No really I never got it and still don’t get it at all. What exactly has been so hard to follow about this series? It all seems pretty clear cut to me I mean:
1. Lelouch starts off after the black rebellion back at school with false memories and the belief that he has a brother. He goes to the Babel Tower on a gambling trip with said fake brother and ends up caught in a terrorist attack by C.C and the few remaining Black Knights members who are looking to rendevouz with him. She restores his memories with the Geass code and his assailant is killed.
2. Lelouch memories regained has to find a way out of the Babel Tower and escape a rampaging Rolo sent to kill him. He does this by bringing down the tower and creating a tunnel to the Chinese embassy, which also kills the Governor General Carares. From there he escapes back to school and has C.C give his message about the formation of the United States of Japan which contains just the people in that room. Not before Geassing Gaohai and enlisting the protection of the embassy though.
3. Before anything Lelouch tries to get to the bottom of the spying ring and leads them on a wild goose chase until he can find a way to get access to their headquarters and dispatch Rolo but is instead corned by him.
4. Lelouch manages to gain Rolo’s trust, thus ending the spying nuisance for the time being and moves on to rescue his Black Knights who are about to be executed. Now he has an army again and is free to act.
5. Lelouch’s army is ready to act, but he has a new problem. Suzaku and his Knight of Round friends have headed to Japan to investigate the recent reappearance of Zero and to determine whether it’s an imposter or Lelouch still. A part is thrown to celebrate Suzaku’s return and promotion and all the Ashford students catch up and we learn what happened to Nina and Karen’s outcast status. Suzaku plants a trap for Lelouch on the rooftop after the party in order to try and get him to admit he’s Zero.
6. Governor-General less since the demise of Carares in episode 2, Nunally volunteers for the job and it’s approved by Charles. On her way Lelouch organizes a quick slapped together plan to rescue her, but finds out about that she is doing things of her own free will. The plan failed Lelouch is ejected from the carrier and rescued by Karen.
7. Downtrodden and feeling he has failed, Lelouch wanders the streets of Japan, but can’t escape the reality of the situation that Nunally has rejected his Zero persona, the very one he created to ultimately save and protect her. About to give up and inject himself with Refrain he is confronted by Karen who tells him that he has people relying on him and to stop being so selfish. Realizing that Nunally has become strong enough to take care of herself and that it’s time to let her make her own choices, he decides to continue with his other goal, getting the bottom of what happened to his mother and bringing down the corrupt Britannian empire. He returns to rescue the Black Knights from the Knight of Rounds just in time.
8. With newfound resolve and a preliminary plan to achieve his short-term AND Long-term goals, Lelouch organizes an exodus of some 1 million supporters from Japan and makes the Zero persona a symbol of his new nation, which will be founded elsewhere.
9. Arriving in China and his United States of Japan having expanded from a single room of 10’s of individuals to a nation of over million, Lelouch runs into trouble. He is about to face a newly hostile neighbour as the Eunuch Generals have made a backroom deal with Schneizel of Britannia for entrance into the Britannian empire via a marriage of convenience between the Empress of China and 1st Prince of Oddysseus of Britannia. Options limited Lelouch devises a bold plan to kidnap the Empress and goad the Eunuch’s into admitting their treachery and plans to all of China, which ultimately works. This occuring at the same time as a Coup D’etat started by Li Xingke, the Empress’ most loyal subject results in popular support in the Chinese Federation shifting away from Britannia and the now dead Eunuch’s towards Li and the Black Knights. Lelouch has made his countries first ally and his army getting stronger and stronger AND he has secured passage to the Geass cult where he hopes to find answers.
10. After the tragic death of Shirley at the hands of Rolo, Lelouch becomes distraught and succumbs to desires for revenge again, but this time remains in control. He moves up his plans for destroying the Geass Cult and has his Black Knights conduct a systematic slaughter of all personnel at the location and with the help of the newly resurgent Cornelia is able to defeat V.V once and for all, but ends up being wisped away to the Sword of Akasha where Charles Di Britannia awaits him.
11. At the Sword of Akasha he learns the truth behind the Geass and his trusted lieutenant C.C’s origin. It is an immortal power that can only be gotten rid of by giving the gift of Geass to an individual and waiting for it to become strong enough so that the immortal power can be transferred via a Code to the new user. Hence the title of the series, “Code Geass”. C.C’s wish for Lelouch was to give him the Geass so he could fulfill his quest against Britannia and eventually for him to inherit her immortality. However Charles has gotten in the way and forcibly took V.V’s Code such that he succumbs to his wounds from the battle with Lelouch and he tries to take C.C’s as well. Apparently succeeding, C.C’s personality reverts to that of an uneducated and child-like slave girl with a 10th century worldview, but not before Lelouch damages the Sword of Akasha and ends up getting warped back to where he was in the Geass cult.
11. Leaving the scene of the slaughter, Lelouch returns to the Ikaruga to partake in the signing of an alliance between all the remaining countries of the world not aligned with Britannia. He has gone from a single individual, to a terrorist group, to a single room nation, to an island nation, to the United States of Japan, to a worldwide super power leader and has now amassed enough military might to take back Japan, which he sets his sights on. No sooner does he do this though before the Emperor returns and Nunally’s safety again becomes an issue as her territory is about to be turned into a warzone. Desperate to ensure her security Lelouch turns to Suzaku and agrees to meet him at his family shrine…alone.
And that’s where we are. What part of this doesn’t make sense exactly? I’m really lost on this one. On a scale of one to ten between easy to follow (1) and utter incoherency (10), Code Geass is something like a 2 to me if only as a result of the scenes jumping back and forth between locations quite rapidly. For purposes of relativity I’d rate Lord of The Rings at about an 8 (thank you convoluted exposition on Sauron and his relationship with the ring and plodding narrative) and something like oh say Vision of Escaflowne, one of my all time favourite anime at about a 6.
