* ActingForTwo:
** Lelouch- [[Anime/{{Gravion}} Touga Tenkuji]] of all people in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars Z 2''.
** In the English dub, Creator/LauraBailey voiced Rakshata, Chiba, and young Suzaku. Likewise, Creator/MichelleRuff voices Euphy, one of the Ikaruga BridgeBunnies in R2, and young Lelouch.
* AnimeFirst: The manga that followed can be considered AU, ''at best''.
* AscendedFanon: Sayoko being a [[spoiler:NinjaMaid]].
* BannedInChina: China specifically for: A) Portraying the Chinese leadership as manipulative eunuchs, B) exemplifying the dignity of conquered peoples going hand-in-hand with striking back against the government, and C) having Tibet as an independent nation (reference is made to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions the Tibet Convention]].) [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Something about nudity as well]].
* BeamMeUpScotty: No, Suzaku didn't try to buy clothes from the soup store. That bit came from ''[[WebVideo/CodeMent Code MENT]]'', an [[TheAbridgedSeries abridged parody]].
* CowboyBeBopAtHisComputer:
** An article from a Scandinavian country advertised ''Code Geass'' as a comedy series about a delightful youth named Rerouch who became the King of Britannia through use of his mystical Geass, which allowed him to gain control over any individual whose [[Manga/DeathNote name he had written down in a black note book]]. Unfortunately Rerouch is countered by a revolutionary named Jeremiah Suzaku who fights him by using a mecha named [[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion EVA]]. At some point, you have to wonder if they actually deliberately made this crap up because no sane human being could possibly get this much wrong if they had seen even 30 seconds of the show. To make matters worse, it spelled the series' name as "''Code Geese: Rerouch of the [[{{Engrish}} Reberrion]]''", even although the "rebellion" part isn't even GratuitousEnglish in the Japanese original (the title uses the actual Japanese word for "rebellion", ''hangyaku'', leaving the misspelling just plain inexplicable).
** Upon the release of ''R2'', several Spanish-speaking sites, all probably echoing the same source, gave it a synopsis that had little to do with its real plot: according to them, the season featured a new, mysterious Zero played by an unknown character and it forced Lelouch to return to action to defeat him. This mistake, possibly stemming from a mistranslation or an uncorrected urban legend, proved so popular that it found his way into the Spanish article of Website/TheOtherWiki and is still there nowadays, even although the real plot is well known and has become pop culture since.
* CreatorsFavorite: Several members of the show's staff surprisingly considered ''Cornelia'' to be the most just person in the series. Additionally, many of the Japanese voice actors found themselves more sympathetic to Suzaku over ''[[CreatorsPest Lelouch]]'' early on, but admitted that his actions become worse in the second season, his own voice actor, Creator/TakahiroSakurai, jokingly saying the fans should apologize to him for all the hatred thrown at Suzaku. Lelouch's own voice, Creator/JunFukuyama, has gone on record saying he couldn't believe it when Lelouch accused Suzaku of betraying him in Turn 17, considering the number of times Lelouch had betrayed Suzaku's trust and that of others.
* CreatorsPest: According to director Creator/GoroTaniguchi, many of the Japanese voice actors enjoyed it whenever Lelouch suffers (he partly attributed this to them being ''really'' into character), with the voice actors of Kallen and Nunnally admitting that he does terrible things, and doubting whether his final actions sufficiently atoned for them in the end. When recording the first scene between Lelouch and Nunnally, Creator/JunFukuyama, Lelouch's own voice, had to consult Taniguchi on how sincere Lelouch was in his love for Nunnally, prompting Taniguchi to tell him explicitly that he had to play Lelouch as loving Nunnally from the bottom of his heart. Taniguchi also had to give Lelouch an additional monologue to makes his feelings more clear. However, Fukuyama and Taniguchi at one point even agreed in thinking Lelouch was completely evil and BeyondRedemption.
* TheDanza: Kento Sugiyama is voiced by Creator/NoriakiSugiyama, Inoue is voiced by Creator/KikukoInoue and Nagisa Chiba is voiced by Creator/SaekoChiba.
* {{Defictionalization}}: On a less cheerful note, some users on the web (especially on 4chan) started to use "Elevens" as a real-life ethnophaulism for the Japanese.
* DeniedParody: When the series first came out, a lot of fans believed it was a parody-slash-critique of the [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush Bush administration]] and UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror. When asked about this in an interview, director Goro Taniguchi denied that there was any political motivation behind the plot and said that his goal was just to make an entertaining TV show.
