Code Geass R2 Catch Up (13-15) They’re making this shit up as they go along…
July 24th, 2008 by Shirukii
…and it’s actually not half bad
Whoo, first post in almost three weeks, feels good to be back…for now. I’ll give a brief explanation of what the hell happened to me tomorrow, possibly Saturday if I get lazy, but for now, time to play catch up!
Code Geass R2 took a really weird turn since the last time I posted on it. Many, including myself (if memory serves me correctly), predicted that the inclusion and development of the supernatural geass element in the plot of CG would necessitate a shift from a relatively believable world to an apeshit one with gods and faeries running around. Rather than when this shift was to occur, I was more concerned with -how-, worried that the intense focus on the war against Britannia would accustom the viewer so much that any change towards the supernatural would seem like an abrupt and jarring change. Guess what? It was.
The rapid descent into sheer mindfuckery with “geass this, geass that” being the talk of the town had me sitting back wondering what the hell was going on, on two accounts. In the foreground, I was wondering how I managed to get blindsided by all this geass bs, secret organizations, underlying contract motivations, etc. And lingering in the back of my mind was the gnawing question of what happens to the war at hand when everyone is chasing the truth behind the geass. What of the conflict in Chinese Federation? The EU? The continually fluctuating state of Area 11, which could very well turn out to be an amusement park by the time everything is said and done.
That having been said, although the shift introduced many new questions and left many others hanging without an answer, the overall presentation and development of it all was surprisingly good. Enough so that I still enjoyed the series for the past three weeks, despite the amount of newly concocted plot they threw in my face.
Now I don’t have enough luxury in the way of time to comb over every single event and summary thereof in the past three episodes, so I’m going to focus on some key points.
First up is the whole deal with Jeremiah “Orange-kun” Gottwald. What a let down this was. As Orange-kun’s reintroduction was built up over time, I found myself extremely excited at the prospect of his return and said that if he didn’t come back in a blaze of vengeance fueled rampage, it’d all be for naught. Well they delivered on that part, giving Orange-kun a bionic body and the h4x geass canceler, allowing him to plow through Lulu’s guards (even Sayako!) with relative ease.
And then what do they do? Retcon his past to make him a loyal follower of Marianne, Lulu’s mom, and thus by retarded logic a subject of Lulu’s by extension, completely erasing all the pent up rage he had for the guy, who ruined his life. The scene was reminiscent of Anakin Skywalker’s betrayal of the Jedi and defection to the Dark Side in that it happened way too fast and with seemingly little mental anguish and conflict.
EDIT Ookay, so his past with Marianne wasn’t retconned, my point still stands, if only slightly weaker than before, haha.
This is the shining beacon of my titular assertion, there’s no way that when they introduced Orange-kun early in R1 that they had any idea that he would eventually come to serve Lulu under the precept that he was once a loyal servant of his mother.
Next up, Shirley’s death, which was plastered over all outlets of the anime community the second the raw aired, if you were on the internet during the weekend of this episode’s airing and had even the most remote interest in Code Geass, you knew about this before watching the episode. Which isn’t all bad actually, spoilers suck, but when you know something is coming, you’re more readily able to examine the circumstances of how it came to be.
Again, the “how” of Shirley’s death was far more interesting than the “why”, which was just Rolo being selfishly gay for his nii-san. The impact that Shirley’s death had on Lulu was severe, yet somehow his sincerity was still lacking. During her passing, Lulu tried desperately to save her, going as far as to try geassing her into living, let alone that he’s geassed her before and had no evidence to suggest that he could do so again, even after Jeremiah geass canceled her.
Aside: Is Shirley’s pupils lined with red during Lulu’s attempt to geass her indicative of Orange-kun’s geass canceler giving him the ability to geass someone again? Or has Lulu’s geass progressed to the point where he’s no longer limited to one geass per person?
Anyways, the desperation Lulu showed during Shirley’s death, while heart breaking, was overridden by his interaction with Rolo in the aftermath of the event. Despite the emotional anguish that Lulu displayed, he was able to recover in an instant, wipe away his tears and -THANK- Rolo for killing Shirley, consider that he had a gun in his hand AND was staring into Rolo’s eyes with his geass during all this. Would Lulu have been able to remain that calm if it had been Nunnally on the floor, dead from blood loss? Not a chance. What this means is that despite Lulu having said that he won’t stand for the loss of those close to him anymore, he’s still willing to make compromises, that his resolution was nothing but words. If he had truly shifted his motivation for fighting from Nunnally to all his friends, he would have popped a cap in Rolo’s ass the moment he confirmed him to be Shirley’s murderer.
