Code Geass: Rozé of the Recapture

Episodes 3-4

Well, dang. I look away for a week because the torrent of premieres in one day meant the preview guide was all I could handle with only minimal crying, and Rozé of the Recapture gets good. It no longer feels like it's aping its predecessor but rather has a story and identity of its own. And all it needed to do was spend some time on character beats!

Now that we have the whole picture of Sakuya and Ash's rather fraught relationship, what with him killing her father and her geassing him into believing she's his little brother, the third episode leans into exploring just what that can mean. Sakuya takes some time off to free her boobies from her binder; while it was definitely an excuse to draw her tatas bouncing around, I laughed in recognition and her sigh of relief, and I'm sure most viewers with breasts of their own will do the same. After a long nap, she heads to a cafe run by a trusted friend to meet with Natalia, the daughter of her mother's former aide and Sakuya's person on the inside. When Natalia convinces Sakuya to act as a waitress as an opportunity to put on some feminine clothes, well, who should wander into that cafe but Ash!

This scene had so much charm that I don't think I would have been won over without it. Ash doesn't recognize Sakuya since he only sees her as his little brother Rozé and is quite taken with her. He tries to flirt, but that consists of making her refill his coffee ten times while he stares intently at the table and infodumps about his life. Maybe it's just because I have a penchant for traditionally attractive and extremely anxious guys, but it was adorable. Dude is good-looking, as noted in the last episode by Yoko, but he has zero game whatsoever.

It also served as an opportunity to show just how little Ash and Sakuya know about each other – she just knows him as the guy she brainwashed to be her ally after he committed political violence against her family. Her hatred of him is totally justified, but when he's awkwardly stammering about wanting the stray pets to like him like his little brother, she can no longer think of him as an unfeeling monster. Apparently, for all that Ash thinks of Rozé as the most important person to him, he doesn't really talk much at home. It also opens up a potential romance down the road, which would be messy as hell (but in an entertaining way).

This bit was so fun, and it really made me wish for a full-length series, with some time for full episodes of Sakuya hanging out in the cafe and trying to navigate having yet another disguise and persona. I don't like the term “filler” being bandied about like it has been in the past few years; I like narrative economy just as much as the next girl, but stories like this benefit from having some time to breathe. I want to get to know who the characters are like when they're just hanging out, what different sides they bring out in each other, and what drives them!

Feeling invested in the characters and their motivations made it a lot easier for me to become absorbed in the story. By extension, the new characters who showed up in this episode felt much more engaging. Natalia, for all that she's an ally to Sakuya and the United States of Japan, has a close relationship with the young emperor of Japan, Callis, after saving him from an assassination attempt. When Callis died suddenly, supposedly of heart failure, and Natalia was the only one weeping at his funeral, I felt it! I felt her grief for that poor little boy, who was being robbed of his childhood and didn't know any better but to fear the Japanese.

Once the story sped back up in episode 4, the start of the second movie, I found it much easier to stay invested than I had, even without big Knightmare battle setpieces. With the death of Emperor Callis, “Princess Sakuya,” a.k.a. Sakura, still in disguise, succeeds the throne as the last living member of the Brittannian imperial family who has not actively abdicated. Although the members of the Seven Shining Stars have their doubts about her alliance, Sakuya knows that Sakura is nothing more than a figurehead, propped up by the true power behind the throne, Norland von Lunelberg and his Einbergs.

Now that we've seen Sakuya make some morally grey choices, I'm more interested in her as a protagonist, not just as a flawed character but as a hero as well. The chess metaphor in the first episode didn't work for her because that's not who she is as a leader. She doesn't treat the Seven Shining Stars as pieces on a board, using them to further her interests; she's a peacemaker and a negotiator. When the SSS gets an advanced new Knightmare, the Keisetsu, she offers to pick the pilot to prevent infighting. When the Northern Wolves, a different resistance group, wanted to form a council that risked limiting the SSS's ability to act quickly, she found a peaceable solution to ensure every organization's interests would be represented. She notices Haruka's agility and skill and customizes the Keisetsu to her abilities, settling the dispute over who would pilot it and giving Haruka an opportunity to contribute more. It also means that the isolation caused by her geass is all the more painful.

Meanwhile, we finally get a look at Norland and the threat he and his Einbergs represent. I'll eat my hat if that man doesn't have some kind of a geass, but it's still unclear exactly how it works. When Heath, one of the Einbergs, “commits suicide” after a critical failure, he doesn't have the telltale ring around his eyes, nor does Callis, when he absolutely, definitely did not die of natural causes. For what it's worth, he's also a leader in his own right–that man is a Char if I've ever seen one, and the Einbergs seem to be mostly following him of their own will.

The fourth episode also marks several appearances by characters from Lelouch of the Rebellion: Cornelia shows up as a part of a conference with Black Knight leadership. We get confirmation that Lelouch, now known as LL, gave Sakuya her geass, as well as a scene of him and CC discussing their search for “fragments of geass.” Most critically, Nina enters to give the SSS an anti-nuclear device, apparently healed of her racism and escorted by Sakai, a Black Knight who I am convinced is her girlfriend until proven otherwise.

I wonder if the creative team decided to hold off on having characters from the original show up in hopes that Rozé of the Recapture would forge an identity of its own first. I think this was the wrong choice; only once they showed up did this really start to feel like a proper sequel. It's only been five years, and nobody is retired. Well, Jeremiah is out there in his orange grove and I wish him well, but many of the others are still involved in the politics of the world. The choices they made, like Nina assisting in the creation of the F.L.E.I.J.A., continue to have an enormous impact, and isolating the characters from that impact just didn't make sense. Bringing in old characters creates essential context and allows for major story beats.

Major story beats like a plot to use the F.L.E.I.J.A. to blow up the Sapporo Ghetto! Now that Rozé of the Recapture actually has all the components a story needs to keep me invested, I'm actually excited to see what happens.

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Episode 4:Rating:

Code Geass: Rozé of the Recapture is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+, depending on your region.