Now I can support the idea that the series has a farfetched plot. I mean a teenager becoming a leader of a world wide superpower in 41 half hour episodes…. Such is anime and the creative decision (very important concept) the staff at Sunrise made, which they are perfectly entitled to as the creators. Nobody said the series had to be ultra-realistic and true to real life possibilites except for the people who don’t seem to understand that as much as they desperately desire it, it isn’t happening and was never going to happen. Frankly the series would be kind boring were it a run of the mill real world politics social commentary. I mean have people ever watched C-Span? My god it can get irritating and eye-rolling inducing. That and….you know….that entertainment is vested strongly in the artistic licence of it’s creators in it’s very essence and those creators defined it as a Science-Fiction Fantasy series within the first 10 minutes of the very first episode.
Anyway, all of this I can buy aside from people whining about a series not being what it never intended to be (cause that just a waste of time in my opinion), but I’ve gotta say, if this series is not making sense to some people then they are either just forcing themselves to not pay attention, blowing hot air, copying sentiments echoed from the long gone days of Gundam Seed Destiny and Mai-Otome where they might have been onto something, not capable of following a narrative, or *gasp* engaged in trolling. Before I get to that last bit which forms the crux of this rant, let’s examine another series with similar over the top elements to Code Geass that has escaped the scorn it has received.
If Code Geass’ over the top plot elements are unnacceptable and the object of scorn, what makes another series I also enjoy very much acceptable. I’m talking of course of Macross Frontier which features fanservice aplentiful, a girl dressed in a carrot costume singing, an out of nowhere plot twist where a background character is suddenly revealed to be a villain, a giantess that turns into a loli when exposed to a genetic alteration process contradicting earlier established canon on said process (and also likely added for fanservice applications), a pop idol who’s breasts are frequently put on display, school hijinks, a moe popstar whose singing is used as a defence against marauding giants, effeminate and shota-like characters who play up yaoi appeal, a melodramatic love triangle…..the list goes on. I love both shows dearly, but both suffer from the same degree of fan appealing plot elements and surreality at times, yet one is frequently trumpeted as a superior animation despite (and sometimes in relation to) these gimmicky elements while the other is frequently ridiculed as an inferior animation as result of these elements.
Talk about blatant subjectivity on display that can’t be explained away by the two shows having different audiences. No, these are the same people giving two polar opposite reactions to the exact same elements and I still assume that it’s because some people have it in their head that they have to think of and approach Code Geass as a trainwreck because it’s the “propular” (yes that’s my self-coined term to describe a belief that something is proper, correct and justified because it’s a reasonably popular and oft-repeated idea) thing to do and thus they troll the series. Either way sometimes I get the feeling that Macross Frontier has made it’s case less on it’s own worth and merit (of which it has substantial amounts) so much as the idea that it’s an alternative to Code Geass, but that’s another story.
Yes….something about all this doesn’t make sense when one show gets praised and the other trashed for the exact same things by the exact same people. Hmmmm…commentary not making sense across the board….sounds like…….what happens when targeted trolling is involved as the goal then becomes to continue the trolling through any means necessary regardless of whether it makes sense or not in relation to how you conduct yourself in other related activities.
Well if the people I’m talking about who make claims like the one this rant is based on are indeed just trolling as I’m seriously starting to suspect (as I can’t believe people are that hopeless when it comes to following an anime like Code Geass unless they are like 12 and under or have never read a fantasy novel in their entire life) then they are beyond any hope of ever trying to understand this rather straightforward if fantastical series and that’s precisely the reason I’ve ended up scrubbing certain websites and blogs from my will read list entirely over the past month or so. I have no desire to entertain trolls with my readership and commentary.
Now some may ask why would I suspect organized trolling after all this time as the explanation to at least part of it all? Well, first of all there’s the fact that whenever I would go on certain blogs the writers would be perfectly normal for every series they were covering, but then slip into this ultra critical and unbelievably naive personality that suddenly portrayed a whole new set of expecatation from everything else they’ve ever had, which of course they would go on to explain as not being met. Secondly LiveJournal…..I don’t even think I need to explain that one. And lastly I even recall seeing before the series started a conversation between users, some of whom were blog writers suggesting that at least one of them barring nothing else to do should troll a popular series in the slow upcoming spring season to keep their profile up, and one of those suggested was of course…….Code Geass, a big target if ever there was one.
So we’ve progressed to the era of suggestions for trolling out of desperation for readers and commenters…..and people wonder why I grow disillusioned with blogging and don’t want to bother with the rest of blogosphere anymore. When it seems to be doing everything it can to distance me from it and hasn’t really given me even the slightest incentive to join in despite attempts like the Anime Blogging Awards (read popularity contest) and hubs like Animeblogger.net Antenna (which I now prefer to just use as a listing site for my feeds). This trolling of popular anime, not just Code Geass, now seems so all-encompassing of so many corners of the internet that I have to wonder if 4chan is perhaps involved in some way with one of their classic get lulz campaigns by invading extremely active messages boards and starting blogs just to spread nonsense and disinformation for the purposes of annoying as many people as possible. Wouldn’t be to surprised if it were true as even Dragonaut didn’t garner this much widespread hate where even going on the internet means you find more bashing and attempts to try and ruin a series for viewers through endless nitpicking and ridicule.
