Forum - View topicCode Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion (TV) - dub.
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darkchibi07
 Posts: 5486 |
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Woot, episode 1 of R2!!
spoiler[What's heck? Lelouch seemed to be too soft, and he has a brother named Rollo? I bet a lot of you are wondering what the hell happened between that time skip of one year! 
As for this episode, well it's almost played out similarly to the first in the first season with the episode ending with Zero being back! And there's Kallen as a bunny girl for good measure.] |
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NGE1113
 Posts: 1081 Location: Alexandria, VA. |
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Some quick thoughts here:
No offense to the writing staff, but the whole spoiler[main-character-with-amnesia gambit] has been completely chewed up and spit out by the soap opera industry. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now, but there better be a good back story behind it. The introduction of what appears to be a Britannian-planted sibling is a start in the right direction. In addition, I'd like to know what transpired during that one year break that got Shirley so interested in Lulu again, and was it something that requires any sort of logic-denying belief? Going along with this same train of thought, what sort of explanation will be used to address the fact that spoiler[Jeremiah isn't dead yet]? Call me a skeptic, but I'm still not quite sure that part of episode 25 was quite as conclusive as it seemed. spoiler[If C.C. survived...] I know, I know, that's not saying much. Throw into that the fact that spoiler[Kallen now apparently trusts Lelouch again, even though he's a Britannian (coming off from her reaction to the reveal in the last episode). Another plot hole to fill in...] I'm starting to see where some people might apply the "train wreck" label. To conclude, the obvious million dollar question (or insert your currency of choice here), what the heck did V.V. do with Nunnally? And, what happened to Cornelia? Here's to next week... |
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nightjuan
 Posts: 1473 |
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I can't speak in detail about the show itself nor answer any questions without spoiling too much.
You probably don't want that, do you? Thus I will not attempt to do so.
Certain questions about the new setup should be easily answered, directly or indirectly, by next week or the one after that. Others will either take more time or won't be addressed. Of course, I can't tell you which is which. But since you did mention the writing staff, I can say that the use of spoiler[amnesia and a one year time skip] was motivated by out-of-universe circumstances (mainly giving the show a new time slot), in addition to the actual story explanation behind it. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Basically, the move to the new timeslot - combined with Sunrise (or their sponsors) attempting to garner new fans to the show - resulted in the first few episodes of R2 being remarkably similar to to the first few episodes of season one.
As you watch, make it a game to spot the similarities between the two seasons, up until episode five of R2. Note that episode three of R2 does not easily correspond to an episode in the first season, and that episode five of R2 corresponds to episode six of season one. Which of course means that episode five of season one does not have a doppelganger in R2. |
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Josh7289
Posts: 1252 |
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Wow, that was cool. spoiler[Lots of stuff happened in only one year, though. Then again, I shouldn't be surprised, since the show moves way too fast anyhow. Hahaha.
Some of the mecha designs got weird, though. Like in the opening, that Chinese one, so many super robot-esque colors and things. O.o] Oh, and I liked the art during the ending animation. Very nice. |
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Servant of the Path
 Posts: 90 Location: United States |
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Has anyone else noticed the omission of Code Geass from the Adult Swim schedule on their cable/satellite program guide? Dish Network is showing Assy Mcgee and Squidbillies in the 6:00 AM to 7:00 AM hour (which will become the 5:00 AM to 6:00 AM hour). Adult Swim's website schedule does show Code Geass and Moribito in the 5-6 hour slot but I wouldn't put it past them to completely eliminate both episodes to rerun Assy Mcgee and Squidbillies and the daylight savings time change seems to be an excellent opportunity for them to do so.
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bahamut623
 Posts: 1463 |
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Daylight Savings Time always screws up the guide for that one night, so I'm not sure what will happen. Heck, if they marathon one of their moronic shows, I don't think I'd mind too much, since I'm not really sure what to record on the DVR to make sure I get Geass and Moribito. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18268 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Okay, someone who's seen the fansubs please tell me that this does eventually get better. After watching my recording of that first episode, I found a lot to be desired about it. Nothing except seeing spoiler[Kallen - whom I've always thought was the series' hottest-looking character - in the bunny outfit] clicked, and the aforementioned plot thread involving Lelouch was lame beyond belief.
After an exciting end run to the previous season, I've found the first episode of this new season to be a massive letdown. |
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nightjuan
Posts: 1473 |
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Things do get better but they also get worse. Your mileage may vary. As far as this particular arc goes, I'd advise you to wait and see, if nothing else.
