Code Geass, Nina and Racism

Nina Einstein is by the end of the R2 not at all Racist anymore. Which is not unique to her, the show is filled with Britannian characters who are being quite racist to the Japanese early in the show and aren’t at all anymore by the end. None of them have a particular moment where they repent of their past racism and denounce it, it simply becomes apparent that they clearly aren’t racist anymore.

Her primary sin is creating and then at first consenting to use of the Fleija. But she’s far from the only person complicit in that, we’re introduced to the plotline via Lyod learning about it and encouraging her. But more so it is Sechenizal's manipulation of her that really drives that plotline.

But let’s return to the topic of racism.  Why is it in a show filled with people who are racist at the start and not by the end is it Nina alone whose early racism is treated as a defining character trait and an unforgivable sin? 

Racism seems to have been a more passive character trait in a lot of other characters.  But they are also people in real positions of power. It is how casual they are about it that in my opinion makes it worse. Characters like season 1 Cornelia and Jeremiah whose use of Racist rhetoric is more a means to an end in their political power playing are not materially speaking less racist because of that, they’re Herman Goring. 

Nina at the start of the show is a teenage girl with severe social anxiety in a highly systemically racist society, and also a repressed Homosexual in a pretty systemically homophobic society. She didn’t choose to be living in a colony rather than the homeland, that was her parents decision. By the time she actually does anything significant in the plot her Racism is no longer a primary motivating factor in her actions but at most a filter in how she’s directing them. Finding out Zero isn’t Japanese wouldn’t make her not want to kill him anymore. 

I’ve seen people say they wish there was more of an explanation for why Nina is this way, a specific thing to happen to her to cause it. But I feel that misses the point of viewing Racism as a systemic issue. Nina is Racist for the same reason everyone else is, but innate issues with who she is as a person makes it harder both for to change when presented evidence contradicting that world view, and to hide it.

There are a number of YouTube videos I started watching but didn’t finish because they open with a rant about “most” Gay Representation in Anime isn’t great.  Such sentiments annoy me since I feel exactly the opposite. One uses footage of Nina among its visual B roll for this which I found interesting. With Nina it is definitely backwards, to me Homophobia and Misgyny is clearly why she is such an irrationally hated character. 

This is not about making excuses for anything, it’s about having coherent standards in how we judge people. If some former Racists can be forgiven for their past Racism while others can't, that's fine. But Nina’s circumstances should clearly make her the easiest to forgive not the most unforgivable. 

The many John Carters of Anime.

John Carter is the name of a 2012 film adapted from a 1912 Pulp Sci-Fi series originally titled A Princess of Mars but it and it's sequels are often called the Barsoom series. 

The way this movie was seen as so generic despite how it's source material predate everything it was seen as derivative of has made it a euphemism in my mind for all similar scenarios, something highly influence that later fell into obscurity and become overshadowed by it's children which got high profile mainstream adaptations way sooner.

For Otaku Media the comparable situations are mainly source material from the 90s or early 00s that didn't get a full TV Anime adaption till the 2010s or 2020s. 

The big one I've already talked about is YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love At The Bound of This World. It's 2019 Anime was dismissed by casuals as just another Isekai but with a drawn out Steins;Gate/Re:Zero set up thrown in.  There were not zero Isekai prior to the 1996 release of the YU-NO game, but it still long predates the main formative texts of modern Seinen LN Isekai. 

But those kinds of Anime aren't the only ones I feel YU-NO influenced in some way. When I was watching it not even knowing how old the source material was yet the talk about being "outside the four great Ancient Civilizations" reminded me of exposition from Madlax a not largely forgotten 2004 Anime. Mio Shimazu I feel is a very formative early Tsundere and Kanna Hatano likewise is an early formative Kuudere. 

John Carter the film you can argue doesn't do itself any favors in avoiding the Generic accusations in how it presented itself.  And YU-NO it similar, as much I love the 2019 Anime I do lament that it's using the modern character design revamps of the game's then recent remake. In 2026 we have Anime like Red River showing us a modern Anime can still feel faithful to it's original 90s Character Designs. 

