Code Geass

Yeah, I think it's from ye olden dayes when subtext, in the eyes of the site, was automatic confirmation of buttsex.

I would have thought they'd just stick it under Incest Yay, the thing Incest Subtext replaced. Then again, perhaps they didn't want to.

I think it even predates that. Incest Yay was quite a short-lived trope.

Oh? Did the trope for possible incest stem from the trope for actual incest at some stage then?

'cause that would explain it.

Yep. Incest Yay (later renamed to Incest Subtext for obvious reasons) was a reaction to the incest tropes' rapid accumulation of subtexty examples.

Although, one of the picture/audio dramas does include actual Brother–Sister Incest, even if it's only part of Shirley's daydream.

I just realized something... Lelouch looks like Naoya Toudou/Yuya Narumi/Jihei Suzakuin from Persona 1.

Something about code geass bother me is C.C. yes she suppose to be this mysterious girl that gave Lelouch untold power, but never tell Lelouch about her wish. Why C.C. did not say "my wish is to end my immotrality, in return yo will be immortal with even greater power" at that the beginning? Finding out later after they make a bond made harder fo either of them to perform the deed.

Sure I could accept she [spoiler:[really didn't want to die]] but when Lelouch say wanted to take down Brittianna and his father, why not tell him what he up against, heck her connection to the Empire and his family would have been things easier for the both them and less troublesome.

Because Lulu was initially just a tool for her, she didn't feel the need to reveal that.

Was chatting with a friend about racism around the world and he brought up a point I felt was salient to how Britannia views itself in the context of its world. He brought up how the way the French perceive race is different than how we normally perceive racism; to them its about seeing other cultures as barbaric and needing to be enlightened by French Culture. So French Citizenship was available to any member of the French Colonial Empire, but it meant complete cultural and societal assimilation. And those who refused would be treated exceptionally harshly. I think Britannia works the same way.

Well, even for Honorary Brittanians, there are still restrictions (Suzaku, though incredibly talented for the job, could only become a Knightmare pilot because powerful people pulled some strings for him). But there is definitely an assimilate-and-you-can-prosper aspect to Brittanian occupation; that's the only thing keeping Suzaku and Euphemia from seeming completely deluded about changing the country from within.

Well there'd most likely be racism against first and second generation Britannians because there'd be skepticism of how well they've adopted Britannian cultural norms, especially in as tumultuous a colony as Area 11. I also don't think all of the Japanese in Tokyo are Britannian Citizens; I think a lot like Kallen's mom are indentured servants who lack rights. I think the Purebloods oppose Assimilation for two reasons, ideologically because they believe it dillutes the spirit of Britannia, but also pragmatically because it disrupts the Empire's source of "Cheap Slave Labor."

Here's a wikipedia article on Assimilation.

I know this is completely unrelated, but for some reason this reminded me of Geass.

Might as well post this now then...I finally imported the official release of Code Geass: Akito the Exiled OVA 1. The translation is actually very good and resolves a few of the issues from the fansubs that I remember nitpicking here a few months ago, plus a couple of others I never noticed.

There's also an audio commentary track with the director plus the male and female leads, which unfortunately doesn't have any subtitles but you can probably still get a couple of interesting or funny bits from it. The disc includes a behind-the-scenes feature on making the 3DCG mecha which, again, I think is pretty neat even without a translation.

edited 2nd May '13 10:07:24 PM by Madonis

What were your nitpicks, and how were they fixed?

I liked the tone of the first Akito, but I still think it sorta suffers from a lack of substantial things happening; getting to know the characters or the plot.

I remember complaining about one or two of the lines the E.U. General said in the car, which now comes across as a more reasonable statement (I'd have to check the disc to post specifics), as well as the introductory part where Leila writes in her diary since the fansubbers didn't pick up on the Revolutionary calendar dates used and the official release does include such details.

As for your concerns related to Akito...rather than argue about them, I'll point out a recent interview on another site apparently has the producer confirming there's going to be more information about character backgrounds during OVA 2, and thus I guess that should help to flesh things out. I'd presume the plot will also be more firmly established along the way.

edited 2nd May '13 10:38:04 PM by Madonis

Yeah, I bet there will be more in episode 2. I just wish a bit more was developed about Akito and Leila. I mean they weren't totally without characterization, but I felt there could've been more substance to it. I definitely did enjoy it but I felt someone less invested in Geass's worldbuilding probably would've gotten bored watching it. I think the scant Britannian characters could've been handled better too; the betrayal at the end of the episode would've had... well really any weight at all if we'd known the characters more (Though I did like that it showed that Britannia's racism is based on Cultural Purity rather than racial genetic purity; essentially the french concept of assimilation I posted above). It just needs to have more form and more character beats, but I really love the more grounded tone.

