The story centers around Lelouch Lamperouge (Lelouch vi Britannia), the exiled son of the Emperor of Britannia, and his pursuit of revenge against his father and the Britannian empire from his home in a conquered Japan renamed Area 11. Lelouch is something of a military genius, and excels at strategy and manipulation. After encountering a mysterious girl named C.C., he gains a power called Geass — the Power of Kings. The power lies in his left eye, and once activated allows him to issue commands to any individual he locks eyes with (but only once.) Using this power, Lelouch forms a gang of Japanese revolutionists and begins his campaign to free Japan and form a new nation under his command in it’s place.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

Lelouch, our anti-hero, has to balance his life as a student, his hidden identity as the terrorist Zero and his feelings for his friends, which is what much of the drama in this anime surrounds. Ultimately, he must decide whether he is willing to give up the things he cares about for his revenge against Britannia. The hardest part for him is that his childhood friend Suzaku Kururugi commands Britannia’s most technologically advanced Knightmare Frame (mech), who is unaware of Zero’s identity for all but the finale of the season.

Suzaku Kururugi

In a lot of respects, Geass reminded me of Death Note — the story as presented in the manga, anyway. (I still haven’t watched the anime version.) Lelouch is an ideal-driven individual given an ability that puts him in a position of absolute power. This power is not without it’s technicalities and flaws, but it is for all intents and purposes a Godly ability. Lelouch, like Light Yagami, must balance his secret identity with his personal life, and struggles not to lose his own humanity in the scope of this overwhelming power.

Lancelot, an experimental Britannian Knightmare

As the saying goes; power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Code Geass is an interesting exploration into this topic, and represents the issue in a lot of interesting perspectives. Spiritually, socially, economically and ethically the idea of a Japan with a futuristic, Military-heavy Britain’s boot against it’s throat and a terrorist with a power like Geass fighting for the people (at least, in their eyes) is examined, and it’s quite satisfying. I think in this regard, Geass outdid Death Note. Death Note expressed the situation by focusing almost exclusively on a handful of characters. Geass looks at things from a more global or at least national standpoint.

Lelouch Lamperouge in a Knightmare Frame

My only major disappointment with Geass was it’s conclusion. The last few episodes built up a tremendous amount of suspense, and the ending was really left as a cliffhanger. I’m hoping the season 2 follow up, Lelouch of the Rebellion R2, explains what really happened at the end… dives into the mystery behind C.C. and the others like her… and hopefully draws a conclusion onto this conflict with Britannia and Japan. As it is, season one felt very incomplete with it’s finale.

Overall, however, I loved the anime. I’d say even with it’s glaringly lacking ending, season one of Code Geass has made my top 10 favorites. The animation is superb, the story is compelling, and I really loved the characters. I can’t wait to start on R2.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

The first film, Have I Got a Story For You, was produced by Japanese Studio 6°C. Largely unknown in the states, Studio 6°C’s only recognizable work to us would be the 2008 Transformers animated television series, though I have not had an opportunity to experience it yet. “Have I Got a Story For You” tells a tale of a ongoing struggle between Batman and an unknown villain in reverse (Memento-style) from the perspective of four kids. Each witnesses a different aspect of the battle, and in turn has a completely different interpretation of Batman to tell their friends. One sees him as a monster able to shift in and out of the shadows, another saw him as a huge bat rather than a man, and yet another saw him as a robot (which was very cool, I might add.) The final kid experiences the last version of batman, the traditional capped crusader we all know, and helps him finish the struggle with the bandit.

I thought the animation style was pretty interesting, though it didn’t do much for me personally. Very gritty, and rough, and the character designs were shaped in a distractingly odd form. Still, it’s a fun story, and a neat adventure into the minds of Gotham’s citizens and how differently each see’s Batman.

Crossfire takes a different perspective to the storytelling than most of the films in this set; here you follow detectives Crispus Allen and Anna Ramirez as they deliver an escaped convict Batman has recently recaptured to Arkham Asylum. This film primarily deals with Crispus Allen’s unwillingness to trust in Batman, and his distaste for Gotham’s faith in him. I won’t reveal the plot, but needless to say Batman saves the two from a tight situation, and gain’s Allen’s confidence.