Red River can indeed be added to this list, as a classic Shoujo Time Isekai it's Manga predates Inyuasha. 

But another big Visual Novel example is Muv-Luv.  It's original release was 2003 and the first version adding Alternative to the title was 2006. There was no proper adaptations of a version of it's main story till 2021-2022, but it has spin off Anime in 2021 and 2016. 

The pilot of the 2021 Anime is one that I'm sure watching no knowing the history of Muv-Luv would have been comparing to the pilot of Attack on Titan, but it's Manga didn't start till 2009. It all shares a lot of vibes with many modern Gacha game based Anime. 

There are of course some major important early Visual Novels that still have no TV Anime. Shizuka, Kizuato, Silver, Cross Channel, Tsui no Sora. 

Was 1990-2004 the Peak era for Fantasy?

 I made a prior post inspired by a BookTuber named EverymanReads where he argued for that.

https://mithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2026/02/booktuber-overing-classic-fantasy-novels.html

There we were talking just in the context of Prose Novels. Looking beyond that the case becomes even stronger.

For movies we have Army of Darkness, Peter Jacksons' LOTR Adaptations and the first two Star Wars Prequels to name just the first the easily pop into head.  For TV we had Hercules and Xena, that Sam Neill Merlin miniseries. And Urban Fantasy was largely defined by shows like Forever Knight and the Buffyverse and Charmed and Anime like Witch Hunter Robin. 

Speaking of Anime and Manga, this era had classics like Berserk and Escaflone, and adaptations of some of those LNs I talked about, and most of the most defining entries of the magical Girl Warrior subgenre.

But Video Games is where things were even more genre defining. It'd almost be easier to name what Video Games aren't either Fantasy or Sci-Fi in some ways, the defining franchises of the medium like Mario and Sonic and Kirby and Pokémon are distinct Fantasy settings that only Gaming as a medium come up with. 

But even if we limit ourselves to Games that feel more line with conventional Fantasy there is still a lot.  For Zelda this period includes A Link To The Past, Link's Awakening, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, The Oracle Games, The Winder Waker, Four Swords, Four Swords Adventures and The Minish Cap. All those genre defining JRPGs of SNES and PlayStation that were important to prior post of this blog are this era, as well as much of the PS2 and Game Cube era. Then there's Casltevania and lots of classic Star Wars Games. 

And spinning off from that are Visual Novels like YU-NO: The Girl Who Chants Love At The Bound Of This World, Higurashi, Tsukihime and it's sequels and Fate/Stay Night. 

For Otaku media I almost want to shift it a year to be 1991-2005. I don't even know much what I'd be loosing dropping 1990, but I know I'd be gaining Fate/Hallow Ataraxia, Mai Otome, the second seasons of Nanoha and PreCure, most of the Shuffle Anime Adaptation.  Or heck maybe even 1992-2006.

Why limit myself to 15 years per era? Because it feels like that's the average for the pretty agreed upon language for talking about eras of American Superhero Comic Books.

And speaking of which the 90s and early 00s is when most of my favorite DC Comics came out as well, most of which have some degree of Fantasy in them.

Otome VIllainess Anime defy a certain common narrative.

I’ve done a post on why I technically have beef with the starting premise of the genre, and another where I explain why I do enjoy some of these shows regardless of that. 

But today I want to discuss how the history of this sub-sub genre goes against certain common narratives about the relationship between trend setters and trend followers. It’s a conventional wisdom I often personally disagree with, but I can usually still see why the OG is viewed as above the rest.

Once one big hit is followed up by a bunch of shows doing something similar, it's common to see a lot of talk about how most if not all of the imitators missed the real point of why the original worked. With the implication that what makes them different from the original makes them more generic or less artistically interesting.  I'm often a contrarian on that, but I can still generally see why it can seem that way.

