We’ve all seen the claims. “Code Geass is not a mecha anime.” I would tend to agree, at least for the first season. The Sutherlands were nothing special, same with the modified Glasgows, the Burai. Then there was the Lancelot. It was pretty much used to offset Lelouch’s tactical and strategic mastery. Fine. That works, can’t just have Lelouch steamroll everything. The Guren Nishiki appears as a rival for the Lancelot and it works out well in that role, despite the Lance still smashing things. The Gawain even makes sense. Its armaments are a pair of Hadron Cannons and ten Slash Harkens. The former is obviously a ranged bombardment gun while the latter doesn’t even see much use until near the end. The Lancelot’s flight upgrade is expected and it doesn’t turn it into hax. So, season one isn’t mecha heavy.
Then season two rolls around. It’s initially good since most of the main characters aren’t really in yet. The Guren Nishiki uses its predecessor’s arm, and the Black Knights have only a handful of frames until they steal Britannia’s. Then a few episodes later, Suzaku and co arrive. The Tristan feels rather… Meh. It’s a flying and transforming Knightmare frame. I guess it’s useful, but I’m not very interested. The Mordred packs four Hadron Cannons, but it’s slow and rather cumbersome in comparison to lighter frames, so it balances out rather nicely, aside from it’s ridiculous laser spam. Oh well. Then the Lancelot comes in, somewhat upgraded with more shields. Oh wait, the show isn’t content with stopping here. The Guren Nishiki gets a much-needed upgrade, the Black Knights are given new equipment, a new ship, and Lelouch gets a new machine.
And then the second opening shows us a slew of new or upgraded Knightmares. This is about when I facepalmed. Code Geass season two is a mecha anime. Now, I love mecha anime, particularly real robots, but Code Geass didn’t need to take this path, so I’m rather disappointed. Season one was well-balanced in that there were only a small number of unique machines, every thing else was grunt or customized grunts. Now all the Knights of the Round will have their own unique frame. And… Gah, I just don’t care anymore.
This is more or less a rant if you can’t tell by now.
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If I really think about it, to me CODE GEASS isn’t mecha … but when CODE GEASS is mentioned briefly, I think mecha straight away …
I must confess I always wondered why the Gurren carried a small pouch.
I’m unconvinced. In screentime terms, the Frames don’t get nearly as much attention as you’d expect in a show which was primarily mecha (because Geass is obviously mecha to some extent).
Even when the Guren gets mega-upgraded in R2 (in that battle over the ocean), it’s restricted to a relatively short, charged sequence (and homage to the super robot genre which practically shoved the Karen-as-Kasshu-Remix in our faces). Compare this to the X’s upgrade during the Fort Seven arc of Gundam X, which has several episodes dedicated to displaying Garrod being beaten, the ship’s engineer thinking about how to upgrade the X, then upgrading it, and then having Garrod go out and layeth the smack down.
IKnights last blog post…Being a Karin Fanboy Is So Very Embarrassing!
Actually, what Iknight says is mostly true, lol. If it were pure mecha, we could have entire episodes dedicated to huge-ass mecha beating the krap out of enemies (Take TTGL for example). I mean, the initial encounter with the Anti-Spirals was all about mecha combat.
However, the battles can also sometimes function to aid and abet the storyline by revealing some of the innermost desires or emotions of said mecha pilot. It is in that case we get the best of both worlds, mecha fanservice and plot development.