Not quite "yet another robot anime", Code Geass is a pretty cool anime series that's going to be making its way to adult swim at the end of the month, and the sequel series is starting up in Japan later this week, as well. I haven't seen all of the first season (because of torrent and computer troubles), but for the parts I've seen, this series is pretty interesting. Actually, it's somewhat similar to Death Note (which I need to catch back up on, as I've missed a few recent episodes there) in how the lead character is increadibly smart, and gains a power to help him to his goal (while not nessessarily looking/acting like a "hero character" because of this power).

Anyways here's a short summary, taken from Wikipedia:

The Main Players:


Lelouch Lamperouge - the lead character of the series, and the leader of one of the main groups trying to rebel against Britannia. He formerly was a prince of Britannia, but basically turned his back on all of that after the attack on he, his sister, and his mother (that left his mother dead and sister disabled) and the lack of action about it taken by his father, the King of Britannia. Eventually, he ended up involved in the middle of a conflict between Britannia's military and Japanese rebels. During this, he met an old friend (Suzaku) and C.C., who gave him the power of Geass (in Lelouch's case, this power is "the power of absolute obediance"). Gaining this power kick-starts Lelouch's own idea to rebel against Britannia, under the masked alias of "Zero", and such goes the series.


C.C. - Also reffered to as C2 (though neither is her true name, which is still unknown to viewers), C.C. is the origin of Lelouch's gaining the power of Geass. She is much much older than she appears, and due to her unique powers, is pretty much immortal (as is shown in the first episode, when she is shot in the head).

She is also known for her love of Pizza Hut pizza (it'll be interesting to see if the US-localized version of this show will edit out the logo or change it), and is seen many times through the series eating it, ordering it, or sitting next to an empty box of it.


Suzaku Kururugi - An old friend of Lelouch's, they met for the first time in a while during the incident to Lelouch meeting CC. He also dislikes how Britannia is run, yet also happens to be a member of Britannia's military, unknowingly pitting each other against each other throughout a good portion of the series. He is the pilot of the Lancelot mech, which is one of the most advanced of the Knightmare Frames (the name of the mechs in this series).


Kallen Stadtfield - Kallen is one of the top pilots of all the rebels, and lives a double life, acting as a frail quiet student in the same academy Lelouch and Suzaku go to, but as a strong and very active resistance-fighter when not in or around school.

I've heard of this... and it looks interesting. Thanks for posting the info, I'll be sure to check it out!

Also, I have a link to the first 25 episodes, if you'd like.

Thank you! That'll make it easier for me to finish up the first season before (or really, without delaying my viewing of the second season by much, considering the second season started today in Japan)!

First episode of the English dub airs tonight on adult swim, at 1:30am EST. Do watch, 'cause this series is quite good!

Do watch I shall... watch... do... ya...

"Like Death Note?" I'll check it out, when I get back! :D

Well, I've only seen the first episode so far, but the series itself doesn't feel anything like Death Note to me. That's just my opinion. However, the main character DOES remind me of Light Yagami at the end of that episode when he gains his special powers.

The comparison will possibly make more sense and become more apparent the farther you get into the series. R2 is also seeming to kinda have more of that Death Note feel to it, as well (though episode 1 of R2 is almost exactly like a carbon copy of season one's first episode, as well :LOL: ). The first episodes of both seasons are not really all that much like the rest of the episodes.

I do not care about double posting, because the latest R2 episode has just blown me away (like almost every R2 episode so far, actually).

You better (though do give it a few episodes, for it to get in stride). And seriously, for anyone else reading this post, you really should watch this series (and even though I pretty much spoiled myself on season 1 and still really liked it, try to stay away from spoilers and wikipedia for this series; 'cause it'll be worth it).

Hey... I actually did check it out, yesterday!

Well, okay... just the manga. And I've only read about a chapter...

I've been trying to go to bed earlier, but I'm staying up late tonight to see if a certain flight will land soon... so what time is the show on?

DP, before I invest myself in this series... I wouldn't mind some reassurance on a couple points. ^^;

1. I saw the word 'mech' up there. Is this about giant robot fights? Honestly.

2. Is this about Giant Robot fights, where they all fight until this new guy comes with OMG this awesome new power and then later this newer guy comes with OMFG this awesomer new power ad infinitum?

