OP Sequence
OP: 「瞳ノ翼」 (Hitomi no Tsubasa) by access
Watch the OP!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2
It’s been a while since I heard the access song from the radio rip, and I still rather like it, though the sequence itself wasn’t horribly interesting. Then again, with this being just the final episodes, it probably didn’t make sense for them to reanimate it.
Episode 24
Summary:
Looking at a screen with images of C.C. labeled as CODE-R, Jeremiah realizes that they tried to make a reproduction with this experimental body. Bartley tries to calm him down, but they then hear Zero’s message to the Britannia forces, and it gives Jeremiah great mental anguish. At that moment, Cornelia and her men are getting ready to face off against Zero’s Black Knights, but Zero first makes an announcement that triggers a GEASS effect in the operators of the control rooms under the Britannia settlement. Right at midnight, these operators cause the ground to crumble, and the Black Knights soon begin their ground assault. Toudou finds Cornelia first and tries to attack her, but one of her men takes the hit. Guilford then jumps in to face him and tells Cornelia to return towards their base because she needs to live for Euphemia’s sake. Cornelia agrees to turn back and let him fight, but only after she orders him to return alive. On the Black Knights side, Lelouch sends the Zero squad and Ougi to the seize Ashford Academy so that they can use it as a command center.
Meanwhile on the Avalon, Suzaku enters the Lancelot’s hanger so that he can join the fight, but Lloyd holds the keys and says that leaving would be disobeying orders since they haven’t gotten a sortie command from Cornelia. Suzaku responds by punching Lloyd in the face, taking the key, and then declaring that he’ll defeat Zero with his own hands. Back in Britannia, reports are coming in to a conference room full of royalty that a Chinese Federation armada has gathered in the East China Sea. At the head of the table, Odysseus is worried about the Emperor not being around, and one of the other men suggests preparing a dispatch of troops. Odysseus, however, lacks confidence, particularly in light of the Euphemia blunder, so Schneizel volunteers to go. Back in Tokyo, Diethard leads the troops to take over the television station, and Tamaki helps capture Ashford Academy. When Rivalz attempts to protect Milly, Shirley, and Nunnally, Tamaki raises the butt of his rifle to hit him, but Zero and Kallen show up to stop any violence from happening. Zero is making the school into a command center, but he first guarantees the safety of the student council members, thinking privately to himself that he wants Nunnally to stay here for the duration of the battle so that the Black Knights can protect her.
Rivalz still continues to protest, so Kallen takes off her visor and requests that he do as he’s told. Though she’s surprised to see Kallen on the other side, Milly asks her to promise not to touch any of the students, so Kallen replies that she thinks the students will be fine as long as they don’t go out. Shirley then starts asking about what they did to her, which confuses Kallen, but the conversation is interrupted when Ougi rushes in to report that the Lancelot has shown up. At this time, Suzaku is feverishly searching for Zero while slicing through all of the Black Knight Knightmares that he comes across. V.V. had earlier told him that Zero had a paranormal power called GEASS and had implied that this was why Euphemia suddenly changed. Villetta, who managed to kill the thugs who appeared at Ougi’s apartment and has returned to her normal self, has also realized that Lelouch has the power to control people and make them forget memories. In any case, Suzaku’s rampage soon leads him to Kallen, and the two start fighting after Kallen tells him to die here and after Suzaku asserts that she and the Japanese people are being deceived by Zero. At one point, the Guren Nishiki manages to catch the Lancelot’s left arm and starts frying it, but Suzaku thinks quickly and ejects the arm.
