Parodic crossovers

Often, the problems of bringing together two shows with different narrative ambitions makes the writing of a crossover burdensome. Such difficulties are encountered by situation comedies that wish to crossover with dramatic television programmes. The satirical crossover—ranging in length from a cameo to a full comedy sketch or episode—is an extremely popular way of circumventing this problem. By various means, such crossovers typically avoid outcry from fans by being obvious parody or homage. However, on rare occasion, the humor of such crossovers can be used by one show make a narrative point by capitalizing on the audience’s experience of the other programme.

     In recent years, a select few anime took the world by storm.  One of those was Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, created by Sunrise, which brought the world the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise, with character designs by the famous manga artist group, CLAMP.  Like Mobile Suit Gundam, Code Geass features mecha, giant pilot-able robots, in this world called Knightmare Frames.  However, that is only one facet of an extremely complicated story.  It takes place in a world with an alternate history in which the British monarchy began earlier and lost control of the British Isles during the Napoleonic Wars.  Subsequently, a new royal line was created in the Americas, and the Holy Britannian Empire became the greatest power on Earth.  After successfully invading Japan, it reduced the once-proud nation to nothing more than “Area 11,” forcing its citizens to give up their identities and sacrifice themselves for Britannia.

     It is in this situation that we meet Lelouch Lamperouge, a seemingly normal high school student of Britannian descent living in Tokyo.  When a pro-Japanese terrorist group flees through the city, Lelouch ends up getting caught in the crossfire.  He finds out that one of the members of the Britannian Army is his childhood friend, Kururugi Suzaku.  He also meets a mysterious girl named C.C., who gives him the power of Geass, the ability (in his case) to compel anyone to do whatever he says upon making eye contact.  Lelouch then chooses to assist the terrorists, and in doing so, reveals his true identity as Lelouch vi Britannia, the eleventh prince of Britannia.  In order to get revenge on the Britannian Empire for the death of his mother and the blinding and crippling of his sister, Nunnally, Lelouch dons the mask of Zero, a knight fighting for justice and the freedom of Japan.  Along with the terrorists he assisted, he forms the Order of the Black Knights and vows to fight against Britannia, no matter the cost.

     As I mentioned before, this series has many aspects of the mecha genre.  However, it also contains aspects of a thriller/cerebral story, like Death Note, a slice of life story (with all the high school shenanigans), and a historical drama.  So for me, personally, this hits everything I like at once.  Then we’ve got a massive cast and a strong group of main characters.  Lelouch is brilliant, ambitious, and vengeful.  Suzaku is kind, naive, and strong-willed.  C.C. is mysterious, all-knowing, and a tad manipulative.  Kallen Kōzuki, the student by day, terrorist by night, is stubborn, skilled in more ways than one, and just plain awesome.  And that’s only four of the main characters.  There’s also Shirley Fenette, Nunally, Euphemia li Britannia, etc. The story also continued with Season 2, otherwise known as Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2.  That brought in a ton of other new characters, like Gino Weinberg, Li Xingke, and Rolo Lamperouge.

     So you’ve got a strong cast and a highly compelling story.  There are constant twists and turns, through a combination of the dramatic plotline and the craziness of the battle sequences.  There are betrayals, strategic reversals, revelations, and so much more.  The soundtrack is absolutely epic, and the first opening theme song, Colors, by Flow, is one of the best pieces of J-Pop you’ll ever hear.  Now, I watched the English version.  However, from what I can tell, this is one anime where you can pick and choose.  Both the Japanese and English versions have their own virtues.  I only watched the latter out of habit.  In conclusion, if you like any of the things I mentioned above, you should watch this show.  It’s extremely touching and thrilling, and even though parts of it get confusing, and some episodes (especially in R2) seem random, you will love this show.  It’s in the absolute highest tier of anime, right up there with Fullmetal Alchemist.

Story: 9.7      Artwork: 9.5      Soundtrack: 9.6      Acting: 9.7      Overall: 9.8

I can't wait until mine arrives

So I sent the payment over to HLJ for Megahouse GEM Zero figure earlier today, so it looks like they managed to fulfill my preorder. I’m glad, although my wallet isn’t since including the shipping he cost me nearly £65. It was what I expected and I had separated the money from my main account back in January, but it’s still a lot of money. It’s being sent by SAL, which lessens my chances of getting caught with extra charges courtesy of UK customs, but I might still get unlucky with something so expensive. Still, hopefully it shouldn’t be too much since it’s Royal Mail handling things rather than a service like Parcelforce. I don’t know when the arrival is likely to be. He’ll probably ship in the next day or two, but delivery could be anything from a week and a half to three weeks in my experience. Maybe because of the awful economy he’ll arrive as quickly as my last figure did? I can only hope. He should be a great figure, though. Ami Ami has great images as usual, and he looks very good. I like the base they decided on – it’s an interesting shape. Villetta looks lovely as well, minus the optional random pink jacket thing which kind of clashes, to be honest. Wish I could have afforded her as well.

I decided to pass on the Wave Yoko I had been thinking about, which is probably just as well given the amount of money I had to spend today on figures. When I looked around for pictures of the actual release, I didn’t like her as much as the promo pictures. I wasn’t so bothered about the colours, but I really didn’t like the change in face, even for just over £20. Hopefully Nia will turn out better, because I really like the short hair version of Wave’s figure.

Sometimes the search terms people reach my blog by are confusing. This one was somewhat bewildering, although sadly (or perhaps thankfully?) it wasn’t anything too bizarre. I’m not exactly sure how they got to my blog through it, though. Maybe they were searching really, really hard and found my blog somewhere near the end of Google search? Perhaps I spent too long talking about fanservice when I covered the first episode of Basquash? I get a lot of people making their way over to this post when searching the internet for a certain Gundam Meister wearing a dress.