Code Geass

• 1. The Power of Obedience

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  Code Geass is a Japanese anime television series produced by the studio Sunrise, and its premise rests on a single dangerous gift. The gift is called Geass, and it is the power of absolute obedience. Whoever receives it can issue a command that another person cannot refuse. The series asks who would be handed such a power, what he would do with it, and what it would take from him. A second question has little to do with the plot. How did one television series grow into a franchise of films, novels, games and sequels that kept arriving years after the first broadcast?

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• 2. Britannia's Shadow Map

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  The world of Code Geass is carved into three superpowers, a layout the series borrows from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Holy Britannian Empire, also called Britannia, rules the Americas. The Chinese Federation holds Asia. The Europa United covers Europe and Africa.

  On the 10th of August 2010 a.t.b., Britannia conquered Japan with its newest weapon, the Autonomous Armored Knight, known as the Knightmare Frame. The empire then stripped Japan and its people of all rights and freedoms. The country was renamed Area 11, and its citizens were called Elevens.

  The letters a.t.b. mark a calendar that exists only in this fictional history. In the most common version of the timeline, Julius Caesar's invasions of Britain between 55 and 54 BC end in failure. The British Celts unite under Alwin the First and force the Romans out. They found the First United British Kingdom in 54 BC, which becomes the first year of the Britannian Calendar. The year 55 BC becomes 1 b.t.b. By 43 a.t.b., which is 12 BC, the Roman Empire recognizes Britannia as an independent kingdom.

  The result is a world whose events echo real dates but land about half a century earlier. The French Revolution, for example, happens in 1789 a.t.b., which equals 1734 AD. The series also admits that several alternative timelines exist, and the point where history diverges may differ between them.

  Almost every one of those timelines contains a version of the Geass Order, also described as a cult or directorate. It controls and uses people who hold Geass abilities, and it is deeply entangled with the Britannian Imperial Family.

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• 3. Lelouch's Rebellion

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  Lelouch vi Britannia is the son of Emperor Charles zi Britannia and his royal consort, Marianne vi Britannia. Marianne was brutally murdered inside the palace. His younger sister, Nunnally vi Britannia, witnessed the killing and was so traumatized that she lost her sight. Stray bullets to her lower body also took away her ability to walk. Lelouch is furious with his father, who he believes turned a blind eye to Marianne's death and never pursued her killer.

  The two siblings were then sent to Japan as political pawns, meant to lull the Japanese government into a false sense of security. Soon afterward, Britannia attacked and defeated Japan. Standing in the ruins, Lelouch made a vow to his Japanese friend, Suzaku Kururugi. One day he would obliterate Britannia as vengeance against his father.

  Seven years later, Lelouch lives under the alias Lelouch Lamperouge, a popular but withdrawn student at Ashford Academy. A terrorist attack pulls him in, and there he finds a mysterious girl known only as C.C. She saves him from the Britannian Royal Guard by making a contract with him. In exchange, she grants him Geass. With it he can order anyone to do anything, including to live, to fight or to die for him. The power works on each person only once, and only through direct eye contact.

  Lelouch decides to use Geass to find his mother's murderers, destroy the empire, and build a world where Nunnally can live happily. He becomes Zero, a masked vigilante and the leader of a resistance group called the Black Knights, and he wins support among many Japanese. The price is steep. He does not know the full extent of his powers, and he must navigate conflicts with a resistance member named Kallen Stadtfeld, with his own half-siblings, and with the strongest army in the world.

  Suzaku Kururugi, who heard that vow among the ruins, is only one of the people Lelouch will have to face.

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• 4. Building the Series

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  Ichirō Ōkouchi and Gorō Taniguchi developed Code Geass at Sunrise and proposed it to the producer Yoshitaka Kawaguchi. Kawaguchi had approached the pair earlier, during production of Planetes. The first idea was a hero who leads a secret organization. It grew into a clash between two characters with different values who serve in the same military unit. Those two became Lelouch Lamperouge and Suzaku Kururugi.