VV and his underground geass research lab. Be honest, who saw this coming before the arbitrary mention of a secret, always on the move, geass cult some episodes back? This was a complete blindside and it quickly became the main plot driving element, completely overshadowing the significance of the ongoing war against Britannia. Let alone the fact that there was no foreshadowing, no prior indication that something like this geass research institution existed all along, its significance to the overall plot is still up in the air. We don’t know who has been acting with this knowledge and for how long nor exactly how it effected the decisions we saw on the surface.
From flashbacks, it’s suggested that Charles has known about this all along, that he’s been VV contractee for the entire series, so how is that supposed to change our perception of the emperor. Are we to assume that he’s only a midboss, and that his constant blabbering about taking down gods is the true conflict of the series? Have Lulu’s efforts been targeted at the wrong person, is Charles really the good guy, trying to go after the true source of evil in the world, the origin of the geass? If so, why has he kept it hidden from Lulu, it not, what are his true motives? And finally, how long has Lulu known about this organization and how extensive is his knowledge of the specifics and origins of the geass and these so called gods?
See what happens when you shove too much fantasy into a mecha show.
However, despite all the problems that are presented by the sudden shift in focus from world conquest and empire toppling to the realm of gods, Sunrise is (surprisingly) doing a decent job at covering it. Charles’ succession of VV’s contractor status and the bid at CC’s gave us a flashback that explained some of the details behind geass and its mechanism of passing on, indicating that Sunrise has at least some idea where they’re heading with all this.
While it was nice to see CC’s past and all, I can’t help but find myself disappointed at how cliche her motives are, how bland her “true wish” and the reason behind her contracting Lulu was. The blessed curse of immortality, a literary horse that has been ridden until death, beaten, flogged, autopsied, then beaten some more. It’s played out. Immortality is fun at first, but the inevitable toll it has on one’s humanity, one’s ability to enjoy life’s beauties sucks. Life is made all the more precious by the threat of death, take that out of the equation and it becomes a bore. Etc etc etc. Boring.
Let’s hope there’s a twist to this. CC wasn’t able to bring herself to use Lulu to fulfill her contract, perhaps he was able to penetrate her shell of devoid emotion and cause her to fall in love with him.
And finally, more of a nitpick than anything. Nina’s bomb is finished and she hasn’t got a bullet in her yet, Schneizel, you disappoint me D=
Here’s where an obligatory Anya shot would usually go, but since she’s been MIA along with Gino for these episodes, have some Kallen
With any luck, expect a Macross Frontier catch up post along the same lines tomorrow. Thanks for the patience everyone!
~ Shirukii ~
19 Responses to “Code Geass R2 Catch Up (13-15) They’re making this shit up as they go along…”
Leave a Reply
Please use [spoiler] [/spoiler] tags for spoilers.
Loading ...
The new Tessa CC is awesome. I hope she starts to wear those Navy mini-skirts….
For what it’s worth, it seems that in a season one picture episode, they revealed that Orange-kun was indeed one of Marianne’s guards. Something about his first job and he failed to protect her.
>> And then what do they do? Retcon his past to make him a loyal follower of Marianne, Lulu’s mom, and thus by retarded logic a subject of Lulu’s by extension, completely erasing all the pent up rage he had for the guy, who ruined his life.
Although I agree that his switching of allegiances to Lulu was executed far too quickly, I must point out that it is incorrect to state that Jeremiah’s past was retconned. Firstly it would be a stretch to say that his past was really built up at all during the first season, so I would question what parts of Jeremiah’s history had been rewritten. And if we want to discuss parts of Orenji-kun’s history that actually has been set into canon, we should turn our attention to DVD Picture Drama 4.33, which addresses his devotion and service to Empress Marianne and her children.
Edit: Ninja’d by three minutes. orz
What RmX and rxdragonxl said. Granted, it could have been executed much better, but the idea was already there towards the end of the first season, via the DVD extras.
That wasn’t part of his original role at the very beginning of Code Geass -no doubt because if we go back to the planning stage he was originally meant to die at Narita but by the time those episodes were animated plans had changed and so they had him *eject* so that the scientists could pick him up- but it wasn’t explicitly contradicting anything either, since his past never even came up before.
Honestly, I don’t care too much about him, either way. He’s more of a service to the fans, literally speaking, by now.
“Is Shirley’s pupils lined with red during Lulu’s attempt to geass her indicative of Orange-kun’s geass canceler giving him the ability to geass someone again?”
