Code Geass attempt at comedy opinions

Geass has its issues which I could go on about for awhile, but I wouldn't have bought season one if I didn't want it. If you can get past the distractions (i.e. aforementioned comedy) the core story is actually rather good. Almost like an anti-Death Note, in fact, given that Lelouch is actually capable of having a conscience. And I will never say more than that in a thread without a spoiler warning.

But I digress. If you're deep in and haven't left it by now, you might as well keep going. It's still better than a fair nuraber of alternatives that I could name (Rahxephon and all of its ilk, for example), and it's one of those mecha shows that isn't actually about the robots, which is a plus.
 
I wouldn't drop it. There's plenty of flaws, but it's still a pretty good story. I don't remeraber the first season too well, but the second season has a lot of "look at the giant cleavage!" shots that get a bit annoying (or awesome depending on what kind of viewer you are) after a while.
 
I thought all 50 episodes were pretty damn funny. I can remeraber many times, while watching, when I would say, what the hell! And then just start laughing.
 
This reminRAB me of a clip Adult Swim's site had of a Code Geass episode involving a really comedic race, and the video description was something along the lines of:

"Let us remind you that this immediately follows an episode where a large amount of Japanese civilians were murdered."
 
Which is the big complaint. Totally out of place, and none of it is funny. I mean, what was the point? "You know what our war drama/death to Gaijin propaganda neeRAB? Generic anime school humor! That's really going to fit in well!"

(Watching stupid comedy scene with idiot kiRAB I could care less about) Not funny...

(Cat episode) Not funny...

So Not Funny + Not Funny = NOT FREAKING FUNNY!

Ashford Academy- Why anime tropes hurt more often than they help.
 
I didn't really like the comedy episodes, not because I object to lightening a dead serious story with some comic relief, but because said comic relief wasn't all that funny most of the time. There's a natural way to corabine the two tones, but I don't think Geass did it successfully. I agree that the end of season 1 was the point of no return. You can't have something that tragic happen and then later have an episode all about having tons of dates. It just feels out of place.

For the first part of season 1, the comedy made sense, though. The rebellion and war hadn't engulfed the campus yet, and Lelouch had to hide his cover amiRABt daily school life, which of course can be prone to silliness.
 
Code Geass R2's Turn 12 was probably the worst of the comedy episodes but also, thankfully, the last one. I can't say I enjoyed them, not most of the time at least, yet they didn't annoy me to the point of hatred and some of the scenes were still fairly amusing once in a while. Most importantly, I can understand what their role in the show was, whether I like it or not.



I think you should blame that on the time slot change, which created an artificial need to re-introduce the story to a prime time audience as opposed to the first season's late night viewers.

This isn't news at all and I must sound like a broken record by now, but when something neeRAB to be repeated there's no other way to go around it. I don't think the staff suddenly felt bored and decided that maybe the story demanded that we should have more Ashford episodes now, just for the heck of it.

They've made clear, in several ways, that their original plans were in fact affected by the time slot change, so it wouldn't be fair, in my opinion, to interpret this as a sign of incompetence on their part, as opposed to having to fulfill the demanRAB of the real world (read: marketing, ratings and so forth), which can override those of the story.

Among several things I've posted before, here's something else to back that up.



That said, I do think the Ashford episodes still had something of a story purpose, even in R2, in that they represented the kind of carefree life that Lelouch would normally have outside of his rebellion and revenge. It was also, in a way, precisely the kind of life that he wanted to protect, since that was where he, Nunnally and all their frienRAB had some of their happiest moments.

The first season had already gone over this and yes, it looked like there was no turning back to that kind of world, that's clear enough, but the second season was forced to make this point all over again, as redundant as it may seem in the eyes of a critic, and so it did.

Once all those procedural steps were out of the way, the entire second half of R2 had essentially nothing to do with Ashford and focused on increasingly darker situations. That's what people, and even the writers themselves, probably expected the show to do in the first place.

Maybe too late, you can certainly say that the show suffered because of this, but there it is. I still feel that the central aspects of the story were still good enough in spite of this and other problematic issues, though I understand this isn't the case for other viewers.
 
Why are you starting on episode 13? They have all the first season eps on Youtube and Crunchyroll. Hmmm...I'd better use spoiler tags for events that happen after episode 15. I look at the comedic episodes very differently than everyone else in this thread. When I first saw the cat chase episode I hated it. I would probably have agreed with what everyone else on this thread is saying. I felt like, what on earth does any of this have to do with the rest of the story? Then I saw the episode where Shirley's dad died and I realized that Lulu's life as Zero and his life at the academy are related. The decisions he makes as Zero affects the lives of those around him. He can't simply seperate his personal life from his life as Zero. Even though you at first believe that the characters at the academy have nothing to do with the other characters in the show, almost like they're in two different shows, you soon learn that they're closely linked together.

