CODE GEASS: BOUKOKU NO AKITO 2 - HIKISAKARESHI YOKURYUU

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MOVIE ActionCode Geass: Boukoku no Akito 1 - Yokuryuu wa Maiorita
MOVIE ActionCode Geass: Boukoku no Akito 3 - Kagayakumono Ten Yori Otsu
SPECIAL MechaCode Geass: Boukoku no Akito 2 - Hikisakareshi Yokuryuu Picture Drama
NOVEL ActionCode Geass: Boukoku no Akito

REVIEWS

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  CodeBlazeFate

  26/100
  This was strike two for the Akito the Exiled sub-series. "Best in the series" my ass!

  SPOILERS FOR CODE GEASS: BOUKOKU NO AKITO 2- HIKISAKARESHI YOKURYUU

  Improvement is something that deserves recognition. When a series improves over time, that means that it is being written better, or that it was planned to reach higher levels of greatness as it went on. When a person improves, his attitude or actions change to be kinder, less self-centered, and less destructive. When art improves, that means the artist or whoever crafted the art honed his craft more so that everything would blend well with each other and look visually pleasing. When a film improves, that's because there is a new, more competent writer at the helm who can look at what happened and where best to go from here, or that the same writer as before did that exact thing.

  Sad to say, nothing about what I just said applies to Akito the Exiled 2, with a minor exception to the third statement. In fact, practically everything regressed in this film. This film, while it feels more effortful and more driven than the previous installment, it somehow manages to be the dumbest installment of the franchise so far. It's full of edge, awful decision-making, and a lot of idiotic and plot-hole driven moments, and raises a potential knock against the continuity of the original (lest that one gets explained in later films). It offers nothing else, and I'm almost out of hope for this sub-series. So, what made this such a mess? Who do people praise this as the best film of the series? We both know you'll only find out the answer to the former question, but, well, let's find out, shall we?

  Taking place not long after the rebel attack in episode 1, Leila is assigned a new mission. Before that can happen, the rebel trio, once again, in fact, twice again (once during he mission) tries to kill her and Akito. By this point, any reasonable member of the military would either put a harsher restrain on them, punhsih them heavily, or flat out kill then. None of this happens because of course it doesn't; did you expect these characters to have brains? Shame on you. Afterwards, the crew launches into space to drop to their next mission. How they all managed to deal with the launch and being out of Earth's gravity for a while perfectly, without prior training for such an action, is beyond me. We also see enemies doing douche you things and coronation things while prepping for their mission, but who even cares? Still, that's only the first half; the second half is where things really hit the shitter.

  Prior to the mission, Leila tells the rebel 11's that she'll fight with them, and she even suits up. That makes it all the more damning when she literally does nothing the entire time. She doesn't shoot anyone or provide help for her allies. That's not the worst of the mission. You know how Akito has his bloodlust moment that is related to a geass? Well, somehow this links with the other members of the team aside from Leila. One, this was never shown to be possible in Code Geass; for the effects of one's geass to sync with others' minds through some crazed pseudoscience. Two, why isn't Leila affected? Theee, this geass came from Xin, and it makes people die, but now not only did Akito survive it (begging the question of how he died if he's alive right now, over 10 years after the incident of his "death"), but that's what infects the others, again, excluding Leila. None of this makes any remote sense whatsoever, and I could go on and on about some of the other dumb things like how Xin doesn't bother finishing Akito off when he wants to kill him, but you get the point by now and then it would just resort to bloated nitpicking. Whatever; both sides retreat and no one remotely important died or had any reason for us to care even if they did. The end.

  Leila, while beautiful, is both better and worse in this film. She's better in the fact that she is being a bit more than a typical "righteous princess who sympathizes" and is actually trying to fight, even though some of those in that archetype do that as well. Problem is, she basically lied about that since she doesn't even fire a single bullet in the fight against the enemy, producing next to no support for her comrades. The most infuriating part was when she had Xin in her sights but didn't bother shooting him or his knightmare when he had Akito effectively at his knees. Also, I wonder if she ever found her car that she was looking for during the first half of her film. Akito is the same as ever, but we get to flesh him out a bit more in the fact that it was his brother that told him to die, somehow giving him this bloodlust geass effect. Other than that, nothing else was done with him aside from having a new rival, who I'll get to.

  Now we actually get to talk about the rebel 11's trio and mention them by name! Ryou and Yukia are generic crazy evil people who have different skills but that's really it. They keep trying to backstab our protagonists and don't face any punishments other than "foiled again". Ayano at least had the fact that she does things out of anger and revenge, but that's the entirety of her character. This reminds me of the Trinity trio from Gundam 00, only a million times worse since those guys had a personality that went beyond one trait. For the real villains, the only two of note are Ashley (yes, that is a guy but he has a girl's name), who is Akito's bloodthirsty rival from this point onward who rags in about luck on the battlefield, and Xin, our generic antagonist in every way imaginable. We saw glimpses of that in movie 1, but it's all but confirmed here that he is one of the most generic villains ever conceived. Also, Suzaku from the original series makes a brief cameo in this movie, along with Julius Kingsley, who we all know is basically Lelouch except dehydrated and with new memories. They obviously don't salvage anything from this disaster of a cast.

  Remember when I said the designs didn't have that sleek shine to them in movie 1? Well, they luckily brought it back, though the completing last time was pedantic if nothing else. Either way, there's somewhat more movement this time around for the actual characters, but that's about it. The CGI Knightmares are as bad as ever but with noticeably worse framerate this time around. The direction is just as awful for action scenes with the camera, too. The design for Ashley's knightmare is pretty cool, especially with the swords, but the one for Xin's is an abomination, excluding the ridiculous horse. It's a shame the detail on these goes to waste with poorly integrated CGI anyway. CGI explosions and smoke don't help matters either. Effectively, only the most minuscule of improvements to elevate the loom from terrible to regular bad. Also, the knightmares that Akito and co. pilot are still hideous as sin.

  There's little to speak of in the music department either. The OST is literally the same and with no additions whatsoever, and we even got the same ED. It's all just as generic and poorly integrated as ever and there is literally nothing to say about this OST. You'd think they'd put at least 1 new track for us to notice but I guess not. At this rate, I'm just showing a filibuster because I don't want this section to have less than 5 lines of text. Let's just move on, this review almost over anyway...

  This was strike two for the Akito the Exiled sub-series. The characters nonsensically regressed, nothing made sense, almost nothing improved whatsoever, and I'm basically repeating myself at this point. I've covered just about everything from this 1-hour film that was remotely worth talking about. "Best in the series" my ass!

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