Well anyway I’m issuing a challenge to anyone interested. Convince me that I’m somehow wrong and Code Geass R2 makes no sense and make it good. Convince me that my just having writtenout a complete synopsis of the first 16 episodes of the series above and laying out it’s narrative could have been done so neat and tidy if the series in did “is so ridiculous I only watch it for x element anymore”. Convince me that the series is a trainwreck and while at it try and explain to me the meaning of the word trainwreck in a way that doesn’t yet again redefine the overly flexible and utterly meaningless excuse for a word. Because right now I’m still of the opinion that the community is merely making it this way for themselves with all the nonsense they drum up each and every week for the series. That’s just one of the reasons why I’m keeping my blog reading on Geass related topics to an absolute minimum and taking a “no more mr. nice guy” aggressive stance while Geass and possibly also Gundam 00 Second Season are airing. If these folks can convince themselves of a falsehood such as the mythical “Sunrise Trainwreck” through endless repetition, I don’t want the same happening to me. I plan on continuing to enjoy my favourite series and suffer no more organized attempts from anyone to make that difficult thank you very much.
Huh…..time to watch some Stargate then.
P.S: To my frequent readers, thank you for your continued patience and understanding as I continue to get some of these grievances that have resulted from my blogging and anime watching hobby off my chest. I know it’s no fun to hear me being so negative and that people would prefer if I just played more by the norms of blogging practices, but these are thoughts that have been piling up that I need to get out into the open and I’d prefer to do it sooner rather then later. This article basically completes the backlog of anger tinged thoughts I’ve been hesitant to come out with up until these past couple weeks for fear of offending and driving away the people who come to this blog to read what I have to say about anime and related topics. I still fear I may have driven some people away and while I regret it, this is something that had to come out eventually if I am going to have any plans to continue with this blogging hobby. Certain pleasantries have to be dismissed temporarily if I am to get some things of my chest that amount to a self-imposed writers block. I hope that people will forgive me my recent ranting and I can assure you if you are the type who is even the slightest bit interested in what I’ve had to say today then you aren’t who I am ranting about. Now I can get back to serious blogging and hopefully begin to enjoy it again. I’m cutting the vactation short now since I lucked into even more time off from my real job.
Grace “suddenly” becoming a villain’s actually acceptable - her whole ‘tapping into the feeds’ thing a few episodes earlier, where she was spying on the meeting, was a tad ominous. The fact that Galaxy’s been revealed as being intact and probably involved in a conspiracy that may result in them and their parent companies holding a monopoly on space travel (and thus, effective control of human space by being able to deliver military forces anywhere far faster than NUNS could) isn’t all that surprising. Heck, this is the universe where Anti-UN Spacy forces have been active for decades… and several of the games cover attempted rebellions and secession attempts from the UN Spacy.
Besides, where was it established in canon that Miclonization of Zentradi always results in an identical copy? If anything, Exedol appears to have become shorter than he was relative to Vrlitwhai when he got Miclonized. They’re clones, and there’s undoubtedly some changes or genetic damage that has accumulated over centuries, so Klein’s… oddness in stature isn’t completely out there, at least not compared to Sound Force and the Protodevlin.
@Haeeslich: Yeah I’m liking how Dune like Macross Frontier is becoming when you think about it. Still Grace feels just as sudden to me as some of the character revelations in Geass and even if Macross Frontier is somewhere inbetween Plus and Seven on the silliness scale, it seems to be moving towards Seven more every week. What am I saying though, I liked Seven despite it’s oddness.
Exedol is also an anonmaly as a result of the differing character designs seen between the movie and the TV Series and I’m pretty sure that even Macronized he was always a bit shorter then Vriltwhai any way. He had that extra scrawny appearance in the TV series after all. Even still, I don’t believe genetics work the way they do with Klein. reversing your age, changing your personality entirely and yet allowing memories to remain intact. At least not to my knowledge. It’s still farfetched and executed as a point of interest for the show above all else in my opinion. That’s really not a problem though, at least for me, but I recognize it just the same.
My point is that like Code Geass it’s a fictional universe that can define it’s own set of rules via the right of creative writing on part of the staff and it does so, yet people seem to be more accepting when Macross Frontier makes it’s own canon and science fiction rules as opposed to Code Geass when it does similiar things. And I think it’s deliberate.
As in most fantasy/SF works, the only two questions you need to ask to determine the plausibility of the various plot and character elements is this: is it consistent with the world and rules and personalities that the author has set out so far? If it is not, then you can already mark it down as bad writing. It is perfectly possible to do plot or character twists without breaking your own rules with good writing technique and enough pre-planning.
The second question is: if something does break the rules, or a character acts contrary to his personality and previous actions, has there been a logical (RL logic) explanation as to why this has occurred? If so, it’s still bad writing, but the reader can accept it and move on with the modified rules without too much cause for complaint. It’s effectively a form of retconning.
Having illogical rules in a fantasy/SF world is something you can get away with, or even a good thing if these illogical rules contribute in some way to the central themes that one wishes to present through the story. However, if you are going to set illogical rules, then breaking them for illogical reasons is just an example of atrocious writing.
I haven’t watched Code Geass, only followed it on blogs, but it strikes me that several of the twists so far in the series have been fairly ridiculous and illogical. I’ll let people more learned than I more about Code Geass decide whether or not the twists and turns are consistent with the world methodology or not.
Letting off some steam is good, but so is taking a deep breath every once in a while.
I think a lot of what you’ve described has definitely become deliberate, for the sake of popular amusement and “lulz”…so it’s certainly become a matter of “trolling”. But I don’t that’s all, nor did it happen all at once.
To me, it looks more like something that began to spread and then, finally, became “the popular thing to do” towards the later half of the first season, give or take a few episodes.
