12 Days Day 3: Re;quiem
Defying all odds, Code Geass R2 stopped sucking long enough during its final episode to pretend that it had been decent the whole time. It had a strong finale, and managed to do a lot of ass-covering. The moment in anime here isn’t so much in the contents of the episode, though, as it is in cherishing the memories of 50 episodes of black swans, memes, and angry pseudo-intellectual bloggers who kept reassuring us that everything was bright (believe it or not, dumb plot twists are dumb no matter where you get with them!).
Code Geass R2 Episode 25 to me signified the end of an era and was extremely nostalgic. No matter whether you love the show or hate the show, as someone pointed out a while back, it provokes a strong reaction in you, and it has sculpted a significant portion of the aniblogosphere.
Dumb though the show arguably was, it was incredibly influential for us more moronic anibloggers, and therefore its ending has impact.
Love and peace and rock my song,
-Dr. lolikitsune.
P.S. Code Geass embodies lolikitean romance.
Madonis and 7 others are discussing. 
Kiri 12:56 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
Sweet dreams, Black Prince~.
Baka-Raptor 2:33 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
Get thee to a Nunnally.
ghostlightning 5:40 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
I agree! You nailed it on how a piece of work becomes influential regardless of how “good” it is.
lolikitean romance…
Does it mean the kind of reaction not contingent due to perceived quality of the source, but holds within its realm both love and hate, and most definitely lulz?
Evangelion wants to be lolikitean too. Perhaps it’s proto-lolikitean, or pre-lolikit-lolikitean romance.
anitations - CCY’s 12 Days of Christmas [Day 3] 6:15 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
[...] Lolikitsune: Code Geass R2 25 [...]
lolikitsune 7:10 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
@Baka-Raptor: I knew you’d do that.
@ghostlightning: Evangelion was lolikitean romance when lolikit was a shitty 14 year old, so “proto-lolikitean” sounds right.
otou-san 7:10 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
you stole one of mine, jerk.
The Coke Machine » Twelve Moments in Anime 2008 - #10 : Code Geass R2 21 7:41 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
[...] It seems like I’m not the only one who though Geass was a huge impact in 2008, regardless of whether you loved it or hated it. And [...]
lolikitsune 8:29 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
@otou-san: I figured that every aniblogger and his grandmother would be doing CG R2 E25, so… YOU ARE/NOT ALONE
Madonis 9:30 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
The series was dumb, but less so than most bloggers pretended it was.
There you it is. Have at you!
lolikitsune 9:37 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
@Madonis: I don’t know what “most” means, but I do know that the show was pretty dumb. Plot twists every episode don’t mean “omg cool,” they mean “we’re doing w/e the fck we want lololol,” and too much shit went unexplained (what the fuck are thought elevators, how did Lelouch give Jupiter the power to destroy the Sword of Akasha, etc.).
Madonis 9:55 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
That’s precisely the thing. On the surface a lot of plot twists or memes or what have you are in fact pretty dumb, of course, but the key question is whether you let yourself be distracted by said dumbness at the expense of anything else.
What went unexplained falls into two categories: those things that absolutely needed to be explained and those which didn’t. For me, those two examples you mentioned were means to an end. Sloppy means, perhaps, but it didn’t prevent me from seeing what was the point of that episode and what happened in it, for instance.
That doesn’t mean not laughing , not making jokes or not deducting points from the score. But is that everything? Unlike most bloggers, I would disagree.
lolikitsune 10:23 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
@Madonis: I agree with you in principle, but I think Code Geass really pushes the boundaries (and at points just walks all over them). “Means to an end” is only a feasible excuse if the means are meager, not if they don’t make any sense. Here’s an example to distinguish:
Premise
Meager Means
Nonsensical Means
End
As you can see the ends are the same, and random traffic accidents are one of the lamest tropes (thusly, means #1 is a meager means). We can say that random traffic accidents are at least believable, and write the whole thing off as the means to an end.
But Jane randomly killing Andy makes no fucking sense.
