CODE GEASS

4.5 stars out of 5

What do you get when you have a plot reminiscent of Death Note mixed with awesome giant robot battles?  You get Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion.  Luckily for me, one of my friends forced me to watch the first two episodes one night and I just had to finish it.


There are three major powers in the world: the Holy Empire of Britannia, the Chinese Federation, and the Euro Universe.  Britannia is easily the strongest of the three and has conquered nation after nation, the most recent of which is Japan in 2010.  Japan (referred to as Area 11) was conquered after the suicide of their Prime Minister with the use of Knightmares: giant mechanical mobile suits that are capable of laying waste to conventional troops. 

The flag of the Holy Empire of Britannia.

Code Geass begins with two Britannian students, Lelouch and Rival, as they leave school to gamble on a game of chess with a local Britannian nobleman.  Lelouch promises that he will beat the nobleman in less than eight minutes; he subsequently wipes the floor with him.  Upon noticing what time it is the two students begin to speed back to school when they witness a truck accident.  Lelouch asks his friend to pull over and tries to help.  Within the truck were rebels who had stolen what is believed to be a bomb that emits noxious gases.  Military officials quickly get to the scene and corner the rebels, including Lelouch.  

To everyone's surprise, within the bomb is a mysterious woman with green hair.  Lelouch takes it upon himself to help her, even to the point of being cornered by the Britannian military.  The Britanian official gives the order to kill Lelouch and the woman but not before the mysterious woman gives Lelouch the ability to order others to do what he wishes unconditionally so long as he can look into their eyes.  He orders the soldiers to kill themselves and sure enough, they shoot themselves with their pistols.

Lelouch unleashing the Geass on an unsuspecting enemy.

 With the gift of the Geass Lelouch has just recieved, he quickly begins helping the remnants of the Japanese resistance forces. Lelouch, using an alter ego publically known as Zero, helps the Black Knights wreak havoc for the Britannian forces stationed in Japan.  Slowly but surely, Lelouch and the rebellion begin to push back Britannian forces until the very end, where a few twists make the story interesting.

Zero and his subordinates, the Black Knights.

On the surface the show seems a bit conventional, pitting a rebellious conquered nation against a seemingly unstoppable force, but the back stories for the characters really twist the conventional storyline into something much more interesting. Lelouch was once the heir to the throne of Britannia, until his mother was mysteriously murdered right before his eyes.  While not a member of royalty anymore, Lelouch lives comfortably as one of society's elite at a prestigious boarding school for Britannian citizens.  Lelouch isn't the only character with interesting an interesting back story.  His friend and eventual enemy, Suzaku Kururugi, has a very sad and twisted past.  I won't spoil his back story because it serves as a major plot point later on in the show.

The characters of the show are well developed.  While I like Lelouch about as much as Yagami Light from Death Note (which isn't very much), I do appreciate how the writers gave him a moral compass that main characters in this genre seem to lack sometimes.  Throughout the show, he struggles with managing everyday life, hiding his identity as Zero from everyone except C.C. (the mysterious green-haired woman who imbued him with his Geass), leading a rebellion, and protecting his sister who cannot walk or see.  But beyond this he struggles with the consequences of his actions as Zero.  At one point the Black Knights win a skirmish against Britannian forces, unfortunately resulting in the death of his good friend's father.  Smaller things such as this show up quite often in the show, exposing the repercussions of the attacks by the Black Knights.

C.C. really loves Pizza Hut.

The other two major characters were Suzaku and C.C.  I found both of these characters to be far more interesting than Lelouch, mainly because of the mysteriousness of C.C, and the motivations and back story of Suzaku.  Ultimately, it’s probably just personal preference that I like these two more than Lelouch, and I'm sure that others would feel the opposite.  

I was initially surprised about a few things about show, the first of which being the presence of racism from the Britannians.  The Britannian citizens generally lived in nice homes and cities while the Japanese lived either as servants or in ghettos that bordered on the cities.  On top of this, Britannia originates from what would be the Americas which leads to an interesting social commentary by the writers of the show.  Whether it was intentional or not, this stood out to me almost immediately.

The second thing that surprised me was the blurring of the expected moral boundaries for the characters on both sides of the conflict.  While the leaders of the Britannian Empire were likely crazy, many of the military officials seemed to be generally good people.  On the other hand, Zero seemed to forget the value of human life as he would sometimes throw away soldiers without a second glance.  This really made me question which side I wanted to win at times.  

The Britannian prototype Knightmare frame, Lancelot.

Finally, I really appreciated that the Black Knights lose quite a bit because of Lelouch's pride and overconfidence.  It was refreshing to see that the main character wasn't infallible and very capable of making mistakes and losing.  In the context of rebelling against a tyrannical, imperialistic nation it definitely added to the suspense as the show moved forward.  It was a very real possibility that Lelouch would fail, especially towards the end of the show and so Code Geass was much better for it.

At the end of the day, Code Geass is well worth the praise it gets.  The animation is very well done, the story is very interesting and engaging, and the fighting is excellent.  I would recommend this to anyone.

* Code Geass was created by Sunrise.

- ABC