In Code Geass second season, most of the storyline has followed a predetermined path but some changes were also there. Some unprecedented turn of events, some change of perspective for some important characters are also there.
So, without further ado, let’s jump into the story.
Synopsis
In Code Geass second season,Lelouch Lamperouge is living with his younger brother Rolo Lamperouge quite peacefully while attending the same school together. But, he felt quite bored and irritated with his regular life.
As to spice up it a little bit, he tries to challenge new players to interesting games.
While playing such a game of chess with a well-known gambler to protect a waitress’s dignity, He wons big time. Lelouch’s opponent said that Lelouch was cheating. Lelouch was about to be in trouble.
Suddenly, then a group of terrorists attacked the gambling house. In that chaos of attack, he and Rolo lost sight of each other. To his disbelief, a mysterious woman from the terrorist group saved him, while the imperial army of Britannia was about to kill him, spewing some nonsense, he couldn’t understand.
After someone shot her, that woman kissed him and he saw some flashback of some unknown memory, after which he became sure about his memory of his original identity which was replaced by his memory of his current fake identity.
Lelouch found out, that he was exiled, currently presumed dead, 11th prince of the Holy nation of Britannia. He had a blind and crippled younger sister Nunnally, not a younger brother. He also found out, that he was the leader of the “Order of Black Knight”, ” Zero”, who was at the forefront of justice and voice for the Japanese, against the oppressions of Britannia on them.
After this revelation in Code Geass second season, he started his activity as Zero again and he had to maintain his secret more cautiously than before, as according to his old memory, some of his old acquaintances knew his true identity. So, he had to make them believe that the new Zero wasn’t him.
Director
Gorō Taniguchi (Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion season 2)
Related Characters
Lelouch Lamperouge
Lelouch is an exiled prince from the superpower Britannia, who’s original name is Lelouch vi Britannia. He later took the alias of Zero to rebel against Britannia authority.
Rolo Lamperouge
Rolo is the fake brother of Lelouch in Code Geass second season, after Charles Zi Britannia used his own geass and imprinted fake memory in Lelouch’s mind.
At first Rolo played his role as part of his mission, professionally, but later on, when Lelouch controlled him with own fake kindness Rolo became attached to him.
Charles zi Britannia
Charles is the king of the holy empire of Britannia, who doesn’t believe in equality of human. He believes only by snatching chances and stepping on others can human beings truly evolve.
He shows no mercy towards the weak. When Lelouch and Nunnally’s mother Marianne was murdered he simply said she was weak.
Marianne vi Britannia
She was the late empress of the Holy Empire of Britannia and the fifth wife of Charles, also mother of Lelouch and Nunnally. Marianne was also one of the “night of six” title holder as disclosed in Code Geass second season.
C.C.
C.C. is s witch staying in the monetary since the middle ages. She owns some unique powers and also granted the “Power of Kings” (Power of Geass) to Lelouch Lamperouge.
V.V.
V.V. is a mysterious character, who knows about Lelouch’s secret in Code Geass second season.
Suzaku Kururugi
Suzaku Kururugi is a childhood friend of Lelouch Lamperouge. He later joined Britannia army in order to change the corruption within the system.
Kallen Kouzuki
Kallen Kouzuki is the best nightmare frame pilot of the rebel army and most loyal to “Zero”. Being a paradoxical existence as half Japanese half Britannia she wishes nothing more than freedom for Japan.
Shirley Fenette
Shirley was in the same grade as Lelouch. She was the only girl to whom Lelouch had a mutual romantic interest.
Nina Einstein
Nina is a bookworm and science geek classmate of Lelouch. She has an obsessive dependency on now dead third princess Euphemia vi Britannia in Code Geass second season. She wholeheartedly discriminates against Japanese and specifically calls them elevens.
Lloyd Asplund
Lloyd is a true eccentric mad scientist material. He loves building powerful battling nightmare frames and just doesn’t care about any kind of ongoing wars. He only cares about Suzaku Kururugi and his own partners.
Schneizel el Britannia
As shown in Code Geass second season, being the 2nd prince of the holy empire of Britannia, he has a sharp and calculative mind. From his childhood, Lelouch had a sense of rivalry towards him, as he was only a challenge to Lelouch’s intellect.
