Code Geass Riot's Eve Summary

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

So I went to the opening night of Code Geass Riot's Eve. The plot was fairly simple so even without knowing terribly much Japanese I could get the gist of it, though I did miss some of the details. Apologies for any inaccuracies and forgetfulness.
Without spoiling anything I can say that I liked it! Anything more and I'll put it behind this cut.

The play takes place between episodes 9 and 10, like the sound episode with Lelouch and Suzaku and the picture drama about the cross-dressing festival. I don't know that this one is entirely considered canon because some of the character interactions and development minorly contradict things from later in the show, and because the play is more light-hearted than the original, relying more on humor and slapstick. I'd say it lies somewhere in the canonical land of Kiseki no Birthday.

Anyway! The play begins with an anime/live action spliced recap of the Area 11 explanation overture, Lelouch's vow to destroy Britannia and him getting Geass, and an introduction of the characters. The Ashford Student Council is trying to plan something for Suzaku Kururugi Day, around which the play is based. Meanwhile Zero leads a raid with the Black Knights and it turns out that they somehow accidentally raided a shipment of toys, including origami paper (whether this was intentional on Zero's part, I am not sure). This sows dissent in the Black Knights, particularly from Yoshida, who doesn't believe in Zero. Ohgi does, though, and refuses to budge.

Lelouch gets back to school in the morning, still in full Zero garb, and is spotted by several students, each of which he geasses to forget. (This scene was pretty hilarious, though it reinforces the whole humor-before-canon thing I mentioned before)
I'm a little unclear on where this goes next, but somehow his geass stops working for a while. I think C.C. hints that it does so because he's using it too frivolously, but I couldn't understand what she was saying.

Anyway, the Black Knights get ambushed, and have to find a new hiding place. Kallen sneaks them into the school one night, shortly before the Suzaku Kururugi Day festival. Meanwhile, Suzaku finds that he can't fulfill his promise to borrow the Lancelot to use at the festival, so they have to find something else to make the festival about. They decide on a blend of Japanese and Britannian culture, particularly to stick it to a number of obnoxious anti-11 protesters at Ashford.
One of the festival items is somebody dressing up as Zero, and Rivalz is chosen. Shirley makes him a Zero costume in black, and Lelouch criticizes it harshly for the wrong color and amateur look. She runs off crying and he goes to make a new one.

On the day of the festival, Kallen brings in the Black Knights, who are pretending to be performers. Nina comes out with fake Knightmare frames she built herself, one nearly perfect Lancelot and a crappy Burai. They do a few practice battles before the festival with Suzaku and a few Black Knights vs Zero and the other Black Knights. Rivalz!Zero loses quickly, then Lelouch gives them some advice to dodge and use the Lancelot's superior firepower against it, but they still lose. Kallen comes in and swings around the Burai's arm on her turn, actually winning.

The festival is interrupted by the arrival of several Honorary Britannian soldiers who have been tracking the Black Knights. They threaten everyone with guns and eventually arrest Rivalz, who is dressed as Zero. The Black Knights try to prove his innocence by having Ohgi call Zero's cell phone, but Lelouch accidentally dropped the phone into the box where the costume was, so it's in Rivalz' pocket.
Lelouch then offers to dress up as Zero and rescue Rivalz, hatching a plan with Suzaku to fake kill each other and then flank the Britannian soldiers. This all goes swimmingly until Nunnally calls out for Lelouch and he leaves his position and runs to her side. It's then up to Suzaku and Kallen and the other Black Knights to fight off the Honorary Britannians.
You find out one of them is responsible for Naoto Kozuki's death, and you satisfyingly get to see Kallen beat the crap out of him. After Lelouch geasses them to be docile, he gives Kallen Naoto's old headband, which he kept.

