Code Geass: Dakkan no Rozé

After the supposed death of its 99th emperor, the Holy Britannian Empire broke up, and the areas it controlled finally regained their independence. While most joined the United Federation of Nations, a group aiming to create everlasting peace, remnants of the oppressive empire continue to exist. One such faction, Neo-Britannia, has taken over Japan's Hokkaido island after killing its governor, Juugo Sumeragi.

The Seven Shining Stars, a resistance group in Hokkaido, finds itself at an impasse as it struggles to find a way to defeat the Neo-Britannian Empire. As a last resort, it enlists the aid of the Nameless Mercenaries: brothers Rozé, a genius strategist; and Ash, an exceptional Knightmare pilot. Though Rozé and Ash are Britannian, they have made a name for themselves by protecting the Japanese and killing the empire's officials. With their help, the resistance may finally be able to recapture its territory and prevent another reign of terror.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Sumeragi, Sakuya Main

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Ash Main

Furukawa, Makoto Japanese

Rozé Main

Amasaki, Kouhei Japanese

Lamperouge, Lelouch Supporting

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

C.C. Supporting

Yukana Japanese

Stadtfeld, Kallen Supporting

Koshimizu, Ami Japanese

Kururugi, Suzaku Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

li Britannia, Cornelia Supporting

Minagawa, Junko Japanese

Lamperouge, Nunnally Supporting

Hyuuga, Akito Supporting

Irino, Miyu Japanese

Oobayashi, Yuri Producer

Tsuchiya, Yoshimasa Producer

Ogisu, Hirotsugu Producer

Taniguchi, Koujirou Producer

Reviews

Oct 11, 2024

Surox

Recommended

Despite the online consensus and general discourse revolving around this show, I found it to be quite enjoyable, and that's coming from a long-time fan of the original series.

Where Dakkan no Rozé shines is in Ash & Rozé's character dynamics. Previous entries had a similar premise to this one, and the knightmare fights are as good as always (I would daresay this entry has the best in terms of animation & choreography), but none of them had this level of intrigue in how character relations would play out over the course of the series. This alone was enough to have me invested in how ... the conclusion would be handled.

Many critiscize Rozé's character for not being as smart or as cunning as Lelouch's, but I find that to be a strong point of this series. Instead of serving us with a Lelouch copycat, we get an interesting character who possess the same power, but with different motivation and far less ability. As such, it is also interesting to see how the character handles different situations given the same power, as well as the big mistakes she makes that Lelouch wouldn't have.

The show obviously isn't perfect. The biggest problem is clearly the villains' lack of depth. The enemy generals have unique traits, but we don't learn much about them outside of their "visual" quirks and presentation. The worst offender is clearly Norland, as he ends up being nothing more than a template for big bad guy, with no motivation even given for his goals.

I would also agree that the series clearly needed more than 12 episodes, as many of these issues could've been addressed by simply giving more time to develop these aforementioned characters. The finale could've also been better handled, as it was a tiny bit rushed, but I still really liked the ending.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 6, 2024

Hallideus

Mixed Feelings

I loved the original Code Geass and it will always be a very fantastic series but this? Well first off its not "bad". It showed a lot of promise and potential at times to really be something but setting everything up, trying to establish a cast, a villain, a story and resolving all of that set up in 12 episodes was its ultimate downfall though.
Now, If it had the same amount of episodes as the original Code Geass series to properly establish the cast, their stories, their motives and individual story arcs as the plot advances from A to B then no doubt this ... would have been a truly worthy successor and a seriously good watch.
I won't say this was outright bad, or trash because its not quite that bad but it was disappointing nonetheless because what potential and promise it had went right out the window.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Apr 24, 2025

hexashadow13

Not Recommended

Well-written

I have been a major Code Geass fan since the original two seasons aired about a decade and a half ago. I can't say I liked Akito the Exiled all that much, but I felt it had potential and was still appreciative of what they were trying to do. I acknowledge the issues with Re;surrection but I still absolutely loved the film for what it successfully managed to do. Rozé of the Recapture however, I found to be a failure in essentially all respects to the point I feel it may well have been better for it never to have been made at all.

One ... of the the most critical aspects of Code Geass is a protagonist that is, for lack of a better way to say it, intellectually overpowered. The writing may have to gloss over things and straight up bullshit things at times in order to make them feel that way, but the important part is to give off that sort of vibe. Lelouch is obviously the best example, but I'm not a hardliner that feels that Code Geass without Lelouch is impossible to do right. After all, I felt Leila filled that role reasonably well. Rozé however just doesn't make a good Code Geass protagonist.

