Code Geass R2 — Episode 6
Not my favourite episode. I think the character dynamics is somewhat lacking this time, and the battle scene wasn’t all that exciting either. I think it’s about time Sunrise winds down the series a notch before it runs out of momentum, and start laying the groundwork for a grander set-up.
This week’s raw was slightly delayed because three top Share uploaders were arrested in Japan last week.
Summary
Frankly, not much of interest happens in this episode. Lelouch manages to survive Suzaku’s test with the help of Rolo, and is now determined to rescue Nunnally.
An air battle involving the Black Knights, the Knights of the Round and Guiliford ensues. During the battle, Karen’s Guren is damaged by Lancelot and falls in a downward spiral of doom as her life flashes before her eyes.
Pantsu!… Wait.
Luckily, deus ex machina is in play and not only does she not die, Guren gets a timely upgrade courtesy of the whip-wielding Indian mad scientist extraordinaire Lakshata Chawla. (The rest of the gang are back from China too.)
That lab coat serves no practical purpose
They wasted all their missile slots for this
Float docked with Guren
Arm docked with Guren
They actually designed a way to fire the new arm upgrade like a missile and attach it mid-air with the Guren. There must be like a total of two out of billions of possible situations where such a capability could have been useful. Guess they lucked out.
I’ve got the power!
It’s about time Guren gets to fly and fire from a distance, because we’ve been reminded about ten billion times of this “weakness” during various point of the series and I’m getting sick of it.
This makes more sense
The upgraded Guren Kashoushiki (紅蓮可翔式) can also fire its spanking new beam weapon in scatter mode, which uses the same amount of energy distributed over a large radius, and serves to temporarily disable rather than destroy enemies.
Go Kallen! Kick some loli butt!
That said, I find the whole sentai-style mid-air link-up sequence altogether quite silly, and now that Guren has been upgraded, I hope we don’t ever have to watch that sequence again. Also, isn’t it awfully convenient how only Guren’s right arm gets blown off and the upgrade happens to be the right arm too?
“NOOOoooOOOoooooOOoo!! My cool and composed image is ruined!”
Meh. Other than that, this episode has some Earl Llyod hijinks, a few unimportant characters dying off (fewer seiyuu to pay!) and Lelouch going all emo over Nunnally. (That siscon bastard.)
Nunnally wants to follow in Euphemia’s footsteps and once again create the Japan Special Administrative Region, and requested to be governor by her own accords. This completely nullifies the point of Lelouch’s daring “rescue” mission. Poor Lelouch is unappreciated.
“She’s mine, bitch!”
Hopefully next episode will be more interesting.
On another note, I realized something today: Code Geass is ageist! That’s right, Code Geass discriminates against old people! Have you ever noticed how old(er) people die in far greater numbers in the show than their young bishounen/bishoujo counterparts?
The slumbering dragon has been awaken! It wants milk
Therefore, by my brilliant logical deduction, the Empress of the Chinese Federation is invincible. Long live the empress!
Screencaps
C.C. has a weird sense of occasion
The final boss is bored because Lelouch is taking too long
A grim view of the future for fashion lovers
You just know that this old guy’s a walking dead man
“Virtue, eliminating target!”
Why is she always in a garden? Who builds gardens on a plane anyway?
Zero is rejected
Now it looks like Juggernaut from X-men in gay pride colours
“I can has fly upgradez?”
Oh look. They are still alive. Yay
Is that Impulse?
Go Kallen! <3
SingTel will be bringing the iPhone to Singapore. (Yay.)
I just renewed my Starhub mobile contract for two years. (Boo.)
May 13th, 2008 at 2:15 am
Hate to say it, but while her intentions are good Nunnally is an idiot. Trying to follow in Euphemia’s footsteps is a naive move. There is no possible way that the Japanese are going to believe that again after the incident during the previous attempt by Euphemia. And if Sunrise has them believe it then they need to go kill themselves.