Now, I would never say that Code Geass doesn’t make “any sense at all”. In fact I’ve also made my fair share of blog or forum comments trying to explain things here and there. Not all the explanations are good (some are quite disappointing), but at least some sense of logic remains, to the staff’s credit. Sometimes the idea sounds good, but it’s not treated well in the anime.
On the other hand, Code Geass does resort to more plot twists than the average show I can think of, and many of them turn out either a little ridiculous or at least unexpected.
Once you have enough people thinking that, and focusing on it above all…they start to comment and convince others, which, finally, creates a “wave” which is followed out of conviction, posturing, trolling, or just to have fun.
Especially if they’re “popular” and “influential” individuals, at least online. But they wouldn’t have the same audience if some people didn’t reach those conclusions on their own too.
Don’t get me wrong. Some plot twists do get plenty of build-up or at least a little foreshadowing, which shows that the staff is making an effort, but it doesn’t always work. Plot twists may seem a little outrageous even if they do make sense in the show’s universe, and I can’t disagree. Some incidents look simply too over the top for people to give any credit, even where it is due.
Yes, Code Geass has always had its own standards, so realism shouldn’t be too much of a concern by now. But perhaps those standards did not meet some people’s initial expectations, considering how the show has also accumulated huge levels of hype over time, and time hasn’t made that any better.
Maybe a different balance between all the elements making up the show was expected, and it didn’t arrive.
To sum it up: Code Geass has, indeed, been overbashed, much of it deliberately…but it’s also been overhyped, and other people criticize it on their own for understandable reasons.
Trolling is never going to go away, at least not in the short term, but it’s better to focus on one’s own enjoyment of the show, one way or another.
By the way, I cannot speak for Macross Frontier or most currently airing shows, because I’m not watching much anime right now. Ny watch list is out of date. I just don’t mind spoilers, and will probably marathon Frontier when it’s done.
FF: Interesting questions.
I’m not going to go over every single twist in the show, as that would be a tiring endeavor, but as of R2…I think the Code Geass “world” has established itself as quite consistent in its ability to allow its own characters to go over the top.
That being the case, I think most of the twists could be called ridiculous than illogical, inside the fictional world at least…and I do think the show’s central themes are advanced fairly well through their use, in the main cases, even when they are also going to be played for intentional or unintentional laughs. Which is natural.
Doesn’t mean there aren’t cases of bad writing or at least a bad implementation of said writing (say, if something had been animated differently, or if more time had been used to show this or that before something else came along…). And vice versa.
Kaoishin: Exedol was ALWAYS shorter than Vrlitwhai: it’s just that, proportionally, he seems to have SHRUNK even in the TV series. Granted, the animation in the original series wasn’t exactly on the standard of an OVA (see often-recycled footage, and the weird faces that sometimes got drawn), but he did seem to be much shorter than anyone else. If Miriya/Millia stayed the same relative height in both Macronized and Miclonized forms… well, Exedol sure didn’t - he seems to have lost a few inches in the process.
Plus, Grace isn’t one being, but apparently an amalgamation of people… or else she’s just part of a hive-mind, which explains why we had the weird recap episode in 15. So, if she’s NOT one being but a gestalt or a member of a collective, her ’shift’ makes a lot of sense as another personality or the group chooses to follow a different route. But as a member of a private industry (probable) conspiracy, it makes sense to attach her to the Galactic Fairy as a manager, since she’d have access to the data-systems of every Macross fleet she visited with her skills and implants. Besides, Macross Frontier is following existing canon for the most part - it’s easier to follow the trends, and accept things as is, when it’s part of a larger framework whereas Code Geass… isn’t, and thus if they suddenly change direction (going from harem anime to mecha show to Death Note-style drama), you risk alienating fans of that specific element of the show, who have expectations that are suddenly not met.
Plus, things sometimes fall into place TOO neatly for Lulu or the other characters, which makes the ‘ridiculous’ charges stick a bit more tightly to them than to Macross F. Oh, that and the way they bring up a plot point (Kallen getting captured and Lulu vowing publically to rescue her) and then apparently forget about it for a half-dozen episodes can be a pain. At this point, if the OotBK do abandon Lulu, it’ll be because they don’t expect him to keep any promises; the fact that Kallen’s still in captivity, and apparently not talked about by Lulu would only feed fears that he’s using them and is probably going to kill them all off to further his personal aims… which from their POV may not include freeing Japan.
@FF: Thank you for going over the golden rules of Science Fiction/Fantasy writing. That’s the kind of framework I wish people would following when they do there “Urghhh this doesn’t make any sense lol” comments, but alas.
@Camario: If you must know one of my nicknames for the show is in fact Code Plot Twist. And it’s also possible that because I have indeed seen the movie Reindeer Games that no amount of plot twists can ever effect me anymore and throw me for a loop. If Code Geass has a plot twist per episode or two, Reindeer Games has a plot twist every 5 minutes.
Again I’ll say though that people seem to hold differing standards in similar situations based on anime they are watching. Maybe it’s because the series was overhyped, but then again another over the top anime by the name of Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuutsu was also massively overhyped along the way by it’s fans and has only really started to see any sort of backlash recently. Unless it actually has to be preliminary hype. Come to think of it I heard a lot of complaining about Clannad as was going with people talking a lot about the hype and expectations not met so I guess that could be the case. When the heck did anime watching get so complicated anyway?
@Haesslich: Geass has always BEEN all those things, other then a Death Note style-drama. I think that “mental duel” is more appropriate. I’ll give people the Karen thing. That kind of annoyed me a little to, but I also think it’s part of his game. The way he’s been going, for every successful step toward his goal he’s made, he’s lost one person important to him. In founding the United States of Japan he lost Nunally’s respect and any chance of rescuing her, in allying with China he lost Karen to Britannia, in securing Rolo as an ally so he could get the spy network of his tail he eventually lost Shirley and in bringing down the Geass Cult he lost C.C. More or less of course. It’s not ridiculous, it’s just bitter for a lack of a better word. If anything the only reason things fall into place for Lelouch is because he’s willing to make any sacrifice to make sure he comes out on top. He’s not afraid to become evil to defeat evil. That old cliche.