Probably my favorite aspects of Akito are the character of Leila and the embracement of the Alt History aspect. I just love all the nods and touches to a world where the French Revolution succeeded. I'd really love to see someone translate that french document Leila got. My only complaint is how the continuity team flubbed the dating system. One is a minor quible, OTL's French Revolutionary Calender was set to the founding of the Republic (1792) as opposed to the storming of the Bastille (1789), but there was debate at the time over which to set it to so it's understandable that it could've gone the other way (Though 1789 would've been Year I in their calender, as opposed to Year 0 as it is here). My main complaint though is they kind of screwed up the dating system; The Revolutionary Year is said to be 228, which seems to assume that 2017 is in Anno Domini. But since it's actually not AD 2017 but 2017 ATB, which is really AD 1962, the Revolutionary Year should really be 173.

I mean, it might be that ATB was realigned to be simpatico with AD; would kinda prefer that to the whole French Revolution being shuffled back.

edited 2nd May '13 11:16:35 PM by Scherzo09

Oh also, I think I noticed this before but rewatching Akito, why are they sending out Japanese suicide bombers in Alexanders? Aren't those like top of the line KM Fs for the EU? I know Panzer-Hummels were shown to be pretty ineffective in KMF combat, but why would you assign the best mecha to the unit you consider disposable, with the tacit understanding that it'll be destroyed in a suicide attack? It'd be like sending B-2 Stealth Bombers on Kamikaze attacks. And it's not like the EU is particularly short on resources at that moment or even really considers Britannia an existential threat, given the talk at that Gala.

(Edit: looked up some stuff, apparently the Alexander was privately financed and produced by the family of one of W-0's officers. It seems like the EU army is resistant to adopt humanoid KM Fs based on Britannian designs, preferring to stick to the more conventional, tank-like Panzer-Hummel designs; so it could be the case that they're trying to show their effectiveness in combat anyway they can, and have to do it a tertiary unit because the EU military orthodoxy doesn't want to dabble in stuff like that.)

That actually made me think though, given the businessmen's talking about continuing trade with Britannia, whether the EU and Britannia as 'officially' at war at this point. It could be the case that they're officially fighting a Russian government that's a proxy regime for Britannia. I think this is the case since the Britannian commander in Russia has the title Suzerain as opposed to Governer-General/Viceroy, which makes me think that the Britannians treat European nations differently than non-culturally european nations.

EDIT: I know I'm probably pissing in the wind here, but I hope they do get more nuanced in their worldbuilding. What's annoying me is the persistent victimization complex of the Japanese juxtaposed against the general moral inferiority of other cultures. I'm afraid the only 'good' Europeans will be Leila and her immediate squad, with everyone else being pigeon-holed as racist self-absorbed assholes to fit Smilas' view of the EU being undone by Democratic Despotism (Smilas' contempt for the common man and the downtrodden keeps him from being likable to me). What's especially weird is it seems to be Rooting for the Empire to an extent, portraying the Britannians are more ideologically consistent and superior to the EU, even though Code Geass showed them to be even more self-indulgent and hypocritical than the EU has been.

It just frustrates me because the alt history aspect is a big selling point to me, and they have put a lot of details into it. It just feels like a waste to then reduce them to a caricature, like say [[Gundam the Earth Federation]] in most post-MSG UC Gundam shows.

edited 3rd May '13 5:17:43 AM by Scherzo09

I definitely feel that there has been some sort of ''drole de guerre'' period going on between E.U. and Britannia, at least after the initial territorial gains made by the Empire, without much in the way of major offensives by either side, other than the failed attempt to liberate St. Petersburg and the successful operation to break the resulting encirclement. Maintaining the front line positions must still require significant E.U. expenses though.

I wouldn't know if there really is or isn't a proper proxy regime in Russia beyond just the whole "Euro Britannian" faction being in de facto control though, but I guess there's still a lot of room for speculation about the details. Hopefully we do get to see a little more of that too.

The information you looked up is the closest thing we have to an official answer about the Alexander's current status as an unorthodox type of robot produced by a private company, while the mainstream military establishment may remain skeptical over fully adopting it at the moment. It's ultimately a petty thing, to be sure, but such doubts and rivalries have affected or at least slowed down the adoption of superior equipment even in real life situations.

I would also point out the first episode does tell us that the suicide attacks were a last minute change made to the plan by Lt. Colonel Anou, the incompetent (former) commanding officer of the W-0 unit. Leila's original intentions, which I suppose will be reflected in how the W-0 team operates from now on, apparently seem to focus more on creating a special operations unit that can boldly strike behind enemy lines, even if the HQ isn't willing to commit too many resources nor much homegrown manpower to such a risky proposition, since the politicians are apparently afraid of dealing with excessive E.U. casualties.

Which reminds me...you might not sympathize very much with General Smilas, but at least he is a more sensible person than Anou, despite his cynicism and overall disillusion with the republican form of government. Smilas might not show a lot of sympathy for the Japanese, yet he also blames the incompetence and cowardice of the current E.U. administration for their treatment.

