Name: Brief thoughts on Code Geass R1 and R2
Item: Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2
Rating: 90
Author: WiseSeal

Waifra

Brief thoughts on Code Geass R1 and R2 · Waifora

My goal here isn’t really to write a ton, but just address some things I loved about this series and where I believed some weak points existed. This will include points relevant to both R1 and R2.

Although I don’t believe it to be perfect, Code Geass is still a very solid anime that I will end up remembering for a long time. Regardless of its numerous tropes or shortcomings, I found myself burning through episodes pretty fast. I don’t often watch 4 cours of a single anime in just a couple of weeks.

I see where some thoughts from others on

Spoiler, click to view

Carl Jung’s psychological concepts of the collective unconscious come into play with this series, and I find it interesting but I don’t want to go too deep on that topic to keep things from getting too long. What I will say is… I really love how this series bakes concepts of Jungian psychology into its lore. This mainly (in my opinion) takes the form of different ‘faces’ some characters wear, which is illustrated heavily in the scene where Shirley sees the masks. Lulu and Suzaku and their internal emotional struggles are a nice example of how this is used as well. It is also very direct about it near the end when everyone is in CC’s world and discussing the collective unconscious.

Lulu feels like the quintessential anti-hero. What he is doing for much of the series is about as wrong as the Britannian Empire’s ideology he fights against, but I caught myself sympathizing with him at times when his humanity surfaces. Humans are all flawed in different ways and I like how this series works with that. Everyone has a justification for what they are doing and it provokes sympathy for them at times, but it is still clear that it’s not right. Lulu, in particular, possesses a degree of complexity that I believe carries much of the anime, especially in R1.

His dynamic relationship with Suzaku

Spoiler, click to view

throughout both seasons play a nice role in this too all the way through to the ending, which I felt was a proper end for the series (and for Lulu especially). I think it symbolizes a lot of what changed in him since the beginning of the series. Zero Requiem shows us that he understands Nunnally would be happier with him around (just as she says in his last moments alive), but that he understands this is the way it needs to be.

Spoiler, click to view

The world needed somewhere to place their hate. He became the repository for that hatred and, while it is sad for Nunnally, it results in a seemingly peaceful resolution. I also think he felt it was a way for him to repent for all the wrong he had done since the start of his campaign as Zero.

Spoiler, click to view

is a bit of a wildcard in R1, as you don’t know a whole lot about her; so something I really enjoyed in R2 was learning more about her past and the events that transpire prior to all of the ongoing events. I didn’t really find myself with any major lingering questions when I was finished watching.

At the end of R2,

Spoiler, click to view

it’s heartwarming to see CC is finally ‘free’ and able to enjoy a life absent of warfare and politics. It’s also bittersweet in a way… since the person who made her experience feelings for the first time since they’d been forgotten is now gone. She talks about her past in one episode, how her geass manifested, and what the consequences of that were. That is why I found it an impactful moment when she talks about how she didn’t think she would feel something like love again. I did wonder if she might be able to communicate with him still in the way that Marianne was able to communicate with her. It would be something of a nice touch.

The animation in both R1 and R2 is fine, but R2 made some improvements that become crystal clear once you get into a lot of the Knightmare battles. I noticed a nice improvement in the BG work as well in the latter half of the series.

The music is a strong point and I have at least half of it saved in a couple different playlists to listen to with other music I’ve saved from past series. I felt this way for both the overall series and for specific moments where a track was used in a very well-timed manner for what was actively occurring.

I want to highlight these two in particular:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9wsRRlTL3s

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pa7L-62d24 
Hats off to the composers for this anime. I’ll be listening to the OST for some time.

As for the OPs…
Hitomi no Tsubasa from R1 is my favorite.
WORLD END from R2 is second (I also love the character montage in this one).

For EDs…
Waga Routashi Aku no Hana from R2 is my favorite ED (the stills in this one are awesome).
Shiawase Neiro from R2 is second.

My Anilist entries are there to record my degree of enjoyment on a score from 0-10 in 0.5 intervals and provide something of a profile for my preferences. I enjoyed this series’ themes, characters, setting, lore and so on very much, but I’ll acknowledge some of the things that I would characterize as ‘negative’.

This first thing is more of a preference thing in that there are some characters I really loved that I would have liked to have seen more screen time for. The biggest example I can think of for this are

Spoiler, click to view

the Knights of the Round. There are 12 of them and they only showcase a handful consistently. Additionally, I do think the series went on a tangent in a few places. This mostly took the form of them introducing some new important plot element that gets sidelined for a couple of episodes for something kind of unrelated. It might have been an episode focusing on some of the ‘love polygon’ type of stuff or another matter.

A different point I want to mention is that, although I enjoyed it a lot, it’s fair to say that I felt pretty overstimulated at times during R2. There’s a bit too much chaos, too fast, and it can cause a bit of confusion at times. Somehow, it pulls itself back on the rails and ends perfectly (in my opinion).

TLDR… great experience, loved the characters and lore, enjoyed it immensely overall.