Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 Part 8 Episodes 23-25

Every single gun on the planet is pointed right at Emperor Lelouch.  Has the former freedom fighter truly gone the road of the tyrant and betrayed everything he once stood for?  Will he really be able to win one final battle between his older brother, Schneizel, and beloved younger sister, Nunally?  What state will the world be in once the final battle has ended and what becomes of the Black Knights and the Legend of Zero?  The Zero Requiem is revealed and so is Lelouch’s greatest wish in the unforgettable series finale of Code Geass.

Applause…nothing but applause.  After a season almost complete full of screw ups, it did it.  It really, really did it.  Code Geass didn’t just manage to come back with a strong final set of episodes, it gave us one of the best damn finales to any Anime EVER!!!!

Under a cloud of ash and Flea rounds, the final battle between Lelouch, his brother Schneizel and his former allies raged on.  This had all of the punch and effectiveness that was missing from the second battle of the Tokyo Settlement.  Even if I didn’t really care about a lot of the cast outside of Lelouch, Suzaku and a few others, you could tell from the grim scenery that everyones card was up.  Todo, Oghi, Tamaki, a bunch of characters ive either enjoyed or thought very little of suddenly seemed in danger.  And that’s the kind of feel you want from any finale, the feeling of three little words: This…is…it.  It also gave everyone a moment to shine in some, small way.  For a show with a cast so large it had a ton of trouble balancing them all, Code Geass allowed every character to have one line or one moment to signal their final shining moments on screen, whether they died or not.  And wow, even Nina got a moment to reconcile with Lelouch…granted she had a lot to atone for so I guess this is as close to giving her a good moment as this show is going to get.  And the action, my God they really were saving the best for last.  The six way battles between Suzaku, Kallen, Gino, C.C., Anya and Jeremiah were some of the most stellar mecha fights this show has ever done.

Of course this was all helped along by Lelouch and Schneizel’s chess game of a battle to kick things off.  Moving their forces around like a chess board before the battle even began was just what I’d expect from these two.  For a long time we’d heard about how intense Schneizel and Lelouch’s chess games were in the past.  Their brief encounter earlier had nothing on this with the stakes raised high.  Schneizel stepped up big time and became what I always hoped he would.  Finally showing his true colors, all he wanted was to rule via fear.  He didn’t care about cost just as much as Lelouch.  It was hard to know who to root for sometimes, since I love Lelouch and Schneizel.  But Lelouch didn’t shoot Cornelia and leave her for dead, so my vote stuck with him.

It was pretty shocking to see Nunally open her eyes and defy her brother as long as she could.  Making her the final boss, more or less alongside Schneizel, made me wonder if Lelouch could really pull this off, whatever the heck it was.  Would he be able to really stand up to Nunally, to sink that low to achieve his goal?  The answer is yes and it’s easily one of the most despicable acts of Lelouch’s time on screen.  Not only did he Geass his sister into giving him control of the Damocles super weapon, but he refused to help her when she fell from her chair trying to chase him down and stop him.  If you never hated Lelouch until now, this was one scene you couldn’t forgive him for.

This was Code Geass again, with the twists, turns, excitement and overall great quality ive missed…and now it was time to bring it to a close.

And what a close it was.  A wise man once said, “As a man of flesh and blood, I can be ignored I can be destroyed.  But as a symbol…as a symbol I can be incorruptible, I can be everlasting.”  It felt only right that Zero would be the one to bring Lelouch’s reign of terror to a close.  But who would’ve guessed that it was all part of the plan?  The truth of the Zero Requiem was revealed: Lelouch conquers the world, makes everyone hate him, then has Suzaku becomes Zero to kill him and unite the world.  WOW.  That is the right amount of genius Id expect from my man Lelouch.  Such a bold sacrifice, to not be able to see the world he secured and made for Nunally after all he’d been through.  You have to wonder if he planned this from the start or did so after he killed his dad.  Probably after he killed his dad since he was able to get Suzaku to agree to it.  And you felt this one, as bad as the sword piercing Lelouch.  You heard every silent scream, felt every tear shed by Kallen, Suzaku and Nunally.  Really, you couldn’t have asked for a more perfect ending than this scene.  Cap it all off with a fun little montage of peace in full effect and you can write this series off as done and well done.

And that was the end of Code Geass.  Was Season 2 as good as Season 1? Frak no.  Until the last act of the series, Season 2 was a pale imitator (in so many ways) of it’s predecessor.  It’s almost as if it tried to retell Season One in it’s own way and failed to recapture the magic or take things in logical and exciting directions.  There were too many familiar beats, even more additions to an overly crowded cast (some way overstayed their welcome) and it just felt lazy and cringe worthy at times.  It wasn’t until we sadly got to the death of Shirley that things picked up.  And even then, it wasn’t until Lelouch was ousted from the Black Knights that the series found its way back to its amazing roots and managed to finish so strongly, despite the odds stacked against it.  Still, overall this was a huge disappointment after such a strong start.  That finale though, it saved it big time.  Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 gets a…

6/10

And for my final thoughts on Code Geass?  If you could have cut out a good 3/4 of Season Two and just made it a shortened sequel season, this series could have been damn near prefect.  Some of the characters were annoying and the politics are always hard for me to follow.  But a very charismatic and entertaining lead character, a strong host of kick ass female characters (Cornelia is my Geass Waifu), some fun mecha designs and the best storytelling twists ive seen in a while, Code Geass has the makings of a classic despite it’s flaws…and there are a lot of them (mostly in Season 2 like Rolo).  The story of Zero will remain a legend and a fun series in my books for a long time to come…rants and ravings at times aside.  Once it grabs you, it never lets go, just like the purple eyed gaze of Lelouch vi Britannia.  And he commands me to give this series a final score.  Overall, im going to give it a very strong (if only slightly just earned)

7/10
Whew, what a summer endeavor that was.  Off to Otakon tomorrow, so expect an Otakon themed T5W next week but no new reviews until after next week (need a liiiiiitle bit of a break).  But check back in a couple of weeks when I dive into my next series, my biggest change of pace since Miyazaki Month.  Love Hina starts in two weeks, see ya then.

No comments:

Post a Comment