Yes, this really is a story that makes the E.U. government look bad in a several ways, but I guess that comes along with the foregone conclusion of having a gradually decaying democratic power that will inevitably fall to Britannia and also split up into various entities in the end. We might get to see other "good" named E.U. characters outside of Leila's sphere of influence, hopefully, but I get the feeling they won't be too numerous.

And on a related note, concerning the whole victimization issue...I guess you could say part of it comes with the territory, since the world of Code Geass already had Japan fall to Britannia, but also with the director's interests. It's a double-edged sword, in a way. The director, Kazuki Akane, is directly responsible for the increased focus on Alternate History but the guy also says that one of things he found interesting about Code Geass was the idea of a world where Japan was erased from the map, so it's not very surprising that he would center the story on a set of characters who literally have "nowhere to go" in order to explore the implications and themes of that fact. Apparently it was Akane himself, not Sunrise, who insisted on the protagonist being Japanese and not European (which was apparently the original concept for the side story).

edited 3rd May '13 5:18:39 PM by Madonis

I guess I'm saying is that my theory is that Euro-Britannia helped orchestrate a Pro-Monarchist revolt in Russia, which they then supported by deploying forces. The EU seems rather lackadaisical in their response, since they'd deployed only a single regiment of troops to retake Petrograd who did not seem to think they were in an existential struggle with Britannia. That sort of leads me to think that Britannia and the EU are not properly at war.

I didn't doubt it was petty but I mean the military has been that way at times in real life. Because many officers were Calvary men, for example, Calvary charges were attempted well into WWI even though accurate rifling and machine guns had made them obsolete. Before WWII tank tactics called for tanks to be spread out in support of infrantry units; the German blitzkrieg pioneered the tactic of using massed armor divisons independently to punch holes through enemy defensive lines.

Yeah, I know that (for some reason was a bit fuzzy when I made that post). It just still is something that should be explained in the show itself why they best mechanized units the EU Federal Army has are being used by a unit it considers strategically unimportant.

I'm also not against works that have Anti-populist messages. He actually reminds me a bit of Coriolanus in how he finds the fickle masses to be insufferable and unworthy of Defense:

The difference is that, while Coriolanus is right about the populist crowds and the politicians that exploit them, he's still shown to be a cynical fascist asshole and while he's mostly right it isn't the complete picture, which he refuses to see because of the fascistic worldview he holds. Akito seems to posit that Smilas is completely in the right insofar as his summation of the EU's depravity, and Leila's argument pretty much solely rests on her idealism. I hope it gets a bit more complex than that. EU can still be flawed, deeply so, but I want to see more potential in it being salvaged.

(Edit: Also I don't the existence of blatantly incompetent officers like Anou ever make a military setting look better)

Maybe it'll be like Code Geass in that the first few episodes (or with Akito, first) are really obsessed with showing how something is wrong with the setting that they go to cartoonish lengths to show how assholish people are, but tone it down in subsequent episode. tbh I wouldn't be as bothered by this if they talked about how the current regime has failed the aspirations of the French Revolutionaries ("Liberté, égalité, fraternité"), but so far it seems to be disparaging the very idea of Republicanism and Democracy itself. I really hope that changes because otherwise this going to be a slog.

That's fair enough, and they can go interesting places with that existential dilemma as long as it doesn't dwell too much on how unfair it is (which is pretty self-evident). Since Leila is there and she's practically co-Protagonist with Akito, I don't mind too much but I could go either way with mecha pilot being Japanese or not. I guess I'd like it to be a concurrently a story about the EU finding redemption (or as much as can be allowed knowing what's to come) as well as the Japanese finding purpose and a place to call home.

edited 3rd May '13 7:40:20 PM by Scherzo09

Oh I'd also like to add as a sidebar that the battles in this OVA are fucking gorgeous. Like omg, the Cel-shaded CGI plus higher budget has done wonders for the combat.

edited 3rd May '13 10:31:13 PM by Scherzo09

Also, minor quibble (and also a sort of bump, want to see what Madonis has to say), but why 'Europia'? Why create a new bullshit word when Europe or Europa are perfectly fine? I know its kinda inconsequential, but it just bugs me cause it just sounds fake.

You might as well complain about the name of the "Holy Britannian Empire".

Briannia is a historical name for Britain, and Holy (Blank) Empire as a historical precedent; the Holy Roman Empire, which coincidentally never actually included Rome. There's a famous saying about it to the effect of "The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, Roman, or an Empire."

Europia though is a completely made up variation on Europe. Frankly calling it Europa would've been better than that.

A quote from a certain biased French deist.

Europe + Utopia = Europia

Wasn't the European Union supposed to be the most idyllic place in the Code Geass world before Briannia invaded it?

Isn't Europe in Code Geass supposed to be French-dominated? Europa is a German term.