The Lancelot counters by shooting off the Guren Nishiki’s left arm, and when Kallen refuses to tell him where Zero is, Suzaku gets ready to finish her off. Fortunately for her, Zero and the Gawain show up at that moment, and Lelouch claims that he wants to settle this in a one-on-one fight with Suzaku. Back at Ashford, the Black Knight soldiers bring in a suspicious person that Ougi recognizes as Chigusa, so he decides to take supervision over her. The student council members are meanwhile worried about what’s going to happen to them, but Shirley is positive that Zero won’t harm them. However, they are then alerted to the fact that the Lancelot and the Gawain are outside their building, with the Gawain pointing its hand at their window. Suzaku calls Zero a coward for taking hostages, but this is all part of Zero’s plan that involves Sayoko hiding in the woods. When the Lancelot charges, the Gawain shoots in a direction that forces the Lancelot to touch down on the ground and fall right into the Gefjun Disturber trap, activated by Sayoko. Suzaku is furious with Zero, but with this fight over, Lelouch leaves the Lancelot in the hands of Laksharta.
The Gawain then flies back towards the Britannia forces headquarters where the heated battle continues and where Britannian reinforcements are arriving. In response, the Gawain fires its main cannons in a circular motion, destroying everything around it. Afterwards, Lelouch and C.C. land in the garden on top of the enemy building, and he recognizes the landscape. To his surprise, C.C. says that it’s like Aries imperial villa, but she won’t tell him why she knows of that place yet. The two then get interrupted by Cornelia who had been expecting Zero to come. Meanwhile, Ougi is questioning why Chigusa came here and apologizes for hiding his Black Knight identity to her. He tries to say that this is all for peace and for the sake of them being able to be together, but Villetta takes his gun and scoffs at the notion that she’d be with him. After revealing that she’s a Britannian Knight named Villetta Nu, she shoots Ougi in the stomach, and as he collapses on to the ground, Ougi finally realizes that her memories have returned. Elsewhere in the school, Nunnally asks Milly and the others to go out and help Suzaku.
By now, the fight between Cornelia and Zero in their respective Knightmares has started, and Cornelia’s Gloucester is able to run circles around the Gawain. When the Gawain attempts to take off into the air, the Gloucester grapples onto it and is about to shoot it at point blank range when another Gloucester lance suddenly pierces through Cornelia’s cockpit. This lance belongs to Darlton’s Gloucester, and he’s attacked her under the influence of GEASS. As soon as Darlton regains control of himself though, Zero thanks him and blasts him with the Gawain, killing him. Back at the student council room, V.V. arrives in Nunnally’s room and says that he came to get her.
Episode 25
Summary:
Having gotten out of the wreckage of her fallen Gloucester, Cornelia finds out Zero’s real identity when he approaches her without his mask on, and she figures out that he was doing all this for Nunnally’s sake. Lelouch admits that he wants to destroy the current world and create a new age, but that gets Cornelia angry because she feels he killed Clovis and Euphemia for the sake of such nonsense. Lelouch then activates his GEASS power and asks Cornelia if she was the one who killed his mother, but Cornelia says that it wasn’t herself and that she doesn’t know who the real culprit is. Since Cornelia was in charge of the guard back then, Lelouch then questions why the guard was withdrawn, and to his surprise, the answer comes out that Marianne asked them to. Lelouch realizes that this means that his mother knew that there would be an attack that day, but he finds that impossible because he thinks that she would have let him and Nunnally escape. No matter how desperately he asks for what happened that day and who killed his mother though, Cornelia doesn’t have an answer for him, so Lelouch instead asks her who does know the truth, but the only other thing Cornelia knows is that the Emperor ordered Schneizel to take away Marianne’s body.
C.C. suddenly senses something and alerts Lelouch to the fact that Nunnally has been kidnapped and is being taken to Kaminejima – the same island Lelouch, Suzaku, Kallen, and Euphemia had been taken to previously. As Lelouch is re-boarding the Gawain though, a new mecha springs forth from the ground: Jeremiah’s. Lelouch tries to get C.C. to retrieve Cornelia’s body, but Jeremiah mecha tackles the Gawain and pushes it off the rooftop. With C.C. piloting, Lelouch places call to Ougi and finds out that he was shot, but more importantly, Lelouch wants to know what happened to the wheelchair girl. Upon learning that the students have disappeared, Lelouch calls up Rivalz and finds out that they left Nunnally back in the clubhouse. He wants to head for Nunnally, but to get rid of Jeremiah first, the Gawain fires on a building to cause it to fall on Jeremiah’s mecha. Back at Ashford, the Black Knights are trying to crack into the Lancelot’s cockpit and have recaptured Shirley, Milly, and Rivalz. Shirley in particular wants Tamaki to call Zero because she believes that Zero will protect them. To prevent Tamaki from hurting his classmates, Suzaku decides to emerge from the Lancelot’s cockpit, but since the Black Knights only want the Lancelot, Tamaki prepares to shoot its pilot.