  Kawaguchi also contacted the manga artist group Clamp. It was the first time Clamp had ever been asked to design the characters of an anime series. The group signed on early and supplied many ideas that shaped the setting and the cast. Their first design gave Lelouch white hair. Ageha Ohkawa, Clamp's head writer, pictured a character everyone would find cool and, quite literally, a beauty. The team discussed KinKi Kids and Tackey & Tsubasa as inspirations. Their goal was a hit show that would appeal to everyone.

  Zero, Lelouch's masked alter ego, was among the earliest characters created. Ōkouchi wanted a mask in the series, feeling a Sunrise show needed one. Clamp wanted a design that had never appeared in any Sunrise series. The finished mask was nicknamed "tulip" for its distinctive shape.

  The idea of Geass may have been inspired by the Irish and Welsh legends of the "geas" or "geis", a compulsion laid on someone to do or not do something. Such a compulsion can lead to good or bad outcomes, which suits a power that Lelouch will wield both ways. The ability arrived late. MBS first gave the show a Sunday evening prime time slot, then moved it to a Thursday late-night slot. The series was reshaped for a more mature audience, and Geass entered the story then. It was first imagined as a power granted by an "angel", a detail that was later changed.

  Mokona, Clamp's lead artist, produced the finalized original designs. Sunrise's character designer Takahiro Kimura then converted them for animation. He had spent "every day" studying Clamp's art books and manga to learn their style. His aim was to let the other animators use the designs without drifting from Clamp's look.

  Kōtarō Nakagawa and Hitomi Kuroishi composed the music. Both had worked with the core staff on Planetes and on Taniguchi's earlier series, Gun X Sword. Kuroishi wrote and performed insert songs including "Stories", "Masquerade", "Alone" and "Innocent Days". Singer-songwriter Mikio Sakai performed "Picaresque" and "Callin'". The opening and ending songs came from FLOW, Ali Project, Jinn, SunSet Swish, Access and Orange Range. When the music was collected on two soundtrack albums, Kimura illustrated both covers.

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• 5. On Air and Beyond

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  At 01:25 JST on the 6th of October 2006, which counted as the 5th of October on the schedule, Code Geass premiered on the Mainichi Broadcasting System. Satellite viewers across Japan got it on Animax on the 7th of November 2006. After 23 episodes the series paused on the 29th of March 2007. It returned for a single one-hour broadcast of episodes 24 and 25 on Saturday the 28th of July 2007.

  The sequel was first announced in the March 2007 issue of Newtype. Kawaguchi confirmed it on the series' official staff blog on the 9th of March 2007. Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 premiered on the 6th of April 2008 across the Japan News Network stations, including MBS and TBS. The slot moved from 18:00 on Saturdays to 17:00 on Sundays. Before broadcast, private previews of episode 1 were held in Osaka and Tokyo on the 15th and the 16th of March. The Japanese voice actors attended along with 3,800 randomly selected applicants. On the 15th of April 2008, an error at Bandai Channel put the last six minutes of the unaired third episode online. The company had been testing a system meant to prevent illegal uploads.

  More stories followed. An original video animation directed by Makoto Baba shows Lelouch making the ultimate use of his Geass for Nunnally, who loves Alice in Wonderland. Its Blu-ray came out on the 27th of July 2012 with a 40-page picture book. A separate side story, Akito the Exiled, was revealed on the 5th of December 2009. Kazuki Akane, known for The Vision of Escaflowne, was named its director in April 2010. It is set in Europe during the Britannian invasion, between the two seasons of the main series. It was planned as four chapters, and a fifth was announced after the third debuted on the 2nd of May 2015.

  A three-part compilation film recapped both seasons. Its parts were released on the 21st of October 2017, the 10th of February 2018 and the 26th of May 2018, under the titles Initiation, Transgression and Glorification. A new film, Lelouch of the Re;surrection, was announced on the 27th of November 2016. It reached Japanese theaters in February 2019 and continues past the Zero Requiem arc.

