He is perfectly willing to deceive or betray his own allies without pity or remorse, he’s has no qualms about sacrificing all but his closest friends and he’s proactive in finding the best ways to abuse the poo poo out of his sinister magic power. It was refreshingly different to have battles fought with strategy than power and IMO even Lelouch's most radical turn-arounds usually felt earned rather than being asspulls (though he kinda reused the "Fighting a losing battle - Blow up battlefield - Win battle" strategy about 5 times).

Basically for all it's silliness I thought Code Geass did a good job at making the battles and conflicts feel sensible, at least in R1. I mean one of the first things Lelouch does is assassinate the enemy leader, and the empire immediately responds by sending in people that are more competent and more dangerous. Not saying there aren't notable exceptions but they're in the minority.

KOGAHAZAN!!
Apr 29, 2013

a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

ZeusJupitar posted:

It's hard to see how the really could have capitalized on Geass more after R2 finished. It was absolutely Lelouch's story and once that story was told, there was nowhere else to go.

Pretty much this. I'm really not interested in watching more Geass without Lelouch in it. Actually, I just want more Lelouch full stop; I don't care if they have to poo poo all over established canon to do it, I need him back on my screen and chewing scenery like it's going out of fashion. :allears:

Haruto wishes he could have been that interesting.

Vermain posted:

Lelouch thinks he's acting as a great revolutionary leader when he's really just out for revenge

Y'know, I think that was one thing I never really got a good handle on: how honest Lelouch is with himself. In the beginning, at least, it seems like he's pretty cognizant of the fact that he's just hijacking the rebellion for his own purposes, and I think that does remain his "default" position for the majority of the series, with him slipping into viewing himself as the great liberator whenever it's convenient, or he wants to feel superior to his enemies. Anyway, I think he's significantly less deluded than Suzaku, who... just, gently caress that guy.

EDIT: Recently, I've been trying to get a friend of mine to watch Geass. She loved Valvrave, but has been holding off on this because she's heard that it has a bad ending. Any thoughts on how I can convince her? I can't really say that it doesn't have a bad ending, because, well...

KOGAHAZAN!! fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Feb 2, 2014

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
Bad as in writing quality or bad as in sad?

Because writing-wise its ending is miles ahead of Valvrave's.

KOGAHAZAN!!
Apr 29, 2013

a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Writing-wise. Yeah, VVV's wasn't great either.

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
The Geass ending left a few things unresolved, but I did like the central concept - some sort of happy ending for Lelouch wouldn't have fit, after everything that happened. Suzaku and Lelouch got endings appropriate for their characters, and since they're the two main characters that balances out to a pretty decent ending.

Besides, it has Jeremiah and Anya on an orange farm.

Endorph fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Feb 2, 2014

KOGAHAZAN!!
Apr 29, 2013

a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

My main problem with the ending is that I don't think the Zero Requiem would actually work as described. People do not work that way: hatred is not a finite resource, and historically speaking oppressed groups have had no problem hating on their fellow sufferers. Even if you do get them to band together, they tend to fall back into fighting each other as soon as the common threat disappears. It's a stupid plan, and honestly it smacks of cowardice: Lelouch could have leveraged his imperial power to a program of reconstruction, reconciliation and decolonisation- instead he choose suicide. Disappointing.

Endorph posted:

Besides, it has Jeremiah and Anya on an orange farm.

'strue, you can't hate on the Jeremiah.

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
Well, nothing in Code Geass has made sense from the very start. It's a ridiculous, larger than life thing where minor actions have huge consequences and every voice actor present is trying to ham it up to the nth degree. People might not work that way, but Code Geass does.

Rody One Half
Feb 18, 2011

There's a lot of complaints to be made about the last arc of Geass in terms of script sensibility and all that but on a more... emotional level I guess you have the issue that by the end you have basically completely screwed over every character the audience still likes. They're almost all either dead or miserable. Meanwhile you have loving Ougi/Viletta's wedding as one of your big "happy" concluding points. gently caress. That.

Endorph posted:

Besides, it has Jeremiah and Anya on an orange farm.

