mild spoilers for Dakkan no Roze, and inherent spoilers for everything leading up to it

Nothing's gonna stop Code Geass from being successful. Not even being given a proper studio until well into production didn’t stop S1’s team from launching an instant hit back in 2006. Significant content changes and omissions didn’t stop the original writers and directors and their team from making Fukkatsu a success to launch a 10 year plan off of back in 2019. The abysmal quality of Dakkan no Roze isn’t gonna stop a different pair of writers and directors from making it part of the brand’s continued success if the myriad character trailers and episode trailers are anything to go by. Whenever we reach the end of this 10 year plan, there will probably be another big and successful project to cap it off. Geass may not have the staying power overseas that it once held, and Disney’s absolute lack of marketing has only further damned Roze into being a legacy sequel only a fraction of the original fanbase has even heard of prior to its conclusion. However, Geass is still a massive franchise in its home nation, and Roze is just another cog in the machine. A rusty cog with cracks everywhere, but a cog all the same.

That doesn’t mean it’s not an abysmal legacy sequel and a worse follow-up to Fukkatsu no Lelouch than imagined. They managed to make the premise of a future conflict set in Japan a non-starter in such a way where the UNJ established by the Zero Requiem of R2’s/Movie 3’s finale looks completely inept for years. Upon Year 3 of the post-ZR Kowa period, a surprise attack is launched in Hokkaido, taking it over and quickly establishing Neo-Britannia and a series of EMP defense towers that keep enemy Britannians and whatnot at bay. These unprotected towers that seemingly nobody has attempted to target. If the mere conceit of this show is a non-starter, how is the show supposed to function? Technically it’s not impossible, but after more or less nullifying any actual effectiveness of the original ending (or more pertinently, its movie timeline counterpart which is 99% the same), put charitably, it’s gonna be a hard sell.

There are a few other overarching issues with the show which compound with one-another. First off, the show feels roughly half its length, especially with the first quarter and last quarter. As such, most of the characters don’t have much time to breathe as the gigantic cast of protagonists and antagonists cannot begin to flesh out even half of the survivors to any meaningful degree. It’s hard to say if the Neo-Britannian officials have it worse, or if the Black Kni-er, sorry, Seven Shining Stars have it worse. The issue of unoriginality will be covered later.

The most immediate example that comes to mind is Heath Lott, a Neo-Britannian official introduced at the start of episode 3 as he confidently challenges the SSS. The next time we see him not 5 minutes later, the battle is skipped and the officials report of his failure as he is hyperventilating before their leader, Norland kicks him out. He blows his brains out immediately thereafter. An entire story that could span at least an episode, reduced to 2 minor scenes just to add another body to the pile of corpses. One of his more successful cohorts, Christoph Scissorman, makes a point about how Heath wanted to fill the shoes of the guy who seemingly died in episode 2, and yet despite being the first antagonist to have a remotely engaging motivation and sympathetic demise, he’s snuffed out in two quick scenes. The Neo-Britannian forces have it arguably even worse on the whole than the Knights of the Round back in R2.

It’s almost as bad as how the majority of the Seven Shining Stars have next to no personality or detail or anything for the entire run. The only minor exceptions are Haruka the Kallen expy, and Kensei Kuroto who is rescued in episode 2. We have the mecha-loving Tamaki expy in Oda, the nice girl with a giant rack in Youko, and you have the rest. That’s all we have as far as personality or any personal details or chemistry beyond the mildest of teasing towards Oda for being an upstart. The Black Knights back in the original only really had 3 notable starting members in Oghi, Kallen, and Tamaki, but even back in the first few half or so of S1, those 3 alone had more going on than every SSS member put together. Main leads Ash and Sakuya do have compelling backstories and character arcs respectively, and certain Neo-Britannians such as Narah, Catherine, and Walther do have something going on to keep them mildly interesting. However, the show rarely has enough time to make the most out of them, let alone other SSS members or Neo-Britannian officials. That is, except for Norland, who is a vacuous waste of space with a boring, borderline nebulous “kill humanity cuz they’re disgusting” motivation after being an apathetic killer for most of the show. The less said about him, the better, at least for now.

