At eleven-thirty that night, Ryuji tuned in right on time for episode twelve of Code Geass.
This anime had genuinely surprised him more than he had expected.
He had never been a fan of mecha as a genre, but he had taken to Code Geass in a way he had not anticipated, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that the show was never really about the mecha to begin with.
He had been following it since the very first episode.
Not long ago, when the coverage about Starfall being the conscience of the industry came out, he had felt a swell of secondhand pride alongside the sense that picking up Code Geass had been absolutely the right call.
Then, when the first volume DVD went on sale, he bought three copies in one go.
A studio with the kind of integrity Starfall had shown, as long as it kept making good shows that did not break your heart, could do no wrong in his eyes.
From everything he had seen so far, Code Geass really was as fun and exciting as Yuta had said. Not an ounce of suffering in sight.
That was what he thought.
About twenty-something minutes later, Ryuji finished watching episode twelve and sat there completely dazed.
It all traced back to episode ten.
Second Princess Cornelia had led a Knightmare unit sweep against the Japan Liberation Front, encircling the Narita Mountains.
Lelouch moved in with the Black Knights and detonated the underground steam vents, personally engineering a massive landslide that buried a large number of Cornelia's forces alive.
In episode eleven, Lelouch commanded the Black Knights in an intense battle against Cornelia's forces. He did not manage to capture Cornelia herself, but it still counted as a meaningful victory.
Both of those episodes had been incredibly satisfying to watch, but episode twelve was a different story entirely.
Lelouch had a classmate named Shirley, and this girl named Shirley was not only a fellow member of the student council but had been quietly in love with Lelouch the whole time.
Lelouch had never shown any obvious romantic interest in Shirley, but he clearly cared about her deeply as a friend. Shirley's father had traveled to Narita on a business trip and left her two concert tickets as a gift. Shirley worked up her courage and invited Lelouch to go with her.
Then she got a phone call. Her father had been killed in Narita.
Shirley herself did not know it yet, but anyone who had watched episodes ten and eleven understood perfectly well that her father's death was Lelouch's fault. It was Lelouch who had given the order for Kallen to detonate the steam vents, causing the landslide that buried Shirley's father alive.
Even though the closing moments of episode twelve showed a grief-stricken Shirley kissing Lelouch, Ryuji still finished the episode with an uneasy feeling he could not shake.
"Why did it suddenly get sad?"
"Whatever happened to zero suffering?"
"Did that bastard actually trick us?"
Ryuji muttered to himself for a bit, then turned off the TV, went back to his room, opened his computer, and pulled up what people were saying about episode twelve online. Given how popular Code Geass was, the comments were already flooding in mere minutes after the episode finished airing.
"Something about the way this is developing really feels off!"
"Now that I think about it, Shirley's father made a brief appearance back when Shirley and the others were taken hostage, and there was even a shot of him at the base of the Narita Mountains in episode ten. But it still didn't cross my mind that he would end up dying because of Lelouch."
"Shirley must absolutely hate Zero right now. What's going to happen if she ever finds out that Lelouch and Zero are the same person?"
"Whether Shirley will find out about Lelouch's identity is still up in the air, but Lelouch has to realize by now what he's done. He must be absolutely tearing himself apart over this."
"No matter how I look at it, the road ahead feels like it's going to hurt a lot."
"I literally just bought the first volume DVD and now you're telling me the pain is starting?"
"I think we all got played by that bastard Shido. Don't forget how Clannad was promoted back then, all that talk about it being cheerful with just a tiny touch of sadness. Every time I think about it, I want to strangle him."
...
Ryuji had initially wondered if he was just reading too much into things, since episode twelve was not exactly devastating by any stretch of the imagination.
But after reading through the comments, he felt more certain. The show had taken a turn.
Of course, if this were any other anime made by any other director, it would not be that big a deal. A little bit of sadness like this would barely register.
But this was Yuta Shido's show, and that changed everything.
This was the same person who had put deaths into a slice-of-life show, who had slapped a healing anime label on Clannad and then proceeded to absolutely wreck everyone who watched it. Did anyone seriously think a little bit of sadness like this was all he had in store?
It was only going to get worse from here.
What were people supposed to do now?
Was it still early enough to get out?
Ryuji thought about it for a moment, then shook his head to himself.
Painful or not, Shido's anime was genuinely good. If he had not gotten invested in the first place and then found out it turned into a tearjerker, he probably would have just skipped it entirely. But he was already twelve episodes in. There was no just dropping it at this point.
"Ugh. I never should have trusted a single word that bastard Shido said," Ryuji groaned in frustration.
He was far from alone in feeling that way.
For people who had not started watching yet, none of this mattered. But for everyone already in the thick of it, the situation was uncomfortable. Keep watching and risk getting your heart torn out, or drop it now and miss out on a show that was genuinely excellent.
It was a complete lose-lose situation.
That said, since plenty of viewers had never seen Clannad, a large number of people were not particularly concerned.
"Shirley's dad dying because of Lelouch is a little sad, sure, but I think it's manageable. I can handle it."
"Let's just wait and see how episode thirteen deals with it."
"For those of you who watched Clannad, can you please stop making it sound so terrifying? A little bit of sadness is completely normal. Once this story beat passes, it'll go right back to being exciting."
"The whole point of what Lelouch is doing is revenge and toppling an empire. Of course innocent people are going to get caught in the crossfire. That's realistic. If it were nothing but thrills with zero emotional weight, that would actually feel fake."
"All the people claiming it's going to get really sad, I think you're genuinely overthinking this. President Shido himself said this was a fun, exciting show, and he's the president of a studio with the industry's best track record for integrity. His character is beyond question. Why would he lie to everyone?"
"I'm going to keep watching regardless. Even if it does get sad later, I refuse to believe it'll actually make me cry."
...
Beyond reproach? Refuse to believe it would make them cry?
Ryuji shook his head quietly to himself. These people who had never watched Clannad were still so naive.
Starfall really was a studio with genuine integrity, and Yuta as its president was genuinely a person whose character you could not fault in that respect.
But whether he would lie to his audience was a completely separate matter with a very different answer.
If he had never lied to his audience, then all those people who had been absolutely wrecked by Clannad would not have walked into it with a smile on their face.
In all likelihood, Code Geass was going to leave a fair number of people sobbing before it was all over.
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