Review of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

On surface, Code Geass is a shounen anime with cool superpowers, epic mech battles, and a bad-ass protagonist constantly farming aura for no particular reason. But if one scratches a little, they will realize that this anime has actually a lot more to offer in terms of characters and political themes. I will mostly talk about these two aspects because I believe they are the reason why Code Geass is a masterpiece. Set in an alternate reality where a fictional empire called Britannia conquered one third of the world and subjected entire peoples and nations to its absolutist and racist rule, Code Geass tells thestory of Lelouch, a young Britannian who lives in Japan under Britannian colonial domination. Obtaining by accident the Geass, a supernatural power from a mysterious woman named CC, Lelouch takes over the armed resistance against Britannia under the secret identity of Zero, leader of the Black Knights Order, with the aim of liberating Japan and destroying Britannia.

1) A CLEVER BLEND OF EVERYTHING THAT WORKS WELL IN ANIME

Code Geass is a clever mix of a ton of elements and themes seen in other anime, but also other pieces of popular culture. There’s revenge, as Lelouch is a Britannian prince trying to get revenge on the imperial family that abandoned him and his sister Nunally. There’s the cool superpower, the Geass, which grants Lelouch the ability to give any order to anyone. There’s Lelouch’s secret identity, the caped crusader Zero. There’s the cat and mouse game where Lelouch’s nemesis, the Japanese but “honorary Britannian” mech pilot Suzaku tries to unmask him. There are grandiose mech battles. There are politics and intrigue. There are romance and complex relationships. There are goofy high school scenes. Heck, there are even waifus and husbandos. Basically, there’s something for everyone. And, what’s more, all these elements blend surprisingly well ! This is what allows Code Geass to appeal to so many people. Unlike the vast majority of modern anime, Code Geass doesn’t try to cater only to a very specific demographic.

So you have all of those elements that blend in a very efficient way. But not only this, each one of those elements are very well executed in themselves.

The Geass is a pretty simple concept on paper. But it is overall very well used and creates a lot interesting situations. It allows Lelouch to use strategies his enemies could never imagine. Just like the Death Note, it has limitations and rules. It can’t be used more than once on the same person, and Lelouch can only give a single order, meaning he is not overpowered. In fact, Lelouch faces defeat more than once. If the Geass does give him significant power, apart from that he’s pretty weak. His body is frail, and his skill as a mech pilot is quite low. There’s actual thrill since you can’t predict what’s gonna happen when a confrontation starts.

The pacing in Code Geass is also very well managed. Pretty much all episodes contribute greatly to plot progression and character development. Add to that the various plot twists, and the climax of the few last episodes with the battle of Tokyo ending on a cliffhanger, and you’ve got an anime that is addictive from start to finish.

The mech battles are also great to watch. They gain in scale as the series progresses, from a skirmish in Shinjuku in the early episodes to a great battle for the control of the whole colony in the last episodes. The mechs also gradually gain in strength and capabilities: from basic mechs that can shoot bullets or shells to flying monsters that can wipe entire armies with hadron cannons. The highly dynamic animation, which barely uses any CGI, is another quality.

2) EXCELLENT PRODUCTION VALUES

The production values are as a whole very nice. The backgrounds do appear very lazy in some episodes though, for example with “buildings” that are no more than cubes with no details, no windows, nothing. But that’s about the only problem I could find. Some people don’t like the CLAMP character designs with their overly long figures, but in my opinion their distinct look gives uniqueness to the anime. They are both varied and very recognizable. Male characters definitely look like they were designed to become husbandos, since most of them look like twinks, but I say that’s only fair. After all Code Geass has plenty of waifus, why should heterosexual men be the only ones to get what they want ? Code Geass also manages to convey its characters’ emotions efficiently through face expressions. Overall, we can see that the animation is another strength of Code Geass. The anime is also of high quality when it comes to the sound. While the openings themes are absolute dogshit for the most part (except the first one, they are all worth skipping), the varied soundtrack definitely succeeds in making the key scenes more emotional, mysterious, epic or tragic. Tracks like “the first signature”, the Geass theme “devil created”, Zero’s theme, etc are engraved into the DNA of a whole generation of anime fans, and for good reasons.