You may have caught on by now that this legacy sequel has a habit of sucking on the original series’ teet. The premise is a variation of what the original show started out with. We have a new take on the Black Knights, complete with them being apprehensive of working with mysterious outsiders such as the main duo. The main characters have to stop the Damocles from firing FLEIJAs at a city. The Lelouch expy Sakuya interrogates the starter villain for information and gets him killed after revealing themselves and geassing him following another bout of him exterminating the Japanese. An ambitious official seemingly dies before getting turned into a cyborg with a Geass canceller and an obsession with one of the main characters. Dakkan no Roze frequently remixes elements from the original, usually to terrible results since the pacing is so blitzed and the characterization is so threadbare aside from around 6 characters in a roster of around 20 notable new entities. The worst example is in how it handles violent discrimination.

Code Geass wasn’t subtle about displaying Britannians’ violence and bigotry towards the Japanese. However, it had a level of depth and gravitas that this show lacks. Geass S1 doesn’t start with casually shooting a guy off a pier during “target practice” and slaughtering a bridge full of “Elevens”. The first on-screen slaughtering comes when Clovis, a novice snuffing out the local resistance while trying to cover his own ass for C.C's escape lest he be disinherited, gives the order and it’s treated with some actual weight. Geass went in some level of depth about even workplace bigotry with how Suzaku and his team were sometimes barred from missions because being an “Honorary Britannian” was a social playcating move that didn’t actually mean anything for Japanese folks who joined the Britannian military. They were frequently gossiped about as well. Dakkan no Roze has 1 minor gossip scene and at most, Catherine berating Sakura Sumeragi for being a half-”Eleven” figurehead with no actual power. Both shows do have random Britannians harassing or beating up “Elevens” for existing or for the most minor slights, but the original series has more than the most surface level atrocities, and Roze has fucking murder roombas.

You read that right. Towards the last ⅓ of the show, the audience is introduced to giant robots that suck people up, shred them, and spew out blood geysers that turn into blood mist across the globe while cutting off all nearby surveillance and communication. The concept is beyond over the top and schlocky, just like the show’s handling of discrimination is sometimes. It’s almost impossible to play this for any legitimate horror, not that the show tries to since the concept isn’t exactly grounded or easy to take seriously. It would be easier to do so if most of the cast had stuff going for them, but they don’t so atrocities such as this, and the multitude of adequately animated fight scenes are hard to get invested in.

It doesn’t help that the show doesn’t have much in the way of exploring themes or advancing what the original explored. Sure, there are multiple Neo-Britannian officials such as Natalia and Sakura who are working from the inside. Walther and Narah also think about their original good intentions and what they can even do beyond fighting enemies. They do comment on how it’s still difficult to get any kind of positive political policy going by working from the inside or trying to help outsiders from the inside. However, none of that broaches the depth of Suzaku’s rise through the ranks and how multiple systems in a totalitarian government make such approaches difficult long-term games. The original also ended on conflicts between people stuck in the past, people focused on controlling the present, and people trying to create a better future for others to have agency over. This show ends with “we must stop the guy who hates everybody otherwise world peace will have officially gone out the window along with Earth’s population”. Riveting.

It’s hard not to compare Roze with either season of the original series when Roze itself insists on aping them and adds so little to the table. That being said, there are some decent things it does on its own, like the shared connections between Ash and Narah and how their trajectories have affected them despite the fact that they would rather not fight each other if need be. Ash’s backstory was surprisingly compelling, especially when his younger self interacts with Jugo Sumeragi who was killed before the start of the show. There’s a scene where the latter breaks down at the fact that while death doesn’t scare him, he won’t get to see his daughter again, and Ash who recently lost a loved one, relates and soon breaks down himself. Roze aka Sakuya, who had Geassed Ash into obeying her and believing she’s his brother via a fake identity, starts regretting her vengeful actions towards him the more she learns about him. There is a good and compelling series somewhere, with plenty of characters who have moments that elevate them beyond the vacuous entities they appeared to be at the start, and other engaging moments not described here. It’s all just buried underneath all the show’s stupid decisions, rushed pacing, and plenty of woefully underwritten characters. That’s to say nothing of how Ash’s and Sakuya’s stories end, which are about as bad as Lelouch’s and Suzaku’s endings were good.

