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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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Feb 1, 2014 19:42
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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 |
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Feb 1, 2014 21:08
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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? 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 |
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Feb 2, 2014 03:23
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Of course Kallen is hot blooded, nothing else would be acceptable for Domon Kasshu's daughter  Also I realized I forgot the anthologies, so I added those to the manga section.
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Feb 2, 2014 03:40
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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 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. 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. 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...
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Feb 2, 2014 15:57
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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.
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Feb 5, 2014 21:17
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Clearly season 3 will start in the far flung space future with R.R. granting Geass to a young fellow named Reinhard von Lohengramm.
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Feb 6, 2014 13:49
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Silver2195 posted:I think this is kind of intentional. Lelouch has a lot of less noble motivations for what he does, not just the ones he's sometimes conscious of (like revenge) but also an unconscious drive to dominate/control other people. I don't think the show considers this a negative thing, the franchise has a huge hard on for Great Man theory.
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Feb 6, 2014 18:58
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Mordaedil posted:V.V. has the power to make the audience forget he ever existed. His role is particularly ridiculous considering how important the end of season 1 sets him up to be. Granted he turned out to have killed Marianne but by the time you learn that V.V. himself is dead and Marianne's no longer worth avenging.
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Feb 7, 2014 14:21
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chumbler posted:^^^^ "Get hosed, Suzaku" is basically the secondary theme of Geass, so that wouldn't really be out of the show's character. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who actually liked the guy. There's some part of me that wants to imagine a happy ending for Karen and Suzaku, since they both got kinda screwed, though Suzaku certainly worse. Suzaku deserves every bad thing that happens to him, and he certainly doesn't deserve someone as awesome as Kallen (remember that Refrain thing? gently caress Suzaku). Having said that, I feel the notion of Suzaku's end being "bad" is greatly exaggerated. Okay yes his name is reviled and he has to be Zero forever, but when you get down to it he still gets to live out his life hanging with Nunally and everyone important pretty much figured out who Zero is during the parade. Lelouch on the other hand gets jack poo poo for all his efforts (if dead, which I think he is as much as I'd like it to be otherwise), to say nothing of how miserable a bunch of other characters like Kallen are in the end. Oh but it's okay because Ougi and Viletta are married and he's Prime Minister! 
Rody One Half fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Feb 9, 2014 |
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Feb 9, 2014 04:44
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ImpAtom posted:Suzaku has to live the rest of his life atoning for what he did, forced to take on the face of the person responsible for the death of the woman he loved, and to (hopefully) do good works in the name of that person and he's unable to kill himself to ever escape from it. That's a pretty lovely end for a guy who has no real joy in his life and who wanted nothing more than to die. The fact that people know who he is doesn't change that. Most of the terrible things Lelouch does are in his capacity as a revolutionary leader, meaning ultimately the morality of those actions does indeed come down to whether you think the cause is just enough to make those means acceptable and whether his victims deserve what he does to them. Now, if you want to argue that the act of starting a violent revolution is an inherently immoral one regardless of one's cause... well that's kind of the discussion the show wants the viewer to have in the first place, since that is the entire point of Suzaku. Well, at least until he turns into a complete hypocrite and the entire Lelouch vs Suzaku dynamic the show spun on is hosed up. Not that Suzaku's cause was ever rock solid to begin with since all the superiors he signs up with are more cartoonish in their supervillainy than even the guy dancing around in a cape and mask while laughing maniacally could dream of being.
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Feb 9, 2014 20:05
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ImpAtom posted:Lelouch isn't leading a rebellion for a great and noble cause though. He's doing it A) For revenge and B) to keep his sister safe. He isn't ambiguous about this and his primary goal, especially early, is basically Char Aznable. You can make arguments for the Black Knights on their own but Lelouch is pretty unambiguously using most of them and the fact that he eventually stops using them doesn't change the fact that he was for a very long time and a good chunk of his actions are predicated on his own schemes for revenge. quote:That's ignoring the things he does which are not based in his role as a revolutionary leader but are just him being kind of a shithead. It's easy to remember that mind control is a really creepy and awful thing to do to someone and Lelouch uses it casually. The girl he Geasses to mark a wall every day is fairly low on the list of victims but she is still someone who is forced to do something against her will every day because Lelouch wanted to test how his powers work. (And if you believe the supplimental material she's still cursed to do it even when she's too far away to do it.) Rody One Half fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Feb 9, 2014 |
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Feb 9, 2014 20:28
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Mercury Crusader posted:less on overcomplicated theatrics. 