  On the 5th of December 2020, Lelouch's birthday, Sunrise announced a new project called Z of the Recapture as part of a 10-year plan for the franchise. Yoshimitsu Ohashi directed it, Noboru Kimura wrote the scripts, and Takahiro Kimura returned to design the characters. It became a four-part film series, Rozé of the Recapture, released in Japanese theaters on the 10th of May, the 7th of June, the 5th of July and the 2nd of August 2024. It was also streamed worldwide on Disney+ as a 12-episode series. Earlier, the Re;surrection film had been re-released in 4D on the 29th of January 2021. On the 7th of December 2024, after a screening of Rozé of the Recapture, Taniguchi revealed that multiple sequels were in production.

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• 6. Worlds Beyond the Screen

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  Kadokawa Shoten published four manga adaptations of Code Geass, each with its own alternate storyline. The first, by Majiko~!, ran in Monthly Asuka and follows the anime closely, except that the Knightmare Frames are gone. Its eight volumes appeared from the 26th of December 2008 to the 26th of March 2010. Atsuro Yomino's version, in Beans A, turns Suzaku into the hero of a tokusatsu show. His Lancelot mecha becomes a bodysuit, and he fights the Black Knights as a criminal organization. Cecile Croomy and Euphemia li Britannia are merged into one character, Mariel Lubie.

  Tomomasa Takuma's manga in Comp Ace follows Nunnally as she searches for her missing brother after an entity named Nemo restores her health. It ran for five volumes. A fourth manga in Kerokero Ace is set in an alternate 1853. There Lelouch commands the Shogunate's Shinsengumi against the Black Revolutionaries, led by a masked figure named Rei. Taniguchi himself scripted Renya of Darkness, which began in the May 2010 issue of Shōnen Ace. Its title character is a 17-year-old boy who meets a perpetually young witch, "Reifū C.C.", in Japan's Edo era. Bandai Entertainment revoked its English publication on the 2nd of January 2012.

  The Sneaker magazine serialized the light novels in two series. The first, with five volumes, began with volume 0 on the 28th of April 2007 and ended on the 1st of March 2008. Volume 0 is a prologue about how Lelouch befriended Suzaku. The R2 novels ran for four volumes from the 1st of June 2008 to the 1st of March 2009. A single side-story novel, released on the 1st of April 2008, follows the teenager Kallen Stadtfeld as she becomes a Black Knights soldier. The English edition of the R2 novels was cancelled on the 3rd of January 2012.

  Victor Entertainment released the first of the Sound Episodes drama CDs in April 2007, with new volumes arriving monthly. Twelve were made in all. The first six came out between the 25th of April and the 27th of September 2007 and cover the first season.

  The games were mostly Japan-only. The official site for the first Nintendo DS game opened on the 16th of July 2007, and the game followed on the 25th of October. Lost Colors, released on the 27th of March 2008, is a visual novel starring an amnesiac protagonist whose Geass is triggered by voice. Geass Theater on the Board, released on the 7th of August 2008, is a board game of parody minigames with chibi characters. In August 2010, the PlayStation 3 mecha game Another Century's Episode R made Suzaku's Lancelot, Lelouch's Shinkiro, Kallen's Guren and C.C.'s Akatsuki playable. A mobile sequel, Genesic Re;CODE, launched on the 4th of October 2021, and its server shut down in April 2023. Lost Stories, from f4samurai and DMM Games, launched in May 2022.

  Weekly internet radio shows streamed on BEAT Net Radio. The first began on the 6th of October 2006 with Sayaka Ohara and Satomi Arai, the voices of Milly Ashford and Sayoko Shinazaki. Jun Fukuyama and Noriaki Sugiyama hosted the second from the 12th of December 2006. Artbooks followed too. One collected 134 pieces from the first season, and another runs 95 pages. Clamp published its own, called Code Geass x CLAMP: Mutuality.

