Official Site Update

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Just FYI, but the Official Code Geass website has updated.

Nothing about the new Gaiden, as far as I can tell (They aren't exactly chatty on that, are they?), but there's a brief thing about that Tales of Graces game with the Geass costumes, and the Renya manga now has it's own page, with descriptions of the main characters, and summaries of the first four chapters. And pictures and stuff.

Looks like Code Geass: Renya of Darkness might be the official English version of it's title.

Comments

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

I'd be hardpressed to call it more stupid or unrealistic than Dragon Ball
If Renya is trying to aim for that audience, as the evidence would indicate, the large amount of suspension of disbelief it's asking for doesn't seem to be that unprecedented or excessive

I feel like it's apples and oranges because this is a Code Geass series. I don't mind a shift in the tone, genre, theme, focus, etc. but they have to understand that this is Code Geass and, as something that's supposed to be canon, there are certain expectations about realism or lack thereof based on the original show. (There are also certain expectations of quality, but I'll get to that in a minute.)
I wouldn't have the same complaints if it was an original manga (which it could be if some of the names and character designs were different). For original manga my willingness to suspend disbelief is pretty generous, and my enjoyment is just based on how entertaining it is. If you bring me to an original universe and tell me "humans can turn into dragons in this manga" I'm like "cool, let's keep reading." If you show me a Code Geass manga where suddenly the Britannian characters can turn into dragons and tell me it is counted as canon then I will call shenanigans, because the Code Geass universe as set up does NOT deviate from reality in this way.

Now as for quality...if Renya was an original manga, I'd have read a few chapters and dropped it for being boring and incredibly generic. I find that what sets really popular fighting mangas apart from the unknowns is how generic everything is; even if the popular ones are cliched and generic sometimes, there is SOMETHING that hooks the audience in. Beyond the inclusion of C.C. and Lelouch I don't find that Renya has brought anything that is keeping me hooked; I find the villains incredibly bland and one-dimensional, and the heroes aren't much better. The writer has not made me care. It doesn't even have cool visuals to keep me interested at the most cosmetic level; the dumb, one-dimensional villains that Renya fights are ugly as hell, so the fights don't even look cool, which is kind of important in a mindless fighting piece if you're not going to have something deeper.

[kusaja.livejournal.com]

And yet, both seasons of the original series did include a certain number of largely unexplained supernatural incidents (immortality, teleportation, soul migration, various forms of mind and body manipulation, the ability to see into the future, metaphysical planes of existence and more) or outright physical impossibilities that, aside from the total absence of technology, aren't too far removed from what we've seen in Renya's first five chapters. Taken as a whole, Code Geass isn't a very realistic source material at all.

For a start...Suzaku himself and, to a lesser extent, Sayoko (in R2) displayed essentially superhuman levels of physical skill. A similar statement could be made about Jeremiah after he became a cyborg. If this is accepted as true, the existence of more beings capable of such displays at some point in the distant past isn't beyond the established or extrapolated limits of the Code Geass universe.

The strangest element we've seen in Renya so far is the so-called "Knightmare" and its apparent ability to fly, but I don't see why that couldn't be explained as the result some sort of supernatural influence or, say, even ancient Geass-related technology. We know so little about this part of the setting that it's practically a blank slate.

As for the matter of quality...I'd describe the manga as superficially enjoyable but admittedly unimpressive. I'm rather indifferent about the visuals. There may or may not be something deeper once the story gets a chance to develop further, but barely five (!) chapters in it's hard to tell. Everything we've seen so far counts as part of its introductory stage.

Lelouch's clone, who seems to be the main antagonist, has just entered the scene and, while I don't necessarily expect him to be as complex a character as his real or apparent descendant...he might become more interesting if and when we actually get to learn more about him and his goals.

The prologue does leave the door open to a number of "deeper" interpretations and speculations even if they're bound to remain vague as hell at this point. Yes, he's apparently in the position of being the obvious "bad guy" but his developing a certain degree of moral ambiguity as time goes on wouldn't be out of question. I don't really care about the other villains as they were simply treated as little more than disposable fodder in the first place.