I know this had been known since December, but I always treated it as a rumor, a 'possibility', until I saw this scan today in club:
A while back, and a bit more today, we discussed our thoughts about a third season of Code Geass, and just now I did a mini rant on facebook, so I thought I should say it to the actual community of otaku.
I really like Code Geass. It's definitely in my top five, no matter what other people say. It's intelligent, well done, the art style is wonderful, the story is fantastic, and the characters are phenomonal, as expected of CLAMP. Every character introduced was important, and there were very few legitimate fillers; they liked to keep things moving. They did not kill characters without reason (although the many 'resurrections' of characters that should've definitely stayed dead was a bit vexing) and the views and philosophies were not totally broken, unlike another mech anime I just watch *COUCH EVANGELION COUGH*.
The discussion we had a while back about Code Geass was whether or not I thought it was a money-making anime. I said that it was not, which was fun to say since I was wearing a Code Geass bag >>. And I had my reasons. Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, even D. Gray Man, and soon, Fairy Tale, are all in my book, money-making anime because their content is not equivalent to the amount of their story. They keep going on and on, for hundreds of episodes, because it is a product that can be bought over and over again, with no signs of slowing. The original storyline is long since gone, and serious development takes place once in a blue moon. I don't care anymore about the art style cause it gets old, just like anything else that goes on for ages, and I don't care about the characters because they become overdramtatic or are only introduced for the sole purpose to be killed later. I refer to such anime series as 'money-making corporate pieces of shit that don't deserve huge masses of my time'. Except D. Gray Man. That show rocks.
Code Geass did not fall in this category. The creators knew the secret for awesome character development, and it's called CLAMP. They didn't need to draw anything out, because their writers were so great that they could create entire seasons with well thought out plots, sub-plots, conflicts, etc. The writers were hired because they got a shiny A in Literature class, 'cause they realized that in many great stories and novels, there are no segments that go 'Wait a second, I'm gonna do something pointless here so I can increase page count.' For the most part, everything in that series made sense (more or less, depending on the person). It was very artistic, and most of all, it had a perfect ending. If I had to throw it in music terms, the end of season one was a half cadence, and end of season two was a full cadence. It was just a great way to end the series, and uncompromised by the money-loving suits.
That was an accepted answer, and there was no more debate whether Code Geass was a 'money-making series' or not.
But.
"If they make a third season, which is rumoured they will, what will you think of it then?"
"Then I'd have to agree that it's a money-making corporate piece of shit."
And now, it is. And I'm a bit upset. I keep saying over and over again, it had such a great ending, it did not need to go on. In fact, storywise, it would unwise to go on. It's the equivalent of a folk story teller going "...and so, Snow White married the handsome prince, and they lived happily ever after. The End. .....BUT THEN...!!" It's just dumb. Why have a great story when drawn-out, saturated mediocre crap sells better? 'Cause otherwise, TBS and Adult Swim will bitch about not having another award-winning series in their lineup, and eventually, DVD sales will go down unless Code Geass the RTS game comes out. Can't just make another equally cool series, and start a whole new line of income? No, that requires more effort and work, can't have that. Let's just smash and destroy the good of the season two ending and use it's rubble as soil to plant our tree of yen. Sounds good to me.
*sigh*
And even after all of that, I won't be sure of whether I decide to watch the season as it comes out or not. I'm sure I'll eventually watch it, but I don't know if I want to be excited throughout the season as I was through season two.
I know I have more to say about this, but I think this is good for now.
The world just works stupid sometimes.
-Ryu