I’d invite you to point out where Code Geass isn’t following canon though. Most people just don’t want to out themselves on that ground which makes it harder to buy their conclusions when they state them as anything other then following the leader. I wrote this article just as much as an invitation for answers as I did a general rant so please don’t hesitate to kick in examples.
He’s mentioned Kallen in nearly every preview, and, as we saw last Season, that was our glimpse into Lelouch’s mind for planning and thinking for the next turn/stage. Otherwise, we could argue that he forgot about Nunally for some 10 episodes because he never mentioned her even though he is his reason for doing everything… same for every other thing, really. We could even say he up and forgot all about Shirley too.
There’s also a good chance that Rolo et all that are in the Tokyo settlement aren’t there just for a stroll. Two top assassins, Guilford being goaded by Jeremiah likely with Cornelia, could very easily, and not all that unexpectedly, turn into a Kallen rescue mission.
But aside from that, winning post is winning.
Kaioshin: I’m saying that Code Geass doesn’t HAVE a canon to follow, which means when things suddenly go another way there’s no fallback to the “well, this happened before in X series” to explain away any perceived inconsistencies.
Prime example: Vajra are being affected by a singing Ranka. Look back to Macross 7, where we have Protodevlin being affected by music and the Zentradi being affected by it as well. Given that she’s transmitting this, it’s not inexplicable that the Vajra could get confused, especially if she’s the equivalent of ECM to them… which, given their hive nature and how Brera explained that they were constantly communicating, makes the whole ‘Vajra get confused, then die’ thing make sense in the previous few episodes.
Code Geass, on the other hand, doesn’t have that convenient in-universe example so when anything happens we’re probably seeing it for the first time unless it happened in a previous season. This means that, when we see Lulu using a rain of mirrors to reflect his Geass into Charles’ eyes, it looks funny unless you remember Lulu Geassing himself in the first season which explains why he can use those mirrors to do the trick he did in Ep 15.
@Haesslich: Oh yes of course. So then each new element that comes seems all the more out of the blue and if it’s especially out of the blue to begin with it’s compounded. That makes sense, but then again that’s the thing with these original franchises though and that gets me thinking about another subject. The way I see it if they (the writers I mean) just played by convention all the time or were afraid to take risks and throw the unexpected at viewers then anime would never make any progress as a medium of entertainment. To me new ideas, even if they are somewhat overwrought are welcome in a market that even producers themselves admit they are afraid to take risks in because of just how tight things are getting economy wise in Japan. It’s not just the games and housing we talked about yesterday, it’s affecting everything.
That’s one of the reasons that we are seeing as much revolutionary anime as we saw in the 80’s and early 90’s and why we see a lot of what I like to call safe series or those that play by convention amd expectation and have pre-installed fanbases. Eroge adaptations, straight fanservice series, adaptations of already hit manga are all what I classify as safe series and I’d like to see a little more risk taking of the kind Sunrise and also Gainax seem to be fans of. So when people just like to immediately reject these types of unexpected plot elements as bad writing because it’s not what they expected it seems to me like they are indirectly saying they don’t want to see the unexpected or the unusual. Well…geez guys isn’t that like the very basis of Science-Fiction/Fantasy, Entertainment and escapism like anime itself, to see the unexpected and the fantastical? Are we still afraid of that which we don’t know or cannot predict even if it’s all contained in the world of fiction? Shouldn’t we be embracing the course of the story (to a reasonable degree of course) even if it doesn’t turn out exactly as we have predictied.
I mean sometimes I think if we had it the more critical fans way all we’d see are straight moe series and Slice of Life franchises. Luckily (at least in my opinion) we don’t have it there way no matter how much they seem to be trying to draw us into their world of the way things apparently should be.
And the whole music as a weapon thing goes back as far as the original Macross, just like you mention some elements like the visible Geass go back pretty far as well. You’d think even if Code Geass is still just one series that people would be used to these types of things by now and have made up their mind on them already whether they will accept it or not. I don’t see why some people seem insistant on trumpeting the same old tired slams of the show being ridiculous, not making sense, being “fabulous” etc. week after week other then Jason of course who built his blog on that sort of thing. Once should be enough to get any static point across unless we are dealing with trolls who don’t stop until the lulz do or people are refining said point. And if it’s for some reason absolutely necessary to beat a static idea to death frankly one blog or hub for it all to go should be enough and we don’t need like 6 of them all offering the exact same commentary (literally) unless they are communicating amongst themselves and sharing ideas, going for a blanket effect of trollish bashing. So that’s another checkmark beside this increasingly suspect behaviour among certain groups.
And hey, thanks for spelling my username right this time.
You have no idea how often that O and I get reversed on me.
@Camario: Just wanted to add that I had remembered seeing you make the overbashed but also overhyped comment somewhere else and couldn’t agree more with such a simple yet accurate description of the situation. Nicely put…..though I can’t say I’ve come across any blog that has hyped and put the series on a pedestal while it’s been airing quite to the degree I’ve seen it single-mindedly bashed for sport. And you know there are just some of them out there that had already made up their mind on the series before it even aired. And I know it will continue right on through to 00 and whatever comes after. Tales of The Abyss, who knows.
Kaioshin: There’s no need to apologize, really. I completely understand the frustration one can feel about one’s environment and putting things down into words is a great way to get it off your chest.
