[Jarmel]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Except Gai *isn't* Lelouch. He's a long haired handsome blonde dude with an agenda. We've seen countless of those in anime, and while they can occasionally be awesome (The Wizard in Ben-To is totally rad), I'm not getting into this guy's charisma at all.

Gai pulled off a very much Lelouch maneuver. He predicted where the enemy response was going to be, who was going to participate how they were going to react, and turned their own tactics against them. Not to mention having the balls to show off to your enemy and having a bunch of guns shown in your face and keeping your calm. Lelouch would have been proud of him.

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Yes, but Britannia was a racist, imperialistic Evil Empire. There was no question about this. This series has a...weird sort of occupational forces working in Japan (they even name dropped a GHQ), which is somehow utterly evil to the core, or at least retarded, given how it had a "petty aristocrat"/psychopath operate in civilian quarters.

The Japan under the historical GHQ was not exactly the kindest of places, nor was the GHQ's record spotless, but it wasn't an evil force intent upon slaughtering hapless Japanese civilians because it could. What's more, it was an occupational power after a brutal world war. This one came in because of a...plague? A plague I'm 99.99% sure had something to do with an evil conspiracy somewhere.

Also, since there was also a comparison to Ghost in the Shell; you know what that series is great for? For all the questionably-dressed cyborg action and high-minded philosopher-terrorists, it felt plausible. It was the near-future of our very own societies, troubled, politick'd, and nonetheless with people acting like people.

Leave the Ghost in the Shell comparisons alone. There has been absolutely nothing on the same level and it was sheer stupidity of the staff to even mention that.

We also don't know that the historical GHQ is the basis for that. Obviously the name is supposed to evoke similar feelings but the writing is in no way realistic in that regards. Again GHQ is a reworked Brittania from multiple angles rather than a futuristic GHQ.

Originally Posted by Irenicus

This series would have been served much better in a more fantasy setting...as Geass was.

You have a guy pulling swords and reflection guns out of people. It's pretty damn fantastical already.

Originally Posted by Irenicus

...and I disliked every one of them? Code Geass was far, far from perfect and this sort of shallow characterization is part of my annoyances for it. The problem so far is that despite the great production values this series is already showing itself to be worse in many respects.

Suzaku at least had plenty of internal conflicts; he was a rounded character. Hate him or love him, hypocrite, traitor, etc., we saw his viewpoint and understood his emotions. And even if we consider from the perspective of the first two episodes of Geass versus this one's (we should in any case), his introduction was nonetheless as a sympathetic friend-turned-shounen-rival. We were expected to see the tragedy between the "best friends" pan out, for good or ill.

Blondie here? He can f' off. If a character's worth is determined by his rivals, then poor Hero boy is being cruelly insulted.

I would argue Suzuku was a horrible developed and conceived character but that's an argument for another time. The point was that Suzuku was supposed to be one of the heroes/main characters and so had alot of face time. A better comparison to Daryl in Code Geass would be Jeremiah and some of the other "kill them all" villains in Season 1 of Code Geass.

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Well, they better hurry up with it. Right now the princess acts a like doormat to a boy she barely knows, apparently because she can smell out his Hero Protagonist status. If this is fanservice then I feel...dirtied, cheapened. Insulted.

There are ways you can create a "broken" sort of "personality-less" character without making her a suspiciously fanservice-y doormat. See Eureka from Eureka 7. Or the legendary Ayanami Rei...ignoring how Eva fans made the director fall into depression by idolizing her nonetheless.

Eureka wasn't that interesting of a character 2 episodes in either. As I said, the third episode is going to make/break Inori as we'll see her in a more informal setting. Inori is such a bland heroine that they have to have something planned with her, I just can't figure out what.

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

Wait what exactly do Gai and Lelouch have in common? Also what exactly do you mean by "wasn't exactly an insane affair"? I think we're a little off base here, but then that's kind of not surprising given the growing talk about Code Geass in an unrelated thread.

Lelouch pulled off a maneuver very much similar to what Gai did. Predicting enemy movements and responses and launching counterattacks based off of that. Then Gai standing up and giving a speech in full view of the enemy.

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Somebody looks like they have an agenda that's kind of irrelevant to the topic, but we'll play with this for now cause I think I can make this work out. First off....well....you're wrong actually. There were plenty of sympathetic characters for Britannia and it's here I think I can make this topic a little more relevant a comparison. We had characters like Cornelia, Jeremiah, Shirley, Euphemia, Milly, Nunally, Cecille, Lloyd....almost the entire cast of the school too, all with varying levels of sympathetic portrayal over the course of the series.

Spoiler for Code Geass heavy spoilers:

When I talk about Brittania, I mean the government. This is because 90 percent of the cast was foreign. Really then entire series for the most part was infighting between a bunch of nobles. Even then most of the characters weren't sympathetic in that the student cast didn't really suffer. Cornelia and certainly Jeremiah had what was coming to them. Nunally and Euphemia were supposed to be the sympathetic characters. Euphemia ended up being killed after she wiped out a bunch of Japanese and Nunally was really only important due to the influence she had on her brother. Not to mention we see none of the citizens really share Euphemia's ideas. None of the higher ups or Knights of the Round were sympathetic in the least. Lelouch's father was an ass truly to the end.

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

This is something I think is absolutely critical and needed in order to make Guilty Crown go down a little easier. Somewhere along the line we'll have to stop being so black and white about all of this and there will have to be at least one character from the occupation that isn't an eyes bulging out of the head maniac. Yes Code Geass had some of these too, but it also had sympathetic characters and it also had some characters on the Japanese side of the fight that were grey in their morality like Lelouch himself and arguably some of the more extreme members of the old resistance seen in episode 01. That made for some interesting interplay within and between the factions at times. Maybe Gai will be that character in Guilty Crown that will be the anti-hero type, but only time will tell.

Really CG had only three sympathetic people in the cast, Lelouch, Nunally, and Euphemia. The rest on both sides were extremists and crazy for the most part. Nina being a perfect example. They fleshed out the characters but alot of that character development came way down the round.

Now if you want more people like the students at Ashford Academy, you'll certainly get them.

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

This is a good point. Because the setting is very much real (in a futuristic sense at least) it kind of clashes with the very surreal characters, factions and plot elements (the last one gets a pass for me so far, the middle one is my biggest beef with the show right now) and makes for a bit of a strange viewing. I think this is the heart of the problem with the show as it stands. If one is too adjust it's going to take some time cause I kind of came in expecting something a lot more mature than what has been presented so far. I think it's also fair to mention that Code Geass (woe as I am to keep bringing the topic up) had given it's main character motive by this point in the story and roped one into his revenge story and quest to give his sister a more peaceful world to grow up in. There were also issues of family infighting and a friendship gone awry introduced pretty early on as well. It made it personal and his character highly identifiable and arguably served to jump start the show quiet nicely.

Well It's looking like they're going to tie Shouma's backstory into Gai's and possibly Inoris along with his mother. So the backstory is definitely there. Unlike CG where we had a pretty good grasp of the motivations, it's being held closer to the chest this time.