Code Geass R2 — Episode 10
Zero and the Black Knights make off with the Empress, but their escape is blocked by Xingke. I am of the opinion that the writers for the series are secretly taking a long break in Hawaii and the current story arc is actually being written by the office janitor.
Summary
Seriously… What does the hair do?
Zero backstabs Xingke and kidnaps the Empress. His cunning plan is to create a new federation of states of which the new Japan is to be a member. He has the backing of the Indians and he believes that Mongolia will be supportive of the move.
Just why the heck does that yellow blob thing wear a hat?
Unfortunately, before Zero can make his getaway, Xingke shows up in his brand new Shenhu (Divine Tiger) Knightmare Frame and proceeds to massacre Indian-made Akatsukis, resulting in much death and destruction. He manages to capture Kallen and defeat Zero with superior strategy. Considering Zero’s jarring drop in IQ in recent episodes, it’s not too difficult.
This looks nothing like a tiger
Outwitted by Xingke in battle, Lelouch escapes to Tiandi Bashiba Ling (天帝八十八陵), a fictional resting ground for dead emporers, where he has set up a stronghold to hold out against the Chinese and Britannia forces that are coming for him.
Evil(er) clone?
Also, Lelouch has the power to teleport. o_o
Thoughts
The writers seem to believe that 合衆国 (a translation unique to United States) and 連邦 (federation) are different things. Zero says that he wants to set up a 中華合衆国 (literally a Chinese United States) to which the Empress replies, “But we are a federation (連邦)…” Zero then makes the absurd statement that the federal system is outdated.
She’s annoying
This shows a blatant lack of understanding on the writers’ part. The United States is a federation and the term 合衆国 was created simply because America likes to have a unique name. The political system itself is essentially the same thing: a federation.
Moving on.
The build-up in this episode is essentially non-existent. Just like how Xingke’s coup d’état was planned, revealed and crushed in just one episode, Zero’s escape plan is over in a flash. It lacks suspense and impact.
Brilliant tactic: drive straight
Lelouch’s plans are supposed to involve a series of seemingly unrelated preparations during which the audience is left to wonder what his actual strategy is going to be. The final unveiling is supposed to make every small element click together in a satisfying manner, until something unexpected crops up and much drama ensues. Recently, the writers have decided to forego the clever part and just jump straight to the drama.
It’s hard to deal with the fact that your classmate is a terrorist
And a final note… According to a forum post on a Chinese forum, Tiandi Bashiba Ling is an allusion to Ming Shi San Ling. Since they don’t look anything like each other, I’m not sure where that comes from. I wonder what the Chinese nationalists feel about what’s been shown in Code Geass thus far.
Screencaps
Kinky
Dopey, Grumpy, Doc, Bashful, Sleepy, Sneezy, Happy
Seppuku
It’s not China if there’s no panda…
Get a hair cut you hippie
Seriously disturbing
No one notices C.C. thanks to the brilliant disguise
Speaking of teleporting: David Copperfield’s Portal illusion.
June 17th, 2008 at 6:23 am
Now we know why we saw several Chinese characters during the last ep. (without an explanation as to what they were doing), but we don’t know where the show is going qualitywise…O_o
June 17th, 2008 at 6:33 am
I just realized how all the mechs all look different now compared to ones in Season 1.
I mean, look at all the mechs now, they look too much like gundams where at first they looked interesting and unique because they had scanners in their face.
Now they got scanners on their shoulders with human-like faces.
Anyways, the Chinese mechs look so weird, haha.
June 17th, 2008 at 7:04 am
is it just me or is lelouch’s thinking ability slowly depleating
in the ending episode of season 1 he was able to out smart the governer of Area 11 and was on the verge of destroying the entire brittania control there and now in this episode he can’t even take out a shitty force that’s not even as big as the one he fought before. i hope the writers have something up their sleeve b/c i don’t want to see zero become a retard by the end of this season.
June 17th, 2008 at 7:19 am
@holyknight: Week by week this show is turning more into Transformers…now it’s all about the merchandise! More mechs plz! >_<
June 17th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Watch your mouth. Transformers was awesome in so many ways.
Im talking the original version, of course. Beast wars and the strange japanese crap where they fight with energon katanas is a waste of time.