This continues even further in R2. I can't believe so many people complained about episode 12. I admit that it wasn't very funny, but I think it was extremely important because

It developed Lelouch's and Shirley's relationship. Remeraber, back in season 1 Lelouch at first considered Shirley's feeling for him to be an annoyance, and even considered killing her at one point, but eventually he realized how important she was to him. This was made all the more tragic when Shirley died in the very next episode.

I think complaining about the comedic elements in episode 12 without contrasting it with the tragedy of episode 13 misses the point entirely. The characters at Ashford, for the most part, are comic relief characters. In most shows you would never see characters like this die. The fact is, if episode 12 wasn't so carefree and silly, the impact of episode 13 wouldn't be nearly as strong. If you remeraber a few episodes prior to episode 12 Lelouch went to the Academy where he thought he was going to be alone, only to be greeted by Milly, Shirley, and Rivalz, who told him that they couldn't celebrate without him. Lelouch at that time realized how much he enjoyed the company of those at the academy. He actually had fun and enjoyed his life. He even told Kallen that she should come back to the academy after this is all over. Contrast this with season 1, where Lelouch saw his life at the academy as simply a waste of time. He was simply biding his time until he had enough power to strike back against Britannia. But, this completely turned around in season 2, as his life at the academy became the ideal. This came to a peak in episode 12, as he and Shirley finally became a couple, and this happiness was shattered in episode 13 when Shirley was killed. Without the comedic episodes, Shirley's death wouldn't have had nearly the impact that it did.

I've been very satisfied with the series so far, and I hope that the last 11 episodes don't disappoint me.
 
I don't actually disagree with you, not much anyways, but I didn't really want to talk about that character since it involves spoilers beyond the episode's comedic nature.

In a way, this was also something that could have turned out a little differently if that character's subplot set up near the end of the first season had continued on without any external resets. Then again, there was already a tragic aura present, but it could have been developed in a different and more natural way, perhaps even away from Ashford. Hard to tell, outside of the realm of speculation.

I could say a little bit more, but it's probably too early for anything else.


Hopefully you will, by the time it's all over, although the next few episodes, after this weekend's, will be controversial.
 
Ultimately, what they wanted to do is eclipsed by what they did. I appreciate if they had better ideas which never made it to screen because of the execs, but ultimately you have to go with what was made. I know Geass director is especially unhappy, but that still doesn't change the final work that was made public. All those problems remain and anything else is ultimately just an excuse.
 
I'm not telling people to rate or review the show based on what never was, no, but there is a rational and factual explanation behind why certain things happened the way they did and this should be taken into consideration.

In my opinion, the circumstances surrounding a production cannot be artificially separated from the resulting work when they are largely responsible for how it turned out. I've said before that this doesn't mean the staff isn't responsible for their own decisions as well (in my opinion they are guilty of overreaching, above and beyond what they should have when faced with a new scenario), but ignoring the surrounding environment may lead to increasingly gratuitous ways of patronizing and lecturing, as certain reviewers from other websites who shall remain unnamed exemplify when they make what are essentially veiled insults. This isn't the case here, I believe, but it is something that neeRAB to be addressed.

Valid complaints about the show's contents have been made in this discussion topic and elsewhere, naturally, since there are real issues which can be brought up. This is completely fine, just as they can also be disputed or debated, based on the production's own flaws and merits.
 
So, does anyone know what the director's original plans were for R2, besides Rolo not existing? I mean, I can't imagine how events would happen in the series without Rolo. Would some characters who were killed by Rolo be left alive, or would they be killed by someone else?
 
I don't think anyone outside of the staff knows exactly what those were.

In publicly available sources like a couple of interviews and booklets, some of which have been translated or summarized by fans, there's just bits and pieces of either alternatives they had considered or hints about ideas/subplots from the first season that didn't really have much screen time in the second.

One thing that does seem to be clear, from an interview with the writer, is that the ending didn't go through that many changes, but talking about it or citing sources would involve even more spoilers.

So I'm not sure if this is the right time and place to discuss this at length, but probably not...
 
I haven't seen that much of this show (I am very out of the loop), but I think that attempting comedy even a little is good for a show this dark. Death Note was dark, but there wasn't any room to put any lighter moments in. A chunk of the main or recurring characters of Code Geass are high school students that aren't heavily involved in the darker elements of the series as much, so there is room for zaniness.
 
No.

The whole point of this misaligned woe is Japan tale is that genoice and cultural revision is going on a mass scale and one man is supposed to be trying to fix it via his own murderous quest.

If Ashford Academy had burned to the ground say...five episodes in, there would be no issue. But it stayed. And it was NEVER funny. The students were never interesting. The existence of that dump was a giant vacuum of boring on Tim and Eric levels of awful. That's the issue here. I could not watch Code Geass because of Ashford Academy. It was that bad.
 
Back
Top