I can understand that, especially if you expected the beginning to be equally exciting, picking right up without any interruptions and using all the previous momentum from the get go. In fact, that's exactly what the staff originally planned, but other circumstances got in the way of their intentions. Like dtm42 mentioned, the start of R2 was structured in such a way as to introduce the show to a new audience in a different time slot, several months later. That might not be a justification, from a personal perspective, but it is all factual context that's worth keeping in mind. |
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BES Null Core
 Posts: 604 Location: 六十周年的东方裁判 |
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All of the questions raised by darkchibi07 and NGE1113 were answered completely or nearly completely within spoiler[the next two episodes], most of them by spoiler[episode two.] This will serve as to clear up confusions caused by spoiler[the time skip and apparent reset] shown in episode one of R2. The explanations in turn lead to more questions, but such is the nature of a conspiracy ridden series. Whether you will like the explanations they provide, however, is another matter.
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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After receiving a Private Message from a concerned forum-goer, I am putting up this message to warn people about my post. It does not contain untagged spoilers (besides the harmless ones in the fanservice section), and both of the tagged spoilers are minor. But, there are enough hints, generalisations and spoiler "elements" (sentences which might imply certain incidents or occurrences) that people may wish to skip my post entirely.
Yeah, like nightjuan said, it gets better, but also worse. Once episode five of R2 gets out of the way, the series actually becomes quite good (so I thought). That is, (and the exact episode varies from person to person) until episode seventeen. Most will probably say episode twenty. Anyway, at that point the series goes into a huge decline, thought it hadn't been entirely blemish-free till then either: The animation quality infamously dropped (at episode 20), which caused quite an uproar; even moreso once fans found out that the drop was due to animation being shifted to Japan from Korea (instead of the other way around). The Mecha go from interesting and balanced to Strike Freedom-esque levels of "pwnage". It was exciting at first, but then people realised that it completely ruined the excitement of seeing two evenly-matched Mecha fight. Besides, most of the Knightmares were used incredibly poorly (like artillery suits going into close-combat where they were utterly annihilated). What commander comes up with such abysmal tactics? The vaunted Knights of Round should call themselves the Shrike Team. Though they might have to fight the Glaston Kinghts for that "honour". The plot loses the plot, if you know what I mean. It strays into - wait for it - Evangelion territory. Let me tell you, I wasn't the only fan incredulously shouting swear words at my monitor, though most seemed to find it more lame than anything else. And, just when you think the plot is going to be resolved, they introduce a whole new arc. While the episode count was the same as the first season, the last arc felt tacked-on. Moving on, the final boss is a joke, except we were laughing at Sunrise, rather than with it (if we were laughing at all). What were they thinking? Was that the best way to resolve that particular thread? The characters (other than Lelouch) all seemed to get stupider and more hostile, to the point where characters were openly doing the most stupid and self-contradicting things. That's another thing. Sunrise really upped the ante on the fanservice this season. You saw Kallen in a bunny-outfit. We also get C2 in such tight clothing we see her pubes, see up Sayoko's dress (let's just say she doesn't wear all too much under it), Kallen in a variety of outfits, Millay and Cecile in dresses than would make a Hollywood actress blush, and (pretty minor spoiler concerning the name of a character who survived the last season) spoiler[Cornelia]'s bust size increased by several orders of magnitude. Oh yeah, we also got Viletta in outrageously skimpy swimwear, Millay and Shirley together in a shower, plus a club at Ashford calling itself the "Fantasy Seduction Team" with various fetishes (and lots of skin) on display. Oh, and ah, Loli after Loli after Loli. The pacing was way off, which caused much of the problems. The "requirement" to ease new fans into the franchise meant that the season started with a whimper instead of a bang. And it meant that the last six episodes were so fast-paced that they couldn't - didn't - make good sense. It didn't help that we suffered through two school festivals, the second making time for itself by trashing the pacing even further. Back to characters now, and we get a very disappointing performance from a certain character (though who it is, is a spoiler). The minor characters got pushed to the sidelines rather than just skipped entirely. When combined with the sheer numbers of new characters being introduced at regular intervals, it just caused the show to practically have a stroke (character-clot instead of a blood-clot). There were two characters introduced who got perhaps five seconds of screentime between them. One of them was sister to another tertiary character, and we only knew that because as she died she spoke his name. Why introduce her at all? Why not just make her a nameless grunt rather than a character with her own page on the official website? Now, for those of you who have read this far, I hope I haven't spoiled anything of value for you. If you do survive to the final episode, I can assure you a very