CODE GEASS / First Impressions

Summary:
The entire class is whispering rumors amongst themselves about Suzaku, but he pays them no heed. After class, Lelouch glances in Suzaku’s direction and pulls on his own collar. Suzaku recognizes this as an old signal they used to share that meant Lelouch wanted to talk on the roof. Lelouch is glad that Suzaku saved him back in the subway tunnels, but Suzaku considers it repayment after seven years. When Suzaku asks about C.C., Lelouch claims to have been separated with her during the confusion of the battle. As the two do some catching up, Lelouch reveals he now goes by Lelouch Lamperouge since the previous him is officially dead. Suzaku in turn explains that there was a person – Euphemia – who arranged for him to come to this school. At that time, Euphemia is looking over all of Clovis’ paintings, including one of Lelouch, Nanaly, and their mother. Her sister Cornelia is meanwhile conquering a guerrilla base, looking for Zero.
Lelouch returns home and surprises Nanaly by bringing along Suzaku. She’s moved to tears that he is safe and is excited that he’s attending this school now. Suzaku can’t come to visit every day because he is still in the military, but he thinks that he’s in less danger now that he’s been transferred to the Engineering Department. When Lelouch goes to the kitchen to get more tea, he finds C.C. waiting for him. She remembers Suzaku as the person from Shinjuku and has doubts about him, but Lelouch thinks of him as a friend. When it’s finally time for Suzaku to leave, he tells Lelouch that they should pretend not to know each other in school. He doesn’t want people wondering why the honorary Britannian is friends with Lelouch and then discovering that Lelouch is really a prince. Lelouch gets angry that Suzaku is again putting others before himself, but he realizes his mistake when Suzaku catches onto the again implication. After Lelouch drops the subject, Suzaku says his goodbye and notes how happy he is.
In a Britannia prison, Jeremiah is finally cleared of suspicion and freed. However, because of what he did, he has been demoted three ranks and must start over as a pilot. At school the next day, the students continue to treat Suzaku as an outcast. When not in class, Lelouch – as Zero – contacts Ougi Kaname and learns about Cornelia’s military campaign. Kaname wants to act, but Zero thinks that they should wait for an opportunity. Once he hangs up, Lelouch sees Suzaku washing his gym t-shirt outside. It seems that someone had spray painted on it “GO BACK TO YOUR GHETTO” in large red letters. What’s more, Nanaly learns that student council member Nina is scared of going to school because of Suzaku. At home later, C.C. gets a pizza delivery and unknowingly lets a cat inside while she’s talking to the delivery guy. She returns to Lelouch, who is in the middle of making a hiding place for his Zero mask.
Nanaly comes by and draws away Lelouch’s attention, allowing the cat to sneak in and get the mask stuck on its head. Lelouch eventually notices the cat when it walks into the dining room as he and Nanaly are discussing Suzaku’s situation at school. Panicking at the sight of the mask, Lelouch chases after the cat as it escapes out of the house. When Millay, Leval, and Nina come looking for him, Nanaly tells them of the cat that took something precious of Lelouch’s. Interested in what this precious thing is, Millay vows to get it before Lelouch does, so she broadcasts a message across the school to mobilize the students. She announces that the person who succeeds in catching the cat will be given a kiss by a member of the student council. This scares Kallen because there are now hordes of boys searching for the cat so that they can kiss her – what she considers to be her first kiss.
She runs into Shirley, who is worried about the same thing, and the two join forces to track down the cat. They manage to corner it, but the cat gets away when Shirley asks Kallen if she’d use the kiss reward on Lelouch. Suzaku then catches sight of the cat going into the bell tower, and he encounters Lelouch at the entrance. Lelouch tries to get him to give up the chase, but Suzaku continues to run up the stairs. The students below see Suzaku climb out onto the roof and Lelouch following him, but Lelouch then loses his balance and starts to slip downward. Reacting quickly, Suzaku catches his friend and pulls him back up. Luckily for Lelouch, the mask comes off the cat when it gets to the bells at the very top of the building.
Suzaku brings the cat back down to everyone else, but they aren’t quite sure how to act towards him. Shirley finally runs up and thanks him for saving Lelouch, and she’s joined by the other student council members. Millay is more interested in what the cat had, but Suzaku didn’t get a good look at it. The student council president is disappointed when Lelouch appears soon afterwards because she wanted to find out his weakness. When Kallen suddenly asks if Lelouch and Suzaku know each other, Suzaku tries to deny it, but Lelouch declares that they are indeed friends. In fact, he even asks Millay to let Suzaku into the student government, which she agrees to do. Nanaly then kisses both boys on their cheeks as part of the reward that Millay had promised.
It is sometime later that the entire school is present in the auditorium to watch the broadcast of Clovis’ state funeral. The emperor of Britannia makes a speech about how people are not equal – there are fast people, beautiful people, people with poor parents, and people with weak bodies. Everyone is different depending on their birth, their upbringing, and their abilities. It is through fighting and competition that progress is born. Therefore, inequality is not evil – only equality is. The emperor doesn’t want Britannia to be under mob-rule like the equal rights EU or to be filled with lazy people like in the Chinese Federation where wealth is distributed equally, so he calls for fighting and competition so that they can continue to evolve. He considers the death of Clovis to be proof that Britannia is continually evolving. Hearing all of this, Lelouch can’t help but get pissed off at the emperor, and even Suzaku starts to clench his fist. Watching on TV from home, C.C. wonders if this man is Lelouch’s enemy.

