The world is under rule of the Britannian Empire, with regions being assigned numbers and its citizens facing discrimination for not being part of the ruling class. The story follows a protagonist named Lelouch, an exiled prince whose mother was assassinated and sister left blinded and paralyzed. Lelouch and his younger sister survived undercover in Area 11, what was once known as Japan.
An avid chess player, Lelouch sought entertainment through games of strategy and risk. He gets caught up in a terrorist attack where he encounters a mysterious opportunity that grants him the ability to become a rebel leader for justice. He moves forward in his quest for answers about his mother’s death, staging vengeful acts of rebellion against the Empire he once belonged to using his skills of strategy. He does this all for the sake of creating a gentler world for his disabled little sister. Throughout Lelouch’s endeavors as a masked vigilante, he gains more knowledge of the power of Geass and begins to question whether it was really a blessing or a curse.
Having watched both the anime and the 3-part movie, I’ve collected my thoughts of the Code Geass series.
The story is written by screenwriter Ichiro Okouchi, who worked on Planetes, one of my favorite space dramas. Character designs were created by the talented all-female artist group CLAMP. I’m a big fan of their works especially in their approach to storytelling (please let there be a remastered Rayearth soon), but it appears that their contribution was primarily aesthetic in regards to this series. I do admit, I was a little bummed but overall this anime was enjoyable.
Throughout my time watching the anime, I started to see Lelouche overly rely on his special ability, to the point where I was no longer wondering how he would get out of a tricky situation but rather how he was able to use it to plan ahead with contingencies. Was he really a bright strategist or did he just get lucky with the Geass? Nearing the end of the anime I was calling him LeDouche due to the steps he saw necessary to attain his goals. It’s a perfect example where absolute power corrupts absolutely. This particular aspect reminded me of another anime protagonist working with his own moral dilemmas over power in a series called Death Note. Similar anti-hero premise but executed differently.
As fun as watching the underdog scrap their way into disrupting a global empire, there was a lot of convenient plotting along the lines of “Aha! You may think you’ve got me but that was my plan all along due to XYZ!”
Due to the bombardment of information and all the twists the story takes, I felt like I needed a break from exposition, subplot, and betrayals. There were times where I could draw parallels to real life issues in which I felt were glanced over; if they dug a bit deeper they would have a more solid story. It definitely isn’t your basic beat-em-up type of shonen even though some of the components are present, especially in the giant rollerblading fighting robot scenes and mass casualties of unknown bystanders (I’m looking at you, most anime that have vibrant explosions in densely populated cities).
My biggest problem with the characters in Code Geass though, were their motivations. They didn’t quite line up with how they were introduced, or they changed position rather easily with a single prompt. I gave up trying to figure that part out and just tried watching it for the progression of the story.
I did drop this series a couple of times to watch other anime, and it did take a little convincing from a friend after I dropped it again from watching the “girl x table” scene. It was implied not so subtly and it didn’t seem to add more to the story except creep me out due to the unwanted fanservice (I don’t even know how to define that scene honestly). I mean c’mon, that table is what the after school club uses to eat their pizza. So rude.
Speaking of pizza, a huge portion of this anime feels like it has been sponsored by Pizza Hut as it is prominently displayed at every opportunity pizza is present. It kind of took me out of the watch experience because I felt like I was being sold to through an elaborate animated political drama.
Code Geass had a huge following when it was released around the 2010s and it maintains a dedicated fan base to this day. Manga and multi-disc movies were created to give fans a deeper look into the world ruled by Britania and the rebellion uprising.
As a more casual follower of the series, I’ve watched through the anime and the 3-disc movie but haven’t gotten into the spinoff, alternate story line, and epilogue movie. After watching the 3 part movie I felt a little cheated as it was basically a recap of the anime without filler or breaks, expecting the viewer to know how & why things happened with little time to recover from the whiplash of plot points. Scenes were shiny and had higher production value but the story itself did not improve on the original, with a few tweaks on the life & death of specific characters. It was fast paced but to the point that it missed a lot of character development. If I were to give a recommendation I would say if you have time, watch the series instead of the 3 part movie.
In summary, this is a classic series about a quest for revenge and answers with a rebel uprising, corruption, giant fighting robots, product placement, political exposition, xenophobia, moral dilemmas, magic power, best friend rivalry, and cute anime girls doing cute anime girl things. To me, it’s got a lot going on that it hits several targets without really honing in on one. It is moderately enjoyable but more edgy and not as deep as I expected. I’m sorry CLAMP, but this one is not on my re-watch list.
If you want to see my rating for this and other anime series, check out my anime list here.
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