Code Geass: Fukkatsu no Lelouch

Since the demise of the man believed to be Britannia's most wicked emperor one year ago, the world has enjoyed an unprecedented peace under the guidance of the United Federation of Nations. However, this fragile calm is shattered when armed militants successfully kidnap former princess Nunnally vi Britannia and Suzaku Kururugi, the chief advisor of the Black Knights, sparking an international crisis.

The powerful and untrustworthy Kingdom of Zilkhstan is accused of orchestrating their capture. To investigate, world authorities send Kallen Stadtfeld and her associates on a covert operation into the country. There, they encounter the immortal witch C.C., who is on a mission to complete the resurrection of the man responsible for the greatest revolution in history—a legend who will rise up, take command, and save the world from peril once again.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Lamperouge, Lelouch Main

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

C.C. Main

Yukana Japanese

Stadtfeld, Kallen Main

Koshimizu, Ami Japanese

Kururugi, Suzaku Main

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Lamperouge, Nunnally Main

Nazuka, Kaori Japanese

Gottwald, Jeremiah Supporting

Narita, Ken Japanese

Fenette, Shirley Supporting

Orikasa, Fumiko Japanese

Asplund, Lloyd Supporting

Shiratori, Tetsu Japanese

li Britannia, Cornelia Supporting

Minagawa, Junko Japanese

el Britannia, Schneizel Supporting

Inoue, Norihiro Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Yukawa, Jun Producer

Tsuchiya, Yoshimasa Producer

Herek, Samantha Assistant Producer

Reviews

Dec 15, 2025

ThxBoki

Recommended

I loved Lelouch of the Resurrection. What makes it work so well is the fact that it exists in a separate timeline, which means nothing from R2 is ruined. You can choose which ending you prefer, and that choice alone shows real respect for the original story.

Seeing Lelouch alive again was genuinely special. This version of him feels different in a good way — he’s no longer constantly lying or manipulating everyone around him. He feels more like a real person, someone who has already paid the price for his sins and doesn’t need to carry the weight of the world anymore. That shift in ... his character made the movie hit much harder emotionally.

The dynamic between C.C. and Lelouch was great. Their relationship finally feels complete and earned. The ending especially made this stand out — it was special, calm, and wholesome, something you rarely get in Code Geass, but it worked perfectly here.

The pacing was perfect. Nothing dragged, nothing felt rushed. The story knew exactly what it wanted to do and didn’t overcomplicate itself. The antagonist was solid and had an interesting power, making the conflict engaging without stealing focus from Lelouch’s return.

Overall, the movie feels like a reward for fans who wanted just a little more without undoing what made Code Geass legendary in the first place.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Nov 4, 2025

Ernacram

Mixed Feelings

The good thing about failed sequels is that they help you understand why the original was good in the first place. When comparing with the sequel’s flaws, the qualities of the original series become quite clear. Yep, that’s pretty much the only redeeming quality that I could find in the long awaited Code Geass sequel that is Fukkatsu no Lelouch. By comparing this movie to the original series, I will explain how it failed to capture the essence of what made Code Geass a masterpiece.

If one had to describe what the Code Geass series was about, the first thing that would come to the ... mind would surely be mech battles, cool superpowers, mind games, a protagonist constantly farming aura for the hell of it, and maybe waifus. But that’s not what Code Geass was at its core. Mech battles and mind games are uninteresting if you don’t care about the characters taking part in such fights.

In this category, the Code Geass series was brilliant in how it managed to get you invested in its characters. The characters and the interactions between them were interesting because they were torn apart by their own duality and contradictions. Most characters weren’t Manichean. Characters in Code Geass constantly wore masks, lied to each other, not necessarily for evil or selfish purposes, but often to protect their loved ones, or to serve what they think is justice. As such, there was constant tension between the characters.

There is absolutely none of that in the movie. In this sequel, after we are explained how Lelouch survived, we are presented with a new enemy. This time it’s not a fascist empire spanning across a third of the world, but a small middle-eastern military nation which threatens the new world that Lelouch managed to build with his sacrifice. The simple fact that Lelouch is back, in itself, creates countless opportunities for character interactions. I mean the man hide the fact that he was dead for like several years. He lied to everyone, made Suzaku wear the mask of Zero, and pretended to be the bad guy in order to bring the birth of a new world. Surely this should create plenty of conflicts and tension when Lelouch comes back to his loved ones and former comrades after years of hiding… right?

Well, actually, no. All past events and conflicts are brushed over by Lelouch simply removing his mask and saying “please help me save Nunally” – because yes, this movie is yet again about saving Nunally. Star wars sequels level bullshit. This scene basically illustrates this movie’s spirit: no more lies, no more masks, let’s all just be honest, let’s all be friends! This is utterly ridiculous and a complete betrayal of what the series stood for. Characters in Code Geass lied and wore masks for good reasons. I mean Lelouch literally saved the world from fascist-imperialism. One of the series’ main point was that the end justifies the means. But apparently this is not valid anymore. Not only does this make the sequel way more Manichean on a political and philosophical side, it also makes the characters interactions completely dry. Because since there are no masks, no lies, and every past conflict was resolved by a single “pretty please…? [insert pleading emoji]”, there is absolutely no tension among the characters. Now they are just a bunch of good friends who all get along and fight for good.