3) THE REALISTIC POLITICAL THEMES OF CODE GEASS : ARMED REVOLUTION VS LEGAL REFORM

As I said earlier, the two main reasons why Code Geass succeeds are, in my opinion, its political themes and its characters. Let’s analyze its political themes first. The political aspects of Code Geass are of surprisingly high quality. They make the anime both realistic to some extent, and more profound than just brainless mech battles. Of course, this is an anime with superpowers and the like, so the “realism” is always very relative. But still, they managed to create an universe deeply rooted in reality. There’s actual intrigue and power struggles. There’s also internal conflict not only among Britannians (for example between the pure blood faction and others) but also among the Japanese resistance (the Japan Liberation Front VS Lelouch’s Black Knights).

On top of that, Code Geass delivers some pretty bold political messages. One of the core elements of Code Geass is the ideological conflict between two ways of changing an unjust world: armed revolution and legal reform, with Lelouch embodying the former and Suzaku the latter.

While Britannia is based on absolutism, Social Darwinism (this is clear from Charles’ first speech), racism, colonialism and imperialism, both Lelouch and Suzaku share some form of egalitarian ideals. But Lelouch and Suzaku are in complete contradiction when it comes to the method of attaining such ideals.

Lelouch hates everything that Britannia stands for. He aims to create, through an armed national liberation struggle, a democratic and egalitarian Japan, as a first step towards the complete destruction of the empire and the creation of a new world order based on democracy and equality. On the contrary, Suzaku rejects any illegal means, and aims to obtain a more egalitarian status for the Japanese by climbing up the ladder and reforming the empire from the inside.

The anime portrays skillfully the inherent contradictions in both methods. Armed struggle means bloodshed and collateral damage, which will cause harm to Lelouch’s loved ones more than once. An underground movement implies lies, deception and manipulation, which Lelouch uses to their full extent since that is precisely the power of his Geass. Code Geass also shows very well the type of dilemma that armed groups face when the state they’re fighting against offers compromise. On Suzaku’s side, reforming the empire from the inside implies being complicit in its atrocities. Suzaku regularly participates in military operations which include war crimes and ethnic cleansing. If Suzaku’s restless efforts seem to be somewhat rewarded, as he actually manages to climb up the ladder, at the same time he is constantly suffering racism. Suzaku is clearly portrayed as an Uncle Tom. He is a naive idealist whose efforts usually results in the opposite of what he’s trying to achieve, while Lelouch embodies a necessary evil. Suzaku will often appear as the last obstacle to Lelouch’s victory.

In the end, Code Geass definitely tends towards revolution and armed struggle rather than legal reform, which makes perfect sense given how evil Britannia is. Britannia is at core a fascist colonial power, and Suzaku is like a Jewish person trying to reform Nazi Germany into being more egalitarian. The comparison is appropriate since it’s quite obvious that the script-writers took inspiration from actual historical situations: apartheid South Africa, colonial wars in Africa and Asia, and of course, antisemitism (since there are literal ghettos). But Code Geass is honest and never idealizes armed struggle. Its inherent contradictions are shown in a very crude way. In that sense it reminds me of the movie The Battle of Algiers. If Code Geass does supports national liberation movements, it does not endorse any form of ethnic nationalism or racism. “Our enemy is Britannia, not the Britannians” says Lelouch. Instead, the foundation of a Japan where Britannians and Japanese can live together as equals is presented as a step towards a new world order based on equality. Overall, Code Geass manages to portray a national liberation struggle in a very accurate manner, and it does so without being neither Manichean, nor pessimistic, nor falling into the “both sides are equally bad” trap. This bold political message is part of the reason why Code Geass is so unique.

4) INSANELY DEVELOPED AND COMPLEX CHARACTERS

Portraying colonial conflicts in a realistic manner is to be appreciated, but it won’t impact the viewer much is the characters taking part in such a struggle aren’t interesting to begin with. In this category, too, Code Geass is of very high quality.