With all that said, do the audiovisuals at least come within striking distance of what came before? Yes, but at best, they’re closer to the level of Fukkatsu. Kenji Kawai is one of anime’s most acclaimed composers, working on the Ghost in the Shell movies of the 90s & 2000s, the DEEN adaptation of Fate/Stay Night, Mob Psycho 100, and Higurashi, among a sea of other notable titles such as Ranma ½ and Gundam 00. His pedigree perhaps even exceeds that of the original Geass composers, including its most prolific one, Kotaro Nakagawa. Unfortunately, none of Kawai’s contributions to Roze are nearly as memorable or bombastic as the sweeping scores of the original series. The tracks are often spammed ad nauseam such as the plethora of bagpipe-heavy tracks and the buttrock that plays whenever Ash’s mech goes turbo. There are some solid orchestral tracks and mildly emotional pieces, but while the OST is solid, it’s not filled to the brim with memorable tracks that move or excite. Also, the OP and ED are fine? Not notably good or bad enough to really discuss.

As for the visuals, they’re solid. Surprisingly, there’s a lot of 3D CGI Knightmare Frames that practically feel 2D to the point where the average viewer may not even notice. The mecha designs are fine enough, and they animate decently well with no frame rate clashes with the frame rate of the 2D assets. A variety of fighting styles are used such as fencing, CQC, and more with the show’s decision to return characters to largely ground-based combat and weapons. It has none of the flippy-dippy breakdance type evasion combat of S1 unfortunately, with barely any moments where the fight choreography even comes close to having moments nearly that engaging as far as mecha combat is concerned. Oftentimes characters just zip and zoom about or refuse to shoot until it’s too late. The only notable exception is the final battle having a fair amount of tracking shots as Sakuya and Ash weave through Norland’s attacks without giving the audience motion sickness.

The characters are generally drawn consistently with hardly any egregiously off-model moments. Takahiro Kimura’s final set of character designs includes some standouts such as Scissorman, Ash, and Sakuya, including her Roze disguise. Redesigns of returning/cameo characters were also generally nice, particularly Cornelia’s redesign. Some designs such as Catherine’s are really pushing it in terms of being able to take them seriously in a remotely grounded military show, especially when this one is far less comedic or filled with fanservicey romps than S1 or especially R2. That being said, hardly any are particularly bad, even if the SSS members often look as plain as the characters themselves are in practice. There aren’t any noticeable animation fuck-ups either aside from a few awkward shortcuts like in Ash vs Narah in episode 5 just having the characters border on becoming lines slamming into each other. That being said, there are some scenes where the lighting filters become absolutely garish for no real reason, namely in some scenes where the SSS members and the main duo are making plans. Still, the show overall looks good, even if it doesn’t have any of the over the top facial expressions, editing choices, or overall style of the original.

At the end of the day, Roze is a terrible legacy sequel. It apes from the original without adding much worthwhile to stand on its own or advance what came before. Several decisions actively and needlessly undermine the ending of the recap trilogy which is almost identical to the original when there were easy ways to avoid that. Most of the new characters are featureless planks of wood and the ones rising above don’t get dealt the best hands, either. The show does admittedly do a tasteful job with its many cameos across the entire Geass pantheon, and somehow Nina gets some agency as the show’s resident remorseful Oppenheimer. However, just because some old and new characters get some decent material to work with doesn’t mean that the show’s overarching narrative isn’t broken. It may have started going somewhere decent towards the middle, but it started off as a derivative mess, and it ends in a similarly dire place. There are rumors that the show’s episode count was cut in half, which probably explains some of the more egregious issues with much of its new cast. However, nothing could have saved the show’s beginning and end. If the culmination of the 10 year plan’s front half is a dumber, edgier, Geass Greatest Hits compilation that’s as rushed as it is hollow, what hope is there for the next 5 years?

Also, insert obligatory “Geass girls are hot and the camera really wants you to know that” here.