3. Regarding that description of Kallen... she sounds like either (a) Batman or (2) Hanna Montana. I somewhat abhor the latter for its substitution of adolescent fantasy instead of actual plot, so that set off some alarm bells. I guess this isn't a question.

As evidenced by how I've only jumped into like five to seven manganimes, and only really loved two of them, I am somewhat of a discerning customer when it comes to manganime, and more importantly, to free time usage. ^^; The number of manga issues isn't prohibitive to me, so this might be good time to jump in, but what I really want to know is: Is this a masterpiece like Death Note and FMA, or is it something else?

Maybe my standards are set too high, but... I will read some more of it tonight...!

As far as I know, the manga is almost a completely different thing than the anime, which is what I'm talking about. I don't know much of anything about any of the Code Geass manga series, other than that one is about if Nunnaly (Lelouch's sister) recieved the power of Geass instead of Lelouch. This was created as an anime first, and I 'think' all three manga series are supposed to just be supplimental stuff that either is alternate-universe, dream-world, or minor-backstory-ish.

I've been talking about the anime, as that's what I know about.

Anyway, on to your other points:

1.) Kinda. It's more about Lelouch trying to essentially overthrow the Britannian Empire in at least Japan/Area 11, and how he deals with things that occur due to his actions, and what-have-you (think kinda like Death Note here). The robots are secondary (or third-dary?), really, and aren't all too important. Every episode isn't ending with "This hand of mine glows with an awesome POWERRRR! It's burning grip tells me to defeat you! Take this, my love, my anger, and all of my SORROW! SHIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNIIIIINNNNNNGG FIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!!! Go! Go! Go!!!!!!" and baddie goes boom, that's for sure.

2.) Kinda again, but not really. Pretty much only 2 counts I can recall (including the R2 season), and they really don't seem all that important to everything and annoying like what you're talking about. I wouldn't say it really follows the process you are unhappy with, there.

3.) :LOL: My description there is kinda horrible. XD

Anyways... I believe your liking of Death Note (and/or some other stuff) is because you like seeing how one deals with inner conflict and such and how it affects who they are? If so (or similar), you will like this series, irregardless of how it's using geass-powers and robots instead of notebooks and shinigami.

...

English-dubbed Code Geass airs on adult swim every saturday (technically sunday morning) at 1am EST (unless adult swim suddenly changes schedules again), and the next episode will be the 5th episode. Season 2 (Code Geass R2) is currently airing in Japan right now every sunday, and subbed episodes are getting released through torrents every sunday afternoon/evening (the most recent R2 episode is the 7th one, which I just watched earlier tonight).

Ohh, anime-first, huh? That explains why the show is so far but the manga is so short.

XD! That video was hilarious, and exactly what I meant. That's good to know.

Yep! I do like seeing philosophical/psychological conflicts involving characters, societies and ideals rather than, well, SHINING FINGERs. I think one of the things that sounded alarm bells for me was how their costumes reminded me of Gundam-y costumes. So it's encouraging to hear what you just said! I will check this out!

I'm willfully ignorant of what a torrent is, and I don't have a limewire-type program. Is it blacklisted from youtube/veoh? Can I watch anything that's come out already?

Thanks, DP! ^_^

The link GS (carefully :LOL: ) posted above has the first season (and a page for R2 is also on that site, as well), if you don't want to watch the dub (most of what's at that site is through imeem.com, if you don't want to deal with that site GS linked). R2 should be easily findable at veoh, at least, for the time being, since it's being released now (as opposed to being released a year and a half ago when the first season was). And for R2 (and the first 10 or so episodes of season 1; though I don't know what player for a Mac can play .mkv files efficiently), I could put them on megaupload.com/similar if you want downloads of them, as I have all of those episodes.

And do remember that this series does take a little while to really get going (which is probably one of the biggest flaws of the first season, even though what happens is quite important to set everything up that happens later).

EDIT: Oh, and gundam-like costumes? Designs of everyone in this series are by CLAMP, and because this was a Sunrise series (the same animation studio that does Gundam), they wanted to make him have a cool unique mask 'so it can truely be a Sunrise series'. So yeah, they're probably partially inspired by Gundam stuff for their design-work (I don't really know, though, since I don't like Gundam :LOL: ).

Double-post for great justice!