I personally don’t go out of my way to put my frustration of other people’s behaviours in the open like that, mostly because I’m too lazy. Also, I mostly don’t give a damn about silly accusations without any reasoning behind it… organized “trolling” if you will. If they don’t offer a substantial reason for their claim, I stop reading. Though sometimes too much repetition of the same thing does get to you, this I understand.
Anyways, thanks for the nice recap of the series so far and keep up the good work!
PS: A little bit off topic, but how do you keep your long posts from appearing full-sized on the front page? My friend and I are new at this blogging scene and we’d sure appreciate someone more experienced showing us the ropes. Thanks in advance to any good soul willing to help!
@No Sushi: If you are using WordPress you can do it by pressing Alt+Shift+T with the cursor placed after the text you want to appear on your front page. There is also a button for it in the console that looks something like a smaller box on top, then a dotted line and then a larger box on the bottom. It should be the twelfth icon from the left on the top row of your console and that will put in the same exact divider that will split the page into a header (which will appear on the front page) and a body (which will only appear in the article itself).
Good luck with your new blog.
@Kaioshin: Domo arigatou! Now I can keep things neat and tidy again.
It’s pretty obvious but I’m the same RoTK no sushi from the Chinese Federation arc. I’ve been reading the Animehistory blog for a while now (ever since CG R2 started) and it’s one of the only anime blogs I frequent (Animanachronism counts, but I’m not much of a retro person, so I can’t relate to most of the essays there unfortunately). I personally enjoy reading your Code Geass entries as well as your ‘one-man crusade’ with some of the less pleasant aspects of Anime blogging. Here’s looking forward to Gundam 00 Season II!
Cheers.
Kaioshin: It’s called typoese. Quite fluent in it.
Also, new Geass is out. Fecal matter is about to meet the rotary impeller.
I am sorry, but I just got to ask: Which of the plot twists in Code Geass R2 (episode 1-16) are so overtly ridiculous? Please, just mention one because I am not sure I remember a twist that was so extremely out of nowhere that it made me bang my head on the desktop…..perhaps my memory is failing me.
I also think you need to define the word “plot twist”, because its meaning might be just as confused as the meaning of the word “trainwreck” or “writing”. I mean, for example, finding out early on that Rollo has a Geass is not really a plot twist, but more a revelation (if we had found out that he had a Geass somewhere in the middle of the story when the writers made us think that he didn’t for quite a while, it would have been different). A plot twist has to be a sharp, but somewhat logical 90 degrees turn either in terms of plot or characters (preferably preceded by a few red herrings) without upsetting the overall direction of the story. If I could think of one in the first season of Code Geass, it would probably be the fact that Shirley had shot Viletta to protect Lelouch’s secret. The writers made her seem like a pretty normal young girl and considering the fact that Lelouch had killed her father, it seemed quite unexpected. This had a significant effect on the overall plot and on her character development; one could pretty much argue that cataclysmically, it led to her own death in the end. But she herself explained that she loved Lelouch so much that she could only forgive him for all he had done, so it was more or less her love for him that had cost her her life.
Now, is that what you call so over-the-top? It might just be, because not many might consider her actions logical. But reading the above comments, no one has yet come up with a good enough summary of the past 16 episodes, pointing out the nonsensical aspects of the storyline.
Well a lot of people desperately insist that they and all of us must turn off our brains in order to enjoy/get Code Geass. Well gee maybe that’s the problem right there. Maybe if people actually started paying attention to the events in the show they’d see the nice clean narrative with a few bumps along the way that can also be easily understood with just a little forethought.
The problem is that people are working themselves into the show not making sense through there own actions. The whole turn off your brain thing cause it’s not making sense should be reversed and read it’s not making sense because you turn off your brain, and there people have their solution to the self-created problem of Code Geass not making sense. It’s that self-fulfilling prophecy I’ve mentioned.
Hey though, if people want to handle it that way that’s fine by me. I just don’t want to hear from anyone anymore that I am being to serious or watching the show the wrong way as it’s getting tiresome and annoying. If other bloggers and commentators are too stubborn/lazy to take the 5 minutes it took me to string the whole story together like in this article for themselves then that’s their own problem and I kind of have to laugh at them because it’s such a straightforward show if one that takes a lot of creative liberties in how it delivers it’s plot and character points.
People should expect that by now though, which is why every time somebody whines about it not making sense I roll my eyes. Like are people just having writers block or can’t think of anything to contribute so they just keep trumpeting the same lame stuff over and over again Darry style? I don’t know, but it’s what makes most Code Geass blog articles and commentary chains a predictable affair and yawnfest and why I pretty much only stick to the people that put some thought/effort into it now. That being like 1 blogger. See if you can guess who it is folks. I just left a comment there yesterday.
Hmmm…that’s hard to guess! Uhm, Random Curiosity maybe? He/She’s pretty neutral even though his/her blog is quite popular. I wouldn’t mention any names, but there was one blogger whom I also thought to be smart enough to keep a level-headed stance but then the word “trainwreck” worked its way into one of his summaries….*sigh*
Let’s hope that the second season of Gundam 00 won’t have to put up with this much brutality, though, considering the fact that it will probably have the same time slot as Code Geass and follow up right after R2….that doesn’t leave enough time for things to calm down!
This is Gundam 00 - of COURSE it’ll put up with brutality, especially with the parallels that’ll inevitably be drawn between it and R2 of Code Geass, right down to the arms race everyone’s engaged in as well as the plotting and double-crossing that will undoubtedly take place. Oh, and bringing back someone identical to Lockon, and even calling him that, will undoubtedly not prove all that popular.
At least Sunrise has a sense of humor about the thing, as seen in the first CM for Gundam 00 S2. “How are you still alive?” “I’m not.” “A zombie…?”