The play was 2.5-3 hours so I glossed over a lot, but that's the gist of it.
The major theme for Ohgi was Lelouch encouraging him to consider himself a leader and to feel free to be independent. (Oh lawl, bet he's gonna regret that later.)
Nina of all people had a crowning moment of awesome against one of the Honorary Britannian soldiers, blocking his attacks and hitting him in the head with her apparently very strong laptop.
Nunnally had two dream sequences where she walked and danced, the first of which tied well into the rest of the plot – she dreamed the school was attacked and Zero, who she said she found scary right in front of Lelouch, acts menacing toward her – and the second of which seemed kind of like filler.
There was some Shirley/Lelouch fanservice when she came into the festival preparations dressed in her swimsuit and Lelouch hugged her for several minutes to keep her from seeing C.C. walking down the student council steps. He then totally blew it by saying she was embarrassing him and needed to go change.
There was one song near the beginning, a trio between Lelouch, Suzaku, and Kallen about living double lives.
At some point it was lampshaded how ridiculous Lelouch looks when he does that "LELOUCH VI BRITANNIA COMMANDS YOU" bit, as when his geass stops working the people he tries it on mock him.
Totally shipping Nina and Inoue now, after their interactions in the play. Nina is pretty scared of all the Elevens but Inoue reaches out to her and they connect. Kinda sad that she goes back to being so racist so quickly; as I said before, it contradicts later stuff a bit so I doubt it's entirely canon. Loving the ship though.
Oh, and Suzaku does run on a wall as part of a fight scene. The fight scenes are pretty well choreographed, and fun to watch.

As I said before I enjoyed the play very much. It was well-cast and well-acted. Not the greatest story ever told, but certainly entertaining.

ETA: I don't know if this can be viewed outside of Japan, but this PV from the play site includes the Picture Drama style scenes from the play found in the program: http://www.b-ch.com/ttl/index.php?ttl_c=585&mvc=3_24011_0_0
ETA 2: Here is a Youtube upload of the above.

Comments

[ansley15.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recap! That sounds hilariously, cracktastically awesome and weirdly...believable. Lucky you, getting to see it!

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

You are welcome! I feel very lucky indeed; it was pretty cractastic and awesome and I'm very happy I got to see it, and also happy to share what I can.
I also have the big fancy program I bought which has some things of interest (images and interviews), but I'm nowhere near a scanner here (or even a good enough camera). There's a good possibility that one of the Japanese fans may scan it in the next few days, at least I'm hoping so.

[dragonlover58.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the summary! :D I really hope a recording gets made. (That happens for anime plays sometimes, right?)

Out of curiosity, how hard was it to get tickets? I may be in Japan this summer during the run of the musical and was thinking about trying to get tickets for it, but I only have experience getting tickets for concerts that don't involve a lottery.

[snoozy.livejournal.com]

lol that's an appropriate icon there my friend.

Thanks for the summary, it does seem to be really entertaining and fun, man I wish I could see it, alas.

You find out one of them is responsible for Naoto Kozuki's death, and you satisfyingly get to see Kallen beat the crap out of him. After Lelouch geasses them to be docile, he gives Kallen Naoto's old headband, which he kept.

YASHHHH to all of this.
Also kudos to the 'satisfyingly' you used.

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

Oh, indeed it was satisfying. The Honorary Britannian Soldier and Kallen start out as pretty evenly matched at the beginning of their fight, with him even winning at first, but then he recognizes her as the brother of Naoto even in her schoolgirl uniform, and it fires her up. She puts on her headband and goes in full force, and in the end has him pinned to the floor as she's wailing on his face. The details around Naoto's death were never something I really felt was lacking in the original series, but it still felt nice to get a little closure there.

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

I'd love to get a recording and see it all again, particularly one with fansubs so I could get what I missed the first time. I also kind of want to see it animated, because the printed program includes some of the scenes done in Picture Drama style. Maybe if the play does well they'll do a recording? I know I've seen lots of gifs from the recording of a Kuroshitsuji play, so I know they do it for anime, but I don't know if it varies by theater troupe (e.g. Takarazuka only) or what.

To be perfectly honest I don't know how hard it was. I don't know if I was just lucky or what. I can tell you that while it was certainly well-attended last night, it wasn't a packed house. I overheard two people (of the other three or so gaijin there besides me and my husband) complaining they didn't get to sit together, but even they found new seats in the half-empty balcony area to the side (which is super-cheap because you can't see the whole stage, or at least not very well). So I'd say you have a pretty decent chance as long as the musical attendance is similar to the stage play attendance; I assume the lottery is in case the play (or a certain night/timeslot) gets oversold.
You'll almost certainly need to have somebody in Japan if you want to buy tickets in advance, as I believe the tickets do not ship overseas (they didn't for this play; only within-Japan shipping was available). I had a friend here who got them for me. But at the play last night I believe I saw an entrance with on-site ticket purchase; again, as the play was not sold out, there was no reason for them to turn anybody away.