@ Asha and Meocross: if Nunnally dies then its over for the show, even if Lelouch kills her. And Meocross don’t forget the whole Euphemia incident was an accident. So comparing the situations is premature. Furthermore, you know Lelouch is doing all this for his sister, and how much he cares about her. If she dies then he will go totally emo and the show will be destroyed. That’s always what happens in these types of shows in that kind of situation. Also if she dies then the original reason why he started this whole thing goes down the drain, and he will have no reason to continue his rebellion. Amazing how the Brittanians didn’t just kill her to crush him right off, would have been so much more efficient than trying to use her like this.
May 13th, 2008 at 2:26 am
Then again now that I think of it if the Britannians had killed her he’d would continue out of revenge, while if he kills her himself he’ll just be crushed. Then he will either lapse into a depression and be completely emo for all but the last three episodes where he will than miraculously reappear and save the Black Knights from complete destruction, or he will go after revenge while emoing the whole time about how the Britannian empire made him do it. So, while I agree that there is a good chance of her dieing I would say that its still about 50/50 at most and I pray it doesn’t happen. I don’t hold much hope for the show if she does die.
May 13th, 2008 at 3:45 am
Lol at the virtue/impulse joke. I hope I never have to see GSD again in my life…
The color scheming is oh so very original. That girl with the virtue-esque suit is so annoying…living her “life” on what looks like a blackberry kind of thing…but futuristic =]
May 13th, 2008 at 4:15 am
@ Shadow - yep, that’s my guess, he’ll come back for revenge. If she doesn’t die, though, what reason would you prefer Lelouch to use for continuing the rebellion though? He said he doesn’t want to go against her will, so likely isn’t thinking of “saving” her from the Britannian hierarchy. So it’s either:
1. jealousy rules the day and he removes Nunnally to get her away from Suzaku (doubtful - I hope)
2. the end of the episode suggests Nunnally may have realised who Zero is even without needing to be told, so perhaps she gets into a bit of a tricky situation trying to bring him back, etc. etc. (but even then she’d probably still die) which he then needs to extricate her from
or hmm. 3. she falls into a coma to be miraculously revived 15 episodes later. That would avoid the killing-off-a-character-early decision which Sunrise would never make, but with the same effect.
Er - gone off on a tangent there sorry. But honestly I’d really, really like Nunnally removed from the picture soon, Lulu in super-wimpy-siscon mode is starting to get on my nerves.
(minor episode preview spoiler) - is that Lulu getting majorly beaten up there? Does he temporarily lose his Geass? Can’t imagine how else that would have happened…
May 13th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Heh, I don’t think the episode was all that bad. Personally, i’m a big fan of Gundam SEED/Destiny. It was extremely long, and probably one of the few Gundam series that did not go “Mission Mode” wise but stuck to a story.
>.< I don’t see how that guy is impulse but I did enjoy the arrival of Virtue. Fits well with both of the emo pilots who live their lives on technological attachments. Though I am sad to admit it, I would guess that Nunnaly will probably die, afterwhich Lelouch will be off on a rampage.
P.S. AOE Beats all yo’ asses, buahaha!!! *cough* s’cuse me.
May 13th, 2008 at 4:47 am
@ Asha: In all honesty, Lelouch doesn’t have to do anything different than what he normally does for it to turn out all right. Like I said what Nunnally is trying to do is doomed to failure as it is. Unless Sunrise decides to be completely stupid (although this would hardly be a first) the Japanese will never believe Nunnally or trust her intentions towards them as long as she remains governer general or whatever that title is. Not after the incident with Euphie before anyway. So Lelouch could just let Nunnally do her thing and he could do his and she would fail, yet live, in the end. There are plenty of ways other than that for Sunrise to play this but having her die is a bad idea. Like I said Lelouch will go emo, and an anime with an emo main character never turns out well.
@ Tama: The problem for most people with GS/GSD was that it didn’t go “Mission Mode” in your words. That is what Gundam is about, its a Mecha/Action anime. Don’t get me wrong, I like character development, but GS/GSD had to much of it and not enough of what Gundam is supposed to be about, action and war. If they want to put in a decent amount of character development that’s fine but they have to balance it against the other stuff, which they didn’t that time. It just got way to into the characters each of their personal stories and feelings and forgot about the true nature of Gundam anime.