June 17th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I agree with zerowing and Rololita compleatly i just hope that C.G. keeps some of it’s fading orgial-ness (is that i word? :/ ) I am wondering about the last part with Lulu standing in the stundent counciel room… I’m loving the relationship between Kallen and Lulu though I hope the writers keep that up :)
June 17th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
hm i know i shld go to a forum to say this but heck =p
has anyone considered the very existence of Xingke to be (for want of a better word) detrimental to the story. ok, its obvious that to get the plot from point A at the end of last season and the re- cappish, resolution-ist first few episodes to (hopefully a well set- up) point B this season, when our well- loved character- driven story can actually start, the writers have been presenting us with great leaps in plot development without the necessary preparation, as what DM and everyone has been saying about the lack of intelligence, Lelouch’s or otherwise. the most recent of course being Zero’s defeat due to astounding lack of knowledge about terrain, and even more astounding (and puzzling) use of his Hadron cannons (theorycraft all you want, its still unusual given the meticulous planning of the series thus far).
now getting to the point, does Xingke seem like a deus ex machina to anyone? i cant get my head around how the writers had to come up with a character everyone was anticipating but clearly not wanting. like… wow code geass is a battle between brains and brawn. now the writers throw in a wrench which is a mix of both, but (conveniently) has a timed- life. easy way to get him out of the story, too, in my opinion.
maybe its in the whole vein of “more action plsthnxbai”, but throwing in such a (i hazard to say) flat character was the reason the series kinda went downhill. of course, i suppose that would be warranted once the “proper plot” starts, if it ever does.
well once again, its not that i hate his guts or anything, but i don’t think it was a good move to put in such a character in the Chinese Federation (be it as it may that he could be a convenient portmanteau, so less character creation is necessary). heh. any thoughts?
June 17th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Yes that’s what I feel too. The entire point of ep10 was to establish Xingke as a brilliant strategist and a new threat to Lelouch’s plan.
It’s just a pity that the manner in which this was conveyed to the audience was half-assed.
The way that Xingke “outsmarted” Zero was barely convincing, and the fact that Zero then proceeded to escape without a sweat (thanks to his previously forgotten super cannons) just makes it worse. Now they both look like idiots.
June 17th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
This has been the first code geass episode in season 2 which i didn’t rewatch after the first time. Something was definitely missing about this episode. But I did like the Lelouch-Karen drama :D
June 17th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
You all do realize there is a very simple explanation as to what happened here. Sunrise is just being A-typical Sunrise again. You know, the Sunrise the developed the Gundam series and completely screwed up most of them instead of doing what we know they are all capable of doing for an anime.
June 17th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Simply put, Sunrise screwed up. It’s happened before, we can only pray it won’t happen again. Trying to make everything seem logical like some have here is only making things worse. And in all honesty it’s giving Sunrise way to much credit. If they were that smart then there was no way they would have screwed G00 as badly as they did, seeing as how the series was perfectly situated for that sort of thing.
Sorry for the double post.
June 17th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
i think episode 10 was great and was not written by a janitor as many of you say.
My thoughts:
1. Lelouch on Ashford is Sayoko i disguise. Lelouch may have given him a voice changer (which he has) and the very reason why he showed his face to Sayoko in the ship before departing to China.
He must keep fooling the people (Brittanians and Suzaku) that he isn’t Zero again unless he wan.ts Nunnally’s life endangered.
2. Think of the Hadron Cannons as a trump card. It is a very great asset that should be kept well hidden until the right time. I think that the use of the hadron cannons in that battle was just to secure a better escape chance by decimating the attacking forces although Zero wasn’t intending for its use yet.
The conditions were clear: they need to escape, they need to wipe out the attacking forces so none will pursue and the pursuers are jampacked together in a linear fashion and are near them – making great fodder for a strong linear cannon.
Firing of the cannons at the start of the battle would have destroyed BK’s element of surprise and the enemies may have planned a better strategy to counter it asap.
3. Xing Ke is suffering from a terminal disease which is most probably incurable. This was already shown in the previous episodes. He was not coughing up blood by piloting the Shen Hu.
4. Lelouch did his homework that’s why he knew a coup d’ etat was coming. He geassed some forces of Xing Ke and knew that an ambush and ecm was set-up beforehand plus some traps on one of the routes he had planned for escape (thus he was able to reduce the water in the canal that was exploded in the battlefield).
The battlefield was somehow even but there are still some minor elevations. Xing Ke waited for the BK to release a significant amount of forces before he exploded the canal. Of course his forces would know of this plan and be situated on higher ground thus, only few of their forces also went down with the mud (as shown in the battlefield monitor).
Zero was able to decrease the amount of water in the canal but he didn’t knew the land was for irrigation that was even poorly constructed – it isn’t his terrain/country anyways unlike the battle at the sea where he knows the terrain (conveniently portrayed by him holding a map).
5. The panda in the truck was used for camouflage by the BK as maybe a truck for delivering bamboo shoots or stuff like that. The yellow mascot that is always with CC and was flocked in the truck while she was driving it is cheese-kun from Pizza Hut.