I think the problem with Code Geass isn’t that the plot makes no sense, obviously the plot is quite clear. You’d have to be pretty tired or just really bad at understanding anime to not understand the plot. The problem with Code Geass, the problem which most people find is the inconsistency and poor use of characters and side stories within the plot.
The show feels like there’s 10 different writers all wanting to do something different, and somehow it’s being mashed together. The reason the show feels like that is multifold:
1) There are WAY too many characters in the show. It honestly wouldn’t matter that there were this many characters, if it felt like there was a NEED for so many characters, but there really isn’t. It seems like every episode we’re introduced to more new people who seem quite important, but then because yet another new and important character gets introduced the next episode, the older guys are just forgotten or get token time on screen. It’s very, very hard to pull off a show with a lot of characters, and there’s only 1 show I’ve ever seen do it effectively (LoGH), but in that show they dedicated a lot of time to pure dialogue episodes and had a narrator.
Another problem with having so many characters, is that characters end up being very one-dimensional. For instance, Suzaku started off as a very conflicted guy who represented a different version of morality, but lately it feels for most episodes he’s just a Lelouch-hater-because-he-killed-Euffie. Meanwhile CC has turned into one giant Pizza Hut commercial for most of this season (I mean they used her as a BUS DRIVER one episode and a MECHA PILOT the next). Rolo was a conflicted assassin, but now is just some crazy Lulu supporter and all purpose soldier (even though Lulu promised him that he wouldn’t have him fight anymore). We have Sayako suddenly being mega-maid for no reason. We have the entire Ogi never dying, Viletta coming back from nowhere, and the unkillable Orange-kun thing. It goes on and on… everyone becomes more and more one dimensional because the plot is too overloaded to do much more.
2) There are way too many plot lines within the show. By trying to be all things to all people, Code Geass feels all over the place. This is the largest problem with the show. Somehow the show last season managed to keep many different genres together, but this season it just seemed a bit excessive. In a bid to keep the whole ‘high school’ thread going, we have some random episode where Lulu goes on 107 dates. We have the whole Xing-Ke doesn’t have much time to live plotline completely disappear and now he’s just some grunt super pilot. We have the entire Shirley dying, the entire Kallen getting captured plotlines, but no one remembers about them past our occasional 30 seconds with Kallen every episode. We have the whole Anya remembering Lelouch thing starting a few episodes ago which has fallen by the wayside. We have the Geass story itself which got 1 episode, and probably won’t get mention for a bunch more.
3) The battles are getting less and less original. We had a few episodes with deus ex machina (the entire China battle arc), we had them using the same tactics over again (the floor falling thing), we had a lot of gundam style super mecha which sort of ruined the point of Code Geass which was that it was about intelligence and good tactics instead of Gundam power units which sadly has been lost to the plot.
So because of character overload, plot overload, and falling quality of battles, and since we only have 7 episodes left (it’s 24 this season I believe?) there’s going to be a HUGE reckoning at the end. A lot of plotlines are going to be ‘resolved’ in the last few episodes (probably with lots of people dying), or actually more likely will be forgotten. Either way, it cannot be satisfying, as there is so much material to cover that there is no way to do it properly unless it is done too quickly (badly) or not at all. Thus we get the term, trainwreck.
Regardless I still enjoy the show for pure entertainment value, because it does manage to be quite entertaining.
@Kurogane: No Gundam 00 will without a doubt. Even if everybody else manages to enjoy it, Jason Miao and Darkmirage will find something to bitch about. Then again those two are easily written off as uncredible in their opinions for obvious reasons so it won’t matter really. Still though, just wait….
@Epi: Wow, for once I can agree with somebodies concerns and I have to say I think those are all legitimate ones that I share. Well other then the super Gundam thing. Gundam’s aren’t really that powerful outside of Seed and Wing. What I disagree with is the notion that people have that nothing will ever get dealt with. People said that the Geass would never get explained and it did. People said that C.C’s origins would never get explained and they did, but then people just didn’t like what they got even if it makes perfect sense with what we’ve seen before it and people said that the Tian Zi abduction plan made no sense, but then it did. Every time there’s ultimately been an answer and resolution in the wing so I don’t see why the ending is going to be any different.
Gundams in 00 are also over powered. I haven’t seen any pre-Wing Gundams so I can’t comment on earlier shows.
The only major advantage the Gundams in 00 really have are the GN Field and Trans-Am. The GN Field is rendered pretty much useless by another MS with a GN Drive and the Trans-Am is like a desperation system.
Plus once the GN-X is introduced the Gundams in 00 start looking like the Gundams for the U.C timeline. Technically more advanced, but nothing close to invincible.
(oops hit submit too quick)
Don’t get me wrong Kaioshin, Geass will have an ending. I’m sure the main plotlines of Suzaku, Lelouch, Nunally and CC will be resolved. Quite possibly the whole emperor and Schneizel thing will be dealt with as well.
What I am not sure about is that we can cover the following plotlines without giving most of them either a token ‘death scene’ or ’still frame’ in the ending during the ending credits treatment:
Viletta x Ogi’s love story
Anya’s affiliation with Lelouch
Nina’s story
Lloyd and Cecile’s story
Todo’s story, and Todo’s love interest
The point of anyone at Ashford - Rivalz? Milly loving Lulu?
Cornellia finding closure
Rolo’s story
The story of any of the other Knights of round
Tamaki being anything other than comedic support?
Tian-Zi and Xing-Ke’s story
Sumeragi’s purpose
Rakshata and Lloyd’s rivalry
Diethard’s ultimate goal
Orange-kun’s fate
Kallen’s entire love with Lulu vs CCs vs Nunally?
