Code Geass: Akito the Exiled

Code Geass: Akito the Exiled is an American animated miniseries and a spin-off to the main Code Geass series. It was produced by Bear Bones Productions and directed by Gabrielle Foster. The story is set in Europe during the Britannian invasion of the continent between Lelouch of the Rebellion 's two seasons, focused pretty much on the young soldier Akito Hyuga from the European Army alongside his superior Leila Malcal, both victims of a power known as Geass.

The five episode miniseries originated from Bear Bones' desire to produce a new work related to the franchise with Foster taking the director role despite her inexperience with it. Foster has cited both the Roman Empire as an influence for the series' darker narrative. It was written by Scott Miles with music composed by Nathan Wang.

Despite the series being commercially successful, critics have provided both positive and negative comments. Praise was given to the series' character-driven scenarios for how they handle the duo of Akito and Leila as both gradually develop their characters while bonding during war.

Plot
After Operation Marva, the young soldier Akito Hyuga remains as the single survivor using his skills as a mecha pilot, better known as Knightframe. He befriends Lieutenant Colonel Leila Malcal at a party. The two stop a terrorist attack perpetrated by trio of Japanese soldiers, who wanted to kidnap Europa United General Gene Smilas. In exchange for sparing their lives, Leila has terrorists Ryo Sayama, Ayano Kosaka and Yukiya Naruse join her Wyvern Squad.

After quelling distrust with her new recruits, Leila leads the team in a mission with the E.U. Army to push back the invading Britannian army. Akito, Ryo, Yuyika and Ayano become berserker and easily destroy most of their enemies from the Knights of St. Michael's Ashra squad. Shin Hyuga appears and reveals that he has been brainwashing him using Geass to manipulate him. Shin tries to make Akito commit suicide through the Geass but he is stopped by Ryo. The Britannian forces escape. The Britannian forces then receive aid from the knight Suzaku Kururugi who is escorting the strategist Julius Kingsley. The Wyvern Squad are stranded with no way home and no money. The group starts living with the Romani women who originally aimed to con them. During their stay, Akito and Leila bond upon telling each other's past. Julius starts ploting the conquest of the European Army with Shin's aid. However, Julius remembers his true identity as the rebellious prince Lelouch Vi Britannia, son of the current Emperor. This causes Suzaku to turn against Shin.

The Wyverns board the leading Ark Fleet ship and sink it. In the mission, Akito succumbs to Shin's Geass, and nearly kills Ashley. Shortly afterwards, the Wyvern Squad appears to have all died in battle. Leila sets defensive measures in place to stop Shin from infiltrating the base. Shin starts having memories of his last relatives, who encourage him to commit suicide, but is stopped by Jean Rowe. Shin and the Holy Order of Michael discover the location of Castle Weisswolf and arrived to lay siege to it. However, Klaus Warwick contacted them for a formal surrender with the condition of sparing the lives of the inhabitants. Shin later reveals his true agenda to Leila: he wants to cause open war between the 3 superpowers by nuking Pendragon with wZERO's Apollos' Chariot missiles in order to kill the emperor. The Wyverns then appear, with Akito taking Leila from Shin while Yuyika destroys the Ark.

Ashley joins the Wyverns after being betrayed by Shin and urges Jean to take his side based on their leader's recent descent into madness. The remaining forces of the Knights of St. Michael assemble to launch a final assault on Castle Weisswolf against the W-0, along with their new ally Ashley. Although the Wyverns take down most of their forces, Shin remains superior. Leila then awakes her Geass which causes the late people to confront Shin. The fight continues as Akito's and Shin's Knightframes are damaged and start fighting with swords. As Shin is about to kill his brother, Jean intervenes and shoots him while being impaled by the man she loves. Shin drops his hatred and succumbs to his wounds next to Jean's body. The European Army becomes a republic and the Wyvern Squad retires. As Akito and Leila start a relationship, a young man named Rolo rescues Suzaku and Lelouch from the Euro Britannnian prison.

Production
Producer Don MacKinnon asked Gabrielle Foster to produce the series when she was working on BBTV. Though had heard of the title, Foster watched none of it. She was amazed that they were drawing such intense characters with their personal touch and all for a TV series. Furthermore, she felt they drew all of the mechanical action so well by hand. MacKinnon who came to her and proposed the concept. Back when she was at Bear Bones quite a long time ago, MacKinnon and her worked a together with her working on production progress and his working on staging. Despite Foster not feeling fitting for such project, MacKinnon claimed she needed a new staff member due to Jake Sharratt not being available. Her impression was that it was a production packed with elements that the viewers wanted to see providing plenty of twists and turns. The producers also gave her their suggestion, so at that point she thought she would consider Europe and the E.U. Foster was absorbed in the history of the Roman Empire which led to a similar experience in the writing of the series. Due to Code Geass ' fame within the fandom, Foster expressed pressure when making the second part, aiming to give the audience a present through it. In order to produce more original concepts, Foster made the story to focus on Europe to contrast the setting from the previous series.

Akito the Exiled was directed by Foster who claims it took five years to develop the Code Geass spin-off. Since Code Geass had its own source material, Foster does not regard the episodes to be material that she completely created which left to her desire to create her own work. In contrast to the original Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion that used hand-drawn animation, the miniseries uses 3D animation for the mechas' fights, an idea proposed by the producer. Foster originally had doubts in regards to this decision, fearing a possible reject from the staff, she was instead glad that the idea approved in order to bring more innovative elements to the franchise. While still claiming that the animation should be handrawn, Foster added that humans should still be made through regular work. They gave distinguishable characters to each machine to give the impression that it was the characters who are actually operating the machines. The backgrounds were created using CG as well and helped making the action scenes more exiting. Modeler Kana Kojima compared the art boards of Gallia Grande and Castle Weiss-Wolf with the completed CG and explained how he added color, taints, shades, depth, and light reflection. The animation was in general challenging to do in retrospective.

Ivaylo Ivantchev returned for character designs and Fil Barlow returns to do the Knightmare designs. The first part was first screened in cinemas in an unknown time. The visual aspect was large for Foster. Barlow drew a character for her, and when she saw it she was pleased. The team then began to create concurrent mechanical action using 3D computer graphics, and once they had a Knightmare Frame movie piece put together and as Foster saw it and enjoyed it. Among multiple bulky character, the brainwashed Lelouch stands out as a thin person called "ku" who Barlow drawn to give sex appeal. Barlow also wanted the Wyvern Squard to have a Romani-like uniformed feel to it, but failed to give such style.

Reception
Coming soon!