Code Geass

Code Geass

コードギアス 反逆のルルーシュ
2006 -2008 Sunrise MBS / TBS 50 episodes Completed
Action Mecha Sci-Fi Political Drama
Details & Synopsis
Lelouch vi Britannia is seventeenth in line to the throne of the Holy Britannian Empire, exiled to Japan, now called Area 11, a conquered territory with no rights and no name, following his mother's assassination and his sister's crippling. He attends school, plays chess for money, and waits.

Then a mysterious girl named C.C. gives him the Geass: the absolute power to command anyone to do anything, once, through direct eye contact. He puts on a mask. He calls himself Zero. He tells himself he is doing it to destroy Britannia.

He might even be right.

Produced by Sunrise and directed by Goro Taniguchi, who made s-CRY-ed five years earlier and clearly spent the intervening time thinking about political violence and what it costs, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion aired on MBS from 2006 to 2008. Fifty episodes across two seasons built around a chess match played in real time between a revolutionary who cannot stop lying and a childhood friend who joined the empire to reform it. The show understands that both positions are correct and neither of them will survive being correct.

The plot moves. This is the understatement of the decade. Code Geass was downloaded faster than most fansub groups could release it because no one watching it was willing to wait a week between episodes. The cliffhangers are not cheap, they are the load-bearing structure of a narrative that never stops accelerating. The Knightmare Frame battles are spectacular. The political maneuvering is genuinely intricate. The character work earns what it asks of you.

The ending of R2 is one of the most argued finales in anime history. It is also the correct ending. This is not up for debate.

Fifty episodes. Clear your schedule.
Alt Title コードギアス 反逆のルルーシュ
Studio Sunrise
Network MBS / TBS
Aired 2006 - 2008
Episodes 50
Genre Action, Mecha, Sci-Fi, Political Drama
Status Completed
← All lore

Lelouch & Suzaku

Two Answers to the Same Occupation

Destroy the System or Change It From Inside

Childhood Friends · Political Opposites

Lelouch and Suzaku want a future in which the occupation's cruelty ends, but they start from opposite conclusions. Lelouch believes Britannia is too corrupt to reform and must be broken from outside. Suzaku believes illegal rebellion only creates more victims and that legitimacy has to be won from inside the system. Code Geass keeps making both boys prove the ugliest parts of the other's argument.
Lelouch vi Britannia Suzaku Kururugi

The 'Live' Command Turns Suzaku's Death Wish Into a Weapon

SPOILER!

Stage 20 · Geass Command · Survival Against Intent

Suzaku's morality is tangled with a desire to die in a way that feels useful enough to atone for killing his father. Lelouch's order to 'live' attacks that impulse at the deepest possible level. The long-running Geass command repeatedly forces Suzaku to survive, and later becomes one reason he can pilot and fight with a recklessness no ordinary self-preservation instinct would allow.
Suzaku Kururugi

The Friendship Becomes the War

Kamine Island Ends the Last Comfortable Lie

SPOILER!

Stage 25 · Identity Exposed

By the end of R1, Suzaku knows Lelouch is Zero and Lelouch knows there is no civilian friendship left to hide behind. Their confrontation on Kamine Island is the point where every concealed identity becomes personal evidence of betrayal. R2 begins with the consequences: Suzaku delivers Lelouch to the Emperor, and Lelouch returns to rebellion knowing exactly who stands behind the Lancelot.
Lelouch vi Britannia Suzaku Kururugi

Zero Requiem Requires the One Person Lelouch Cannot Fool

SPOILER!

R2 Turn 21–25 · Shared Punishment

The endgame works only because Lelouch finally gives Suzaku the whole plan instead of another manipulated role. Lelouch will become the world's visible tyrant and die; Suzaku will surrender his name and live permanently as Zero. It is cooperation built from everything that destroyed their friendship, turning Lelouch's desire for death and Suzaku's desire for punishment into opposite halves of the same settlement.
Suzaku Kururugi