I've made a sort of personal resolution to research android development a bit, maybe put out my own little apps eventually. Takes time to learn, but I'll start today hopefully and pick up quickly with any luck!
That's a bit of a side note, which these openings tend to be. Aside from that, on My Arcade yesterday, I explained some uses of masks, I also stated that I basically had a plan for today's post. And I do. I wanted to save this for a point where I could tackle a whole anime week, but this seems appropriate, so here we go.
TITLE: Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion
DETAILS:
DIRECTOR: Goro Taniguchi
LEAD ACTOR: Jonny Yong Bosch
MAIN ANTAGONIST: Hard to pinpoint
SUMMARY:
Lelouch, the exiled son of the Emperor of Britannia, wages a war for liberation on behalf of the Elevens, Japanese citizens downtrodden by the empire's take over. Lelouch uses the power of Geass to seek justice for his late mother and assemble an army to crush Britannia.
I feel like that's a pretty good brief, there's not a reliably short one on IMDB...
PERSONAL CRITIQUE:
The best...around. Okay, probably not actually, I can see it being a little hard to follow occasionally (I never had any trouble, but I can see where the multiple plot lines might lose someone), but in my opinion it's one of the most well put together and animated animes ever. Aside from a good bit of science fiction in the anime (giant robots, new WMDs, strange energy sources) Code Geass earns its position this week due to the nature of the protagonist, he's a masked man. In all fairness the story follows two protagonists, Lelouch Lamperouge (vi Britannia) and Suzaku Kururugi.
Lelouch served as our masked hero who seeks to usurp his father, restore the Japanese people to their proud state, and a lot of other things. Man's got goals. To do this he uses two key tools, the first is his Geass, the power of the king, which allows him to issue any command to a person and they will follow it absolutely. (there is some debate about this and I may post a follow up mini post about this) His second tool of choice is his alternate persona, Zero. If you checked out my post yesterday on My Arcade, you will have noticed the mask I spoke of helped the character to become someone else and hide their own identity. The mask of Zero serves much the same purpose, but without any magic behind it, just good politics and a lot of charisma.
You see, Lelouch was exiled from his homeland after his mother's demise, in order to unmask the people behind the assassination the young prince (youngest I believe) sets out on a quest to overpower the Britannian military, and what better group to use than a pre-existing terrorist cell in Tokyo (I think). Being a Britannian Lelouch would generally not find any reception from the Japanese, or Elevens as Britannia chooses to call them, but when he saves their near forfeit lives more than once he is able gain their trust, but not as Lelouch Lamperouge the school boy, rather as Zero, the masked hero. (whom everyone presumes is an Eleven, or at the very least a Number, not a Britannian noble)
Anyway yeah, I did my little tangent about the power of the mask, but the series actually makes several underlying references to masks, and I realize I'm reviewing this one detail a lot more than the series in general, suffice it to say I think the series was terrific, with an amazing plot line, great animations, and...well...Johnny Yong Bosch voices Lelouch, so I cannot seek better voice acting!
SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
There are a lot of masks in the game actually, it's just not as obvious as you might think. The series makes a point though that the mask of Zero is not the most important mask there. It's the lies that Lelouch always wears that really matter. His lies, and those of everyone else. You...stopped reading before the spoiler mark right? Or you've seen the show and this is basically redundant? Or...you don't care to watch the show and just wanna hear what I have to say? You're so sweet!
One of the biggest lies in the show is never actually outright stated, a mask is worn in front of Lelouch for the entirety of the series and he never realizes until the mask is removed. Why should he? According to Charles and Marianne (Lelouch's parents) everything is according to plan. Seriously? You planned for your own son to accuse you of the assassination plot against his mother and then seek you down to the ends of the Earth after making a contract with a witch that gave him a very limited source of unlimited power. (the Geass has some very specific limitations) Not only has Charles been basically maintaining that facade, but he proclaims very plainly that the entire world is just a mask, or rather, God is a mask. God is a web of lies constructed by humanity to hide them from the pain they're meant to feel, or something like that, but ultimately the only reason any pain is felt is due to these masks. So Charles and Marianne plan to kill God (the lies of the world) by using the Ragnarok weapon, but Lelouch says "No way, I like masks!" and kills them...or banishes their spirits...okay that scene is a little off the wall, I'll grant you.
There's also this huge ordeal with Lelouch's girlfriend Shirley where she realizes that all along Lelouch has been Zero and it was his actions that caused her father's death. This is a really emotional and fantastic story arc in and of itself, and it plays out very well and tugs on your heart strings until the last order she is given. As she runs through the school looking for someone to confide in she realizes that everyone is wearing a mask, everyone has something they're hiding and she doesn't know who to trust anymore. It's basically true too, of her closest friends, three were terrorists, one was in the military specifically to die, and even the student council president lied about being perfectly content when she was far from it. Rivalz on the other hand...was just a ditz, he may have been perfectly innocent.
Ah but the anime ends with this fantastic idea, Lelouch puts on the ultimate mask, by taking off the Zero mask and passing the title on to Suzaku, he has the savior of the world bring an end to the greatest evil Earth has ever known, himself. In order to save the world Lelouch becomes the ultimate lie, he fabricates one final mask of pure evil in order to plunge the world into peace, it works too. I'm sure ultimately there will be war again, every story like this ends like that eventually, but in the epilogue we don't see that. Instead we see that no one is wearing their masks, they all lead happy, normal lives, lives even more normal than you might expect. Ex-terrorist generals and super weapons owning orange orchards, going to school, and joining in peaceful debates. Well, everyone except Suzaku drops their masks, but Suzaku must live on as Zero.
Do you agree that it's the greatest anime ever? If not you should go watch it again until your eyes bleed from those exact scenes we discussed above!
RATING:
Nine out of Ten Men in Masks would give this show Five Orders to Live out of Five
I seriously cannot express how much I enjoyed this show. If Ender's Game is my favorite book, Code Geass is my favorite series to which no spin off can ever do justice. Thanks for reading everyone, and see you tomorrow!
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