The Otome VIllainess genre started with My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Sometimes called HameFura for short. I liked it, well I liked season 1 but never finished season 2. But it’s hard for me to imagine even people who love it much more than I do, who may personally still like it the most of them, being able to argue in all seriousness that it has a depth its imitators have hollowed out, that by default they are more shallow. No matter how much you love it, HameFura is objectively the most shallow take on this premise.

I stand by my conviction that it was never common for Otome Games or Shoujo Manga to treat an OjouSama character as a completely unsympathetic one dimensional villain. But there is still legitimate social commentary that could be made by exploring this hypothetical archetype. Or even without touching on the politics, just many interesting ways to play around with it. 

HameFura is the show least interested in doing that. When Caterina’s memories of her Japanese life awaken her “villainess” personality is just completely overwritten, there is no engagement with asking the question of why that person became a “villainess” or if she were really as one note as she seemed.  The story is solely about the Japanese High School Girl who unintentionally stole her life with no acknowledgment of how existentially terrifying that is. 

The strictest definition of this genre is it being the Villainess who the reincarnator reincarnates as. Of those, the one I like the most is definitely I’ll Become A Villainess Who Goes Down in History, commonly shortened to Rekiaku from Fall 2024. 

I’m The Villainess, so I’m Taming the FInale Boss aka Akulas from Fall 2022 is a show where I liked the first three episodes, but then episode 4 felt liked it rushed to the end of the first LN when this arc should have had six episodes like the adaptations of the first LNs for Haruhi and Index. 

Both those shows have in common how in different ways the MC embraces the Villainess role becoming a sort of Antiheroine rather than just being comedically the opposite of who she was supposed to be. 

The other two of my personal big three for this trend are adjacent examples where the villainess isn’t the person who's a reincarnation of a player of the Game but completely still herself. 

I’m in Love with The Villainess shortened to WataOshi from Fall 2023 (it seems like the gems kept dropping in Fall, yet I didn’t catch any in 2025). It’s a Yuri and is great, it’s the one I most hope gets a season 2. 

The third is MobuSeka which I talked about in one of those prior posts. Its second season is about to come out and I know enough spoilers to know things are getting pretty interesting.

Why I'm excited for The Ribbon Hero.

I'm very conceptually a fan of the concept of taking something once big but since overshowed by what it's influenced and reimagining it in a way that draws on those more well known works it influenced.

This is what I would like to do with adaptation of various Paul Feval works.

The Ribbon Hero is looking to be a wonderful version of that concept.

Osamu Tezuka's Ribbon no Kisha/Princess Knight was a precursor of The Rose of Versailles and the entire Magical Girl Genre and Revolutionary Girl Utena and via them Steven Universe.

This movie coming to Netflix this August is looking to indeed in conversation all of that, and I'm thrilled. 

The best year of future Anime.

I have a couple posts on this blog made this year arguing the best year in Anime history is either Gregorian 2006 or April 2006-March 2007. 

So I decided ask the question, what about other Mediums of Otaku Entertainment from that timeframe?

I already talked about one 2006 Visual Novel in those posts, but that's because Summer Days also counts as an Anime. And in my Yandere post I talked about how the Future Diary Manga started in January 2006.

Thing is I've come to think the best era of Visual Novels, and the broader Bishoujo Game category into which they are a part, as being 1991-2005.  Summer Days may be one 2006 VN I prefer to the most comparable VN from 2005, it's predecessor School Days, but that has a lot to do with my personal biases where that franchise is concerned, School Days is more fleshed and coherent in what it's trying to say. 

And that Yandere post is also about how Future Diary's most defining character is an archetype built by prior works. And to some extent so are the other core features of Future Diary. 

