Anime Review: Code Geass

I keep falling behind on my blog post, I have to try and get it done earlier. :( Anyways, this week's post is about an anime that I really like called Code Geass. So as usual, I have to write a bit about the background story of Code Geass.

So the story takes place in the future and the Holy Britannian Empire controls most of the world. This is thanks to some technology known as the Knighmare Frame (picture below), which is basically a huge robot that is controlled by a soldier. These robots were then massed produced and soldiers put inside them to go off and conquer rival nations. 

A few years before the start of the anime, Britannia waged war against Japan in the efforts of controlling a powerful substance called Sakuradite. Japan was the main exporter of this substance (about 70% of the substance came from Japan) and this eventually led to the country being targeted for this resource necessary to operate Knighmare Frames and other heavy machinery.

We have a few important character in this series, and I wish I had enough time to over each one. But I'll talk about the most important ones. This is Lelouch vi Britannia AKA Lelouch Lamperouge:

He is a prince from Britannia, and before the war his mother was assassinated. In the process, his younger sister, Nunnally, was left blind because of the trauma of seeing her mother shot to death in front of her. After this tragedy, Lelouch confronted his father, the king of Britannia, Charles zi Britannia for not protecting his mother and allowing her to get murdered. Lelouch was so angry with his father that he renouncing his entitlement to the throne as the 17th heir to the throne. In response, Charles banished him to Japan to be used as a political tool in the Sakuradite conflict. After the war, they couldn't let the Britannian government know that they were still alive in case they tried to assassinate them as well. So Lelouch and his sister went into hiding with some friends of his mother and took up the Lamperouge last name in an effort to hide who they really are.

Next is Suzaku Kururugi, I can't say that he's my favorite character out of all them, but we'll get to that later.

Suzaku is the son of the last Japanese Prime Minister. Suzaku meet Lelouch and Nunnally when they were banished to Japan. Both of them stayed in the home of Suzaku before the war and became great childhood friends. After the war, they lost track of Suzaku and just assumed that he had been killed. But Suzaku actually hides a dark secret with in his heart; you can say that he is the "pure knight" of the story (always doing the right thing and all), but he is probably the biggest hypocrite of them all (in my opinion). Because of his guilty, Suzaku joined the Britannian Army at a young age in an effort to try and get rid of his own guilt. At the beginning of the series, Lelouch and Suzaku run into each other and they eventually end up going to the same high school.

This next character is probably one of my favorite ones, while we don't ever know her true name, she goes by the name of C.C.

CC is probably the one with the most complicated history out off the characters, which is what makes her the most interesting. When Lelouch first meets CC is by pure coincidence. The media had given a warning to the city that a group of terrorist had stolen a pod containing poisonous gas from the Britannian government. This led to Lelouch trying to figure out what was going on. When Lelouch found the pod, he decided to open in and inside the pod was this girl. Suzaku and Lelouch tried to protect this girl, but just as Lelouch was about to get killed, CC gets in the way and is shot in the head. Lelouch touches the hand of now belief to be dead girl and is given a gift: the Geass (a bit more on this later). Later in the story, we find out that CC is actually immortal and has lived for a really long time going back to the 100 Years War, but is believed to have lived way before that. She becomes Lelouch's partner in crime and helps him throughout the series.

Now on to the main thing that the show revolves around, the Geass.

Lelouch using his Geass.

The Geass is a power that certain people can use, but most importantly its a power that is given by someone else. In this case, its usually given by CC. The power that the Geass gives people varies from person to person, probably depending on the person's desires and personality. In the case of Lelouch, he gets the power of "absolute obedience." This means that he can use it on any person (except CC) and that person has to follow his orders, no matter what. Other powers in the series include: mind reading, stoping time, rewriting memories, and even looking into the future.

Its the power of Geass that sets the whole story in motion. Once Lelouch is saved by CC, he gains the Geass and uses it to save himself. Then he uses it to get himself into the Rebellion and make the Britannian empire pay for all the stuff that he and Nunnally had to go through. But he can't do this with his true identity, or even that of the Lamperogue name. So he decides to create an alter ego simply known as Zero.

Zero manages to out witt the empire on several occasions. Zero becomes the hope that the oppressed people (especially the Japanese people) by the Britannian empire. Lelouch relies on the power of his Geass and the small army of the Rebellion to fight against the empire.

I don't want to write more about the series because I don't want to ruin the ending. But this is also a really good series. There is actually two seasons, the official name of the series is Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion and the second one is Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2. Let me tell you right now that if you do decide to see it, don't get confussed once you get to the second season. I know I was confussed because the first season ends sudenly and they don't really tell you anything at the begging of the second one until your almost at the end of the first episode. You'll think that it's like déjá vu, but it will eventually make sense. :P

The art of the first season is kind of iffy, but you can certainly tell that their budget was increased for the second season because everything looks much better. The sound was great and it looks like they actually put effort into the story. The ending is one of the saddest I've ever seen, but it's one of those sad endings that feels "right." I don't know if that makes sense or not, but that's the way I feel about it.

Anyways, thanks for reading!