Apparently the first one is right, from what I can tell.
As for Lelouch not kicking the crap out of Rolo…he over-thinks things too much, even when he’s enraged, and his having a larger motivation doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a closer connection to his own sister, above everyone else. Sorry, Shirley. Though I guess he also realized that the best way to off Rolo was to fool him and sabotage his knightmare, not to attempt to attack him directly at close range, which would likely lead to stopping time and turning the tables (remember Turn 3?). Would have been more believable, but a bad choice. Lelouch’s still pretty poor at physical stuff.
I agree that the cult didn’t exactly have a proper introduction -C.C.’s cryptic season one flashbacks hinted at some sort of larger organization but provided no real details at all-, mostly because we are apparently supposed to assume that C.C. told Lelouch about it off-screen…perhaps sometime after she first mentioned V.V. to him back in Turn 5, if I recall things correctly. Sloppy and a bad decision -this could have definitely used some screen time- but at least what’s done is done.
Well the scripts been long finished for a while now, as in completely done all the way up to the end as stated by the head writer on his blog and in an interview, so the idea that they are making things up as they go is pretty much just something people won’t stop saying for whatever reason now. And seriously if I had a dime for everytime somebody busted that one out I’d have a good supplementary income.
People can still claim they are making it up as they go, but they still be er…..wrong as they go on saying it.
And by the way, just because you don’t know something doesn’t excuse you from being completely wrong about it. In the picture drama Jeremiah’s first assignment was shown as being a bodyguard for Marianne whom he admired as a Knightmare Frame Pilot. He considered it his greatest failure when she was killed and sought to make things right somehow. Serving Lelouch seems to be his way of doing so. Own up to the fact that you were missing a piece of the puzzle and don’t try to claim that your point still stands. It doesn’t matter if they knew when he was first introduced whether he was going to be this or that or whatever. A lot of characters don’t immediately have a full backstory planned out from the get go in longer series.
What your doing is what I like to call making up stuff to complain about. It still seems that the majority of the anime blogger is doing everything in it’s power to portray Code Geass in the worst light possible. Even if it means having to go to extreme lengths to do it. What else is new…..
I’m sure Schneizel will take Nina out once she starts to turn. Until then, it’s all the research dollars and table legs she wants!
Even though Jeremiah was an admirer of Marianne, I still say that his conversion to the cause of the BK was way too fast.
Lelouch humiliated him with the “Orange” nickname, caused him to lose his position as Governor-General and almost killed him a couple of times. They want me to believe that all of this is forgiven at the exact moment Jeremiah knows that Lelouch is Marianne’s child? Bullshit!
@Son Gohan: First of all Lelouch never tried to kill him, Karen almost did and so did C.C, but Lelouch never had a situation where he tried to kill him other then one where he was defending himself from Jeremiah’s attack. Second of all Jeremiah was never once Governor-General, he was a member of the puritan faction of Knights UNDER the Governor General. The list of governor generals since the start of the series goes Clovis, Cornelia, Carares and Nunally. So in the end either you aren’t paying attention to the show at all or are deluding yourself so you can have something to make up to complain about.
And as for what you believe, it doesn’t matter. It’s what the character believes and it’s not up for you or anyone but the writer (who obviously knows the characters history a lot better then you judging by the “Governor-General” comment) to decide the characters choices. If he thinks Marianne’s legacy trumps all and that the orange taunts can be pushed under the rug then he does.
Don’t like it? Tough noogies, watch something else. I’m tired of seeing people complain about such stupid things that are their own fault (Well over half of the things people complain about as “bad writing” or “plotholes” are a result of them not paying attention to an important plot detail anyway and aren’t even bad writing at all. So talk about your self fulfilling prophecies when one goes in trying to find something to be negative about for a comment) with this show, especially when they don’t even know what they are talking about. It’s like every other Code Geass watcher is just a massive whiner who’s looking for something to complain about and as a result can’t just sit down to have fun and watch the damn show so that they can actually understand the characters, scenarios and overall narrative better. And the other half is just in it for one particular element so bleh….. Never the whole picture with anyone and they’re sucking the life and fun out of it for me like people did with Gundam 00.
Oi…..this is just one of many reasons why I need a darn vacation from all this. I’m definitely taking it now.
Ha, I don’t really get why Lelouch would kill off the whole Geass Order. Sure he’s upset that Shirley was killed through geass. And I guess his overthinking of stuff would make him blame both rolo and geass equally for what happened. But his overall goal is to destroy Britannia, right? i kinda expected lelouch to make use of the order. It fits his personality more, which is to use anything he finds useful.