However, before Tamaki can do so, Arthur jumps on his gun and delays him long enough for the Avalon to arrive. Cecile launches in a Sutherland made of test parts, and she and Lloyd help destroy the Gefjun Disturber to reactivate the Lancelot. After recharging it and giving it a Sutherland arm to replace the one it lost, Cecile sends Suzaku on his way to take on Zero. As Suzaku is taking off though, he gets a transmission from Cornelia, so he heads towards her. When he gets there, Cornelia tells him that Zero is headed for Kaminejima and grants him a formal knighthood. Meanwhile, Lelouch contacts Toudou and leaves all operations from here on to him. When news of this reaches Diethard, he questions why Zero would leave in such an important time, and a wave of uncertainty hits the rest of the Black Knights too. Kallen in particular is wondering what to do when she gets a call from Ougi telling her to go after Zero. She then sees the Lancelot flying off somewhere, so she decides to follow it. At Ashford, the students have started boarding the Avalon while it and Cecile trade fire with the Black Knight forces. In the middle of this, Nina suddenly appears in the Ganymede armed with a large Sakuradite bomb capable of wiping out the city, so Lloyd declares a temporary truce so that they don’t hit it. Holding the trigger in her hands, Nina demands to know where Zero is.
At that time, the Gawain is approaching Kaminejima, and Lelouch is questioning what this war for independence was for if Nunnally isn’t around. They soon arrive at the island and land at the entrance to the cave there, but C.C. says that she doesn’t know the place or if Nunnally’s kidnapper is a person with GEASS powers. When a surge of energy suddenly hits the Gawain and causes Lelouch to have visions, C.C. informs him that this is a trap against intruders, but Lelouch is then shown scenes of her past, including her getting shot on a battlefield and getting burned at the stake. In a black and white world, C.C. tells him that all that’s left is her memories of being a witch, and she doesn’t even know if she was human to start with. All the people who hated her and the people who were kind to her have disappeared in the never-ending flow of time, and she thus feels alone. Lelouch, however, tells her that she’s not alone: they are accomplices, so if she is a witch, then he feels that he will become the devil. The two of them are then returning to their normal senses, and just in time for Jeremiah to attack again. Jeremiah manages to hit them, so C.C. fires the Gawain’s cannons into the ocean to create a wall of water to hide themselves in for a moment.
Telling Lelouch to leave Jeremiah to her, C.C. wants him to go after Nunnally instead. Lelouch points out that the Gawain doesn’t have enough energy, but C.C. feels that it’ll be okay, though she then admits to feeling a bit uneasy. Telling him to win, C.C. kisses Lelouch before setting him down by the cave. When Lelouch tells her not to die, she questions who he thinks he’s talking to. C.C. then flies the Gawain to Jeremiah’s mecha and attaches to it before accelerating it into the water. Back in Tokyo, the tide of battle has turned against the Black Knights and the forces under Guilford have started a counterattack. Even Kaguya is now wondering if Zero abandoned them. At that moment, Lelouch has entered the cave and approaches the markings on the wall, but he gets shot at before he can get much further. The person with the gun is Suzaku, and as Lelouch turns to face him, he attempts to blame Euphemia for killing innocent Japanese and tries to associate Suzaku with it. Suzaku, however, won’t fall for the mind games and mentions how useful a power GEASS is in allowing Zero to hide himself while putting responsibility on others. Suzaku has also noticed that Kallen is here, and he asks if she wants to know Zero’s true identity.
