If the first episode of Code Geass left any doubt about whether it was truly a feel-good show, episodes two through four put all of that to rest.
Starting with episode two.
An enemy soldier piloted a Knightmare Frame and tracked down Lelouch. Lelouch played the role of a duke's son to trick the soldier out of the cockpit, then used the power of the king to seize the unit for himself.
He then boarded the Knightmare, hid himself away somewhere, and remotely commanded the so-called "terrorists" as they fought in an intense battle against the Empire's own units.
The entire engagement unfolded like a chess match.
Under his direction, the Empire's Knightmare Frames were taken out one after another, and had the enemy not deployed the far more powerful unit known as Lancelot, Lelouch would have walked away with a crushing victory.
After slipping away from Lancelot, he used his power to infiltrate the enemy's headquarters.
Right as the "terrorists" were about to be discovered and wiped out in one sweep, Lelouch took the Third Prince hostage and issued orders in the prince's name, pulling the group out of danger.
At the end of episode two, Lelouch's true identity was finally revealed. He was the eldest son of the late Empress Marianne and the seventeenth heir to the Imperial throne.
Episode three opened by catching up on Lelouch's situation.
The Empire had assumed he died when Japan was occupied, and the Third Prince urged him to come back. Lelouch refused, saying, "So you want to turn me into a diplomatic tool again?"
This led into the backstory of his mother.
Though she had risen to the rank of Knight of Honor, she came from common stock, which made her a thorn in the side of the other princes and princesses. She was assassinated for it, and Lelouch's fate as a diplomatic pawn was directly tied to her death.
Lelouch wanted to know who had ordered the hit on his mother. The Third Prince kept insisting it had nothing to do with him.
Later, Lelouch used his power to extract the relevant information and learned that the Second Prince and Second Princess knew the truth.
Having gotten what he needed, Lelouch raised his gun and shot the Third Prince dead.
The story then shifted to the school setting.
A female classmate who had barely appeared before showed up at school, and it turned out that this girl, named Kallen, was one of the "terrorists" from before.
While Lelouch was still getting a handle on his newly acquired power, a slip-up on his part made Kallen suspicious of him.
He later used his power to clear her suspicions away.
There was also a scene of Kallen bathing in between, which served a narrative purpose but also functioned as a nice little treat for the audience.
At the end of episode three, Lelouch's childhood friend Suzaku was arrested and charged with killing the Third Prince.
It was a false accusation. Lelouch was obviously the one who had killed the prince.
Lelouch was not about to stand by and do nothing. So in episode four, he dressed in black from head to toe, complete with a black cape and a black helmet, took on the code name "Zero," and put his power on full display in front of a crowd. He rescued Suzaku and earned the trust of Kallen and the others in the process.
All in all, three consecutive episodes packed with satisfying payoff.
The viewers who had worried about Yuta overpromising were finally able to relax.
The combination of supernatural powers and mecha gave the show incredibly broad appeal, and with the high production quality on top of Yuta's pull, the anime quickly became a hot topic online.
"That bastard Shido has finally decided to be a decent human being."
"He wasn't lying. This is genuinely satisfying."
"It's not a pure mecha show. The focus is really on Lelouch himself and the power of the king he obtains, but that actually makes it more interesting to watch."
"It feels a little over-the-top, but somehow it comes across as incredibly cool."
"Only those prepared to be killed have the right to pull the trigger... yeah, that was seriously cool."
"I never watched Clannad, but I'm already a huge fan of Code Geass."
"The production on this is really impressive. Even I got completely hooked, and I'm a girl."
...
Over at Starfall, everyone was in high spirits as they scrolled through all the positive reception online.
"If this momentum keeps up, we might have another massive hit on our hands!" one of the production assistants who had not been with the studio very long said with barely contained excitement.
Rika turned to Todo and asked, "Todo, do you think our Code Geass could actually outsell Clannad?"
"It's possible," Todo said. "This show has a much wider audience than Clannad did, and the production quality is excellent on top of having a compelling story and a very charismatic lead. Surpassing Clannad isn't out of the question. Besides, the president said before that the goal for this one is over forty thousand in sales, breaking into the top ten on the overall charts, and picking up the Shiraishi Award and the Kyoto Animation Award along the way..."
He paused, then added, "The president wouldn't say something like that without being fairly confident about it."
"Forty thousand sales," Rika said, letting the number sit in her head for a moment before continuing, "If we actually crack forty thousand, that would be incredible."
Across from her, Touma Yukishiro, a production assistant who had been at Starfall for less than two years, suddenly chimed in. "That anime from Kobe Animation, The Girl Called God, broke forty thousand in its first week, so I don't think first-week forty thousand is that big a stretch for us."
"That's not so easy to say," Todo replied, disagreeing. "That anime was outstanding on its own merits, but a large part of its success came down to the club dance from the Paranormal Research Club being imitated everywhere. Unless our Code Geass spreads the same way, breaking forty thousand in the first week is probably a stretch."
"Well, our Code Geass has already been getting imitated pretty widely," Touma said without looking up.
"Hm?"
Todo blinked.
Everyone else went quiet too, and the small cluster of desks where the production assistants sat fell into a sudden silence.
Noticing the reaction, Touma looked up.
Finding everyone staring at him, he hurried to explain. "Every time I've been out running errands these past few days, I keep seeing elementary and middle school kids doing Lelouch's poses and lines. And that's just what I personally happened to see. In places I haven't been, there are probably even more people doing it."
"What!" Rika exclaimed. "How come I haven't seen any of that?"
"Because all you have to do is stay in the office and chase down key animation cuts. You don't have to run around everywhere like I do," Touma said with a pained look.
Rika blinked at him. "The way you put that makes it sound like you have it worse than me."
"We're all suffering," Touma sighed. "Production assistant might honestly be the most brutal job in the whole industry."
"Wait, isn't that the animators?" Rika asked, puzzled. "They're constantly slammed with work and I've heard their pay is way lower than everyone else's."
"Hey hey..."
Todo quickly cut in. "Rika, the animation team is right next door. Watch what you're saying. And our company's compensation is already among the best in the industry right now, so it's not like anyone here has it that rough."
Rika suddenly realized she had put her foot in her mouth and clapped a hand over it, then guiltily peeked over toward where the animation team sat.
It was worth clarifying that "animator" in this context did not refer to anyone who worked in animation broadly, but specifically to the artists responsible for in-betweening, meaning the work of tracing key frames and adding the intermediate drawings between them. Animators were distinct from key animators, though both were part of the drawing pipeline and therefore shared the same area of the floor.
Seeing that nobody from the animation team had overheard, Rika quietly let out a breath of relief and said, "Everyone working in anime has it rough. There is no bottom to how rough it can get."
_______________________
PS PLZ
Support me at patreon.com/CulturedOne and read 50 Advanced Chapters