good Mecha battle, a touching finale (where Lelouch proves he is many things, but not evil or even an arsehole), a nice montage, and a hint that the ending was more sweet than bitter (think Elfen Lied). Pity that half of the twenty-four preceding episodes were either unnecessary or awful. [The idea of a "spoiler" is to avoid giving away important plot details; telling somebody to watch a particular character, telling viewers what to expect with regards to major plot devices, and such ARE SPOILERS IN AND OF THEMSELVES. Imagine this conversation: "You see the football game last night?" "Naw, I got it on Tivo though, I'll watch it when I get back." "You're not gonna like it, you're really not going to like it." THAT IS A SPOILER, and it is against the rules just as equally as any other spoiler would be, this is not difficult stuff people. I had to delete some sections of this post as a result. -selenta] Last edited by dtm42 on Sun Nov 02, 2008 9:00 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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nightjuan
Posts: 1473 |
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It seems to me that some of your other comments may be borderline spoilers...but this alone, the animation quality of certain episodes, might be partially or entirely resolved if Adult Swim has been provided with the DVD masters, which seems to be the case for now. I prefer to keep most of my own detailed opinions, both good and bad, out of sight for now. With that in mind, I won't address any of the other issues you raised, whether I agree or disagree (and there's a lot to say in both directions). |
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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Likewise. I felt the the first few episodes were weak but it got better up until around the halfway point, when it started going downhill for a variety of reasons. I felt the 2-3 episodes leading up the last one were complete disasters. Code Geass has always been a flawed series, but it wasn't until the latter half of R2 that it began to have a series effect on my enjoyment of the series. The early episodes of R2 rely a bit too heavily on plot-twists and cliffhangers just for the sake of having them, but otherwise I found them to be fairly enjoyable. But as the series goes on, it suffers from several issues. If you enjoyed the nicely choreographed, semi-realistic mecha fights in the first season, you will find precious little of it here. R2 quickly goes to Gundam 00/Gundam SEED Destiny levels of ridiculous mecha, with the ones in R2 outclassing just about anything else that pretends to be "real robot." But if the mecha fights aren't your concern, you can look forward to twists and plot turns that go beyond "so ridiculous its entertaining" straight into the absurd. Frankly, you need a really, really high suspension of disbelief (or to just not care or have a discerning eye for these things) to take the story remotely seriously by the latter half of R2. This is to say nothing of the bloated cast and pacing issues. The series had a large cast already and it increases by a good deal. 25 episodes might have been enough to deal with them appropriately, but the series' pacing and focus issues make it a huge problem. Look forward to potentially interesting characters getting introduced and then largely ignored. Characters new and old get shoved aside and given little development, even if hints were dropped towards something more interesting. Have I mentioned pacing issues? Yes, R2 has them. It takes its sweet time in the early episodes, goes off on a bit of a tangent in the second quarter, and then has to rush things in the latter half. Then the series makes a drastic shift in direction near the end with nowhere near enough episodes to do a good job with it. Except Rollo, so enjoy your blatant yaoi-fangirl pandering as they don't even try to hide it this season. Not that guys aren't pandered to as well. If you disliked the for-guys fanservice in the first season, R2 will make you cringe (though personally, that was the one thing R2 did a good job at). Honestly, I'm not sure which parts will be an issue for you Key, as your feeling on the first season were dissimilar to my own, but I am quite sure that you will have significant complaints at some point or another. I suspect you will not have a favorable opinion of the episodes near the end. I'd recommend giving it another few episodes, but if you aren't enjoying it by episode 4 or 5, then you probably won't like it any more as the series progresses. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18268 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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I toughed out the second season of Blood + despite finding most of it tediously boring, so the second season of this one will have to really tank for me to not watch it out. I like frivolous fan service as long as it's done well, so I may consider the fan service increase a plus. Hearing that the mecha battles become Gundam-esque is a much greater concern, but as long as the series doesn't bore me I'll keep watching it. And man, do I wish I had seen Code Geass prior to us doing the Spring Preview Guide back in April. Then I could've watched this first episode and ripped it a new butthole from an informed perspective. 
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ryokoalways
Posts: 562 |
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13 through 17-18 ish was probably the best ran part of the season. After that I can't really say anything is guaranteed. And then the ending is pretty good. It's the expected ending, but it's extremely well executed.
Just lower your expectations now though. It will make the series more enjoyable. |
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