[dragonlover58.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'm surprised it wasn't sold out. I've heard anime plays/musicals usually get sold out or have lotteries.

I have a few contacts if I decide to go. :D That's actually how I got to see FLOW when I lived in Japan in 2010- a friend was there who bought tickets for me at Family Mart so I didn't need to worry about them selling out before I arrived. Anyway, thanks for the info!

[sugar-dustbunny.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the writeup! Seems like it was a lot of fun!

I didn't expect there to be singing in the stage play. Hahaha, is there a time when Lelouch doesn't look ridiculous with his sweeping hand motions? I'm guilty of imitating the scene from the first episode for fun, so I'd be right there with the people he failed to geass laughing at him.

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

It was fun indeed!

I was surprised by the singing too, and it's a bit odd to me to basically have one song out of nowhere and then never again. With musicals the consistency makes it seem normal. But it was integrated well enough, and it was certainly better than Lelouch, Suzaku, and Kallen giving long spoken soliloquies instead. (Also IIRC the song is the only part that includes anything close to SuzaLulu fanservice, as the two of them dance and pose together during it)

Oh, he does look ridiculous, but the show usually treats it more seriously. You get a sense that he might look just as ridiculous in-universe, but he seems to pull it off, and it seems more like an audience reaction to look at Lelouch draping his fingers over his face and go "Lelouch what on earth are you doing with your hands?" Nobody else seems to notice. This time there were several guys in-universe doing mocking imitations of him and then going "hurr durr what the hell are you doing?"

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

If there is no dvd of this in the future I will cryyyyyyyy. Thanks so much for writing this up, it makes me less tearful while I wait! :D

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

I too hope people will be able to see it for themselves, but I wanted to share in any case. You're welcome. :D

[lawlip0p.livejournal.com]

ahhh I want someone to record it so i can see it!! >__< sounds hilarious and awesome.

[empanadas]

Just letting you know that the site you linked is definitely NOT viewable outside Japan. I've checked. :(

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

Good to know; luckily I found it on Youtube! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLTuCils7F4)

[ultima-vara.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the summary! One thing I found a little strange was the part where Lelouch harshly criticizes Shirley's Zero outfit. It just seems a little weird to me that they would write it that way, since in the series, Shirley was one of the few people that he was never harsh with. I honestly can't remember a time when he spoke unkindly towards her. (It's quite possible my memory is going bad, though. ^^;)

Though in the trailer, he did look upset/surprised when she ran off, so maybe he didn't realize how his comments were coming off to her? Did he act like that onstage, too? Oh well, like you said, it's probably not supposed to be 100% canon, so I guess it doesn't really matter.

Anyway, thanks again for sharing!

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

He didn't really mean to - at first he didn't realize it was her work I think, and I don't think he realized how insensitive he was being when he did know (such as when she asked whether the color was really that important and he said something like "of course it's important" or...something). Because yeah, he was caught by surprise.
He wasn't criticizing her at all, he was criticizing the suit, but she had worked so hard on it that she was crushed. Maybe he thought that by criticizing the work, rather than the person, he wasn't being harsh?

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think it's very in character of Lelouch to just not realise how hurtful his actions can be to his loved ones. He doesn't intentional try to hurt them, he just has a tendency, like in this case, to get so caught up in his own priorities (here, in ensuring Zero is portrayed suitably) that he doesn't notice what it does to those around him.

And Lelouch is really good at accidentally hurting Shirley. This is just a lot less major than, you know, her father.

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

I thought so too. I didn't go into it very much but the same goes for the scene with Shirley in the swim suit - Lelouch is not trying to lead her on or to insult her terribly, but he very clearly does both. Multiple times. He is again confused when she runs off upset.
Lelouch is a smart guy but he can be really clueless about people and the implications of his words.

[unikorn.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the story summary! I was hoping someone would post something about the stage play! It sounds like it was pretty cool :D