English Dub Season Review: Code Geass: Rozé of the Recapture Season One

Overview:

After the supposed death of its 99th emperor, the Holy Britannian Empire broke up, and the areas it controlled finally regained their independence. While most joined the United Federation of Nations, a group aiming to create everlasting peace, remnants of the oppressive empire continue to exist. One such faction, Neo-Britannia, has taken over Japan’s Hokkaido island after killing its governor, Juugo Sumeragi.

Our Take:

This anime was a mixed bag for me, on one hand I was excited for more content set in the Code Geass universe. But I was of course worried that this would ruin what was practically a perfect anime in the original series. Sunrise studios manages to sidestep this problem by setting this in an “alternate universe” where Lelouch is brought back to life. As far as I understand it the movies of Code Geass are their own universe. This gives Sunrise some wiggle room for if the series isn’t good, well it doesn’t ruin the original.

I’ll give a run down of the good first. The mech combat is amazing like usual, Sunrise is no stranger to mechs and it shows. The designs are fantastic and the fights are second to none. My main problem with the mech fights is there aren’t more of them. Around the middle of the season it slows down a little and we see less combat and then it all goes to hell.

The voice work is great, I especilly think that Suzie Yeung and Cory Yee do fantastic as Sakuya and Ash respectively. They’re our two leads so of course we hear from them a lot and they do great. It was amazing to hear certain reprisals in the show when cameos happened. Johnny Yong Bosch as Lelouch is always fantastic but I’ll admit I was disappointed because I thought we would get to hear from him more.

Honestly, it’s the story where this series fell flat for me. In particular the ending, if they would have nailed the ending I think I would have loved this series. But the ending is the most important part of a story in my opinion and this one disappointed. I’m well aware that the original series bittersweet ending is regarded by most as almost perfect. That doesn’t mean every ending in this universe needs to be like that in order to land as well. I wouldn’t go so far as to say our two leads have sad endings (other than maybe one) but they sure don’t seem happy.

It was fun to get to dive back into this universe and the characters sucked me in. There were some jaw dropping twists and the animation was great. But the ending ruined the series for me, I know that might sound petty but that’s how I felt. I still recommend watching it, especially if you’re a fan of this franchise but maybe prepare yourself for an ending you might not like.