Since he feels Kallen has a right to see this, Suzaku shoots Zero’s helmet, splitting it in half and revealing Lelouch’s face underneath. Although Suzaku reacts by saying that he didn’t want to believe it, Kallen is much more shocked and asks if he had been using the Japanese people. Lelouch responds by saying that Japan was liberated as a result, so there should be no complaints. As for Suzaku, he feels that he should have arrested Lelouch earlier, but he was uncertain and in denial. When he accuses Lelouch of lying to him, Euphemia, and Nunnally, Lelouch tries to turn the subject to how Nunnally was kidnapped. He asks for a temporary truce so that they can save Nunnally, but Suzaku now believes that Lelouch would betray the world until the very end. Urging Suzaku to shoot if he can, Lelouch then attaches a liquid Sakuradite bomb to himself that will go off if his heart stops beating. He also asks who told Suzaku about GEASS and suspects that this person is with Nunnally, but Suzaku declares that what happens from now on will have nothing to do with Lelouch and that his existence was a mistake. With Suzaku saying that he’ll be the one to save Nunnally, Lelouch gets so pissed off that he draws his own gun, and one of them seems to fire.
As she sinks into the sea with the Gawain and Jeremiah’s mecha, C.C. thinks about how people desire happiness and how Lelouch had wished for nothing more than a small joy. She believes that at least the root of his actions was a natural wish for anyone and questions who can deny such a dream or vow, but blocking Lelouch’s way was a past of his own creation. Still, she feels that one should be grateful for humans desiring happiness because it is from despair that a ray of hope is born.
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Well, this was quite an exciting pair of episodes. I find it ironic that Lelouch is doing much of all this for Nunnally’s sake, yet it’s because of Nunnally that he leaves his Black Knights to fall to disarray. It also brought me to question the true reason Lelouch is fighting, especially now that we know Marianne knew she was going to be attacked back then. In essence, it means to me that he didn’t need to kill any of his siblings if he had just somehow gotten this information from Cornelia to begin with. As for where we go from here in terms of solving that mystery, the next step appears to be either Marianne’s coffin or going after Schneizel to find out what happened. Maybe Lelouch will learn from this experience and try to get the information without resorting to violence first.
There were some other good plot twists, like Darlton attacking Cornelia and Villetta shooting Ougi, but at the end, I was left feeling a bit unsatisfied. In the short term, I think knowing that there is a sequel and having them prepare the story progression with such a sequel in mind was a bad thing for these final two episodes. They definitely kept my interest the entire way through, but I find it hard to call these a conclusion to the first series because virtually nothing got concluded and there are questions left about pretty much everything. We’re left with a huge cliffhanger of a gunshot between Lelouch and Suzaku, thought I suspect that it isn’t that big of big deal because it seems unlikely that it’ll lead to either of their deaths, especially with the “live” GEASS command on Suzaku. But past that, we still have C.C. sinking into the ocean, Nunnally still with V.V., the Black Knights in disarray, and Nina with a bomb. Plus, aside from Darlton and some relatively minor characters, pretty much everyone made it through alive, including several characters I thought wouldn’t (Nina, Guilford, Cecile). I’m not even sure if Cornelia is dead or alive since her body wasn’t shown again after Suzaku left her side. This all sets us up great for a sequel, but, as I mentioned, it leaves me feeling a little unsatisfied for the moment.
Final Thoughts: With the way the show cliffhangered, it almost doesn’t feel right for me to be writing final thoughts since I know that it will continue again sometime in the future. Still, I do have to mention how much I loved CODE GEASS for both its storytelling and its character development. When it was airing regularly, it seemed that every episode had exciting new developments, and it was without a doubt the show I looked forward to the most from week to week. There’s obviously a ton of story still yet to be told (I’m still waiting to hear C.C.’s real name), and hopefully the sequel will be as much fun as this was.