* DuelingWorks: With the anime adaptation of ''Manga/DeathNote'', as both started airing in Fall of 2006, both have a charming, intelligent VillainProtagonist with a special power that involves mind control in some form or another, and both place emphasis on mind games and strategy.
* DVDCommentary: With the Japanese producers and cast. (Includes subtitles.)
* EditedForSyndication: For the show's Creator/AdultSwim airing, there were expected alterations and censorships made to tone down certain content for its' intended demographic, but some content was reworked and/or censored all together:
** In episode 10 of ''R2'', "When Shen Hu Wins Glory", a photo on Anya's phone of Milly groping Shirley is replaced with another image from earlier in the set, which makes Suzaku's comment about the picture's presence on her phone to begin with seem rather confusing.
** There were also cases of nudity being pixelated or blurred out, namely in Kallen's shower scene in episode 3, and the scene of Villetta waking up in Ohgi's apartment in episode 15.
* ExecutiveMeddling:
** The original plans for R2 were changed when it was announced that the series would be moved to an earlier, primetime slot. Fans believe that this mainly affected the first half of R2, for the purposes of re-introducing the show to a new audience instead of picking up right after the first season's cliffhanger like the staff had intended. As a general rule, how much a fan thinks was changed is inversely proportionate to said fan's opinion of R2's quality.
** It's known that the TimeSkip itself was a result of ExecutiveMeddling. Other elements that are commonly suspected or assumed to fall under this include introducing the character of Rolo and removing aspects of C.C.'s and Suzaku's backgrounds without a full explanation.
** The level of mecha use seen in R2 may be considered a product of the aforementioned round of meddling, with the show becoming closer to Gundam as a result (and with all the attendant flashy mecha that can be used to sell model kits that implies).
* FollowTheLeader: Contrary to popular opinion, ''Code Geass'' is '''not''' this to Manga/DeathNote, but rather to its older Creator/{{Sunrise}} sibling, Franchise/{{Gundam}}. Massive mecha battles? Check. AnyoneCanDie? Check. Uprisings against a corrupt regime? Check. A pretty boy wearing a mask? Check. [[PowerGivesYouWings Energy wings on mecha]]? Check. Imouto character close to the protagonist gets abducted by the villains? Checkmate. There are simply so many similarities to various ''Gundam'' series that more experienced mecha fans have immediately called the show a more [[MemeticMutation FAAAABULOUS]] version of Gundam, only with [[HoYay fujobait]], [[{{Fanservice}} hot chicks]] and random school scenes.
* HeAlsoDid: Takahiro Kimura, the character designer who did the final look of the characters (Creator/{{CLAMP}} only did the early sketches and the costume designs) also designed characters for several other mecha anime which are considered [[CultClassic cult classics]]: ''Anime/GaoGaiGar'', ''Anime/{{Betterman}}'', ''Anime/GunXSword'' and ''Anime/{{Godannar}}''. If you haven't noticed by now, his defining characteristics are [[NoodlePeople noodly men]] and [[MsFanservice ridiculously sexy women]].
* HostilityOnTheSet: Taniguchi admitted that he wondered whether Jun Fukuyama and Nunnally's voice actress were having issues, due to Fukuyama's apparent inability to play an early scene between them as Taniguchi had instructed him to.
* InvisibleAdvertising:
** On Creator/AdultSwim, the show began with very little promotion: Being so continuity driven, it was hard to pick up new viewers [not helped by the fact that it was at one point moved all the way down to to 5 a.m., see ScrewedByTheNetwork below].
** This is even worse in Latin America with Creator/{{Netflix}}, as this series, along with ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn'', were brought to that region without any promotion or even warning, in a ''very stark'' contrast with ''Anime/DragonPilotHisoneAndMasotan'', which was heavily promoted.
* IronyAsSheIsCast: Johnny Yong Bosch being casted as Lelouch, who's not that athletic and gets into trouble during physical confrontations. JYB is a known and experienced martial artist.
* NoDubForYou:
** A very infuriating example in the Latin American Spanish version in Creator/{{Netflix}}: The TV series lacks a dub in that region. This is especially worse by the fact the Spanish release of the TV came along with ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn'', another Sunrise series who also come dubless there and, to make the things even more annoying for Latin American viewers, both series were released along with ''Anime/DragonPilotHisoneAndMasotan'', an anime series which interest with the region's fandom was minimum, ''at best'', but unlike those series, it was heavily promoted by Netflix and it did include a dub.
