Code Geass R2 Episode 15 Review

I’m torn between saying ABOUT FUCKING TIME and lauding praise, and disliking Code Geass R2 episode 15.

We finally get some real heavy hitting C.C. screen time and more significantly some real fucking plot development. They finally chose to stop the cock tease pauses and spurts in story progression to deluge us with information on V.V., C.C. and the history of the Geass in Code Geass R2 15.

I was immensely amused by Code Geass R2 15 reifying my personal opinion that no woman knows her own heart. Yeah, I know, it’s an anime. Still I cackled.

The contract terms are revealed and C.C. thought her wish was to die and cast off the curse of immortality. Her real wish is to be well and truly loved, which they’re setting Lelouch up for. None of that was truly mind blowing but it’s still nice to see everything woven into the plot, finally.

However, if her wish was to rid herself of immortality, there was Mao a season back. Mao’s Geass was supposedly highly advanced, and if it had been her goal to shed immortality all along, she could have dumped the world a while ago. It reinforces my belief that they’re simply throwing random shit into Code Geass R2 now, though animes are rarely completely consistent. I don’t hold this too hard against them, compared with everything else, but it is simply incongruent with what they’re trying to do. At the very least it shows the creators didn’t think too far beyond the first season when they wrote the script.

Charles gained powers more befitting an emperor. His character feels more…complete. Some feminine looking boy as the immortal witch always felt a little weird.

I believe V.V. died after Charles drained his Geass powers. I presume it was out of a combination of sibling love and the fact that V.V. broke contract and lied. Either way, a reasonably interesting end to one of the major antagonists of the series. Even if V.V. isn’t dead, I don’t believe he will remain a major adversary from hereon forth.

Here’s what I didn’t like about Code Geass R2 15. First of all, they’re introducing new shit again or reviving old shit that they haven’t touched on for many episodes.

Bat Shit Crazy Glasses Girl has created a bomb for Schneizel and her Euphemia fan girl obsessions brought another weapon of mass destruction into the world.

Nunally suddenly becomes important again after everyone went out of their way to keep her out of this shit.

I still hate Suzaku. I don’t feel like he came to the senses of his nobler self. Rather he loathed Lelouch so much he couldn’t bear to be remotely similar, and you saw the way he was with Nunally—fucking deceptive swine. I really see nothing to admire about the guy.

What really knocked over the cake for me though, was C.C.’s amnesia.

Over the past decade (yes it has been that long) I have grown increasingly put off by the amnesia element in anime/fiction/whatever. It’s just too convenient. “Hey guyz! Stuff is happening and we need to throw obstacles in it. I know! We’ll make one of the characters forget everything!” Bullshit.

The first series (manga) I saw that really emphasized the “not remembering” thing was Love Hina, and that worked out ok, and some animes like ef – A Tale of Memories definitely made good use of it. But right now in Code Geass R2 this amnesia is yet another plot twist thrown into the growing dung heap. I’ll bet you they shelf C.C. for a while, or shunt her to a minor role, and then in seven episodes or so, they’ll be like, bam, she has everything back for some contrived reason.

I can accept C.C. losing her Geass mark thing and subsequently her witch powers and immortality (if that is what actually happened), but why give her amnesia now?

Code Geass R2 15 slightly makes up for the previous episode. Not everything makes sense, but at least a lot of the big plot questions that were raised a season ago were finally answered.