Heroes on both sides

It's not easy to find a bigger fan of the Star Wars Prequels then me.  But even I have to admit that this most memorable line of the Episode III opening crawl isn't really lived up to by anything seen in the films, or really for that matter the Clone Wars episode named after it.  It's only the Prequel era content that even pretends to have such nuance to how it depicts the War in question so this doesn't change that I like the Prequels more then the OT.

But it is a good reminder that as much as I am a fan of the Star Wars Prequels I still ultimately don't consider any Star Wars content the best at the kinds of things I like the Prequels for.

If you wanna see what "heroes on both sides" should look like then look no further then Code Geass.

Code Geass is an Anime I considered my second favorite Anime back when I still hadn't actually seen enough Anime for being one of my favorites to mean anything impressive.  I made a post last year where I wondered if the show really is still that important to me in the wake of all the new Anime I've gotten into.  But I then spent a good deal of the last few weeks re-watching Code Geass, some episodes up to three times, and it holds up phenomenally well.

In this show there is no real ambiguity that Britannia is wrong, and the only truly completely unsympathetic characters in the show are relatively minor Britannian characters.  But all the major and even secondary characters have depth, and truly heroic qualities are associated with plenty of Britannian characters.

Other works in the Mecha Genre are similar, especially in the Gundam franchise for which I still consider Gudnam 00 the best installment.

I finally watched Dawn of The Planet of The Apes the other day.  It was in fact much more nuanced then the impression the trailer gave.  I'll be watching War for The Planet of The Apes before I give any final judgment on that trilogy.

The point remains, it is incredibly rare for Hollywood to come even close to the true nuance that Anime regularly brings to stories about War and Terrorism and Revolution.

I may be making more Code Geass relevant posts in the future.  I have lots of thoughts about it.