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Jordan-The Manamancer wrote:Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, a two-season anime series that aired from 2006 to 2008, plays with a lot of common anime tropes in interesting or entertaining ways — and had one of the most extreme examples of a Broken Base in recent memory to back its experimentation up.
The series takes place in an Alternate History where Britain won the Revolutionary War, but lost a later war against Napoleon, who went on to conquer the British Isles. This nation evolved into Britannia, a Social Darwinist empire that controls over a third of the world. Seven years before the start of the main story, Britannia invaded Japan to secure a rare mineral that makes a new power source possible. Thanks to their Humongous Mecha, the conflict ends in short order (Japan wins only a single minor battle). Britannia stripped Japan of everything — including its name — for almost a decade; the Empire and its subjects now refer to it only by the numerical designation based on when Britannia conquered the territory ("Area 11").
The story for Code Geass truly begins in the present day, where two friends who met as children in the days before the war — Lelouch Lamperouge and Suzaku Kururugi — have bumped into each other again, now as young adults. Suzaku, a career soldier of Japanese origin who hates bloodshed, has risen through the ranks of the occupation forces; success represents his dream of earning a noble title in order to use said title's rights and privileges to change the Britannian system from within. Lelouch, an exiled Britannian prince who sympathizes with a revolutionary faction, has become disillusioned by his inability to act against Britannia; the success of this insurgency represents the opportunity to finally have revenge for the murder of his mother.
Lelouch encounters a group of rebels fleeing from a secret research project, and this chance encounter introduces him to C.C. (pronounced as "C Two"; in the Japanese, "Shi-Tsu"), who offers Lelouch a faustian deal that will give him "the power of a king" (a supernatural power called a "Geass"). Lelouch's Geass manifests as an Evil Eye that allows him to give an order to anyone — and that person has to obey it. With this power and his incredible intelligence, Lelouch decides to overthrow the Britannian Empire; he hides his identity behind the masked persona of "Zero" and soon becomes the leader of Japan's resistance movement.
Meanwhile, Suzaku — the son of Japan's last free Prime Minister — has joined the Britannian military as part of his effort to change Britannia from within. After an encounter with terrorists, Suzaku becomes the test pilot of the Super Prototype mecha "Lancelot" and finds himself going head-to-head with Zero (and Lelouch) in terms of loyalty and ideals, which sets up one of the major conflicts during the series.
One of my favorite anime of all time. I feel sad becaue I only watched it this year when I could have seen it in 2006.