Well, there are already spoilers over the net over the next three episodes as well XD Just happened to visit by and post to clear some misgivings and do some justice on the series and the episode. Code Geass R2 needs to be really action-filled as it is an anime of war now in the world stage (for it to be able to end in R2 – maybe).
June 17th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Your reviews are so funny, thanks :)
June 18th, 2008 at 12:49 am
*sighs* okay i’m getting bored of the show now as there seems to be no real progression other than to bring in pointless mecha ‘advances’, battles and then retreats! Zeros plans seem to have holes at every turn and his intelligence has gone by the way side along with his commonsense.
Add to this the introduction of little mecha tweaks to avoid perfectly good reasons why someone should have died and we see a pattern starting. All we need now is someone, meant to be dead, coming back with a mask on and… oh wait, i think i saw that coming in the next episode!!
Seriously though, the whole thing doesn’t seem thought out and they appear to have turned to the method of ‘people prefer not to think and just want pointless fights and plot twists’ in order to get people watching. While the first series had its faults i’m finding that it was more intelligent in the way it went about things and their outcomes. Looking at the characters, they all seem to be reduced to mere comic relief at the expence of any story intended!!!
June 18th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Gawd its cliff hanger after cliff hanger. This never ends!
June 18th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Umm…perhaps the true aim of this particular episode is to build up momentum for incoming episode 11′s Schneizel V.S. Zero as opposed to the portrayal of a single battle.
June 18th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
i’m with Dm, too many inconsistencies in the’plot’ of this ep, i think the story writers are spending too much time on the hookha
“Todo is a “Tactical leader” which means he is good at command troops in battle. Zero is much better at being a “Strategic Leader” meaning he looks at the bigger picture and choose were the battles take place.”
I’d wager that zero is more of a magician than anything, from what i’ve seen so far he relys on deception, manipulation, and optical illusions, you know all that smoke and mirrors stuff.
“Xing Ke is suffering from a terminal disease which is most probably incurable. This was already shown in the previous episodes. He was not coughing up blood by piloting the Shen Hu.”
Tuberculosis sucks like that, mind you piloting a high speed robot doesn’t really help matters much does it?
“If you are a religious extremist and take everything your religion teaches you word for word, then yes, religion makes no sense at all. Religion in its proper form is very valuable, however. If people would do what they are supposed to do with religion, which is gain a set of morals and values to live by, then things would be fine. However, so many screw up, taking things too exactly, and end up making stupid claims like not allowing homosexual rights, and use these claims to do stupid crap, like kill abortion doctors, or blow up kindergartens and innocent civilians.”
Religion is just a means of controlling people, thats the way it always has been and thats the way it always will be.
June 18th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Winning or losing isn’t dictated solely by IQ.
Those who claim Lelouch’s IQ is dropping are unaware of the principles of planning.
With correct and complete information, (the underwater gas deposits in Japan), Lelouch secured victory. With correct but incomplete information (ill maintained terrain in China), he lost.
Yes, Sunrise is rushing us through some of the plot points, but that just means there’s a greater arc they want to reveal.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Hahaha its pretty much reaching mid season and so far im not impressed with the current plot im sad to say but Kallen is choking the plot her fan service alone was annoying will they really solve everything in 16 episodes? hope there will be a season 3..
June 18th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Rolo with a mask on… I can see you have a pure mind, DM ;)
June 18th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
I think alot of commenters here are a bit confused. You don’t watch a series to impose what you think should happen, you watch it to see how it plays out. The series must be interesting enough to hold your attention and evoke thought in the process.
If so many of you can have a seemingly intelligent discussion over this episode then I’m assuming the writers have been successful. If you are *thinking* about dropping the series but continue to watch there is every possibility the series will ‘redeem’ itself.
Personally, I thought it was good action and a reasonable amount of storyline for an action episode. Along with an ending which leaves questions to be answered next week.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Random Hero
“Religion is just a means of controlling people, thats the way it always has been and thats the way it always will be.”
I have to agree to a point. There are many religious groups that do this and even more in the past. However this is not “always” the case. Normal christian and catholic groups do not try to control their followers, they just give people something greater to believe in and a set of guidelines to follow so they can lead a better life. However religious extremists do use their religion as an excuse for many things, including manipulating their followers.
Antigua and Barbuda Master Hand
“I think alot of commenters here are a bit confused. You don’t watch a series to impose what you think should happen, you watch it to see how it plays out. The series must be interesting enough to hold your attention and evoke thought in the process.
If so many of you can have a seemingly intelligent discussion over this episode then I’m assuming the writers have been successful. If you are *thinking* about dropping the series but continue to watch there is every possibility the series will ‘redeem’ itself.
Personally, I thought it was good action and a reasonable amount of storyline for an action episode. Along with an ending which leaves questions to be answered next week.”
