Anime: Code Geass: Boukoku no Akito 4p1x2a

Note: Watch Code Geass first. This OVA wastes no time trying to explain its setting. It is made for those who already got the hang of it through the TV series.

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Review
Code Geass was an outstanding shounen action with a good deal of scheming, politics, and impactful moments. It had a style of its own with all the theatrical play and bizarre alternative setting where Britannia was an oppresive empire with old-school nobility and technology played major roles in world domination. The show also opened ground for more storytelling. We had a massive empire with multiple war fronts, a fight amongst siblings for the throne, and a mysterious magical power linked to medieval witches and enhanced by powerful mechas and warfare. Code Geass: Boukoku no Akito (Code Geass: Akito) tries to build exactly upon that.

This show narrates the events of Euro-Britannia against Europia, which means oppressive and powerful Great Britain dominating the European Union with its nightmares and massive army. Within this ongoing war there is a unit of the Europia side that has managed to win important fights against Britannia. Called by its enemies the "Ghost of Hannibal", this unit is composed of renegade japanese soldiers, one of them being Akito Hyuga, and led by the young noble woman Leila Malcal.

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1. They overdid it
   Code Geass had style. It offered a CLAMP character design with flashy clothes, bright colors, and exagerated movements. Lelouch got his spotlight with his dramatic voice-acting and gestures, so you ought to expect something like this in a high-quality OVA. Code Geass: Akito delivered at most points, with beautiful shots of european cities, more color to character clothings and movement, charming, although strangely similar, character, and so on. This is a naturally enhanced version of the TV series, however...
   
   ergh... the CGs
   Mechas in Code Geass were rubber toys, yes, but they merged nicely with the art style. In these OVAs they tried to go a step above and use CGs to animate the mechas, but the result is a terrible mess. Although the animation is fluid and nonstop, there are dozens of issues. The mechas simply don't match the rest of the animation. They are overly detailed. They seem to be covered in oil with absurd reflection and lightning effects. They also move more frequently than Spider Man when fighting. It doesn't make much sense considering the regular nightmares in the TV series were not that agile, and it gets worse when the camera of the show is a random entity that never stops and always gets the inconvient angles and pointless zoom ins and outs whenever possible. If out of fight the photography is already an issue with shots without focus or logic, during combats it gets even worse. This looks like the work of a guy who just learned how to use a camera in a 3D engine and is trying to show off with ridiculous and unnecessary things.
   
   And the sound is plain terrible
   Ok. The production innovation was not good enough with the oiled-spider-man mechas, so what was the sound direction decision to cover that? Create a sht&y soundtrack? Yes! Of course! Gods, it's been a while since a soundtrack annoyed me as much as this one. Silence most of the time? Yup. I enjoy silent shows, but when they know how to use a lack of music in dramatic moments, not when it works only to turn regular scenes lifeless and sometimes even boring. You got fights? Lemme check my classic european rythmns and mix them with slow music and MIDI beats here. Terrible. Simply terrible. Whenever combat kicks in, you get to see that fluid mecha animation not only annoyed by the oiled models and chaotic camera, but also by a background theme that would better fit a talking scene of a cult slow-paced european movie. It screams with incompatilibity. Sound effects also fall into the same disturbing quality, something more evident when the villain four-legged mecha makes a ridiculous noise mimicking a 8-bit-era horse ringtone. Fortunately, the voice-acting is solid enough to save the sound direction from being a complete disgrace.
   
   It's Code Geass Yes
   Code Geass: Akito is Code Geass by all means. It doesn't change the setting we were presented with the TV series and it doesn't try to mess with the previous story. This is a tale of Europe, set in Europe, happening in Europe, and dealing with Europe. You won't get to see Japan and its struggle here, this is smartly left out, giving room for a welcome focus on Akito and Leila as their unit tries to hamper the crazy mind of...
   
   brotherhood...
   Oh, yes. The villain is Akito's brother, Shin. So much for being Brittania, right? This is where Code Geass: Akito starts getting out of hand beyond its chaotic production. Shin has a Geass, he cursed his brother, and he somehow made it to the very high echelons of Euro-Britannia, starting a coup and putting his villain plan into motion. A stupid plan if you ask me. If you get bored with villains that want to "destroy the world to free it from everything", than you can prepare your bed and sleep, because that's exactly what this is about. This brotherhood thing is also far too convenient and unexplained, not to say completely useless because it means nothing to the consequences of the show except for a minute-long scene by the end of the fifth episode. They could perhaps explore this relationship with real scenes and consequences during the course of these five episodes instead of only making it count at the very end.
   