Preview:

I thought the whole cat-stealing-the-mask thing was hilarious. Lelouch is such a powerful and smart guy, yet he’s so easily outwitted by a cat. If they had seen the mask, Lelouch would have had to use his GEASS power or else everyone would have found out about his secret. And even then, Kallen would still know his secret since she’s now immune to his eye. On a side note, this cat gave me nostalgic memories of a certain cat from another Sunrise series.
This episode finally introduces the Emperor of Britannia along with some top grade propaganda. The Emperor’s speech seemed like a big excuse to discriminate against people and continue war. His singling out of an EU (probably European Union) and a China Federation in particular for equal rights and equal wealth makes me wonder once again about the message that this series is trying to send. And it doesn’t help either that he ends the speech with “All Heil Britannia!” I don’t think that he’ll end up being the final boss character of this show, though it’s still too early to tell.
The preview for next week’s episode has some interesting shots, including a young Nanaly, Shirley seeing Kallen pull a knife, and a rather close encounter between Shirley and Suzaku. That last one has me most interested because of the relationship web that can develop considering Shirley’s current crush on Lelouch.
And as always, remember folks that Pizza Hut supports the Rebellion. It seems that C.C. has developed a real fondness for Pizza Hut pizza…

75 Comments

  17. I love this series! and the characters, Lelouch is definately a superior character to Light, he is equally aloof but concomittantly more human, that is he makes mistakes, there are people he cares about. The comedic elements of this series are fabulous also. Plus I like C.C, her presence adds a balance to Lelouch’s generally cool collected and rather cold persona, in that she disconcerts him and challenges him. Thank you for the quick upload of screen caps!!!

    Muse
    Reply

  20. WHAT THE HELL IS CODE GEASS AND PIZZA HUT? Ive seen anime make jokes like this but not on an episode to episode basis, and they just keep getting more and more obvious next ep there gunna stop mid episode and actually talk about how good pizza hut is or something?!

    bak3donh1gh
    Reply

  22. hmm okay….now a pizza hut delivery bike….wats next??? going to a pizza hut restaurant…lol

    btw i just watched ep 1 again..and issit me or is the gal that appeared in the first few couple of secs C.C.??

    and SCHOOL SWIMSUITS FTW~!!!

    Aki
    Reply

  29. All hail teh puss in boots, in this case, puss in mask??
    Poor Lulu, pwned by a cat….tsk tsk tsk
    And Kallen better deliver more fanservice or else CC gonna snatch the spotlight from her :X

    CronuZ
    Reply

  30. CC already on my top list of fav girl anime char, ranking with simca, yoruichi, urd, and daimakaichou, and i havn’t even seen episode 5 yet! Ive seen maybe 2 mins of her and she already there!

    bak3donh1gh
    Reply

  34. this episode was so good
    especially they’re all chasing cat thanks to suzaku ^_^
    i like to see suzaku and lelouch
    i hope suzaku will out of his millitary soon and he will join lelouch parts

    muhi_kira
    Reply

  38. There is NOTHING MORE HILARIOUS than Lelouch telling Nanaly that he’s collecting Pizza Hut points. I nearly died laughing. Of course, I nearly sobbed at Clovis’ paintings (and why did he draw Lelouch’s family? Does he draw everything, or is that intended to coax the collective TRAGEDY out of his death?) and almost died laughing again at his funeral picture.

    Also, considering I’m possibly the only one who likes OS!Shirley/Lelouch more than my ‘actual’ pairing choice—CC/Lelouch—I’m not all that happy about the episode preview. But hey, we get some action.

    verityisle
    Reply

  41. I find the Pizza Hut boom to be highly overrated…Is it that big of a deal that Pizza Hut logo appears in an anime series?

    OMG!!! Is the emperor LeLouch’s father???!!!!????

    Where have you been lol, it’s been explained quite a while ago that Lelouche is a royal offspring.

    Also, considering I’m possibly the only one who likes OS!Shirley/Lelouch more than my ‘actual’ pairing choice—CC/Lelouch—I’m not all that happy about the episode preview. But hey, we get some action.

    You are not the only one. I don’t think Suzaku and Shirly coupling would…work out, though it could be possible that Shirley’d get close to Suzaku in an attempt to make Lelouche jealous (let me at least keep my fantasies).

    Anywho, I liked the emperor’s speech. It was so realistic and true at the same time, although it probably is just an excuse (like Omni said) to carry out whatever plan he has.

