Does Lelouch Speak Japanese?

[inulovinkit.livejournal.com]

Sounds silly, since Junjun certainly speaks Japanese, but considering that Geass takes place in a world where Britannia took over Japan and they obviously speak English there due to our little snippets of English fail in the background, this question popped into my mind.

We know Suzaku and Kallen are definitely bilingual, but what about Lelouch? I know he lived in Japan for a year before it was conquered by Britannia, so maybe a little bit...if he is fluent (which is very possible, considering Lelouch never seemed to be the one to pass up a new skill like learning a new language) then perhaps it would explain why the Black Knights thought it was so weird that he wasn't Japanese, because maybe he DID speak Japanese to them.

I just think its something interesting to think about, because due to our own language barriers in dubbing, it's something we'll probably never know.

Comments

[spleener.livejournal.com]

Well, overall, it's Sunrise, if it's more convenient for the story for there to be no language barriers then they'll blow it off entirely.

In an episode mid-season 1 (12, I think?) when Cornelia was in a meeting with people that boiled down to "Cornelia bitching about the guys in charge being soft on the Elevens and them going 'well, it's because Clovis told us to be soft on them'" you see a list of some of his old policies for assimilating the Elevens including a 5-year plan for language changeover or somesuch thing. So basically the Brits speak English and made the Japanese learn it when they took over, but more than likely they still speak Japanese among themselves. Lulu probably knows Japanese from his time with Suzaku, and probably got better at it as he grew up (remember, he was always planning on overthrowing Britannia, if he was also always planning to do it by leading an Eleven uprising he probably became fluent for that purpose.)

Again, though, it's Sunrise, aside from that one random detail I mentioned they completely blew off any language barrier issues for storytelling convenience.

The issue reminds me of how I always thought it would have been cool if the Geass dub had the Britannians in British accents and the Japanese in American accents and Lulu would speak in an American accent when Zero as a further measure to disguise his voice.