Anyway... for the zero of you paying attention to this series on adult swim, business is about to really pick up, in upcoming episodes (of course, some of the stuff would be more dramatic if you followed the series prior to these upcoming episodes, but whatever)

What is R2? Is that the second season?

Yes, Code Geass R2 is the second season. And personally, I believe this season is much better than the first season (probably because the first season took too long to set the stage). Watching the first season, it took until pretty much where the english dub is now in it's adult swim airings to start to get really interested in everything.

This second season (aside from a few slow points) really has been firing on all cylinders since pretty much episode 2 (the first R2 episode almost seemed like a clone of the first season one episode, with just a little bit of introduction into what had happened in the gap between season 1 and 2). It's already had a lot of action, a lot of pwn-ing strategy-work, a lot of dramatic points (especially in the form of cliffhanger endings to episodes; most every episode has ended with a cliffhanger or a just-overall-powerful moment), a lot of humor (courtesy of just about any activity Milly/Millay sets up), a lot of "I want to kill that f****** Rolo", and a lot of "why'd that have to happen to that character :cry: ".

Jeez it's tough to type while worrying about revealing spoilers. And spoilers for this series really hurt the experience a bit (I probably would have been overwhelmed by how season one finished up, had I not already read about everything that happened on wikipedia).

But at least at this point, I can say that I'm not really a big fan of Suzaku. And I definitely want to see Rolo dead.

I haven't been able to catch every episode of Code Geass, unfortunately, but nevertheless this is a good thing to know. Prior to you stating that, I was under the assumption that R2 stood for "Region 2". So I thought you were just talking about the Japanese DVDs or something. :heh:

Anywho, although I haven't caught every episode of this series so far, I would like to make a statement regarding it. From what little bit I've seen of this show, it seems like a good show, but I really don't think a comparison to Death Note is entirely accurate. While I can see where you might draw a parallel to Death Note, that's really only in the power (and, to an extent, the motives) that Lelouch has (it's more that the main characters have some similarities, but I still find the two shows to feel quite different from one another). Also, I think Lelouch is a much more sympathetic character. Unlike Light, he seems to actually care about his little sister (Light, if you'll recall, used his family members as pawns and even considered killing his sister during the hostage situation). Also, the overall tone and/or feeling of the series seems more akin, if you ask me, to s.CRY.ed. This is just my two cents, though.



I've been paying a little bit of attention to this show, DP. I'm truly sorry that the interest in this series doesn't seem very abundant around here. If it's any consolation, I find Millay to be quite an interesting character. Is she supposed to be British, btw? I know that there seems to be quite a big division in the series between Britain (or Britannia, as they seem to use the old style name for it) and Japan.

Any Death Note comparisons become more apparent later on (as in after the initial 10 or so episodes). Though yes, this series is different than Death Note, because it feels like (at least to be) it brings more variation to the table. DN, for the parts I've seen (which is pretty much up to episode 21 or 22, I believe) seemed mostly to be, at it's heart, a psychological battle between two characters throughout, and that was about it. CG seems to have much more variation in the main conflict between characters (it's not just one character vs. one character all the time). Plus, at least to me, most of the characters are more likeable.

...

And now, away from comparing between series where the people doing the comparing haven't completely seen one of the series being compared (me having not seen past episode 21 of DN, and you, I guess, only having seen some of the dub on adult swim). :heh:

Code Geass really doesn't seem like s-CRY-ed (which is much much more action-based, and is basically just Kazuma vs. Ryuhou in a physical battle). The only real true similarities I can think of is that a few insert songs seem similar to the s-CRY-ed style, and that the differences in ways-of-thinking/ideals of Lelouch and Suzaku can be thought of as similar to the differences in ways-of-thinking/ideals of Kazuma and Ryuhou. :heh:

...

I'm just frustrated because I know this series is really really good, yet is seemingly being ignored, while another series I essentially introduced here, Bleach, is not at near same level of overall quality, but was pretty much instantly a hit with everyone here. And I believe Code Geass has what it takes to be thought of as a very good watch by most everyone here. Plus, through most of everything that I've seen, this series is thought of by a great deal of people as one of the best anime programs that have come out recently (especially in comparison to most series' that I usually become interested in, and/or have watched at least part of).

:heh:

...