    I look foward to the next episode as always. 😀

    Rasmiel
    Reply

  51. Rasmiel : Haha, yes, that would work. But if my eyes didn’t deceive me, that was the perfect position for a kiss. Let’s see…Possibly Shirley, Euphemia, hints that he maybe likes Nanaly, some people swearing their grandkids on him having Lelouch wrapped around his fingers…

    Suzaku = Actual series pimp?

    quina : Take it easy on him, he’s a siscon. Those obey different laws of nature. :p

    And I agree with whoever said Lelouch is better than Light as a character. Light is probably smarter—but Lelouch is just so much more FLESHED OUT. He’s a person. Light is a logic machine. And he’s got the cute side, the infuriatingly smug side, the calculating machine side, the horrible fashion taste side, the omg clumsy side—the list goes on. And Suzaku’s getting better in this episode, too, after he starts to become Suzaku the Character instead of Suzaku the Concept.

    verityisle
    Reply

  53. Britannia… reminds me of the name of a certain encyclopedia. (Britannica or something or other.)

    Anyways, why not just call it United States of the World, and be done with it? Oh wait… then that would prevent translation to English. Except that unless Pizza Hut of America agrees, it can’t be translated anyway. Unless that was already a given? Hmm….

    (If there was an Area 11, you obviously can’t call it the “United States of America”, since Area 11/Japan is not IN America. Besides, the USA only takes up maybe 2/3s of North America, or maybe 1/3 or less of the Americas. Who knows.)

    I wonder more about whether Pizza Hut paid the creators/animators/animation company for the right to put Pizza Hut in this anime. In any case, it makes for a more realistic scene.

    Now the only question is whether Pizza Hut would still be alive by this time, considering the monopolistic monarchy nature found in this Britannia. (Democracy? I think not, at least not truly, in the storyline, and IRL.) Who knows…

    cbhl
    Reply

  54. Britannia is probably what passes for Imperial Britain here. I think it’s a crazy AU where America lost the war of independence, and there was never a United States in the first place.

    verityisle
    Reply

  55. after checking the japanese wiki for code geass and checking around some anime magazines, verityisle, your theory seems correct. the japanese wiki does point out to the Britannian Empire as some unlikely alternate universe empire that crushed the Unired States during the Revolution and became bigger.

    next episode’s title can be tentatively translated as “assaulting cornelia.” i wonder if she’ll get killed that easily (most likely not)

    mewmew
    Reply

  58. I’m beginning to suspect the reason why they show a shot of Pizza Hut in each episode is to get viewers to talk about Pizza Hut. I mean, almost every comment here mentions Pizza Hut! It’s a very clever way of marketing although a little under handed as well.

    Hmm, bring up the EU and the “Chinese Federation” is certainly interesting. And the way the emperor talked about “wealth divided equally” in the Chinese Federation reminds me of the early days of Communist China. It’s always weird but interesting when real political entities (or a subtle reference to them) get involved in an anime).

    mangaka-chan
    Reply

  59. my… pizza hut logo’s everywhere!! @_@
    anyway, for being a *character developer* episode, I really like the cat’s part. To think that Lelouch would be so easily taken by that kitty… tsk tsk Light-sama would be very disappointed…

    Yagami Iori
    Reply

  60. does that mean that Lelouch is the brother of Euphemia and her sister?? We all know Lelouch mainsqueeze will be C.C and kallen and shirley will be on the backburner… And as contrary to Light, i don’t think Lelouch will die at the end.

    boyfromtheSouth
    Reply

  61. @boyfromtheSouth thats some funny sh!t specially this, “We all know Lelouch mainsqueeze will be C.C and kallen and shirley will be on the backburner.” ^_^ 🙂 😀 :q LOL HAHAHAHAHAH

    [PRIME-LAB]
    Reply

  64. LelouchxC.C for me lolz! but this ep was hilarious! Ok..i don’t really like shirley..i don’t y..i just don’t..so i hope it will be suzakuxeuphemia..even tho she really reminds me of lacus…but i have nothing against here lolz.

    Nikki-chan
    Reply

  66. Wow just saw the raw version. Is the picture drawn by Clovis meant to illustrate another side of the character, and perhaps plant a seed of doubt in the audience’s mind re lelouch’s justification in killing his half brother? Additionally loved lelouch’s reaction to the cat! lol adorable!

    Muse
    Reply

  70. We’ve seen in countless animes that they imitate logos of various popular brands so what’s wrong if we suddenly see a real brand logo get shown in CODE GEASS?

    I think it’s best for them to show the real logo rather than an imitation of a real brand don’t you think?

    CarinaFei
    Reply

  71. carina are you retarded? do you not know about trademarks? that’s why things usually have parodied brand names. if the pizza hut logo is being used without permission then pizza hut could sue whoever makes and distributes this anime, so the surprising thing is that they either don’t care about it or that pizza hut is literally sponsoring this show and using product placement

    qwertryuy
    Reply

  73. i can’t really figure out why i don’t like shirley…i think its because i’m obsessed over lelouch x kallen or CC and yufie x suzaku =P and it just seems like shirley will somehow get in the way of one of these couples

    mango
    Reply

  74. Just started watching this show and it looks like im going to watch it till the end of the series. As for pairing, I could care less. I’m not gonna watch this whoever end up with whom, just the story.

    Do
    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *