Product Details

• Actors: Jun Fukuyama, Johnny Bosch, Takahiro Sakurai, Yuri Lowenthal, Yukana
• Format: Animated, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
• Language: English, Japanese
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Bandai Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: August 5, 2008
• Run Time: 225 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001AZ5IUG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,604 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, Part 1" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Infinity Resources Inc Release Date: 08/05/2008 Run time: 225 minutes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT!, January 24, 2009

By 

Dennis A. Amith (kndy) (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, Part 1 (DVD)

Excellent! "CODE GEASS: Lelouch of the Rebellion" is just excellent!

It's been awhile since I watched an anime series and just enjoyed it from animation, art, mecha designs, music, character designs, storyline, etc. I may be a late bloomer when it comes to the fandom of "CODE GEASS: Lelouch of the Rebellion" but now I can see how this series has captured the attention of fans worldwide.

VIDEO & AUDIO:

"CODE OF GEASS: Lelouch of the Rebellion" is featured 1:78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen. The animation and video quality is colorful and digitally modern since it is a newer anime television release. What I love about the video quality is the sheer amount of people involved. Everyone with detail, buildings, mecha and the destruction has detail. The character designs based from CLAMP's character design concepts are just fresh and cool to look at. One of the coolest looking character designs in an anime mecha series without being a full-on mecha series. Very cool!

I watched the anime series on my 52' and then afterwards on my 24' LCD and video quality was just great from the character animation to the backgrounds. Because this series features so much moving around Japan, this series really featured so many things in each different scene. Again, I'm very impressed with how much went in creating a single episode.

As for the audio, the audio is English and Japanese stereo. For a television series, I was sort of expecting stereo sound but knowing some television series including Dolby Digital 5.1 on the DVD soundtracks, I was hoping that there may have been a Dolby Digital 5.1 track for Code Geass but the audio is stereo. Dialogue is clear and you can understand what the characters are saying. Both the English and Japanese voice acting are well done.

If I had one slight problem is that I enjoyed the Japanese voice acting a lot it's just that Johnny Yong Bosch's voice acting of Lelouch sounds too similar to his Ichigo of "Bleach".

SPECIAL FEATURES:

You can find really cool special features on both volumes. Let's start with the volume 1 DVD:

1. Picture Drama Episode - This is short drama episode featuring non-animated stills or drawings but featuring both Japanese and English voice acting. This one is about Lelouch and Nunnally arriving to Japan and finding their new place to live. Lelouch comes into contact with Suzaku.
2. Audio Commentary - There are three audio commentaries featuring the Japanese voice actor for Lelouch, C.C., the director and the screenwriter. The voice talent talk about their characters and experience of working with so many voice actors and also their auditions. They are very careful not to reveal what happens in future episodes, so there is quite a bit of banter about experiences and the voice talent asking the director and screenwriter about certain scenes. One example is the writer talking about how he fashioned one of the mecha in this series after a mecha from another anime series "Gasaraki".
3. Textless Opening

With the second volume, the special features are:

* Picture Drama Episode - There are two picture drama episodes included. One featuring the girls of Ashford Academy all at a hot bath. The way the characters are featured shows a little sexy fan service as they get to know Kallen. The second drama episode features Suzaku and Rivalz talking to each other followed by Lloyd and Cecille talking to each other.
* Audio Commentary - There is one audio commentary for episode 8 and this time featuring Jun Fukuyama (Lelouch), Mitsuaki Madono (Kaname Ohgi), Kazunari Tanaka (Tamaki) and Kawaguchi (producer). A festive commentary as the Black Knight guys are together and joke around.
* Textless Ending I

When I first started seeing the positive comments in Japan, followed by the US and then watching the album become the first anime album in nearly two decades to debut at #1 on the Oricon Album Daily Charts, just shows you the popularity of this anime series.

Having now joined the bandwagon of those who love "CODE GEASS: Lelouch of the Rebellion", I can't help but fall in love with this series. It's great! A lot of suspense, violence, mecha battles, love triangles, drama, political corruption and so much emotion involved in each episode's storyline and balancing it out with awesome animation, awesome artwork, really great voice acting on both Japanese and English. I really feel that "CODE GEASS: Lelouch of the Rebellion" is an excellent anime series.

The first nine episodes started with a lot of action and each episode thus far have been excellent. Even the commentary by the Japanese voice talent is lively and fun to listen to. And I like the addition of the Picture Drama Episodes as well.

With everything so positive, the only negative, and it's really not a negative but more or less I enjoying hearing the action all around me via Dolby Digital 5.1 (especially in DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD ala Blu-ray) is that I wished that audio was presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 but still dialogue is quite clear and easy to understand in stereo and the music as well.

"CODE GEASS: Lelouch of the Rebellion" is a fantastic anime series that doesn't come along to frequently. Everything about Part 1 so far has been excellent and I highly recommend this DVD collection
!

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The rebellion begins, July 22, 2008

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, Part 1 (DVD)

Imagine a world where the Romans never conquered Britain, and Britain's natives created a vast world-spanning empire of their own. Their latest subjugation: Japan, now called Sector 11.

It's an interesting albeit unlikely idea for alternate-world scifi, and it serves as the basis for "Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion." The first two volumes of this intricate anime series take us right into the action, with only a prologue of the Britannian Empire's history as a buildup. And it doesn't take long for the complex storyline to get moving.

Schoolboy Lelouch Lamperouge tries to help out when a convoy crashes near his motorcycle -- but then HE gets hijacked instead. As the Britannian military and their Knightmares (hello, big mecha!) close in, Lelouch learns that he has inadvertently fallen in with a faction of Japanese freedom fighters. And he also finds that the convoy's cargo is not poison gas as the rebels thought -- but a strange green-haired girl.

But when the Britannian soldiers show up, the girl gives Lelouch the power of Geass, which forces anyone who hears him to do as he commands. Even kill themselves.

So Lelouch uses his new power to hijack one of the Knightmares and assists the rebels (via radio) in a counterattack. But then he uses it to get close to the Britannian prince Clovis, and reveals his true identity -- a presumed-dead Britannian prince, who wants to get revenge for the murder of his mother and destroy the cruel Empire. He starts with Clovis.

But when Lelouch returns to his swank boarding school, he finds that the Japanese freedom fighters may be closer than he expected. As Lelouch organizes a strong new rebellion against the Britannians, he crafts the alter ego of Zero for himself, and a rebellion force known as the Black Knights. But he's still threatened by his treacherous royal family, and by the childhood friend who is on the wrong side of this battle...

"Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion" is one of those wonderfully complex anime stories that has almost too much plot a twenty-minute episode. The very setting is intriguing -- a conquered and humiliated Japan that has been renamed with a number, by a cruel and ancient empire that surpasses ancient Rome. Cool idea, and one that is handled well.

And the writers of this series load on plenty of plot, with lots of chess-like twists and countermoves. We've got exiled princes, mysterious powers, freedom-loving rebels and their enigmatic masked leader, a cruel empire and a bunch of different factions with their own motives. Not to mention a royal family that seems to deal with its feuds by killing each other. Surprisingly, the story never starts feeling overstuffed.

Thankfully in the midst of political strife and confusing mecha fights, the storyline does take some time out to relax. Although it still deals with the rebels and Britannian retaliation, there are some cute lighthearted scenes involving Lelouch's "regular" life as a schoolboy, such as one hysterical storyline where a cat steals the "Zero" mask. And you have some dry humor -- Lelouch testing his Geass on a teacher, for instance.

But "Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion" does stretch its credibility occasionally. The mecha Knightmares seem oddly out-of-place in this extremely Anglo culture, and it's hard to imagine that a hardcore political rebel or a soldier could convincingly "hide" at a posh school.

Lelouch is a pretty intriguing protagonist as well. He's cold-blooded and lethal, but also incredibly intelligent and sometimes quite compassionate. As he gets fully involved in fighting the Empire, you get the distinct impression that this anti-hero is just getting started. Most of the supporting characters -- including tough girl Kallen, the strange CC and Lelouch's old pal Suzaku -- aren't yet fleshed out yet, but promise to be interesting.

This particular edition has the first two volumes of the series lumped together, which is nice enough. Additionally, it includes a bunch of collector's booklets including a character sketch booklet from the famed manga group that designed the characters, CLAMP.

The first two volumes of the taut, twisty "Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion" crams more plot into its episodes than many series have in their entirety. Definitely a good buy.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Future Anime Classic, July 29, 2009

By 

Anime Watcher "SAC" (Arkansas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, Part 1 (DVD)

When I first saw this series, I knew it was going to become a future classic. Code Geass is the story of one man's conquest to bring down a country.

On August 10th of the year 2010 the Holy Empire of Britannia its sights set on Japan and began a campaign of conquest. It took one month thanks to Britannias deployment of new mobile humanoid armor vehicles called Knightmare Frames to take over Japan. Japans lost it rights and its identity was stripped away, now being referred to as Area 11. Its citizens, now called Elevens, are forced to scratch out a living while the Britannians lives in comfortably within their settlements. Pockets of resistance appear throughout Area 11, working towards to free Japan from Britannia's rule. Lelouch Lamperouge, who's his real name is Lelouch vi Britannia, is an exiled Imperial Prince of Britannia who was disowned by his father after his mother was murdered. He and his sister Nunnally were sent to Japan before the war. Now consider dead, Lelouch was now posing as a student in a Britannian school. He soon finds himself in the heart of the ongoing conflict for Japan. Through a chance meeting with old friend named Suzaku Kururugi who was now an Britannian soldier, Leluoch meets a mysterious girl named C2, who gives him the power of Geass, the power of the king. Now endowed with absolute dominance over any person, Lelouch may finally realize his goal of bringing down Britannia from within and fulfilling his two wishes: to seek revenge for his mother and to construct a world in which Nunnally can live happily.

If you haven't seen this, You have to. It is a great show.