I’ve stopped caring about any “plot” or “character relationships” in the show. Now I’m just waiting for my EPIC SPACE BATTLES as shown in the OP. And medieval C.C. Mmmmm, medieval C.C….
LOL in the end Marianne is the key of CG series to unfold everything about CG
@Kaioshin Sama: You know you are right, and you should have take a vacation earlier. Man, just how could you expect everyone see thing as you saw? It is not like I am saying you are wrong but thing won’t always go as the plan you want it. You know why there is a blog exist? It is not just a place for everyone to accept each other it is also a battle field for people to deny the other and fight back to prove they are right. That is the reason why making a blog so interesting to read. Don’t you think so?
Not sure how it went exactly, but this is what I read somewhere the night 15 aired:
Lelouch is now immortal while CC has lost her immortality to the Emperor. Somewhere around the end Lelouch will manage to force him into giving his immortality back to CC, thus creating the Witch&Warlock end we’re all looking forward too.
There was a lot more to it than that but that’s the gist of it anyway.
Also, good to see you’re back Shirukii, don’t forget your Kurenai summary post etc. =p
Holy shit @Kaioshin Sama. As he and RmX already said, Jeremiah’s loyalty to Marianne was explained in the Picture Drama. But damn, nice cleanup…
I’m definitely interested in seeing how the other Black Knights will respond to killing of the Geass Order, due to most of them being civilians and children (they don’t know about Geass, though). This might finally put some doubt into Zero’s leadership, and I’ll wonder if there may be a mutiny…probably not, but I’m not giving up hope.
And I still think Charles might be the bad guy in trying to destroy the gods, because as you might recall, Bartley stated that his plan might destroy the world. Unless Charles pulls a Helix King a la Gurren Lagann, I’m positive he’s probably the final boss.
C.C. had better get her memories back sometime in the future.
I am so CCxlulu because C.C. used to be one of the only people who was almost as smart as lelouch and could team up with him to totally mindrape people.
and now that is basically gone as C.C. has reverted back to her former-geass (and slave/servant apparently) self.
It will be a fun few episodes with a ditz C.C. running around causing havoc, but if she doesn’t get her memories back eventually I will be very disappointed, since in my opinion the bond that they’ve former while working together to bring down britannia is stronger than the bond he has with kallen or anyone else.
Except that isn’t really want she wishes for. It may be what she intended, but the trip down memory lane with CC’s superego revealed to Lulu what’s really going on.
Basically, it answers the question of why there are different types of Geass. Other than the test-tube geass children like Rolo, the ability is based on what you most desire. The loli CC we saw was a pitiable, mistreated child who just wanted to be loved. Back in Shinjuku, Lulu most desired an army to command. Mao wished to know what other people were thinking. Charles wanted to rewrite history. (He never lies because he decides what “truth” is, in an Orwellian fashion.)
The thing I haven’t seen pointed-out yet is that Charles no longer has a Geass. Fulfilling the contract requires a completely developed Geass, which gets consumed or converted into being a contractor. CC has never shown that she could still use her Geass, at least.
ps. I’d like to write-in “Luca” for that poll, please
Frankly, all this talk about how sunrise is making things up as they go is abit more of a matter of pacing than anything else. Remember, they did have a really large amont of open subplots at the end of season one, namely the Geass, Ougi X Viletta, C2, orange and about a dozen more, none of them being particularly well developed by that time and most of them only being hinted at in the extras. You add that to the main plot (IE, Black rebelion) and you have a plot that would feel more at home in a crossover fanfiction from 5 different genres fused with an alternate universe than anything else.
Then here comes the second season, where they are supposed to wrap up every loose plotline in less than nine hours worth of footage. Veiwed in that light, everything is going to feel pretty rushed, and they really can’t afford to spend footge on the trival stuff, so all the different subplots have to be rushed to it’s conclusion, frequently within the same episode. It might not seem like much, but when you remember the bait and switch technique used in season one, everything is gonna feel extremely rushed, as evidenced by 13 where they resolved 2 plots in one episode.
P.S: So, is it just me, or does the fact that placing a nuclear weapon on a flying Knightmare draws C.G. closer to Gundam territory than anything most people are comfortable with?
because my English is just so so
could you tell me your QQ,if you have .make a friend.OK?
You know, I think that everybody who has added anything to the conversation about cliched motives, fast pacing, and all that kind of stuff is over-thinking this. ITS A FREAKING CARTOON!!! Just enjoy the show.
lol cheese moose, you just commented in a 1 year old post… oh wait