** The compilation movies don't have an English dub; however, the ''Resurrection'' has one.
* TheOtherDarrin:
** Because of Creator/KazunariTanaka's death in 2016, Shinichirou Tamaki will be voiced by Creator/NobuyukiHiyama for the compilation movies and subsequent materials.
** Hidenosuke Kawashiro voiced V.V. in the compilation movies, replacing Kazato Tomizawa who voiced the character in the TV series. This is understandable given that Tomizawa voiced V.V. when he was a child back then and was already in his 20s when the movies came out, making him too old to reprise his role.
** After Norihiro Inoue passed away in 2022, Creator/KoichiYamadera took over the role of Schneizel in the subsequent materials.
* PlayingAgainstType:
** Creator/JohnnyYongBosch is more often known for straight-up action heroes, not [[TheChessmaster chessmasters]] like Lelouch. Creator/JamiesonPrice on the other hand, often does badass or TheChessmaster, but Diethard's more of a SmugSnake.
** This was the entire point of the Japanese casting of Creator/JunFukuyama as Lelouch and Creator/TakahiroSakurai as Suzaku.
** This has also became apparent with [[TheOtherDarrin the recasting of Tamaki]]; as Director Taniguchi mentioned how he deliberately reminded [[ExperiencedProtagonist Nobuyuki]] [[LivingLegend Hiyama]] to "play [[{{Mooks}} small fry]]," and lampshades how much of a luxury Tamaki has "to receive the voice of Hiyama [[ChewToy given his low IQ.]]" Hiyama himself also admitted "[[Creator/KazunariTanaka Kazunari's]] shoes are very tough for him to fit in, since nobody (in their industry) can portray TheEveryman as well as that guy does."
* PopularityRedo: The second season was completely reworked because, being very popular, it was moved from the midnight slot to a much more mainstream time, and a lot of the edgy stuff had to be removed. This is arguably the main reason why R2 had such hectic pacing.
* PromotedFanboy: Akazawa Ryotaro, a big fan of the series and of Suzaku in particular, got to play Suzaku in the 2023 stage musical (and threw the first pitch at a baseball game in character), and then got to voice a new character in ''Lost Stories''.
* PropRecycling: In R2, Zero often seems to use the same detonator/trigger prop when he wants to make something cool happen.
* RealitySubtext: The whole ''Honorary Britannian'' thing seems to be taken off from the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_whites Honorary White policy]] applied by Apartheid-era South Africa towards Japanese (and also Koreans and Taiwanese, but not continental Chinese) possibly to avoid South Africa to suffer a trade embargo from both Japan and South Korea, especially in the 1980s when both countries had the quasi-monopoly in advanced electronics and the Apartheid-era government needed that technology badly.
* RealLifeRelative: Liam 'O Brien and Amy Kincaid ('O Brien) are husband and wife, playing Lloyd and Shirley.
* ScrewedByTheNetwork: ''Code Geass''[='=] run on [adult swim] is infamous for how poorly the show was treated by the network. It started with little promotion from the network, but had an okay timeslot of 1:30 a.m., right after the [[Manga/{{Bleach}} other]] [[Manga/DeathNote three]] [[Manga/CrayonShinChan premieres]] at the time. It only got worse from there though, as after episode 18, the show (with zero announcement) was kicked all the way down to '''5 a.m.''' and with no reruns. When ''R2'' premiered, it would move back to its original timeslot, but still had little to no promotion. The show's rights would later end up expiring with only the first season having been completely reran. Considering this all happened during Creator/CartoonNetwork's first AudienceAlienatingEra, it isn't really all that surprising, if unfortunate.
* StarMakingRole:
** The Japanese version served as this for Creator/JunFukuyama and Creator/AmiKoshimizu.
** The English dub served as this for Creator/KarenStrassman.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** Website/TheOtherWiki states that Lelouch was originally going to have white hair along with a CoolMask. Blond AntiHero [[TheRival rival]] with [[WellIntentionedExtremist great plans]]. Does this remind you [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam of anyone]]?
** The Collector's Edition Blu-Ray for Season 2 had [[https://rainfall.dreamwidth.org/107694.html#cutid1 a draft for the original first episode of R2]] where fallout between Lelouch and Suzaku turned out to be completely different.
* WordOfDante: Many fans believe that Lamperouge was Marianne's maiden name, despite the fact that she's only ever referred to as "Marianne vi Britannia", even in media depicting her pre-marriage (such as the novel where a teenage Marianne helps prevent one of Charles' uncles from taking over the throne).
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