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Part two of “Code Geass” gets even more maliciously violent, with terrorist attacks, plot twists and a sadistic arch-nemesis.

This set of DVDs shows LeLouch having a tough time balancing his school life and the terrorist work with the Black Knights. In episodes 9-10, Zero and the Knights set up a massive landslide against the Brittanian forces in Narita. However, his landslide destroys the city of Narita, leaving him with the guilt of murdering thousands of people, including people related to his friends.

The true kicker of this box set, however, are the episodes in which LeLouch confronts the madman, Mao. This teenager, madly in love with the green-haired C.C., has an incredible Geass power. LeLouch and Mao are forced to confront each other in a deadly battle of wits.

Admittedly, this series will test the limits of even longtime shonen fans. There’s plenty of violence and even a frightening scene involving a chainsaw and a pistol that may keep parents from purchasing this DVD. However, the stakes are raised in this anime for the heartbreaking, tragic end to season one in part three. This is a brutal, but exciting anime to watch.
Rating: 5 / 5

Excellent! “CODE GEASS: Lelouch of the Rebellion” is just excellent!

I literally raved about how much I enjoyed Part I and how “CODE GEASS: Lelouch of the Rebellion” is just an amazing series and one of the best to come from Japan in awhile.

And so far, the popularity has led to another series, the first anime album to reach #1 on the Oricon music album charts and many of the drama series breaking into the Oricon album charts top 10.

The series is just well written, the CLAMP-based characters are just cool and the mecha and art designs are just fantastic to look at.

Vol. 3 consists of episodes 10-13 and Vol. 4 consists of episodes 14-17. The storyline primarily focuses on the introduction of MAO, who has a Geass of reading people’s thoughts and of course, more revelations on Suzaku and how it will impact his relationship with Lelouch.

VIDEO & AUDIO:

“CODE OF GEASS: Lelouch of the Rebellion” is featured 1:78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen. The animation and video quality is colorful and digitally modern since it is a newer anime television release. What I love about the video quality is the sheer amount of people involved. Everyone with detail, buildings, mecha and the destruction has detail. The character designs based from CLAMP’s character design concepts are just fresh and cool to look at. One of the coolest looking character designs in an anime mecha series without being a full-on mecha series. Very cool!

As expected from a recent anime series, video quality was just great. From the character animation to the backgrounds, everything was colorful and vibrant. And because this series features so many scenes throughout Japan, this series really featured so much background art and characters. Everything looked awesome! Again, I’m very impressed with how much went in creating a single episode.

As for the audio, the audio is English and Japanese stereo. For a television series, I was sort of expecting stereo sound but knowing some television series including Dolby Digital 5.1 on the DVD soundtracks, I was hoping that there may have been a Dolby Digital 5.1 track for Code Geass but the audio is stereo. Dialogue is clear and you can understand what the characters are saying. Both the English and Japanese voice acting are well done.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

You can find really cool special features on both volumes. Let’s start with the volume 3 DVD:

1. Picture Drama Episode Episode #4 (Stage 9.75) – In this episode, Lelouche cooks Nunnally a meal and spends time with his sister.

2. Picture Drama Episode Episode #6 (Stage 4.33) – In this episode, Jeremiah talks to Mao about being a failure of not being their to prevent the deaths of Lady Marianne (Lelouche’s mother) and Lord Clovis.

3. Audio Commentary Stage #11 – In this audio commentary, the voice actors for Lelouche (Jun Fukuyama), C.C. (Yukana) are joined by Yuriko Chiba (Character Animation Director), Eiji Nakada (designer of Knightmares and Mecha Animation Director) and Kazuya Murata (Assistant Director) and discuss episode 11. Another fun and lively commentary thanks to the commentary direction by Lelouche voice actor Jun Fukuyama. In this commentary, we learn how the animation process works and the communication between writers and directors. Also, the ideas passed by the designers to the director.

4. Textless Opening (2nd Version of “Colors”)

With the fourth volume, the special features are:

* Picture Drama Episode #6 (Stage 8.75) – Princess Euphemia talks to Princess Cornelia into wearing a bathing suit and everyone heads to the beach. Meanwhile, Shirley is concerned by Lelouche and Nunnaly’s closeness.

* Audio Commentary Stage #14 – For this commentary, voice actors Jun Fukuyama (Lelouche) and Fumiko Orikasa (Shirley Fenette) are joined by Goro Taniguchi (the director) and Seiichi Nakatani (animation director). They discuss the various opening animations and also the animation direction of the series and Orikasa Fumiko discusses her playing the role of Shirley.

* Textless Ending for “Mosaic Kakera”

* Textless Opening for the 1st version of “Kaidokufunou”

JUDGMENT CALL:

I really enjoyed this latest Part II of “CODE GEASS: Lelouch of the Rebellion”. Enjoying the strategy, the wit, the action sequences and how everything plays out, is just wonderful.

With Part II, you can tell how the series is setting things up between Lelouche versus Suzaku. Both are best friends, having grown up with each other but when Lelouche finds out that Suzaku is a thorn in his side, you just wonder how far Lelouche will go to destroy Britannia.

What’s more shocking is to watch him go through the doldrums of knowing he killed Shirley’s father but sacrifices are needed. But more shocking what he had to do to Shirley in order to ensure that his identity as Zero is not blown.

Both volumes were just as action-packed, gripping and addictive as the previous two volumes. And there were a lot of revealing moments for Suzaku and C.C.’s characters. So, suffice to say, these two volumes are quite important as it’s definitely setting things up for probably more explosive and action-packed episodes.

With everything so positive, the only negative, and it’s really not a negative but more or less I enjoying hearing the action all around me via Dolby Digital 5.1 (especially in DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD ala Blu-ray) is that I wished that audio was presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 but still dialogue is quite clear and easy to understand in stereo and the music as well. But I really hope this series gets the Blu-ray treatment soon.

“CODE GEASS: Lelouch of the Rebellion” is a fantastic anime series that doesn’t come along too frequently in Japan. Beautiful character designs, art direction, voice acting, mecha designs and a wonderful plot, this anime is definitely special and worth watching.

Like Part I, everything about Part II of “CODE GEASS: Lelouch of the Rebellion” so far has been excellent and I can’t wait for Part III. I highly recommend this DVD set!
Rating: 5 / 5