Schneizel was the most successful among all of the princes, he claimed most of the EU in the shortest of time. He is even more capable than Cornelia in strategic warfare.
He later decided to use Nunnally as a pawn in his dream of controlling the world in Code Geass second season.
Cornelia li Britannia
Cornelia, being the chief general of the imperial army of Britannia, went to Area 11(Previously Japan) to apprehend Clovis’s murderer.
Gilbert G.P. Guilford
Gilbert is a subordinate of Cornelia li Britannia. as he is very loyal to her, after the “black Rebellion” when she went missing he kept on waiting for her return. Even Lelouch took advantage of his being loyal to her by using geass on Gilbert to perceive Lelouch as Cornelia in his perilous time in Code Geass second season.
Nunnally vi Britannia
Nunnally is Lelouch’s kindhearted younger sister. Despite being half crippled at a young age she remains true to her ideals of a kinder world.
Jeremiah Gottwald
Jeremiah is a patriotic fellow for Britannia. Not knowing Lelouch’s whereabouts after his exile he had misconception that he was killed by Japanese. Since then he had become a one-man army against the Japanese rebel army for vengeance.
Kaname Ohgi
Kaname Ohgi became the leader of the Japanese rebel army, after the death of Kallen Kouzuki’s older brother Naoto.
After the construction of the order of black knights, he became the Deputy Commander, and after restructuring he became General Secretary.
Villetta Nu
Villetta Nu is an elite nightmare frame pilot and Jeremiah Gottwald’s subordinate. She became baroness in this season and was also blackmailed into joining the Order of Black Knights.
Diethard Ried
After his demotion, he joins the Order of Black Knights as a head of information and public relations. Later, after the restructuring he became secretary of media and intelligence.
Li Xingke
Li Xingke is a member of the Chinese federation and extremely loyal to the very young Empress Tianzi. He wants to free the empress from the control of eunuchs and free her from the fate of a puppet ruler.
Tianzi
As shown in Code Geass second season, Empress Tianzi is of a kind and introverted nature. She can’t go against the order of the eunuchs’, but once in her life, she had gone against their order to spare Li Xingke’s life.
She longs for the outside world and a friend.
Kaguya Sumeragi
Kaguya is the leader of the Kyoto organization and cousin of Suzaku Kururugi. She is also the Chinese Federation’s Empress Tianzi’s only friend.
She is noble and generous. C.C. even praised her for being kind.
Since Zero’s Debut, she wanted to marry him.
What’s in the story
Code Geass second season mainly revolves around the concept of destruction and construction.
Those methods are applied to a concept named country in this season. Let’s further analyze.
Chain of deception
Code Geass second season is filled with many lies and deception and their end result.
Lelouch and his surrounding people were forced into believing in a lie by the utilization of the Charles di Britannia’s geass, in which he was a normal school student of Ashford Academy and have a younger brother named Rolo. Where as, he didn’t had a brother but one younger sister named Nunnally. Also, he wasn’t a normal school student he was the leader of the “Order of black knights” Zero, which he hid from everyone prior to his memory regression.
As Lelouch’s memory of the past returned in Code Geass second season, he hid own intentions and doings from presumed brother Rolo and presumed sports teacher Villetta Nu. Which Rolo later found out.
When Nunnally knows about his brother Lelouch is in fact zero, this fact hurts her and she decides to stand against her own brother. But when she asked her brother if all of his wrongdoing was for her, he again lied to her by saying that all was for his own selfish needs.
Schneizel el Britannia, when handing the key to “Democles” his mass destruction fortress’s key to Nunnally, he lied to her by saying he cleared the surroundings of any civilian. And he also lied about not using the weapon as a fear factor.
All those deceptions made involved characters more humanely which trait isn’t easily present in most of the Mecha anime, making it unprecedented mecha anime.
Overdue animosity
All the deception, and wrong choices in Code Geass second season, were enough to bring forth the outburst of anger.
A few of the characters had been lying, deceiving others for their own means, maybe they had it coming for them, the anger outbreak of the affected towards them.