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Feb 10, 2014 14:40
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrbbmneUAiI Pronunciation key
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Feb 10, 2014 17:26
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What the gently caress do they do to these OVAs that makes them so wrought with delays? I mean the first episode was put off for like, two years.
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Apr 1, 2014 01:37
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The delays are just so ridiculous that once the show finally arrives you've forgotten half of what happened in the previous episode, and this series is already trying to overcome the hurdles of not having most of the cast the audience cares about and having a plot that's kind of doomed to being inconsequential. It's to the point where most of what I've seen people express is just wanting to see Suzaku and "Julius" murder everyone. I myself just want a new Geass TV series, preferably a reboot or something so we can get some proper Lulu poses (and, dare I ask, actual closure for romantic subplots beyond "one or both of them die"). V I feel we are in some sort of cycle here. Rody One Half fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Apr 1, 2014 |
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Apr 1, 2014 04:20
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KittyEmpress posted:Yeah I don't really mean crazy like that so much as ridiculous 'we will win the trust of the japanese resistance by luring britanians to a mountain, then collapsing the mountain on them!' You totally should read Nightmare of Nunally though. And then follow it up with the author's current series, Renya of Darkness. It's canon!
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Apr 1, 2014 10:39
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Mordaedil posted:Are you sure anime is your thing? Code Geass is my thing, and I still think that's one of the most bullshit twists ever.
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Apr 15, 2014 12:28
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Phobophilia posted:Can't imagine that Lelouch would get to hang out at school anymore after this. Please keep going. 
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Apr 15, 2014 15:19
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Phobophilia posted:I just watched the Student Council President start a loving riot and one of the Knights ramming a robot hand through a wall, and a Chekov's gun just an extra gun and is going to wipe all of Lelouch's progress clean. Yes 12 is the best episode of R2, you're right.
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May 4, 2014 16:08
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I can honestly say a series starring Shoko is one of the few things I'd like less than Geass starring Suzaku. In part because I've read Geass starring Suzaku. Like, pretty much the entire Valvrave cast was bad (except THUNDAH) but Shoko might have been the absolute worst.
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May 5, 2014 06:01
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Phobophilia posted:R2 15 down. You need to post these reactions more often.
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May 8, 2014 12:36
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That last arc (from R2-19 on) is super loving terrible, but at least Lelouch gets to pose more often and wear dumber outfits than ever before. Vote Lelouch for Jojo Part 9 character.
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May 12, 2014 23:14
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Huh, I always thought that posting fanfiction was a bannable offense on SA. E: ^ haha dude, sorry, I was kidding Rody One Half fucked around with this message at 05:09 on May 13, 2014 |
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May 13, 2014 00:48
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Or Milly.
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May 13, 2014 01:42
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There is an ideal comedy series waiting to happen in just having a show about FukuJun and Sugita being locked in a room to yell and pose at each other about dumb poo poo for 25 minutes or so every week.
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May 24, 2014 17:12
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I love this stupid loving franchise way too much and could give you a goddamn laundry list of each miniscule plot hole and lack of logic that work constantly to kneecap it, especially in R2, but if I went all in on that we'd be here forever. I will say, however, that as far as the fanservice goes Geass isn't that offensive? I mean, it is totally insane and constant about it, but it's not like it's just Kallen or whatever, it's practically every character in the franchise. See: audio dramas discussing Suzaku and Lelouch having splash fights and whipped cream wrestling matches, or, my personal favorite, Emperor Lelouch offering his knight a sword to kiss. Maybe I should be bothered by the cold, merciless Sunrise capitalism at work but at that point we might as well start complaining about Gunpla (which this series certainly isn't a stranger to). gently caress Suzaku. Fake Edit: Also, Aces, make sure you read Nightmare of Nunally even if you don't touch any other spinoffs. It's the Revengeance to Code Geass' Metal Gear. Real Edit: And if you just want to go all in on this dark, dark hole well then... Rody One Half fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Oct 10, 2014 |
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Oct 10, 2014 02:25
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Nope, Metal Gear Rising of Geass. There's even people who can fight knightmares on foot. Several, in fact.