   But this is about friendship!!
   What? Friendship? You see, at some point Leila arrests three japanese young rebels and enlists them to her unit. They have zero reason to trust her, they initially hate her in fact, and then... friendship! One mission where they are not betrayed and some weird nonsense mental synchronization with Akito while fighting and bang! Instant best friends. They spend a few days with a gypsy troup of old ladies and are already the best friends ever, ready to fight for death for each other. Zero progression there, zero sense. This is something you do over many episodes, depicting age of time, promoting some sort of hardship, and giving screen time for that, not just a small portion of a single episode. For that reason, the entire relationship between the cast becomes terribly childish, asspulled, and damn boring. I could understand if Akito and Leila managed to earn the trust from those three, becoming respected by the course of these OVAs, but not friends ready to die for them without second thinking.
   
   Water! Water, Suzaku! PLEASE!
   DIE LELOUCH DAMN YOU. What the hell they tried here? They though it would be fun to put Lelouch and Suzaku in these OVAs? Perhaps some fanservice? Damn. They did wrong. These two characters, the stars of the TV series, waste around one episode to show off possessed-Lelouch asking for water and Suzaku playing the uberpowerful guy. It means nothing, it has ZERO influence over the rest of the plot. Had the show never ever mentioned these two, nothing of the rest would've changed. A fuc*n wasted apperance that only proved how random and fanservice-intentioned were these OVAs.
   

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Comments
Gods. This works to prove my opinion that OVAs with side-stories are and always will be shit&y productions made solely to explore fans of the series. Code Geass: Akito is a mess, a huge mess. It goes one step up with animation quality and the awesome european scenery, but that's all it manages to improve. The rest is a downhill run towards the deepths of medriocrity.

The mecha models stand out from everything else, the camera is pure chaos, there is a terrible narrative progression, friendships out of nowhere, unexplained Geass, unexplained pasts, unexplained relationships, a stupid villain with stupid reasons, and the only salvageable scene in these five episodes is something like an "alternative future" that never happens. Politics here is zero, you get a villain that kills everyone as if he was tricking them, but you never get the chance to see him playing friend, you only know him as a murderer crazy default evil guy.

Anyway, if you enjoyed Code Geass for its twists and surprises, you will most likely be disappointed. The show still has enough allure to pick your attention, at least the first episodes do, but is a pitiful attempt at exploring the possibilities of the setting established by the TV series. You end up caring little for the cast. The battles are insanely chaotic and nonstop but ultimately bland and with exagerated and useless coreography. The asspulled friendships are simply ridiculous. The villain is boring. Damn. Very little is truly worth it. Anyway... it is still a good graphic experience, but that's it.

Review up to the second movie.

Akito is a 4 movie side story to Code Geass, chronologically taking place between the two seasons. It has some cameos from the characters of the main series but in all it can be considered a stand alone mission with its own cast.

The production values are good and of the same quality as Broken Blade. I wouldn’t call them amazing as the CGI still feels rough when combined with 2D. The action scenes are otherwise spectacular if you are fond of quick motions and stuff blowing up.

The premise is about the European Union fighting Britannia by using kamikaze Japanese pilots, one of which is an elite soldier and Geass named Akito. He goes around trying to form friendships or relationships with other military personnel and rebels. There is also another mad Geass in the enemy camp with the power to kill on sight. And that is pretty much all of it; the plot is nothing spectacular or even that epic. It mostly focuses on minor battles and minor characters in the war, so there is very little to expect from it. The duration wouldn’t allow a complicating script anyway. It deals heavily on the sacrifices that must be made for peace to return, and how many are willing to give up their very lives in order to achieve that. Themes regarding terrorism and honour are also present but are directly related with sacrifice and thus don’t feel as needless extra. These can be found in the main series too but here they are focused a lot more on the war aspect and leave out school life and romance bullshit. I liked that; it feels a lot more serious in atmosphere and dark in tone, as there is no comic relief to ruin the feeling.

Of course this doesn’t take out the problem of the cast lacking charisma. Nobody from the new cast feels noteworthy or memorable, and any possible fangasm will happen when someone from the older cast makes an appearance. Suzaku and Lelouch have so far only one minute on-screen and already overshadowed the rest, even when they were doing nothing but talking. So they are still the main attraction and everybody will care about them than the drama of Akito and the rest of the newcomers. They hardly feel imposing or even important in the longrun, with very little time available for fleshing out. In fact, half the duration is technically wasted on action scenes that serve as nothing more than guilty pleasure with robot battles and stuff blowing up instead of investing time to get to know the characters better.

Thus the only way to like the side story is to be fond of its action and themes, and not so much of its character appeal. You get an emo super soldier protagonist, ala Gundam Wing, some other youngsters who are fighting for revenge, and a bunch of military jerks who act like assholes and are ridiculed five minutes after they are introduced just to make the rest seem heroic. Too basic and lacks major objectives.

Even the action is not that good outside of its shallow spectacle. There are no mind games or elaborate schemes or fielf tactics; elements that made the main series so entertaining. Not that there were that good in the main series but you were constantly made to thing there that the enemies were losing with something more than just raw power.

In all, it looks like a nice time waster but don’t expect it to be anything great.