Be it, Schneizel inciting everyone against against Zero.
Specially Lelouch’s accumulation of deception against his teammates, sister, and presumed brother, eventually caught up with him, demanding a price.
Lelouch gaslighted his brother with kindness. Later, when his brother was afraid of losing Lelouch to Sherley, killed Sherley.
Zero’s Or Lelouch’s team, the Order of black Knights turned against him and wanted to apprehend him, when they learned his true identity as the 11th prince of Britannia and that he used his power of geass on his enemies and friends equally to use them as pawns.
All of these cycles of animosity being born from the accumulation of deceptions of different persons were reasons for some overdue animosity from the affected which were paid accordingly.
To end a lie in Code Geass second season
Charles di Britannia, even after being the king of the holy Empire of Britannia, had very little interest in worldly matters and had a unique perspective on human rights, being that no human is equal by birth, only by plundering, stepping on others, snatching chances, can human being can truly evolve into superior being.
He secretly believed, lying and maintaining a façade can’t truly bring peace to the world. To get rid of such abnormalities he searched for a system all over the world as he conquered most of the nations, which can marge all human consciousness into one, where will be no need for any lie.
To fulfill this dream of his, he even pretended to be persuaded by V.V.’s lie of his Wife Marianne’s death by terrorists, when he knew V.V. killed her.
To end the everyday human lie known as Persona, and build a merged consciousness from collective ones he used a system known as “Akasha no Surugi” (Blade of Akasha) with the help of C.C. world’s power causing “Ragnarok Connection” which was unfinished by the intervention of Lelouch.
According to Lelouch, to get rid of lie, Charles used lies on himself. According to Charles, in the world of merged consciousness, dead and alive will reside as the same consciousness, but to Lelouch that world would be stagnant and never changing. Also according to Lelouch, Charles’s obsession with his experiment of “Akasha no Surugi” is so much that he forgot the actual humanity and neglected the safety of Lelouch and Nunnally.
In this way, both Charles and Lelouch both tried to end lies from both of their end. It’s more like an intellectual battle than a physical one, which is a bit unprecedented as a mecha anime.
Staging a play
After terminating Charles zi Britannia in C.C.’s world Lelouch usurped the throne of Britannia. Lelouch then started his own army, he set his course to conquer other independent countries.
After all these, he set his aim to the United Federation of Nations, by taking over 50% of voting rights.
When Schneizel el Britannia used deception to use Nunnaly as a scapegoat to threaten the world into submission by using F.L.E.I.J.A bomb(Equivalent to real life’s atomic bomb) launching battleship Damocles, Lelouch used his wit to self-destroy Damocles and using Geass on Schneizel into submission.
All of the incident that happened after Lelouch took the throne, he carefully planned and staged as a play.
All this well-thought-out strategic planning phase is generally not present in most of the mecha anime, this is where this anime is unprecedented.
Final requiem
This was the final part of the play that Lelouch and Suzaku staged together.
After taking the throne, Lelouch tried to establish his reputation as a dictator as firmly as possible. He even attacked the venue of the United Federation of Nations for maximum voting rights.
After the Damocles incident, he even captured all of the related individuals including his beloved sister Nunnally, and even the Order of Black Nights to execute them and drag them along in a public parade.
In that crucial moment, Suzaku donning Zero’s attire and mask stabbed Lelouch through the heart officially ending a dark chapter of history as a son of justice becomes a beacon of hope to everyone.
As he established himself as the symbol of discrimination and oppression, his death made the world a little more kinder to everyone, as Nunnly hoped.
The end of the protagonist directly connecting to a good ending is rare in most of other mecha anime, which made this anime unprecedented.
Conclusion
As the second season of this series, this anime really draws attention towards its detailed attention in maintaining and mutating each character and their traits.
All the outcome and their causes have been intricately woven into the storyline and brought it to the finish.
Code Geass second season is mainly the result of many efforts and misdeeds done in the first season, hence its presentation is more impactful than the previous one being filled with unexpected results and plot twists.
It’s more like a psychological thriller anime with a pinch of social unrest than a mecha anime at this point.
To know the story previous to this season, read the Blog Post on the First season of Code Geass.
