I´ve been trying to think about what made Code Geass´s first season better than second. R2 is great, but not as amazing as original.
What made the first season more enjoyable, is that during it Lelouch was building his position as Zero. He started from nothing, but little by little he got an army of loyal followers beside him. It was interesting to see how a small group of terrorists began to fight against a system and how their power and influence on society raised. It was fun to watch how Lelouch struggled to become a hero of Japanese by geassing around and how he desperately tried to hide his double life from others. It was constant emotion ride between his cheerful school-life and evil scheming.
In R2 things are different. Zero has became a symbol of rebellion, so Lelouch doesn´t need to gain people´s trust when he decides to do something. Black Knights is huge organisation with millions of supporters and they all listen Zero. One might say that Code Geass is now on a whole new level because Zero has steady forces. He can give an order and people will do what he says, even when he´s not using Geass. Episodes 10 and 11 proved this. Everyone (-1) listened him when he decided to chase after Kallen, it was Zero´s decision whether Tian Zi and Xing Ke could marry with each other and even Sayoko and Rollo are now in his fanclub. Don´t misunderstand me, I think that this absolute-power-figure stage on Code Geass is nice, but I preferred it when everything wasn´t so easy for Lelouch to achieve. It was funnier to watch when he was just becoming a bigshot, it´s not so interesting to follow him when he finally is one.
I´m complaining lot now, but the truth is, that I have a hunch that Code Geass R2 is starting to become as great as first season. Reason for this is episode 11 and it´s balancing between serious and wacko comedy. It was the best episode of R2 so far. It had evil scheming, but at the same time it was funniest Geass episode ever with it´s marriage crisis and surprise ending.
It amuses me to no end that Lelouch might be evil genius, but he has problems to understand love. Shirley solved a political crisis without even knowing it. It was priceless, when Shirley were talking about having a special someone and that made Lelouch think about Nunnaly, awww~~ for his siscon. Also, his fabulous entrance when he declared that love is everything made me lol. Strange to hear words like that coming out of Zero´s mouth.
Even ending of this episode suggests, that we will be able to enjoy this crazyness in the future too. It was a total cliffhanger with Lulu´s WTF-face, seifuku-Knights and shocked Shirley. I can feel the charm of first season coming back in the form of pressured Lelouch. Things are not so easy as they were in previous episodes. When the Knights are at school, Lelouch will have harder times to hide his double life. Besides that, he also has to deal with Shirley who thinks he kissed her, Suzaku who holds Kallen as a hostage, Order which is Geass-foundation and Anya who is somehow related to him. To give Lelouch more headache, it would be perfect if Nina also suddenly transfers back to school. That would be really uncomfortable for Lulu.
I hope this mess continues and rises R2 to the same level as first season.
Your the first blogger I’ve seen that seems to have realized the key difference between this and the last season in the measure of Lelouch’s influence and power. It keeps building.
Also you’re one of the few people that I’ve seen who has made a note of the fluctuation in the rising and falling levels of progress in the series. Most bloggers try to tell me that it’s all going in one direction, that being down, worse, crappier, whatever, but I’d say you have the balance right. Then again most bloggers I’ve seen covering Geass lack that certain ability you seem to have to be….oh what’s that world again…..Fair? Reasonable? Coherent? Unbiased?
Still these phrases:
“Great, but not as good as the original”, “In R2 things are different” and “I´m complaining lot now, but the truth is, that I have a hunch that Code Geass R2 is starting to become as great as first season. ”
Such balanced and measured argument. Such reason, I rarely see it anymore. No stock quotes or buzz phrases like “poor writing”, no “lol trainwreck”, no lol period. It’s as if you actually thought this critique through, then took what you thought up and applied it to things that are relevant instead of doing what I notice a lot of other bloggers are doing and using stock quotes, memes and incoherent ramblings to talk about the series such that you can’t even tell what they mean.
So good on you. I pretty much agree too that the first and second season have been different, and I missed the whole building the rebellion thing from the first season where you could see Lelouch’s climb to power. Though I enjoyed arcs like the last one as well for seeing his progress on the world stage and a new dynamic introduced in the form of alliance forging. There never really was a need to form an alliance as the Black Knights before because a)there were to small for it to happen and b)Lelouch never trusted anybody enough, even his own people.
Heck he wouldn’t have even allied with Li had he not had the last minute realization in episode 11 that it might be the smart thing to do. Trust much?
By: Kaioshin Sama on June 29, 2008
at 12:43 pm
Kaioshin Sama: Thank you for your words. It´s always nice when someone notices how much work you´ve put to your post and gives excellent feedback. I really mean this. Sometimes I wonder is it really worth thinking about these things so much as I do, because you never know if anyone reads them with thought. Your comment gave me inspiration to continue my way of blogging. Thanks!
Also, your point about the reasons of why there haven´t been any alliances so far is true. Lelouch is pretty skeptical towards everyone but C.C. His desire to keep his identity as Zero a secret, even from people close to him, is one proof of that. If he could have decided, Kallen or Suzaku would have never found out that he´s Zero in the first place and that would have been fine to him.
By: myu on June 29, 2008
at 7:48 pm
[...] heinäkuu 23, 2008 myu Tällä viikolla on luvassa Code Geass videoita, koska R2 on yhtäkkiä jopa muuttunt mielenkiintoiseksi. Näinhän tosin jo aavistelinkin jokin aika sitten. [...]
By: [Viikon Videot] Spinzakun taikaa « Fanityttö hapoissa on July 23, 2008
at 8:03 pm