Review of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

I’ve seen some beautiful art, some breathtaking innovation and some brilliant narratives in anime, but I can’t lie: this is the most profoundly interesting series I’ve seen to date. The best cut of this rare beast? It does it with grace and aplomb. Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion tells the story of a disaffected Prince and Princess to the Holy Brittanian Empire, which by way of its Knightmare Frame robots has conquered some third of the modern world. When the young Lelouch voices his anger over the apparent murder of his mother, he and his sister are discarded and their deaths imagined in soon-invaded Japan.A teenage Prince under pseudonym is left brooding and without purpose…until he stumbles upon a power at once revolutionary and ruinous.

Decent setting: check. Interesting story: check. But there’s no great lack of any of this in modern anime; we’re talking about the Japanese here. Crazy shit to anime is as windows are to houses. Now the fancy stuff, a bit of air conditioning…that’s pace. With budget limits and gargantuan manga to adapt, it’s only too common that the anime should deviate or have to be scaled back, cut off, edited. This too often ruins what would otherwise have been a great series, often in the form of filler, and most usually in the form of the trademarked terrible ending. This is by no means clear cut, but I think Sunrise nailed both here. There are a couple of episodes in the middle of each series where the story ambles along with character development, but it soon picks up, and I never felt like they were buying time – however slow the progression of the plot was, everything seemed relevant and contributory. There are quite a lot of detail to pick up, and I found myself skipping back to a fair few subs, but it’s no onslaught. Much of the brilliance of the story is in the casual details; it’s no murder mystery, but it is very well written, and everything comes together in a really good way.

In trying to be innovative beyond simple creativity, a lot of studios have also taken extreme drama and shock tactics into habit, with deaths not exactly fatuous, but secondary to the progression of the story, a steam-rolling catalyst for the anger of the protagonist. Code Geass is better than that. There’s plenty of tragedy and there are plenty of shocks, but they really are integral to the story, and their effects are eroded and balanced in the character psyches as other events and revelations take hold. This is a great thing about the story: the attitude and aims of the main character never really change, but just about everyone else’s do, and the development of contact and contrasts between the two ‘groups’ are wonderful to behold. If I had a problem with the story, it would be that the world affairs, Empire aspect is largely sidelined in the second series, and in the bouts of action and plot twists descends largely into farce behind the hero’s apparent ego…but it is a minor quibble. The change of focus to the character ultimately gives the ending the clout it needs; I’d just have liked, for the sake of a rounded drama, more of the worldly perspectives of the first season in ‘R2′.

The characters of Code Geass are arguably its pièce de résistance. ‘Deep and complex’ is a horrible, throwaway phrase which this series doesn’t deserve, and which doesn’t adequately describe any one person. Sure, there are clichéd archetypes in the school President, the goofy friend, even the unnaturally clever and forward-thinking Lelouch. Sure, there are a lot of series’ with slightly broken, conflicted protagonists whose aims and intentions are ultimately good, and sure, it’s nothing new to throw some dramatic irony in there for drama. But it’s just done so well. Loyalties change constantly, people and feelings are sacrificed, and perhaps most importantly, I can’t think of anyone who’s really cemented as a douche-bag. The story and character relationships develop in such a way that you can see everyone’s reasons for the way that they think, and the things that they do (sometimes catastrophically), even if you and our hero disagree with or rue them. Like I say, there is very little in this series that seems fatuous, or meaningless. It isn’t super detailed and true-to-life, capturing personalities and moments in film the way that Miyazaki does, for instance. What it is is brilliantly structured, good looking, action-packed and emotional, like a good TV drama should be. And they are rare enough gems in the big-money world of TV, even in the bigger-money (if more compressed) world of cinema. Code Geass is a feast for brain and eyes – odd at times, fast at times, slow at times, clichéd at times…but entirely enthralling.

I wrote a while back about Elfen Lied, and how I thought – minus the ‘Japanese-ness’ – it could (and deserved to) garner some proper, cult appeal. This runs through much the same vein, with a mainstream edge; Code Geass is proper telly in every sense bar the most important one: it’s Japanese. For the unenlightened masses, an opportunity lost. For you, wholesome and brilliantly executed entertainment. Revel in it.