Lelouch is rlyrly dead, srsly.

K, look, it’s the post season, and all of the creative staff is basically saying “Lelouch is dead” in the magazine interviews and booklets and on the Geass NET webpage. Taniguchi’s “decide for yourself” comment was about whether Lelouch got a happy end or not.

Lelouch is dead, hurf durf.

Final Rating: Schneizel/10

Speaking critically, Code Geass was an utter failure with many highs/lows that didn’t know how or where to pace itself. It had too many genres it was dipping into and turned into a cesspool. It abused bathos and irony to the point where the series was drowning in them and I thought at times that the writer had no other trick up their sleeve. It had an extremely cowardly written open ending with unresolved plot threads dangling at every turn. 3/10.

But even though I thought Code Geass was horrible in many ways, I could never take my eyes off of it. Thus, it was a trainwreck. But it wasn’t just a trainwreck, it was a fucking fabulous one.

I’ve been watching Geass for reasons like entertainment and Schneizel, not because I want to be a critic. Like Timbo said earlier on IRC, “Who fucking cares about the critical? This is entertainment.” Wise words, ’cause this has been extremely fucking entertaining. I laughed, I raged, I got trolled, I rambled, I spent ~9hrs of my life every Saturday night to Sunday morning on it for the past half a year. It’s been fun. Well played, Code Geass. Well fucking played. 8/10.

The character who I cared the most about got a good end, as he now finally has a purpose (although it was forced on him, but hey). At first I just liked him for reasons like “He’s cute :D” and later during R2, “Omg he has a pet uke”, but I’ve come to understand and actually like him. I’m pretty satisfied. Schneizel/10.

About the alternate R2 ideas

The booklet for R2 Vol. 1 has some alternate ideas that the staff wanted to use for R2. People seem to be confusing them with the intent of Taniguchi’s Roman Album interview. The Roman Album interview asks you to re-watch R2 01 from the PoV of different characters. This means that R2 was like it was, and the alternate ideas had already been thrown out, then the timeslot changed happened, so they re-wrote R2 01. In the Geass e-newsletters, Kawaguchi has talked about throwing out versions of R2 01. Etc.

The part about R2 01 didn’t really click with me until Mandoric translated the actual interview for me, hence my thoughts from when I posted what Tamaki’s Girlfriend wrote about the interview. Also I’m not very big on damage control. OH WELL LOL.

Your ideal R2 ending?

TWO EPISODES LEFT. Call your ideal ending. Not “theory”, but “how would you have it go”. I don’t really want to ask any of you that, I just felt like posting a symbolic ideal ending I thought of, but figured I would be polite and make it look like I’m being interactive by asking you to share your own. Aren’t I so kind?

This is my ideal ending for R2: The destruction of the present, with no place to go to but the future. It kind of builds off of other things I’ve rambled about before. I have come to believe that time in Geass as a theme is embodied by the concepts of the past, present, and future. These time periods are symbolized through characters, being Charles, Schneizel and Lelouch respectively. Charles is gone, and not just gone, but he was absorbed into the World of C. Keep in mind that I think the World of C is basically the embodiment of human history, what has happened, and thus, the past.

The present needs to be destroyed. Damocles’s orbital “fuck everyone” mission should succeed, which would effectively kill the current world/the present. Schneizel should also preferably kill himself, since he’s the representation of the present, so the present will die in two ways. (This heavily assumes that the “BECOME GOD” thing is bullshit.) This pretty much leaves Lelouch to the future. He’ll have a hurt world, probably now turned into more of a blank slate, to shape into a new world. But everything will be bright, no? I believe I would find an ending like that good, though it’d depend on the execution~ But critically, it would be a cop out of sorts. It’d resolve the issues of the present (sort of - more like blow up the issues of the present, but uh), then leave the future symbolicallllllly open, as it has to be written.

symbolismSYMBOLISMsymbolismSYMBOLISMsymbolismSYMBOLISM~

Edit: Oh, and for extra idealism, the opening should be skipped on episode 25, and the full version of WORLD END should be played near the end. When it starts playing, Lelouch should be looking at the ruined world, his hair blowing in the wind, and the sun rising! :D (Koshimizu said that WORLD END was originally titled DAYBREAK!) Then there’ll be an image montage of enemies uniting in the depressed world trying to make the best of the shitty situation. Everything is crying until it becomes bright. ^O^

Spoiler: I don’t actually like Schneizel

Mike expressed his desire in IRC tonight to be like an “anti-koda”, and frequently misspelled chimed in that in order to be “anti-koda”, you must be “anti-schneizel”, which caused Mike to then fear for his life should he ever bash Schneizel and he went on about how I would attack him with a knife. But Mike, don’t sweat it, ’cause I don’t really like Schneizel. Read more »

The Dictionary of Charles

I suspect people will have varied interpretations on what each individual piece of the puzzle does. This is my take. Read more »

SunRise, you are a wonderful troll

SunRise, you are a wonderful troll.

I want to know how to become a troll that is as powerful as you.

Even TheFluff, who trolls the waters of AnimeSuki, believes that he is not up to par in trolling with SunRise.

How do I learn, SunRise? How? Please tell me.

Please.

Correction to the Roman Album interview

It has been discovered that the 2ch write up of the interview which Mandoric translated from had a typo. Religion is not religion, but rather production. Both religious beliefs and production are shinkou - different kanji, same pronunciation. (Likely the 2ch anon input shinkou via waapuro then used the wrong kanji)

Anyway, hopefully this clears up any confusion about that line from the interview.

Lesson learned = Don’t bother w/o scans.

(You know, I never learned exactly what this sign the piggie is holding says during my time on Perfect World, but he looks apologetic.)

Taniguchi Interview from the Roman Album

Edit: It has been discovered that the 2ch write up of the interview which Mandoric translated from had a typo. Religion is not religion, but rather production. Both religious beliefs and production are shinkou - different kanji, same pronunciation. (Likely the 2ch anon input shinkou via waapuro then used the wrong kanji)

I found something that looked like the Roman Album Taniguchi interview from 2ch yesterday. Mandoric checked it against what Tamaki’s Girlfriend had written before, and translated by my request. I assume this is just part of it? Not sure without scans of the Album itself. Read more »

Changing the time = Changing the show

Mandoric wrote commentary as a followup to how Geass went NOT AS PLANNED about changing a show when moving the timeslot. This was done by my request after seeing some of the responses to interview write-up asking why a show would need to change when moving to a new timeslot. Mandoric is an industrynerdfag who ran a panel at Otakon called Anime is Serious Business. If you’ve visited ADTRW, you might’ve read something written by him before. Read more »

Taniguchi on Geass: “NOT AS PLANNED”

Tamaki’s Girlfriend posted a write-up about part of a Taniguchi interview (Taniguchi is the guy who’s directing Geass) at a board which must not-be-named etc. This is just about part of the interview, not the whole thing. In the part of the article she wrote about, Taniguchi talks about how Code Geass has been a total saga of NOT AS PLANNED for Taniguchi.

She said she didn’t mind if I re-posted what she wrote, so here it is, though she can’t answer any questions about the rest of the interview as she is avoiding spoilerific places like here. Hit the read more for her write-up~ Read more »