Oh yeah. Every student at the Ashford Academy, besides Suzaku (who's an "Honorary Britannian", but is actually the son of the guy who was the main leader of Japan just prior to when Britannia took control of Japan and made it Area 11) and Kallen (half-Japanese and half-Britannian), is a full Britannian.

If it makes you feel any better, while I haven't gotten into Code Geass, I haven't gotten into anything else in the meantime. ^^; I'm one of the people who would be interested in this, but I haven't really had the time; and I prefer manga vastly to anime anyway.

Can I just skip to R2? :heh: If that's when things get interesting, is it okay to read up on season 1 and start watching at season 2? Or will I miss too much?

Hmm... Skipping the first season probably wouldn't be horrible, but it would mean missing out on the development of the characters, as well as the generating of feelings about different characters (example: a recent R2 event would not have as much effect on someone who hadn't experienced the middle part of the first season; though it'd still likely, I think, have a big impact?; and maybe one wouldn't understand Suzaku's grumpiness in R2 as much, either?).

I don't know. A lot happened in the first season (especially the closer they got to the end), but skipping ahead to the second season might be doable, because it isn't like stepping into R2 is like randomly stepping into the middle of a series of something. R2 is truely a seperate season from the first season. I dunno... I think myself, I could have (and wanted to, and almost did) started watching R2 with having only read up on the end of the first season (since I hadn't seen the last 10 or so episodes before R2 originally started, but already knew the story from Wikipedia), so yeah, maybe that'd work for you as well? I dunno...

Though if you want to do that, I wouldn't recommend starting right where R2 currently is in Japan (which is going to be episode 15 next Sunday), and I would recommend finding some review blog or something to get season one info, because wikipedia will definitely spoil you on R2.

:/

The first 7 chapters of this are on OneManga, and I'm only 20-something pages into the first one. :heh:

But it's pretty interesting so far! I'd already be a Lelouch fangirl is he hadn't ridden a side-car in the first chapter. O:< WTH, man? A side-car? Really?

The art in the manga is really impressive, which mean I'm going to continue to read it. :LOL: Also: whatever horrible dictatorship Brintannia is, their schools have the coolest uniforms. =0

Hmmm... well, I've been catching this show on and off again. I'm not watching every single episode, I'll admit, but I have been kinda following the story. Tonight's episode was a lot better than any of the one's I've seen before. :w00t:

Not that the other's I've seen were bad or anything, that's not what I mean! What I mean is... wow, tonight's episode kinda had me on the edge of my seat. And considering I've only been slightly following this series, I think that's saying something! :heh:

Lelouch and Shirley make a nice couple. Though I'm left wondering if Lelouch really does care about her or not. It kinda seems like he does, but I don't know enough about the characters to know for sure. :heh:

Well, Code Geass is currently in about the worst timeslot for any show that is broadcasting new episodes anywhere (5am EST), but adult swim is now heading into the R2 season this Saturday night/Sunday morning, and there is an extra hour for people to work with, this Saturday night/Sunday morning... So if you're around to watch it, you should. The first season was really good, but the second season just blows the first one out of the water.

(though actually, the first two R2 episodes almost seem like copies of the first two episodes of the first season, as they were made to kinda get viewers back into the flow of the Code Geass world and events)

Double Post for GREAT JUSTICE!

Why?



Well, not that. Actually, I just found out that Code Geass R2's airing time has been switched now (starting tonight) to the 2am block. Still not that great of a time, but it's so much better than 5am it isn't funny (plus, for west-coasters with east-coast sattelite packages, that airing is only 11pm).

So watch it if you can! It is good! Very good! Seriously!

I saw the second half of tonight's episode and kinda confused it for the first episode up until Lelouche got his memories back. Heh, you're right in saying that it's very similar to the first episode! XD

I, too, know how the whole thing ends, and I don't even watch Geass XD
Yeh, this spoiler thing is getting out of control. But hey, it sounds like a good anime :p

Indeed. It pretty much was an episode to kinda reintroduce the main players to everyone (since R2 in Japan came out about 8 months after the hour-special that was the finale of season one, and probably about a year or more after the end of season 1's main run), as well as introduce Shinji Ikari Rolo, and basically retell what had happened at the end of season 1. (interestingly enough, I just noticed a subtle hint when I watched this last time, about Rolo that I hadn't noticed the first time I watched the first R2 episode)