This downgrade obviously affects the characters. One example: Lelouch in the series was a very complex character. He wanted to change the world for the better, to create a world where his sister and his loved ones could live safely, and in order to achieve this goal he would resort to the most despicable, the most cowardly methods. He constantly faced contradictions, drawbacks, and hesitation. However, in this movie Lelouch is no more than a good guy with a superpower. On top of that, he appears to have been deprived of his emotions. Lelouch in the series was very emotive and reacted strongly to surrounding events, whether they’d be the death of Shirley’s father, the discovery that his friend Suzaku was actually the one piloting the Lancelot, etc. Here Lelouch doesn’t seem to care at all. I’ll take the example that struck me the most: his reunion with Kallen. In the series, the relationship between Lelouch and Kallen develops into one that goes far beyond a simple leader-to-subordinate relationship, or even a plain romance. We know for sure that Lelouch cared greatly for Kallen, as he was ready to sacrifice himself in order to save her. So from these facts, you would expect his reunion with Kallen to be quite emotional. Yet, their reunion boils down to Kallen throwing herself at him, and Lelouch acting like he doesn’t care. After this scene, he barely interacts with her for the rest of the movie. There’s also a somewhat similar scene with Suzaku. What that means is that the characters in the movie barely behave the same than in the series. There interactions feel completely unnatural. They just aren’t the same characters anymore, and no I don’t think you can blame that on the time that passed between Lelouch’s fake death and his “resurrection”.

The new bad guys are pretty dry too. They are barely developed despite the fact the movie is like 2 hours long. 2 hours is equivalent to about 6-7 episodes. In 6-7 episodes Code Geass managed to introduce and properly develop its universe, its main characters and antagonists. This movie had plenty of time to do the same. The fact that the bad guys have absolutely zero connection to the main characters makes it worse. In the series the fight scenes were tense because we had great characters such as Cornelia on the bad guys’ side, and most importantly, because Lelouch was fighting against his own family and loved ones, especially in the few last episodes of season 2. There’s none of that here, and as a consequence the fight scenes are of no interest. The movie also lack the same level of mind games and the cat-and-mouse game that we had in the series.

The other major quality of Code Geass was its political aspects. The series depicted a national liberation struggle in a very crude way for an anime. The contradictions of armed struggle, and the opposition between two ways of changing an unjust world, that is to say armed revolution and legal reformism, where shown in a realistic manner. At the same time, Code Geass delivered pretty bold political messages: it showed that despite its shortcomings, revolution is the way to go. It denounced racism, imperialism, colonialism, social Darwinism, and ethnostates, advocating instead for a world order based on equality and democracy. However, the movie seems to have been sanitized. Instead of a national liberation struggle, the movie depicts an international peace-keeping operation in the middle east. Yes, the bad guys are brown people who disturb international peace. But thankfully, the good guys are here to bring them freedom® and democracy™ by bombing the hell out of them.

Even if we look at the production values, Fukkatsu no Lelouch is quite lackluster. The backgrounds do look pretty good, and they are surely way more detailed and well-designed than in the series. But the mechs are now made in CGI, which is a big downgrade compared to the series. The series also had an excellent soundtrack, which contributed in making the key scenes even more impactful and emotional. This movie’s OST, while not actually bad, is forgettable and barely does its job.

I lied a bit in the introduction, as this movie does have one or two other redeeming qualities. Firstly, it develops the relationship between Lelouch and CC. They are basically the focus of this movie, and I believe that is why all the other characters were left behind. There were some touching scenes, especially the final one, which I have to admit made me cry a bit. The thing is, these scenes are but 5% of the movie, the remaining 95% are a black hole of nothingness and fight scenes between characters you don’t care about anymore. Secondly, while the final in season 2 felt very unfair, and reeked of messianism, this movie gives us a happy end for Lelouch. Some people won’t like it, but I did enjoy it.

Some people also said that to begin with, there was no reason to make a sequel, as the final of season 2 was perfect. While I do agree that Lelouch’s resurrection does take away some value to the series’ final, in my opinion they were infinite possibilities for sequels or prequels. The Code Geass series, with its alternate history setting and the existence of the Geass, had a pretty interesting lore. We could have had prequels focusing on how history branched from what happened in the real world, or how Geass users changed history. Code Geass could have had a much broader lore. It didn’t have to be restricted to Lelouch and mechs. Sadly, things didn’t go that way.

So what we have here is essentially a poorly-made fan service movie. It seems to me that the people who made this movie do not even begin to understand what made Code Geass such an excellent series. Their understanding is only superficial (mech battles, cool superpowers, etc), which is weird since both the series and this movie have Taniguchi Gorou as a director. I would only recommend this movie to die-hard Code Geass fans, otherwise you’d better go watch some seasonal isekai slop or whatever.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jul 22, 2024

Kalpsiz

Not Recommended

Becoming a puppet for Disney or Amazon is simply horrible. I'm doing the 'just forget' series that continues after R2.

This is just like Terminator 2 after movie Terminator Dark Fate, Starship Troopers - Starship Troopers 2, Saw 1 - Saw 3D, Karate Kid 1984 - Karate Kid 2014...

They just screwed I don't have any hope now for next Code Geass Series I closed. Locked I ended up all series after R2

Needs to give veteran medal to who watched this

Supposedly set in the future but new writers needs to know something about Science. Incredibly stupid, have lots of can't happen in future things

and why ... they still using Iron cooking pot in this movie can be use holographic cooking pot instead wow future thing

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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