Tell me, if “God”/Jupiter had the power to destroy the Sword of Akasha, why did it wait for Lelouch to tell it to?! Means to an end? Don’t make me laugh. It’s simple, pure, unadulterated nonsensicalness. That’s not sloppy.
Sure we still get to see what occurs around the nonsense, but the truth is that the integrity of the plot (what the fuck how did this happen) and characters (why don’t they ever have any questions like “what’s a thought elevator” or “how the fuck did Taniguchi let me just do THAT?”) is compromised every time God kills a Sword™.
omo 10:36 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
Dumb is a relative term though. What would be smart?
Considering the circumstances surrounding Geass, I’m more than willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. It has a smart ending, at least.
lolikitsune 10:43 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
@omo:
Smart would be an attempt at being coherent.
I don’t disagree on the ending, I loved it (I think I said that in my post). Also I have CG rated pretty highly on MAL; clearly I’ve given it the benefit of the doubt when judging how much I enjoyed it (not all 8 of those 8/10 points are for the lulz). Doesn’t mean I can’t criticize it for its (glaring) faults once in a while :)
omo 10:47 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
I think Geass is coherent enough. It’s holely rather, which makes it more internally inconsistent than incoherent.
But yeah.
Omisyth 10:48 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhTiJEYqqY8
lolikitsune 10:49 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
@omo: Coherent means logical and consistent, so yes: a lack of coherency is a lack of consistency. I think we’re on the same page here.
@Omisyth: :S
Madonis 10:58 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
I’ll admit that your example made me grin, but context still matters.
Andy, Dan and Jane are all part of an ostensibly realistic world, where one would expect everything to flow in a relatively natural and logical manner. Randomly having Jane killing off Andy would definitely break that, in principle, but we could potentially find a convoluted way to explain it if we tried to.
In R2 21, what context did we have? Lelouch and Charles exchanging “philosophical BS” while standing in some sort of metaphysical plane.
“God” or “Jupiter” was briefly explained to be a representation of the human collective.
You’ve asked why didn’t “God” stop Charles if it had the power to do so.
Well, the way I saw it, what Charles was doing wasn’t inherently bad…so why would “God” be actively opposed to it? Heck, the whole show is morally ambiguous and this is no different.
Lelouch had to appeal to said collective -through a ridiculously over the top use of Geass- because *he* disagreed with said plan.
Madonis 11:09 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
Btw, it’s pretty ironic that you still gave R2 an 8 on MAL, if that is indeed the case…I gave it a little less than that, in spite of my statements here.
I don’t pretend to say that the show isn’t flawed or dumb, just not to the same extent others would argue.
lolikitsune 11:11 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
@Madonis: it’s not a matter of good or bad, it’s a matter of Jupiter being killed or Jupiter surviving. You’d think it has some opinion on that matter (supposing it’s sentient, which it must be if it’s taking orders from Lelouch).
But uh… it’s not sentient. It’s passive and unthinking. It just sits there. When does it do anything? We don’t even know if it’s a judge of “good” or “bad”—all we know is that it’s some ball in the sky that Charles wants to destroy. For all intents and purposes, Lelouch uses his Geass at that moment to do three things: first, he gives Jupiter consciousness; second, he gives Jupiter the power to destroy the Sword of Akasha; third, he orders Jupiter to use this power.
… What?
And beyond that, there’s still a context with rules in R2 21. Even if you say that they’re in some sort of metaphysical plane, the scene still should be relying on everything the show has set up up to that point (like the fact that Lelouch’s Geass doesn’t do what it does in that scene).
P.S. a large part of my 8 is for the lulz.
Madonis 11:36 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
If you say this “God” doesn’t have a concept of “good” or “evil”, then why would it even care about self-preservation? It wasn’t meant to be a deity in the classical sense.
I assumed that, being a collective, it was a mass made up of numerous smaller wills, lacking individuality and sentience only as a whole. It couldn’t really “act” until Lelouch ordered all those wills to focus on something in particular. Say, akin to Geassing a crowd and having it move as one, becoming more than the sum of its parts. Except, of course, this was a crowd in a metaphysical plane and whatnot.