Characters in Code Geass get an insane level of characterization and evolution. The protagonist Lelouch is the epitome of this. Many of his actions, the way he behaves, his methods, make him closer to a villain or an anti-hero. He manipulates people, lies to basically everyone around him even his closest friends and subordinates, and kills without a second thought, including people from his own family. He often bursts into evil laughter for no apparent reason. His high pride makes him outright megalomaniac at times. But Lelouch is not a sociopathic and egoistic mass murderer like Kira in Death Note. Lelouch’s actions are motivated by hate and revenge against Britannia. But they are also motivated by love, and the strong desire to protect his loved ones (especially his sister Nunally, but also Suzaku, CC, Shirley, etc). This creates constant contradictions and dilemmas, since Lelouch’s revenge and the struggle for justice he’s leading often impact negatively the people close to him. Lelouch is a heap of contradictions, and that makes him very human. He hesitates more than once when facing dilemmas, and as such he commits a lot of mistakes. He also evolves a lot, but he never gives up his ultimate objective. Indeed, Britannia is an evil that cannot be destroyed if one isn’t prepared to make sacrifices.

Apart from Lelouch, Code Geass has plenty of other great characters, including secondary characters like Diethard, Cornelia, Jeremiah and Viletta. Many things I said about Lelouch could be said about the other characters. In general, most characters of Code Geass are torn apart by their own contradictions, their own duality. This is especially the case for Lelouch, but also for Suzaku and Kallen. None of them are plain evil or plain good. One can only judge them by the results of their actions. This is also what’s good about Code Geass : its characters don’t fight for abstract ideals. They fight for their ideals because of their experience and traumas, to protect or avenge their loved ones. The fact that the characters are not Manichean makes the various confrontations between them (mech battles or not) so much more worthwhile.

As a consequence, there’s always tension, contradiction and conflict in the relationships between the characters. The characters are constantly wearing masks and lying to each-other. The prime example of this is Lelouch, since as Zero he hides his true identity to his subordinates, but also to his friends and family. Similar things could be said about Kallen and Suzaku. There’s duality since characters that are enemies in a given context will often be allies or friends in another. This makes the characters’ interactions so much more interesting and stimulating. The romance elements adds even more salt to those interactions. Code Geass has some of the best depictions of romance I’ve ever seen in an anime, especially in regards to CC and Lelouch. To be clear, their relationship isn’t limited to romance. The romance is so implicit that one could interpret CC and Lelouch as being no more than accomplices. But this implicit and sometimes even poetic (that scene is the cave) nature makes it even more impactful. If you get invested in those characters, Code Geass has some of the most brutal, the most heartbreaking, but also the most touching and emotional scenes in anime history.

5) A FLAWED MASTERPIECE

It’s true that Code Geass also has its fair share of flaws. The mechs tend to look more and more like toys as they get stronger, especially Suzaku’s Lancelot. Lelouch is presented as a genius, yet he commits fatal mistakes quite often, as he regularly uses his Geass without removing its traces after. Most of his mistakes are caused by his feelings though. But perhaps the most unnerving flaw was the “goofy” high-school episodes. There are about 3 of them in season 1. They are bad in the sense that they kill the rhythm and include very badly managed tone changes. The worst is that you can’t even skip them : they are not filler episodes ! Indeed, new pieces of information or elements that are necessary to push the plot forward are included in them. One could also complain about the fan-service, which, even if it’s restricted to one character, can get annoying. And then there’s Pizza Hut. Yes, Pizza Hut. There’s product placement for Pizza Hut in like half of the episodes. Apparently those who made the anime thought it would be funny as a running gag…

However, overall, the qualities of Code Geass far outweighs its flaws. If you can overlook its flaws, this anime is a rollercoaster of emotions from start to finish. It’s definitely a must-try for every anime enjoyer. It can even serve as an entry point into anime, or at least, that’s how it worked for me.