Thank you for what is probably the most intelligent comment here so far. I’d like to add one more thing though. IF YOU DON”T LIKE THE SERIES DON”T WATCH IT. Stop coming here to simply complain about the shows faults. There are better things to do with you time, like go out and get some exercise. Stop wasting our time and patience with useless complaints.
June 20th, 2008 at 1:41 am
“I have to agree to a point. There are many religious groups that do this and even more in the past. However this is not “always” the case. Normal christian and catholic groups do not try to control their followers, they just give people something greater to believe in and a set of guidelines to follow so they can lead a better life. However religious extremists do use their religion as an excuse for many things, including manipulating their followers.”
the christian and catholic groups did try to control their followers all the way through the middle ages (and possibly into the renessance up until the victorian era)
i agree wholeheartedly with the last paragraph
June 20th, 2008 at 10:50 am
I know what you mean I was simply talking modern times, its completely dependent on the era you are referring to.
June 20th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Where can I watch the full episodes of Code Geass R2?? Plz tell me.. Thankz..
June 21st, 2008 at 6:35 am
http://realitylapse.com/
You can download them for free there, though the downloads take some time. I don’t know how long they take to get new episodes though, I personally use a different sight I pay for,
http://www.anime-plus.com/
It’s $6 a month, gets subs almost as soon as they have them, and has fairly fast, high quality downloads.
Also if giving these sites was against the rules DM I apologize and of course feel free to delete or alter this post.
June 21st, 2008 at 6:46 am
i get a feeling that lulu’s recent failures in battles may be some preparatory plots for lulu/zero/the order’s downfall by someone’s betrayal. (like by Shinichiro)
June 21st, 2008 at 10:33 am
I bet that Rolo and Lelouch switched places at some point. Where I have no idea because there didn’t seem to be an opening for such a thing to happen. Lelouch was on a floating chunk of ice for quite some time and I imagine it would take awhile just to travel to and from their new home to Japan. Not to mention they’d have to get stilts for Rolo.
And about Sunrise sucking recently, I thought G00 was awesome up until the season finale. That last episode, to me, killed the first season. A cliffhnager immediately followed by a 4 year timeskip followed by another cliffhanger? Who the f**k came up with that?
June 21st, 2008 at 10:35 am
By the way, the 7 dwarfs comment was hilarious.
June 21st, 2008 at 9:39 pm
“I bet that Rolo and Lelouch switched places at some point. Where I have no idea because there didn’t seem to be an opening for such a thing to happen. Lelouch was on a floating chunk of ice for quite some time and I imagine it would take awhile just to travel to and from their new home to Japan. Not to mention they’d have to get stilts for Rolo.”
another slight flaw with that, is that rolos geass is in his right eye whilst lelouchs is in his left. and zero is shown in this ep with a geass in his left eye
June 22nd, 2008 at 1:03 am
@ Sourrooster:
G00 was good at the beginning, however I felt that they started to ruin much earlier then the final episode of the season. The first start was when they screwed with a lot of the political stuff, it was fine at the beginning but a ways through they pretty much threw that out only bringing so much in as to have minor excuses for senseless combat. After that they just added a lot more of characters being emo and more senseless pointless combat. I understand that CB was getting attacked a lot but some of the times when they went on the offensive were for little or no reason at all when you consider their purpose. As for the time skip that really wasn’t of too much concern to me, anime shows do that all the time in order to advance the plot. Clearly nothing important happened in that time that was skipped so can u imagine them playing episode after episode just to fill in that time. There would be far to many episodes of nothing and viewers would lose interest. Them killing so many people off at the end, especially main characters was annoying but most of the had become emo anyway so if they play it right it could be a good thing. But this is just my opinion, so whatever.
June 22nd, 2008 at 11:51 pm
well,let say…to put it this way.i might be impressed by the code geass plot but not for the whole characters & the knightmarish-thingy but then again i like the designed characters & the mecha that were to be made at MSG00 rather than the plot does.what i mean to say’s,in CG,the story were very strong while in MSG00 is not that so.and the characters in CG the characters & the robots are not much appealing(to me)but the characters & gundams in MSG00 were somewhat,cool-looking rather than how well the story goes.
June 23rd, 2008 at 7:04 am
I don’t know if anyone’s going to read this, but I have something to say about the original poster’s comment:
“Zero then makes the absurd statement that the federal system is outdated.”
I beleive you might have misunderstood. As I interpreted it, Zero was implying that the current system of the *Chinese Union*’s rule was outdated, not the entire federal system itself.
Any thoughts?
March 24th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Blech! This episode was booorriinngg. And the midget empress annoys the crap outta me. I agree with DM, the office janitor is totally writing the script
March 13th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
I ordered the product and want to order more how quick will it arrive?