May 13th, 2008 at 4:52 am
lol at “Virtue, eliminating target!”
May 13th, 2008 at 4:55 am
I have to agree with Nadires, on the whole “these episodes feel more like a fillers with a twist at the end. I like R2 but it has been a bit of a letdown since it started (in my opinion.) Every since I got the deja vu feeling from the first episode (come on the first episode of the 2nd season is way too similar to the 1st season’s first episode.) Season 2 episodes are just not as exciting to watch as the 1st season (in my opinion.)
I think the main reason for that is Nunnally! Everything Lulu does is for her, and that’s starting to get on my nerves. “I can’t procede with my plan because they have Nunnally.” “I can’t go on with my plan until I get Nunnally back from those Brits.” “Now that I’ve been rejected by Nunnally my life has no meaning!” Come on now Lulu’s sis-con thing is really getting in the way of his rebellion. Sunrise NEEDS to come up with a better reason besides Nunnally for Lulu’s motivation to continue with his rebellion!
Oh, and one more thing, what’s up with the Knightmares all having a flight ablilties now? I like them better when they didn’t fly, It made them stand on more among other mecha shows. The Knightmares fight scenes in the air reminds me too much of the Gundam franchise.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:24 am
Why do all of you think this is going to be a repeated plot of last season? Nunnally’s beliefs are NOT stupid. What do you want from a girl that’s blinded, crippled, and kidnapped?
How did you come up with Nunnally dying anyway? I believe in god(not), you believe in god, we both go to heaven. Doesn’t work like that…you can start the same and get very different results.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:25 am
@ Shadow (lol, turning into a proper debate :P) - I don’t know, I really can’t quite see that happening - she’s not been portrayed as the type of character who would ever give up on her ideals. I suppose she could be sufficiently caged by Britannia to the point that all her plans fail etc., and Lelouch sees fit to charge in against her will - but honestly, it would just flow so much more smoothly if she dies. He doesn’t have to go emo - just really, really angry. Angry and vengeful Lelouch could be good…
Just a thought - Nunnally doesn’t appear in the OP scene towards the end (the zooming scene where pretty much everybody else is gathered) I think - even Nunnally’s new babysitter is there, but not Nunnally. Seems weird not to include her if she’s going to play any continued major role in events?
@ Everlasting - with Nunnally in place Lelouch has no reason to continue with the rebellion. We still have another ~20 episodes to go. Slight logistical problem there, so the situation has to change in some way - was the thought. But I could be wrong.
(And the more I type Lelouch the more it starts looking like a fusion of “leech” and “louse” lol)
May 13th, 2008 at 5:58 am
“I can has fly upgradez?”
I loled. Hard.
May 13th, 2008 at 6:25 am
“Why is she always in a garden?”
- poor little rich lolis are always in gardens
“Who builds gardens on a plane anyway?”
- Sunrise, apparently…
May 13th, 2008 at 6:52 am
You caught everything I wanted to say about this episode. Thank you :)
And don´t forget as said about the Impulse. And from what I understood Kallen took the right arm of after knowing that she would get a new one.
Makes you wonder why she still is using only one arm to attack with… give her another clawed arm and whoa, Kallen is scary :)
I hope for a better next episode, cause this one kinda sucked. Fighting was ok, but talking and being saved by Rollo, oh my how damn easy that was… thanks Sunrise for ruining a perfect time to show of Lelouchs bad habit of always telling the truth to his sister…
May 13th, 2008 at 8:37 am
This show is getting a bit too out of hand for its own good. I will still watch it but not with the seriousness I watched in the last season. That season is definitely a lot better than what we have seen here granted though only 6 episodes are out so far. Heres to hoping it gets better.
May 13th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Doubt Nunnaly will die. It makes for much better drama to have her stuck between her bro/the big bad and Suzaku/the other big bad.