It would have been better with Sayoko :colbert:


Autonomous Monster posted:

Pretty much this. I'm really not interested in watching more Geass without Lelouch in it. Actually, I just want more Lelouch full stop; I don't care if they have to poo poo all over established canon to do it, I need him back on my screen and chewing scenery like it's going out of fashion. :allears:
Yeah the thing kind of centers on Lelouch. I really think if they were to make more Geass, they might as well just do some AU reboot. I mean, it's not like half the manga aren't that anyway.

quote:

Y'know, I think that was one thing I never really got a good handle on: how honest Lelouch is with himself. In the beginning, at least, it seems like he's pretty cognizant of the fact that he's just hijacking the rebellion for his own purposes, and I think that does remain his "default" position for the majority of the series, with him slipping into viewing himself as the great liberator whenever it's convenient, or he wants to feel superior to his enemies. Anyway, I think he's significantly less deluded than Suzaku, who... just, gently caress that guy.
One thing the series does kind of well I think is how Lelouch forgets more and more that this was originally supposed to be about sweet, sweet vengeance and Nunally. Nunally still tops the list, but as you get closer to the end of his time as Zero he really does seem to have started taken his crusader of justice line seriously.

Incidentally SRW Z2 has a great line by one of the OG characters, who after uniting a bug bunch of the commander characters from different series, says he's doing it for world peace. Lelouch (Zero) asks him what his real game is, and the guy responds, "What, is your own claim of justice so false that you cannot believe any would truly fight for it?"

quote:

EDIT: Recently, I've been trying to get a friend of mine to watch Geass. She loved Valvrave, but has been holding off on this because she's heard that it has a bad ending. Any thoughts on how I can convince her? I can't really say that it doesn't have a bad ending, because, well...
Just tell her that Geass is what VVV was trying to be.

YouTuber
Jul 31, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
gently caress anyone that says season 2 was bad. Lelouch literally walks down a flight of stairs and left his wheelchair bound sister stranded. Straight villainy right there.

Elite
Oct 30, 2010

Autonomous Monster posted:

Pretty much this. I'm really not interested in watching more Geass without Lelouch in it. Actually, I just want more Lelouch full stop; I don't care if they have to poo poo all over established canon to do it, I need him back on my screen and chewing scenery like it's going out of fashion. :allears:

Yeah Lelouch totally steals the show, but I’d be interested in more stories set in the Geass universe. What I find special about that world is that the super-powers are largely social in nature and they’re used to complement normal weapons rather than replace them. That's just a little different from normal.

Autonomous Monster posted:

EDIT: Recently, I've been trying to get a friend of mine to watch Geass. She loved Valvrave, but has been holding off on this because she's heard that it has a bad ending. Any thoughts on how I can convince her? I can't really say that it doesn't have a bad ending, because, well...

You could try “The ending isn’t bad, it’s uhhh.. polarizing” because some people like it, including myself.

Anyway I don’t really know how to compare Geass to Valvrave aside from “Like Valvrave, but good”. They’re both a weird blend of mechs, superpowers and highschools but Geass has some logic to it. As silly as Geass got a guy never took out a room of guards with a screw, predicted the precise movements of complete strangers with zero information and then took down a battleship with a piece of string.

Autonomous Monster posted:

My main problem with the ending is that I don't think the Zero Requiem would actually work as described. People do not work that way: hatred is not a finite resource, and historically speaking oppressed groups have had no problem hating on their fellow sufferers. Even if you do get them to band together, they tend to fall back into fighting each other as soon as the common threat disappears. It's a stupid plan, and honestly it smacks of cowardice: Lelouch could have leveraged his imperial power to a program of reconstruction, reconciliation and decolonisation- instead he choose suicide. Disappointing.

You’re right that Lelouch achieves absolute imperial power but I’d argue that it isn’t sustainable. Lelouch’s authority is built on fear and brainwashing but playing ‘pretend tyrant’ isn’t a viable long term solution. Either he eliminates his political rivals and becomes an actual tyrant or he ignores them and his empire collapses because people don’t fear him any more.

Basically Lelouch creates a peaceful world through despicable means (including brainwashing an entire empire's nobility) then tries to hand his empire over to trustworthy successors without anybody realizing what happened. He’s already eliminated the worst rulers and reformed the worst nations, but nobody is happy because literally the entire world hates him. By removing himself from the equation he makes the world less stable, but he makes it happier and he’s already set some things up to deal with the inevitable disputes and fallout. So I don’t see it as cowardice at all, more like sacrificing himself.

Also if you interpret it as it being Lelouch on the wagon with C.C. then he didn’t even die in the process. If he takes C.C.'s code and becomes immortal (something he always promised to do) then a sword wound like that ain’t no thing. It's certainly ambiguous but this seems like the most obvious read of that scene.

