Discussion Anime / CodeGeass

Yes.

What's wrong with it? Slash harkens are definitely used to accomplish many awesome things in the show, from enhanced mobility to various forms of attack. And there is nothing factually wrong with that assessment of cable winches in real life. Certainly qualifies as Fridge Logic if nothing else.

Haven't read through it all properly yet, but on a skim I'm inclined to agree. This is far too long for a summary and looks to be class-A bait for Hype Backlash besides. Some of it would be mighty interesting on the Analysis tab, but on the front page? Seriously?

I'll go pare some of it down to size once I've actually read it properly. Unless someone else wants to take that responsibility, of course.

You should probably take this to the forums. Because discussion pages are for talking about the article not the show.

...What does this have to do with the accuracy of USJ as a translation?

Anyway, I suppose "United States of Japan" isn't perfectly accurate, but it would be stupid to destroy the parallelism by translating it some other way.

That was meant for the people who repeatedly added Natter insisting in trope examples that Britannia is meant to be a Take That! to either the U.S. or the U.K. It doesn't have quite so much to do with the "Blind Idiot" Translation that was deleted.

And to be honest, "United States of Japan" is a perfectly reasonable translation of the phrase. A check with Jeffrey's J/E Dictionary confirms that the only associated meanings with "gasshuukoku" is either United States of America or Federal State—in fact, using the "pattern anywhere" search with J/E Dictionary reveals that "gasshuukoku" is almost universally used in reference to the United States of America.

The phrase itself does not mean what the ranting troper claimed it meant.

It stands to reason, then, that the fan translators and official importing companies are not blind idiots for their usage of "United States" for this phrase. Could the individual characters be taken to mean "masses of people" or whatever? Perhaps. Yet, if Sunrise and CLAMP meant to convey such a meaning, surely they would have used something commonly used in Japan to mean just that.

The fact of the matter is, both the term Federal State and United States of X do not apply to Japan as used, simply because there is no indication that Japan was anything but one whole country before it was conquered. The only logical explanation for this was that the Japanese word for "United States" did not actually have the same meaning, which as has been proved, it didn't. The kanji for gasshuukoku means united populace country. To be fair, there is an alternate spelling of gasshuukoku that means united province country, but that is not the one usually used, and there's no in-story reason to use /that/ spelling either. I wish I could tell you why America Populace Country became the default spelling in Japan, but I don't know the answer. I do know that to the average Japanese person, America is the America United Populace Country, states or provinces don't come into the equation at all.

Do you understand? Gasshuukoku is a functional translation of United States, not a literal one. Because of that, when translated back in code geass, the English meaning no longer makes sense. Naturally, when you look up either United States or gasshuukoku in a J/E dictionary you're going to find America listed as a definition, because it's the only country with that title. (Mexico too, but when's the last time you've heard Mexico called "The United Mexico States," even in America?)

Now is Blind Idiot Translation a little harsh? Probably, but that's the trope name, so what do you want? If there's another trope for when the given translation induces confusion and plot holes when there are better translations for the situation available, link it to me.

"Yet, if Sunrise and CLAMP meant to convey such a meaning, surely they would have used something commonly used in Japan to mean just that."

They did.

It's funny b'cuz I read somewhere (I can't find it now) that Britannia isn't supposed to be like the USA. The director said that Britannia was supposed to be like Japan in WWII.

Magnificent Bastard Vs Lawful Evil empire.

I think Lelouch starts off gray but the guy clearly loses it, and becomes his father. The only difference is that they don't agree on how to achieve peace. What he achieves doesn't even come close to making up for brainwashing people, using those people as sacrifices so you can do things like blow up a Volcano killing everyone nearby.

He only loses it after the betrayal, leading up to the Zero Requiem.

And Grey-and-Gray Morality between Suzaku and the Black Knights? They both proved to be selfish and myopic at different yet critical points.

Yeah, up yours Ohgi. Thanks for causing the Zero Requiem.

It's on his character sheet.

That is basically him saying the end justifies the means. In other words, it's more the net result he's referring to, especially given that he essentially has no alternative. (Not to mention that in that particular scenario, the fight against Guilford, what he is doing is more chaotic than evil.) A Villain Protagonist is basically a protagonist who is just plain evil, a la Light Yagami.

The requiem zero represented the deaths of thousands even millions of inocents.

I think this act is enough to qualify as a Neutral Evil and Villain Protagonist.

Apples and oranges. That happened due to him jumping the Despair Event Horizon following Nunnally's apparent demise and the Black Knights' ill-advised betrayal. He's more of a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds at that point.

Or actually, there needs to be a page for the "main" one that has the same name as the series. It's also one of the only Code Geass manga with online chapter scans, and translated ones, so it's more easy to trope.

Not to mention it's licensed in NA.