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「Kouka: Raspberry」 (Kouka: Raspberry)
“Raspberry”
CROSSING STREAMS
It’s been a treat to see how insane Episode 03 was with how many twists it had stockpiled and unleashed at the very end. In this episode, we’re given a series of power moves and developments that will not only show how Neo Britannia functions, but how Roze will exact their revenge.
Sakuya’s in some real trouble this time with how she’s been handling Ash. The original plan of only presenting as Roze to him and solidify his Geass control through this visage is gonna be thrown through a loop now that Ash is in love with Sakuya’s maid alter-ego Raspberry. On one hand, she could use this to her own advantage as she could use Raspberry to communicate with Ash outside of her Roze form. On the other hand, now she’s gotten herself into a pickle where she’ll be expected to keep up two different disguises to go along with her ultra-secretive true identity.
Ash’s current infatuation with Raspberry makes me question how powerful Roze’s Geass is. Roze’s original command to Ash was to protect him as a brother, but Ash treats Raspberry as Raspberry and not as Roze or Sakuya. I wonder if she could appear as Raspberry or Sakuya to Ash and still have that element of her Geass activate on him.
Whichever route she takes, Sakuya has even more to juggle with as Ash’s love for Raspberry came around the same time that the child Emperor was murdered and Sakura is made the Empress of Neo Britannia. Lelouch already warned Sakuya she’d make enemies of her friends, but with that neat flashback coming now of all times, Sakuya might be thinking of having to fight Sakura head-on.
There’d have to be a ton of conflicting feelings on Sakuya’s end about knowing that she could’ve been the Empress if she hadn’t been in disguise. Knowing how Norland is and what happened to the previous Emperor, there’s a high possibility that Sakura is in extreme danger. Her role would likely either be implicating a Japanese official for crimes against Japanese people or painting a target on her back for Hokkaido resistance groups. It also doesn’t help that the one girl who knows Sakuya’s secrets and holds them dear to her also has very close ties with the former Emperor and is deep in the trenches of the Neo Britannian government.
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「蛍火 -Alliance-」 (Hotarubi: Alliance)
“Alliance”
HOW THE TABLE TURNS
It’s always a blessing to see more Lelouch, CC, and Cornelia. I did find it funny that the scene where C.C. and L.L. appeared pretty much confirmed that they would rather sit things out because Lelouch sees all of this as someone else’s problem. Becoming L.L. did cause him to be more aligned with C’s world and gave him a newer set of responsibilities outside of worldly affairs, but it was still funny to see him be like “Yeah, I’d rather not,” when C.C. asks if he’d get involved.
On the other hand, Cornelia has since been involved with the Black Knights after the events of R2. I read about the L.L. reveal in Lelouch of the Re;surrection, but hadn’t read further to find out that Cornelia had actually been aligned with the Black Knights for some time and climbed far enough within their rankings to become a General Commander. There wasn’t as much of her in the episode, but I’ll take anything I can get if it means getting to see her again.
However, I’m very interested in what Nina brings to the table this time around. After the events of R2, she’s come to be disgraced by her role in creating the FLEIJA warheads. While I’m not sure if she regrets what she thought of Japanese people, it appears that she has a more stable, level-headed outlook on trying to make amends by creating a means to remove her deadly creations.
And as it turns out, she won’t have to table her presentation of the anti-FLEIJA machinery because Neo Britannia is already in the process of trying to use the Damocles against Sapporo. There were already concerns of whether the new Empress will be sympathetic to Japanese citizens or if Norland is using her as a pawn to commit further atrocities under her banner. But the news of the Sapporo ghettos being attacked can only spell trouble if all of this is being done under Empress “Sakuya” and could spell a major rift between her and resistance groups if the situation grows more dire.