{Lighty Lively}

Code Geass - Lelouch of the Rebellion Stage 1: The Day when the Devil was Born

October 8, 2006 on 6:17 am | In Anime Review, Code Geass - Lelouch of the Rebellion |

Lelouch and Suzaku climb up a slope in time to hear odd droning from the cicadas. The sound isn’t just from the insects but from the invasion of the Holy Britannia Empire upon Japan, on August 10th, 2010. The Japanese army is unable to defend itself from Britannia’s advanced technology, which includes the automatic battle machines, Knightmare Frames. Japan loses the war and in turn, loses its rights, freedom, and name. Britannia renames Japan to Area 11. In the aftermath of the war, a young Lelouch vows to destroy Britannia.

Opening Sequence
Theme: COLORS
Vocals: FLOW

The opening theme was pretty good; I think I’ll get the song and translate the lyrics later.
There’s something interesting about the last frames of the OP, and that is the Black King of chess has fallen on the checkboard. In Code Geass, the Black King represents Lelouch, so is this hinting at his possible downfall by the end of the series?
On a related note, the White Knight represents Suzaku.

I’m changing ‘episode’ to ’stage’ to keep with the show’s title for the episodes.

Seven years after Britannia’s conquest of Japan, parts of Tokyo have since then been converted into settlements where Britannians live.
A Britannia helicopter is engaged in a high-speed chase with a truck while the TV reports a terrorist bombing in an Osaka high-rise.
Time runs out on an old man playing a game of chess with a noble, but he is saved when his proxy, a high school student with a friend in tow, shows up. The student immediately irritates the noble with his attitude, introduces himself as Lelouch Ramperouge (?), and takes the old man’s seat in chess. Lelouch declares that he only needs nine minutes even when he only has twenty seconds per move, and he starts by moving the Black King, which amuses the noble.
Back on Lelouch’s school campus, his classmate, Shirley, wonders about where he went and his odd ways, instead of studying properly for school, and the president of the Student Council, Millay, teases her about it.
Meanwhile, the truck is still on the run and Lelouch wins his chess game in eight minutes and thirty-two seconds.

The Osaka terrorist bombing on TV is interrupted by a nationwide live broadcast of His Highness Clovis, the third prince of Britannia, who addresses his fellow Britannians and Elevens. The woman in the runaway truck, Karen, angrily corrects him with, “Not Elevens! It’s the Japanese people!” Clovis goes on to make a melodramatic speech about how horrible he feels toward the terrorist attack and that he’ll uphold the justice of Area 11.
After the camera goes off-air, a military officer tells Clovis some important news, prompting the prince to call for the utilization of the Knightmare Frames.
Lelouch and his friend, Leval (?), are driving along the highway on their motorcycle + sidecar when a truck tailgates dangerously close to them. It is the truck in the high-speed chase. Leval tries to steer away but the motorcycle is unable to go any faster, so the driver of the truck, Nagata, turns away into a blocked road and crashes the truck.
Lelouch and Leval stop to observe the accident and Lelouch spots an odd, glowing image on top of the truck that vanishes after a few seconds.

Lelouch dashes to the truck and climbs on top of it. A strange voice calls out to him, saying that she’s finally found him. Nagata regains his consciousness and puts the truck in reverse, causing Lelouch to fall into the cargo next to a giant, spherical object. The battered truck takes off again as the Britannia helicopters zero in.

The helicopters begin firing at the truck and Karen sees no choice but to fight back. She enters a Knightmare Frame stored in the very back of the truck’s cargo hold as Lelouch watches in secret and takes down several helicopters with it. The Britannia army launches its own Knightmare Frame, which easily overpowers Karen’s model and forces Karen to flee. Another Britannia Knightmare Frame attacks the truck from the front and causes Nagata to turn the truck onto another road, heading toward Shinjuku.
The Britannia Army is deploying tanks to take down the truck. A scientist named Lloyd wonders why the military is going overboard in firepower for a single truck. He believes that the terrorists stole something that Clovis didn’t know about. The officer who he is talking to says that the truck stores poisonous gas.

The truck heads toward the ghettos of Shinjuku and the military follows. Nagata is injured from the Knightmare Frame attack and drives the truck into a deadend. A Britannia soldier notices the truck and reports it to his superior. He notices Lelouch in the cargo hold of the truck and attacks him, but Lelouch recovers with his signature line, “I’ll destroy Britannia!” The soldier realizes who Lelouch is and takes off his helmet, revealing that he is Lelouch’s childhood friend, Kururugi Suzaku. Both boys are stunned by the turn of events when the spherical object in the truck suddenly unlocks itself. A strange girl clad in white and bound in straps emerges from it before falling unconscious.

A group of Britannia soldiers appear with an officer at the scene. The officer demands Suzaku to kill the ‘terrorist’, but Suzaku refuses to because Lelouch isn’t one, so the officer shoots Suzaku instead. The Britannia soldiers then turn their guns on a shocked Lelouch, but before they can fire, a dying Nagata commits suicide by detonating the truck and gives Lelouch a chance to make a getaway with the mysterious girl.
Upon hearing the news of the terrorists’ escape, Clovis orders the destruction of the Shinjuku ghettos.

The Britannia army starts firing at everything and everyone in the ghettos mercilessly.
Lelouch blames Suzaku’s getting shot on the girl, who is now awake and trying to run with him in the underground passageway. The two eventually find stairs leading upwards. Lelouch tentatively peeks up from the steps and sees some Britannia soldiers shooting people. When the soldiers see that there are no one but the Elevens around the area and start to leave, Lelouch’s cellphone rings. Lelouch drops the call immediately, but the soldiers have already noticed him and throws him against a wall and holds the girl captive. When the commanding officer, the same person as from the truck scene, fires his gun at Lelouch, the girl gets in front of Lelouch and takes the bullet for him in the forehead.

As much as Lelouch has blamed the girl, he is stunned by her last act as she lays on the ground and a pool of blood collects beneath her body. He kneels down besides the girl and she suddenly grabs him, sending Lelouch’s consciousness to elsewhere. The girl says that she sees that he doesn’t want to let it end and seems to have a reason for living. She’ll give him a power in exchange for granting one wish of hers. If he has the determination to contract with her, he’ll have something that no one can do, the King’s power that will render him lonely.

Lelouch agrees to the contract and returns to the reality.
The officer is about to shoot him again but finds that he hesitates. Lelouch taunts the officer by saying that only those have the determination to shoot can do so and removes his hand from his left eye, where the mysterious power known as Geass now dwells. He orders the Britannia soldiers to die on the behalf of Lelouch vie Britannia, which they gladly do so with guns to their own necks.
From that day on, Lelouch lives in a world of lies that he can never get tired of, for the power that he has gained.

Ending Sequence
Theme: Yuukyou Seishun-ka
Vocals: ALI PROJECT

Yay, ALI PROJECT sings another one of its cryptic songs~ Wait, C.C.-chan flashes a breast in the ED? o_o I guess that fills the nudity quota for the show.

Impressions
Is it just me or does Lelouch resemble Light of Death Note in that he gains an incredible power that he uses for his own ideals and probably will eventually become his downfall? The power of the King, the Geass power, is merely neurological manipulation and hypnotism. Lelouch could’ve easily asked the men to leave and never come back, but instead he chose to murder them. I think this is where it shows that Lelouch does have his angst issues and a lack of benevolence.

I am absolutely loving this nationalism stuff. That in itself creates enough drama for me to watch, probably because it invokes waves of nostalgia in me. Ah, the good ol’ days of Chinese government propaganda… It quickly taught me to be extremely anti-Japanese because of what they did to China during World War II and anti-American Imperialism because the textbooks said so, but that sort of hatred on my young and impressionable self has since then rubbed off, after I immigrated to the United States of America. Now I know it’s completely stupid to hate a country or race for something in the past, but still, it makes for good drama that I can easily sympathize with.

Code Geass is awesome, awesome material, complete with hotties out of CLAMP’s design book. Suzaku and C.C. are both shot right off the bat, and neither one of them can actually die yet since they’re in the main cast. Suzaku will rebound in the next episode and C.C. will be Lelouch’s neuro-guide at least. Given the flashes of Jupiter in the series, the plot just might turn extraterrestrial or even supernatural, to contrast with the machinery and mechas.

Lelouch’s power isn’t some sudden talent of piloting mechas…but horrifying mind-control! If it had gone the other way, then I definitely would’ve wavered on watching the series. Lelouch, I salute you for that and having the nickname ‘Lelou’ (pronouced as ‘Lulu’).

What’s going to happen in the rest of the series? Lelouch will use his newfound Geass power to destroy a good chunk of Britannia Empire, I bet, but the final outcome looks like a tragedy, in that Lelouch will die or lose that which he loves the most because of his power. I’m watching this show to the end, thanks to nationalism, CLAMP, and something that takes the spotlight off the mechas.

Is 2 pounds a fair parking cost?	“We pledge to the spirits of founding fathers…”?

I assume that there are other Geass children somewhere in the universe? The girl on the bottom left looks like one of the girls in the opening sequence.

Jupiter (?) appears during the opening sequence and C.C.’s transfer of power to Lelouch, so is C.C. or her powers stem from that planet? Does this make those Geass children Jupiter people? o_O

Winner of the Episode

Lelouch, for looking cutely amused by the dying men who he mind-controlled into suicide.