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Oct 10, 2014 02:49
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Aces High posted:Oh no I totally get that about being servicey I just mean that it bothered me the way Kallen was being portrayed for some of them. I think what kind of weirded me out is that most of our characters are not adults and I'm not really used to this kind of a portrayal for characters that age. Maybe I should stop watching Avatar and watch more "high school" animes but I think that leads down a darker path than those fics you're linking me. I'm not sure how much value Wonderland will actually have for people who weren't following this while it aired and thus know all the little in-jokes, but it's a 30 minutes OVA so what have you got to lose I guess. There's also Akito, but Akito's not done and I've lost any faith in Sunrise's promises about it. Beyond that, dabble as you like, nothing else is required (unless you like Nunally, then read Renya). e: Oh yeah Strange Tales of Bakamatsu is TRAAAAASH. I'd sooner reread Suzaku of the Counterattack than glance at that garbage again.
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Oct 10, 2014 03:07
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Cornelia is the raddest racist who forgets about her racism around next to Jeremiah. e: Realtalk though of the supposed "main characters" of R2 the worst is actually Gino, as much as I hate Suzaku.
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Oct 10, 2014 03:57
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The Shirley incident is when Lelouch decides Geass is a poison to be destroyed. Before that, he was implied to have been planning to seize VV and control the Directorate like he did Rolo. ...You'd think Euphie would have ALREADY covered the "magic is not a toy" angle but hey.
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Oct 10, 2014 19:38
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Silver has not been baptized in the light of Eden Vital.
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Oct 10, 2014 20:39
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Mordaedil posted:I kinda wish they did, just because it'd mean more Lelouch, more grandstanding and more Code Geass. But then Sunrise would be in terrible danger of having a successful show not propped up entirely by models!
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Oct 11, 2014 22:21
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RMZXAnarchy posted:Finally I find somebody who agrees. The weird thing is that Gino, Anya, Xingke, and Rolo were all advertised as the additional main characters for R2, and while you can certainly say that Rolo and Anya are important, Xingke's debatable and Gino has nothing to do with ANYTHING. His character doesn't even make sense, he wants to fight for and protect the racist, class stratified Britannia when all his friends are Japanese or commoners.
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Oct 12, 2014 18:53
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I'll never get the hate for China as an arc, unless you just hate Kallen losing to Xingke (Which did suck, especially since the Shen Hu is so boring). It's filled with amazing bits and centers are the weird theatrics/politics blend that makes Geass fun. The worst arc is everything from the Black Knight mutiny onward, which is good exactly as long as Lelouch is making some triumphant speech and then lapses back into poo poo again. Hating Milly and Rivalz is a crime. Viletta is the failed Jeremiah. He got over his racism and got a sweet plantation, a daughter, a ninja wife, and eternal life as the symbol of loyalty. She got over her racism and got hitched to a man with a really lovely pomp.
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Oct 12, 2014 20:15
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New Manga based on the Code Geass: Black In Ashford merchandise line. I'm obviously a mark for Geass but these manga are almost never scanned properly and making this a manga is particularly insane because Black In Ashford is a god damned MUSIC THEMED LINE. They even wrote a new Lelouch character song for FukuJun, so why make the line's narrative entry an audio-less entry when Geass In Wonderland got Nunally In Wonderland!? I never thought I'd be yelling at a company to stop making original IPs but Sunrise has had quite a few bad years of that when they could have just been milking this IP better. Rody One Half fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Nov 6, 2014 |
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Nov 6, 2014 04:20
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I don't want to see modern Sunrise make more Code Geass. Akito's pretty great when they remember they're supposed to be making it! It's not a show, which is what I want, but it's something.
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Nov 6, 2014 04:28
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Apparently the end of Renya is out, or at least another volume is scanned. I haven't read all the new chapters though.
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Apr 16, 2015 16:18
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Yeah that was the ending, and boy what an ending. So maybe don't read Renya unless you're a loving lunatic like me.
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Apr 16, 2015 16:47
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wielder posted:True, Renya was weird and kind of boring in the end. I didn't get much out of it either. Man why can't Studio Orange do all mech fights in all shows
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Apr 18, 2015 06:43
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