2004 may be for the source materials of future Anime what 2006 is for Anime. Death Note started at the end tail end of 2003 and continued into early 2006, similar with Higurashi and Pluto and Baccano! and Lucky Star and Nana.  Fate/Stay Night and Clannad both dropped in 2004 as did the first LNs for A Certain Magical Index and Durarara!! and The Familiar of Zero.  And then the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya LN as well as Endless Eight. 

When you add to that how 2004 was perhaps a better year for Original Anime then 2006, and it could be considered a pretty peak year for Otaku Culture. 

A Response to Zero Woolfe about the Star Wars Prequels.

This is a response to this YT Video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cInoOeFNt0

Zero Woolfe is a Leftist YouTuber but one who adheres to the same reactionary dogmatic belief in the existence of Objectively Quality that Mauler and the Critical Drinker do. It's difficult to think of them that way because they have difference specific views on Objective Qualify and what media does and does not pass it, and they also make their videos in a very different style. But they do in fact adhere to that same basic philosophy. Which is why in my opinion they fail at being a Leftist.

Their thesis about Prequels and their reevaluation is in large part debunked by my existence. I was 13 when The Phantom Menace came out, and I saw all three in Theaters the day of release and loved each one immediately.  I had already seen the original Trilogy and mostly liked them but have never loved them nearly as much.  So no 10 isn't too old.  I was also never that big a fan of the Clone Wars and consider it overrated, so they add no context to why I like them, if anything I enjoy The Clone Wars as much as I do because they remind me of the Prequels, not the other way around. 

I know I wasn't alone, I was never a popular kid but I know others my age liked them. So no the fact that Zero recalls negative things being said about The Prequels by people who would have been 10 in 1999 doesn't prove anything about the generation as a whole. In fact I didn't even encounter evidence of the hate existing till Episode II had been out for awhile. 

In fact my personal belief is that the Prequel Haters were always a Loud Minority even among their Gen X-Late Boomer Age group, it's just that Negativity in general was what online culture encouraged back then. But even if that's not true, I think something about the nature of Millennials and Zoomers made positive media opinions more welcome online once we started taking over.  And yet Prequel fans always had some presence online, you just had to know where to find them. 

My relationship with Disney Star Wars has also been complex. I liked each Sequel film initially but soured on them pretty soon similar to how I reacted to Superman Returns.  Only The Last Jedi would I ever say I actively hated, and I currently regret having engaged with that hatedom, but I was never much a fan of any of them and I still don't care for them.  I haven't given a second viewing to either The Last Jedi or Rise of Skywalker, someday I will. 

However I have liked ALL of the Live Action Disney+ Star Wars Content, unironically, every single one.  I still haven't gotten to see The Mandalorian and Grogu since going to the Theaters isn't an option for me right now. But I also equally love both Anime seasons of Star Wars Visions, didn't watch season 2. Right now I see all of them having a better chance at future reevaluation then the Sequels. 

If future Sequel Trilogy reevaluation depends solely on younger people liking them from the start getting older, then it isn't going to happen on nearly the same scale as the Prequels. Disney has refused to make Sequel era EU content and more or less accepted their failure.  At best we'll see the view that The Last Jedi alone was worthwhile will become more popular. Right now you don't have to be as old as you used  to be to make your opinions known online. 

And the reason why they think so many Romance Novel plots are based on Kylo Ren is because Kylo was already based on Romance Novel Style knock offs of Bane from The Dark Knight Rises. 

I almost wish it were true that Prequel fans were still only people who always liked them like me, but I know they aren't.  I'd seen positive Prequel videos begin with the person confessing how they used to hate them. I've seen notable online people change their minds in real time. And some people absolutely give the impression of Posers, that they want to be seen as someone who always knew the truth, but didn't. 

Sequel Trilogy Reevaluation will depend on that even more then the Prequels did because the evidence is showing the Sequels failed to engage the current youth the way the Prequels did precisely because they always cared too much about catering to Prequel Haters. They failed to create anything New for a New Generation of fans in their obsession with pandering to the people who'd been fans since 1977.  And that is what I predicated before The Force Awakens came out.