Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion II-Transgression

The Revolution has Begun.  Zero and his Black Knights have gained several victories against Britannia, earning allies and the support of an oppressed people.  But every revolution bears within it, the seeds of its own destruction.  And with each new victory, Lelouch himself falls into a deeper hole of madness and insatiable desire to see the people who wronged him and his sister crushed.  As his army faces its greatest challenge, Lelouch faces Suzaku with the fate of a nation and his family on the line.  The end of this battle will change everything forever.

Transgression, the middle chapter of the Code Geass Compilation Trilogy, was always going to be the most difficult part of this project for that very reason: it’s the middle chapter of a Trilogy that should have been four films instead.  Transgression closes out the back half of Season One while transitioning a little awkwardly into Season Two and the results are as I said: each season should have been two movies each. 

The strongest material of Transgression is in the first half of the movie, aka the rest of Season One.  By this point, things had ramped up to a fever pitch.  And after Lelouch accidentally (?) made Euphie massacare the Japanese in the Specially Administrative Zone, it was on.  Transgression, like its predecessor, preserves much of the goodness and the feels of that vast amount of gut punching but you might not feel the full effect because we barely spent any time with Euphie in these movies.  This is especially true for her tragic final moments with Suzaku.  Because we spent so much time with them together in the TV Series, it was heartbreaking to see Euphie say goodbye to the boy she fell in love with.  But between Initiation and Transgression, they’d only spent a tiny handful of on screen time together.  A lot, and I mean A LOT, of stuff happens off screen in these movies but an important relationship like Euphie and Suzaku shouldntve been one of those things. 

When I reviewed Code Geass here on the Anime Corner (almost four years ago this month actually), I praised the Season One ender as being one of the greatest cliffhangers ever made, on par with that of The Best of Both Worlds Part 1 from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Transgression reaches that epic moment and, in one of the few alterations I’m ok with (but just ok), we see what happens after that fateful gunshot and the ultimate fate of Lelouch that leads into Season Two.  Though it’s at this point I began counting how many points I would have actually ended Trangression around that point.  Should it have been when Charles wiped Lelouch’s memories away, with Lelouch powerless to stop him?  Or should it have been after the two minute transition of a year to when Lelouch reappears as Zero and declares his desire to continue his fight?  You know it’s kind of a bad sign when the movie is half over and you’re looking for spots where it can end already.  That said, it was nice to get even a short look at the events taking place in the year between Season One and Season Two, while at the same time transitioning the stories point of view from Lelouch to Suzaku, which does culminate in an equally effective final scene for the movie (mirroring Lelouch’s from Initiation).

Once we get to the Season Two half of things is where everything kind of goes off the rails.  Honestly, it feels like most of the Season Two coverage is a series of bullet points just to get us to Lelouch’s big showdown with his father.  I wish I could say for certain if I’m ok with this or not.  Most of Code Geass R2 was not great, in fact the very beginning was almost a beat for beat retread of the start of Season One.  Then you had Rolo’s annoying presence and the excruciating Chinese Federation Arc amongst other things.  Rolo’s role in the story has been tremendously scaled back (as if in response to fan hate) and the Chinese Federation events don’t take place on screen at all.  Also, as I said, we move things from Lelouch’s POV to Suzaku’s, so most of what we hear is coming to him from second hand sources like news broadcasts and soldier gossip.  There had to have been a way to both rework what didn’t make Code Geass R2 work and also make Suzaku’s journey just a little more interesting to watch as the world changed.  Otherwise, we’re just bouncing all over the place trying to cram in a ton of big, world altering events before the end of the movie (and yet we still had time for the freaking pizza debacle during the Season One coverage…makes no sense).

I should also note the abundant lack of Shirley in these movies.  Her entire storyline has been changed across both of these movies and yet she is playing such a small role compared to the TV Series.  Part of me imagines if this is something that will be greater explored if she shows up in Lelouch of the Resurrection.  But even if that’s the case, we’ve hardly seen Shirley and Lelouch together so it’s hard to see why the two of them would have any hint of a mutual romantic connection.  I also think that her not dying kind of robs Lelouch of his added desire to change the world and kill Rolo.  But since Rolo’s role is equally squashed, I fear Shirley’s role in this new Code Geass retelling doesn’t matter at all and that’s a shame.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion II-Transgression doesn’t succeed quite as well as the first movie in the Compilation Trilogy because after the Season One events are done, it’s a rush game and a bad one at that. So much is glossed over that by the time we get to the finale, your head might be scratching, especially if this trilogy is your intro to Code Geass itself.  Despite some changes I do approve of, this middle chapter feels like the stumble it was always going to be moving from one half of the story to the next.  I do have high hopes for Lelouch of the Resurrection.  But will it be worth this less than properly reconstructed series of events just to ensure it can actually happen?  If so, man, Part 3 will have to pull off a serious Hail Mary.  Seriously…why wasn’t this a four film project?  It’s Code Geass so it could have been done.

5/10

Well there’s only one more movie left before we finally get to Lelouch of the Resurrection.  Good luck, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion III-Glorification…youre gonna need it.