Kallen and her oni-san?
So many plotlines, so little time.
Gundams prior to Wing were… well, normal, except the G-Gundams and the really weird ones in Victory, or the whole ‘nanobot magic’ of the Mustached Gundam in Turn-A. Wing is where things became somewhat ridiculous, especially once Wing Zero was unleashed. Gundam SEED and its sequel is where the trend towards ‘bishie pilots, yaoi pairings, and emo characters’ was taken to its logical conclusion (Heero Yuy was the only really emo pilot in Wing; so they had to make Kira and Athrun and Yzak that way too… along with the Druggies, Shinn, Stellar and company…).
As for Jason, you have to realize he’s writing for the crowd, he’s filling the character he’s created, and he’s tsundere for Sunrise - that’s why he rags on the studio so. He’s writing as Jason Miao, the head blogger of Derailed by Darry/Anime on my Mind… which means you’re taking his posts a tad more seriously than they’re meant to be taken.
And once Geass is over, I hope they animate Nightmare of Nunnally next - it’s a magical girl series with mecha and Geasses. Something that even the worst serious critics of the current Code Geass series can’t really rail at.
I’d think that the main problem people are having with Geass is that, aside from its main plot (Lelouch’s campaign against his Father) and the characters associated there, there are OTHER plots — both major AND minor — that are intertwined into the narrative. While nowhere on the level of LoGH, it gets to the point where the ‘casual’ viewer will need some sort of flowchart to follow them all.
While some of these have an indirect bearing on the advancement of the story, some of the other stuff seem to have been introduced only to distract the viewers, after which they quickly become irrelevant. Isn’t Xing-Ke SUPPOSED to be dying? Isn’t Lulu SUPPOSED to rescue Kallen? Isn’t Sayoko SUPPOSED to be a personal caretaker and NOT a maid (nevermind super-ninja meido)?
Although we’ll VERY likely see resolution to the Area 11 Rebellion and Lelouch’s revenge plotlines (plus CC’s wish), everything else… Well, they’ll be lucky if they even get a passing mention in the series epilogue.
Now to derail things a bit…
Again with JASON! By the God Empress, what is it with you and Jason (or anything KyoAni)? Again, you’re taking him WAY too seriously. I know you’re trying to establish a ’serious’ and ‘critical’ blogging style, but it’s not really helping your efforts, much like dropping a half-veiled jab at anything and everything done by KyoAni in most of your posts.
Seriously, complain at GONZO (though Druaga and Brassreiter werre surprisingly good watches), that’s where hate needs to be piled on.
Haesslich is probably the BIGGEST poster on Jason’s blog, and what he said about the guy is spot on; Jason’s online persona, as much as I’ve surmised, is one big act, and he’s just playing to the expectations of the people who visit his site, who ARE there for the unserious jabs and pop-recycled witticisms, and snarky look at the popular shows airing in the season (which are actually funny, unlike the gloom and doom that DarkMirage exudes). Heck, if I was an engineer in real-life, even I’d lay off the serious…
I’m a Financial Analyst, mind, so it’s my JOB to be critical at things (specifically, people’s personal information and assets, and how well they handle those, oh yes)… Which is why I don’t want to see them extending into my hobbies. If I wanted to think hard while on my breaks, I’d read Machiavelli, not watch anime.
@Myssa Rei:
I’m not nearly as serious as you might believe Myssa. I draw my primary inspiration from comedians like Jon Stewart and Leslie Nielsen who act really serious most of the time, but really they are only serious about 5% of the time and are in on the joke they are making and/or participating in while appearing not to have a clue about it.
Really though, I think your imagining these half-veiled criticisms of Kyoto Animation. A lot of the time when I mention them it is either pure jest at their hyper popularity among fans or tied to something that relates to their penchant for moe girls. In a way it’s almost no different from what Jason himself does with Gonzo and Sunrise, only less tailored to a specific audience and just for fun and alleviation of boredom. The difference between me and him though is that with me everybody gets a turn from time to time while he’s always beating the same drum. That’s pretty much the only thing I really have against his style. The guy could be a true talent among many if he mixed it up once every 5 years. Instead I find him settling for less and not challenging himself at all.
Anyway I wouldn’t really have as much fun poking fun at Gonzo because it makes to easy a target. Although I did just compare them to SEGA a couple days ago. Still, normally I like to challenge myself to come up with original ideas or concepts and ways to communicate them and frankly I’ve been a little disappointed in myself recently, which is why I’m trying to cook up something special with the next Geass review.
Kaioshin: Heh, well, as I mentioned, Jason makes for easy laughs. British Wit isn’t exactly what Haesslich and me expect when we visit, that’s for sure.
As for KyoAni, ah, the criticism… I’d give MANY of my own (camera angles, adaptation pacing mostly), but I’d rather just *enjoy* the show instead, as griping tends to diminish whatever enjoyment one has. Since their shows are of a less cerebral nature (instead focusing on emotions), just sitting back and watching comes easily. Not as much as the stuff HAL Filmaker comes out with, but quite close.
Though as I’m not a blogger, and since I have shows like Hidamari Sketch, and Someday’s Dreamers: Summer Skies on my current watch list (along with heavyweights Macross and Geass, and hidden gems like Kyouran Kazoku and Allison to Lillia), my opinion doesn’t really count for much. ;P
That’s not exactly British Wit either, Myssa Rei. However, KyoAni tends to focus on emotions and pretty pictures… which so far has gotten them a lot of fans. Sunrise USED to focus on original concepts, and still do to some extent (Geass is a notable example), but tend to go more for series which do make money for their sponsors (Bandai).
In a way, they’re more EA than anything else… but that’s