This story was produced by Production I.G., another Japanese studio well known to anime fans (like myself) for classics like The End of Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell, Blood+, and many more. These guys know their craft and they do it masterfully, and I was pretty satisfied with the way they produced this. I would have liked to have seen a bit more of that I.G. creativity when it came to designing Batman, as they opted to go with a pretty traditional character design for him, but they put ample detail into the other characters and the world itself to more than make up for it.

And so we come to my favorite story in the series, Field Test. I loved the animation style of this one, so it came as no surprise when I found the studio behind this one was Bee Train, a Japanese animation studio responsible for creating some of my very favorite animes (.Hack, Noir and Tsubasa Chronicle, to name a few.) I actually ended up watching this one twice before I moved on, I enjoyed it so much.

Field Test delivers far more Bruce Wayne than any other film in the series, and has the most unique (and coolest, if I do say so) Batman costume of them all. This one revolves around Wayne and Lucius Fox applying an electromagnetic field generator formally used in a Wayne Enterprises satellite to Batman’s costume. The device generates a field capable of deflecting any small arms fire. A problem occurs on the first night of it’s use, however, and a man is critically wounded from one of the deflected bullets. Batman, being the dashing hero that he is, rushes to save the man’s life.

Loved the animation, awesome character design, decent story. Favorite out of the bunch.

In Darkness Dwells was my least favorite of the bunch in terms of animation, but it had a pretty compelling story, and is the only film to have two classic villains from the Batman universe show up. I wasn’t familiar with Madhouse, the animation studio responsible for this film, but they have a couple of big animes under their belt (Death Note and Gungrave, among others.) Clearly they went for a unique style to stand out from the rest, but I’m not sure it was a wise move.

Darkness Dwells leads Batman through Gotham’s sewers on the search for a man-made monster known by the homeless as Croc (yes, that’s Killer Croc to those of you familiar with the Batman lineage.) Ultimately Batman’s search leads him to a struggle with Croc, and the discovery of the Scarecrow and a poisoned subterranean society that worships him. Batman gets poisoned, methane gets lit, shit gets blown up; I’ll leave the rest to you to figure out.

Yeah, wasn’t really feeling this one.

The second Studio 6°C production in the set, Working Through Pain is a flashback film in which Batman, critically wounded by a bullet to the abdomen, struggles to make his way out of the sewers and to Alfred for assistance. Trying to deal with the pain of the wound, he flashes back to time he spent in an undefined Indian country, learning pain management techniques from a rather beautiful woman. This story drips existentialism, so I’m not even going to begin to try to summarize everything that goes on here, but I really enjoyed the story, perhaps more so than any other in Gotham Knight. The animation style immediately reminded me of Aeon Flux and Reign: The Conqueror (which is surprising, given that Reign was produced by Madhouse, who did “In Darkness Dwells” and “Deadshot” for this anthology.)

Not my cup of tea in terms of design, but good, solid story.

The sixth and final film in the set, Deadshot was also produced by Madhouse. Once again, I was unimpressed by the character design and genuinely disliked the animation style. That aside, the story was quite compelling, and includes villain Deadshot as it’s protagonist. An over the top sniper, Deadshot is hired by the mob to kill Commissioner Gordon. Batman catches wind of this, obviously, and shenanigans ensue. No surprises in this one, but I did enjoy the action sequence quite a lot.

So, how do I feel about Gotham Knight overall? I enjoyed the hell out of it. It pays homage to the traditional Batman lineage, gives a great deal of insight into Wayne beyond the film, and while it doesn’t raise it’s nose to viewers who aren’t familiar with the comic book heritage, it absolutely has plenty for those of us who are to eat up.

I didn’t like roughly half the animation styles used in the anthology, but I understand what the studios were going for and I have to respect their interest in creating something unique and creative, especially when you’re up against studios like Production I.G. and Bee Train.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Suitable for comic book nerds and Batman newbies alike, it’s a great watch and definitely worth the time.