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• 7. Overseas Audiences

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  In December 2007, Bandai Entertainment licensed most of the franchise for English release. The first season reached Adult Swim in the United States on the 27th of April 2008, and the second began on the 2nd of November. The finale aired on the 7th of June 2009. Adult Swim's broadcast rights expired on the 23rd of April 2010.

  Bandai Entertainment closed in 2012. At Otakon 2013, Sunrise announced that Funimation had licensed both seasons and Akito the Exiled. In the United Kingdom, Manga Entertainment planned an English-dubbed Blu-ray of the first two Akito episodes for the 5th of December 2016. The date slid to the 10th of April 2017 and then to the 1st of October 2017. Funimation announced on the 15th of March 2017 that its Akito combo pack would arrive on the 27th of June 2017.

  In Australia and New Zealand, Madman Entertainment sub-licensed the series, and it began on the Australian channel ABC2 on the 19th of January 2009. By 2018 it was available on Australian Netflix.

  In the Philippines, TV5 aired the first season on weeknights at 7:30 p.m. from the 10th of November to the 15th of December 2008. The second season followed from the 4th of May to the 5th of June 2009. Ratings were poor because local newscasts and prime-time soap operas competed for the same viewers. Even so, the series built a huge following and became one of the most talked-about anime in the country. Hero TV carried it on cable from the 27th of July 2010.

  Italy's Rai 4 broadcast the first season from the 23rd of September 2009 to the 25th of February 2010. The second ran from the 4th of March to the 12th of August 2010. Both aired at about 11:10 p.m.

  Funimation also licensed the recap trilogy, as Sunrise announced at Anime Boston 2018. It then took the Re;surrection film for a North American theatrical release in May 2019.

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• 8. Critics and Awards

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  By August 2008, more than 900,000 Code Geass discs had been sold in Japan. By November 2008, Bandai Visual had shipped over one million DVD and Blu-ray discs of the franchise. According to Amazon.com, the first R2 volume was the fourth-bestselling anime disc in Japan during 2008.

  Box office numbers were smaller but steady. Episodes 1, 3 and 5 of Akito the Exiled played in Japanese theaters between 2012 and 2016. Episode 1 grossed ¥35,112,097, and episodes 3 and 5 grossed ¥216,957,460, for a combined ¥252,069,557. The recap trilogy ran in 79 theaters across 2017-2018 and grossed ¥647,802,700 in total.

  At the sixth annual Tokyo Anime Awards, held at the 2007 Tokyo International Anime Fair, Code Geass won best anime television series. Its second season took best screenplay at the 2009 Tokyo Anime Fair. Animage's 29th Anime Grand Prix named it most popular series. Lelouch was the most popular male character and "Colors" the most popular song. At the 30th Grand Prix, Lelouch won again and C.C. was voted the most popular female character. Jun Fukuyama won best voice actor in a leading role at the first Seiyu Awards in 2007, and Ami Koshimizu won best voice actress in a supporting role for Kallen. Animation Kobe gave the series best TV animation at its twelfth event and R2 the same prize a year later. R2 was also nominated for the Seiun Award's Best Media category in 2009.

  Anime News Network columnist Todd Ciolek credited the popularity to "the series hitting every important fan sector." His colleague Carl Kimlinger said it "has the skill and energy to carry viewers over the top with it". Dallas Marshall of T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews gave six stars out of seven. He warned that it "tends to go overboard with its emotionalism". A science fiction reference work calls the original show a commercial and critical success. It places the series among the major anime of the 2000s for its mix of imperialism, collective guilt and the ethics of political violence. The same entry finds the later franchise output mixed, calling it "mediocre popcorn entertainment", though it adds that the sequels do not diminish the original.

  Carlo Santos of Anime News Network gave a lukewarm "C", reviewing the manga adaptation. He read the franchise as reflecting a generation's sense that old, powerful people had ruined the world while the young were helpless. He doubted that Zero's vigilante methods could solve problems like economic collapse and radical extremism. He concluded that "the series is at its best when raising questions rather than offering a final solution."

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