That Lelouch would still be amazing even without his Geass was heavily emphasized. On the other hand, with Rozé the focus is on how she wouldn't be able to accomplish much without hers. This is a core element of her character arc. It isn't all that well written of a character arc, but the issues are broader than that. It is simply not the type of character arc the protagonist should have. A side character sure. But if the protagonist has such a character arc, it kneecaps the entire series. Crazy schemes and great strategies that manage to pull off things that no one expects to be possible are Code Geass's bread and butter. Rozé just straight up isn't smart enough to do all that much. And this results in the series just overall being a lot less intriguing or exciting.

Something that elevated the narrative in Code Geass was the themes that it explored. Most of the themes it explored it did superficially and often in ways that were pretty naive or fantastical. Thus, it was better from the perspective of bringing up questions than answering them. Still, it definitely had something to say, and with Zero's Requiem it did provide a resolution, and provided it an incredible fashion. Many argue that Re;surrection diminished that ending. I disagree with them in that I feel that showing that minor conflicts that the Black Knights can resolve (as long as Geass isn't involved) elevates the world that Lelouch created and thus builds well on that ending.

But that's beside the point, which is that Rozé of the Recapture actually does do what people accuse Re;surrection of doing in that it greatly undermines the ending of R2. It makes it feel like what Lelouch accomplished really didn't have all that much of an impact. Somehow Neo-Brittania manages to take over Hokkaido again. Also, Neo-Brittania has an overpowered defensive wall that the Black Knights are completely useless against for some reason. Neo-Brittania also has Damocles and a bunch of F.L.E.I.J.A. despite them having been blasted into the sun. If that wasn't ridiculous enough, things get completely absurd in the final stretch where apparently they have an even greater superweapon that could easily have defeated the entirety of the rest of humanity if Rozé and Ash didn't just happen to be in the right place to be able to stop them. On top of that, it is explicitly shown that Lelouch and CC chose not to interfere in all this because they decided it was no longer their place, which is pretty much their only involvement in the show. None of this makes any sense and severely contradicts key elements of core aspects of the main series. It is quite frankly insulting.

How cartoonish the villains were in this was even more insulting. They could not have created more 2-D villains if they had tried. That everyone had complex motivations was a core part of the main series. Some motivations were clearly better than others, but there was an attempt at giving depth to at least all the main characters. On the other hand the primary antagonist of Rozé of the Recapture is so lacking in depth and is so generic of a villain with such simple minded and evil motivations that I suspect the writers may have been trying to go for "It's so stupid it's actually genius", but just ended up with something utterly stupid.

The rest of the antagonists don't fare much better. The majority are also two dimensionally evil to the point they make Clovis look deep. The exceptions are so half assed that they might as well be. For example, Narah has motivations centered around how Brittanians in Japan were discriminated against once it was freed, but this is obviously nonsense and doesn't justify her actions at all. And Catherine had a decent character arc conceptually, but it was severely rushed and thus wasn't able to hit the character beats necessary for it to be built up properly.

The cast on the protagonist's side is similarly weak. The majority feel like bargain bin version of characters from the main series in that there was very heavy use of the same personality types in similar roles and with very similar relationships thus producing very similar dynamics. It felt a lot like the writers were just taking things from the main series and throwing them together without understanding why they worked so well in their original context. There are a lot of character and plot threads that go absolutely nowhere or feel like they had no point whatsoever. As such, its quite hard to build up investment in the cast. This severely weakens the ending, which was trying to go for strong character centered emotional beats, but isn't able to land any of them properly. This results in the ending being immensely unsatisfying.

The use of reoccurring characters from prior Code Geass media was decent. The only one that has any major presence is Nina, whose story does a pretty good job of reinforcing her character arc centered around her desire for redemption for creating F.L.E.I.J.A.. Beyond that everyone's presence is cameo level. Seeing them is cool again and all, but Re;surrection was so much better at this that the cameos in this don't really have all that strong of an impact. The only exception I can think of is that unlike Re;surrection, characters from side series like Akito and Oz get cameos in this, so for those that especially love those characters this might hit harder.

With all that said, there are still some areas where Rozé of the Recapture is pretty good. It still manages to handle the intermixing of slice of life and fanservice with the more serious parts of the show really well in a way that felt very true to the spirit of Code Geass. The action is also pretty good, though it uses a lot of 3DCG which some may take exception to. I also feel the new mech designs are weaker than the older ones. The character designs on the other hand are fantastic, and the art and animation in general is pretty good. The soundtrack is as good as the main series when it comes to the more action oriented tracks, but is weaker when it comes to softer tracks or tracks that are meant to be regal. The OP was pretty good in terms of the song and visuals. The ED was decent in terms of both.

tl;dr: A sequel that is unsuccessful at most everything that was great about it's predecessors.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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