This also allows for the future adventures of a mysterious and extravagant immortal called L.L. (Lamperouge, not vi Britannia)

The emotional complaint makes a lot of sense though. Watching your favourite characters get completely screwed over and go through hell isn't very pleasant, even if it works out in the end.

Elite fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Feb 2, 2014

wielder
Feb 16, 2008

"You had best not do that, Avatar!"

Autonomous Monster posted:

My main problem with the ending is that I don't think the Zero Requiem would actually work as described. People do not work that way: hatred is not a finite resource, and historically speaking oppressed groups have had no problem hating on their fellow sufferers. Even if you do get them to band together, they tend to fall back into fighting each other as soon as the common threat disappears. It's a stupid plan, and honestly it smacks of cowardice: Lelouch could have leveraged his imperial power to a program of reconstruction, reconciliation and decolonisation- instead he choose suicide. Disappointing.

That would be absolutely correct in any other context, but Lelouch wasn't remotely in the right mindset to stay on as a ruler.

He's too much of a Romantic and practically Byronic figure to pick the rational, ordinary choice when his passions dictate otherwise.

There's also the fact Code Geass isn't exactly known for attempting to be an ultra-realistic series, as previously stated. That said, it's also pretty much implied the world might end up having trouble later on, beyond the short term calm of the reconstruction phase, which is why there still needs to be an active larger-than-life anti-heroic figure like Zero (with the help of a slave like Schneizel who can do the brain work).

wielder fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Feb 2, 2014

Monaghan
Dec 29, 2006

If anyone ever thought that Geass was in any way realistic, let me remind you that there's a scene in which Suzaku dodges bullets from a computer operated gun turret and then destroys it by kicking it.

wielder
Feb 16, 2008

"You had best not do that, Avatar!"

Monaghan posted:

If anyone ever thought that Geass was in any way realistic, let me remind you that there's a scene in which Suzaku dodges bullets from a computer operated gun turret and then destroys it by kicking it.

And what's more, you can even see Suzaku doing his first spinkick in episode one (with sound effect included).

Rody One Half
Feb 18, 2011

Caught up with Renya (turns out there were like, 20 scanned chapters I hadn't read).

Wow that's really weird series. I'm very curious as to how the hell any of this actually is going to end up leading to the present day situation of the supernatural elements being this weird, rare thing. You'd think Britannia would have record of that time the Knight of One became a giant monster and a giant, border crossing civil war started between the super powered knights, an exile princess and her Japanese friends, and some weirdo who mutates people left and right.

The apparent real villain being an ancestor of Kewell and Marika is hilarious.

Brasseye
Feb 13, 2009
I just started watching this ridiculous show last week and I'm about 8 episodes in. My only complaint so far is the time where Lelouch loses his mask to a cat and spends the whole episode trying to get it back. The disconnect between Lelouch's misanthropic puppetmaster thing and high school drama/pizza hut is funny and this is the most entertaining anime I have seen in a while.

I'm a little worried after hearing bad things about the second series but I'll probably try it anyway.

Arianya
Nov 3, 2009

I actually watched this over the Christmas period, as I had a couple of long trips going to various friends/family's places for the holiday period. Really enjoyed it.

My main issue with Season 2 is that it literally repeats the formula of Season 1, more or less, with characters dying off ~for real~ to undersign how serious everything has gotten.

I felt like Lelouch's whole reason for fighting could have been better explained too. He literally goes "I just want Nunnally to be able to grow up happy" and never really touches on how their lives in the high school under the wing of the Ashford's seems perfectly good. Hell, its not even like they are outlaws or criminals, they were just presumed dead, and I think just about every royal who isn't Charles is happy to see that Lelouch/Nunnaly is alive until Lelouch massively fucks them over for one reason or another

I still enjoyed it, but those two points niggled at me a bit.

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THE AWESOME GHOST
Oct 21, 2005

R2 got really dumb for a couple of reasons:

1) The main character's entire motivation, revenge for his mom, turns out to be bullshit because oops his mom isn't dead she just turned into a young anime girl who also fights in a mech?

2) Lelouch takes over the world in like, an hour


Really lovely pacing compared to the first season. I actually liked the ending and I think it redeemed a chunk of that season, but man R2 hosed some things up.

Also I forgot the pizza hut ads. Man I really don't remember this series

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