I will admit that the show didn’t explain what happened in significant detail, which leaves us with either dismissing it all as nonsense (what you’ve done) or coming up with external interpretations (what I’ve done) using what little actual information we do have. I don’t think everything has to make perfect sense, just enough for the show’s purposes.
That does hurt the episode, from my perpsective, but doesn’t reduce it to pure “lulz”. The events of R2 21 still have their place in the plot and aren’t irrelevant to the ending.
“P.S. a large part of my 8 is for the lulz.”
Which makes it all the more curious that -not being particularly interested in lulz- I managed to give it a 6.5, rounded up to a 7.
lolikitsune 11:50 am on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
@Madonis:
That doesn’t follow. It would make sense to me for the entity to be interested in survival yet lack a moral compass (Hobbes, etc.).
It doesn’t reduce it to pure lulz, for sure, but this isn’t JUST R2 21—it’s a problem that’s present at almost every turn (get it? get it? “turn” olol I kill myself). R2 21 is a wonderful scapegoat for some, but really it’s not THE MOMENT when stuff goes downhill.
When you add up all the “things that hurt an episode” you have an incoherent story. And, like I said, the characters become less believable every time they don’t question the random shit that’s going on around them.
Madonis 12:12 pm on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
“That doesn’t follow. It would make sense to me !for the entity to be interested in survival yet lack a moral compass (Hobbes, etc.).”
Yeah, if you interpret it as a singular entity with the ability to have a concrete interest or will.
“It doesn’t reduce it to pure lulz, for sure, but this isn’t JUST R2 21—it’s a problem that’s present at almost every turn (get it? get it? “turn” olol I kill myself). R2 21 is a wonderful scapegoat for some, but really it’s not THE MOMENT when stuff goes downhill.”
I think most of the first season and a plurality of the second either lacks this problem or suffers from it to a much lesser degree (as opposed to having other flaws, yes, but YMMV).
There are definitely earlier instances of “stuff going downhill”, perhaps mostly notably the China arc, but after all, 21 is the episode where the most WTF, random and lulzy stuff happened, to put it in those terms. It is certainly far worse than others in that respect. Ninja Sayoko is fairly random but utterly mundane in comparison.
“When you add up all the “things that hurt an episode” you have an incoherent story. And, like I said, the characters become less believable every time they don’t question the random shit that’s going on around them.”
To quote omo:
“I think Geass is coherent enough. It’s holely rather, which makes it more internally inconsistent than incoherent.”
Other than the Sword of Akasha stuff, I don’t really think the characters failed to question the “random shit” too much, at least by anime standards, unless one places unrealistic expectations on them (after all, the viewer has a completely different and near-omniscient vantage point, from which one can easily break suspension of disbelief).
lolikitsune 12:15 pm on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
Did you see my response to omo? ;)
Madonis 12:24 pm on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
I did, but I don’t think coherence and consistency are one and the same even if they are related. From what I can tell, neither does omo.
lolikitsune 12:40 pm on December 16, 2008 Permalink |
@Madonis: when I say coherent I mean it in the way my dictionary does, which is “logical and consistent”—so instead of saying “it’s not incoherent, it’s inconsistent,” you could maybe accept the fact that what I’m saying is what you’re thinking.
You don’t -need- to disagree with me ;)
Michael 9:10 am on December 18, 2008 Permalink |
Look, I know he’s dead.
It’s like Kafka’s parables, though. Even if we know it’s a pipe dream, we still have faith in it. It’s not a matter of rationality or not, it just makes the world more tolerable to live in. Just like faith in God: he’s not really directly provable or improvable, but I have faith in Him as He makes my life seem better whether he exists or not.
You should read Kafka’s parables. It explains a lot about religion, and they’re pretty short, too.
lolikitsune 5:30 pm on December 18, 2008 Permalink |
Without reading them, I can tell you: delusions are delusions. Get a grip.