For those watching and are caught up to latest episode of Code Geass R2, there's a little bit of news that might interest you. Found within the link below in an article posted on "Code Trainwreck", it details Goro Taniguchi's lament towards this season of CG, being forced to do last-minute rewrites after the series was moved to a different, more family-friendly timeslot:
Article Link: http://trainwreck.ggkthx.org/2008/08/19/taniguchi-on-geass-not-as-planned/
"Taniguchi planned the season 1 ending with the firm belief that he could jump right back into the story 6 months later and tell the story to the same audience, so when he was informed of the new timeslot, Taniguchi was completely crushed. He was asked to write a short message to his fans for the special screening pamphlet back then, and apparently all he wanted to write was a letter of apology, which wasn’t allowed. Neither was he allowed to explain the situation to the fans, which is understandable from a Sunrise exec point of view, but not quite fair towards Taniguchi, IMO. When his colleagues reported back from the special screening (which Taniguchi did not attend) and spoke of the audience’s “Ehhhhhhhhh!? D:” reaction to the ending, Taniguchi’s reply was: “You think I don’t know that!? Don’t make it sound like it’s something to be happy about, you moron!”. Seems like he was really unhappy about things then..."
Many thanks to Celiss Galvea for bringing this to light, and after reading it, I only can wonder how R2 would nave turned out if it was the story Taniguchi initially intended. I can still say that I've had great time watching the series so far, but when you learn that the "Word of God" had something better in store for us, a part of you can't help but believe that we were robbed of that somehow.
BTW, Code Trainwreck followed this article up with a great companion piece, detailing how badly a last-minute timeslot change can seriously botch the production of your anime series. After hearing what happened to Geass, I can only hope that production staff 00 didn't suffer the same agonizing experience due to the new airtime.
I'd hate to see one of the best Gundam series to come around in a long time to suddenly become neutered.
Peace,
Soul Bro Ryu
SBRmahq@gmail.com
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
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3 comments:
While my comment is probably going to be buried and forgotten, let me say a couple of things to prevent future misunderstandings.
Celiss Galvea is not associated with the so-called "Code Trainwreck" blog in any way. She posted that in a board on GameFAQs, and it was reposted on that blog by someone else, with her permission. A subtle but important distinction, given some of the other content on that blog.
The "companion piece" on Code Trainwreck is interesting but those are mostly the opinions of someone who, while he does know the anime industry, doesn't have access to what actually happened and is thus making educated guesses. Educated guesses are just that, but they are not absolute truths and nobody should assume they are all equally valid for each case.
Finally -you'll get rid of me soon enough- but all those changes were not so "last minute" when you consider that about a year passed between the ending of Code Geass season one and the start of R2.
It wasn't like everything was already completely planned and scripted for the sequel and suddenly everything changed. There was sufficient time to reconcile both what Taniguchi wanted and what the timeslot required.
That means that the changes did modify Taniguchi's original plans, which is a shame, but it should not be understood as if saying that nothing in R2 went as planned or that the ending won't reflect what he wanted.
Why? Because from what we can tell the changes affected mostly the first half of R2. I don't think that the time slot being family friendly would change some of the rather "family unfriendly" events we've been seeing recently. You probably know about which deaths I'm talking about and so on.
The problem I have with this story receiving so much buzz online is that people are automatically assuming that everything "bad" can be blamed on this change and that the entire show can be written off, when I don't think even Taniguchi itself is saying that.
Sorry to bother you, I will try to avoid doing so in the future. I'm still listening to your show when it comes out though.
Nothing to apologize about, and I appreciate you taking the time to clear the air about all of this. Most of the time, bad news travels faster than good news on the internet, and it's easy to misconstrue the meaning of Taniguchi-san's words for something worse than how things really are.
Reading this does give us all a little bit of insight though on why the earlier part of the series seems like a remixed version of season 1. However, you're right, although he's unmistakably had to rearrange events that he originally planned, it doesn't mean that we won't experience the ending that he originally intended.
Thanks for the insight, man, and I look forward to more replies from you ^_^
Concerning Gundam 00, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Unlike Geass which was a late night anime that ended up on a Sunday early evening slot, 00 much like previous Gundam Series, was first run on Saturday 6PM slot which during its first season, on a programming block used primarily for Shounen anime (At least TV-Tokyo does duing weekdays).
If anything, scheduling Geass R2 between a travel magazine series and the Sunday evening news may be a strong factor to Geass R2's lower ratings, not so much the quality of the series.
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