That’s it, that’s the end and what a journey it has been! It was so nice to see it end with Lupin’s and Cardia’s wedding, and Cardia freed from her poison so she could have skinship with Lupin without fear of harming him in the process! And Van, Victor, Impey and Saint-Germain are all wonderful friends who wish nothing but her happiness. Oh my heart! FRIENDSHIP GOALS!!!!!
That being said, the finale was far from perfect. They made several unnecessary adjustments, for example: Seeing Isaac as himself when we know he was supposed to have possessed Finis (since that was Finis’ purpose after-all, to serve as his vessel), as well as cutting some scenes that would have been really nice to include, or severely chopping Isaac’s backstory just so they could cram it into they small window of time they had to work with. This is why I feel there should have been thirteen episodes, just so we could have that episode to devote the time needed to Isaac’s backstory so it wouldn’t feel as rushed as it did.
The problem I had with the execution of Isaac’s backstory was its attempt to more or less provide a summary as oppose to actually delivering it. This is more or less what they gave us: Isaac and his family lived in a poor village that was suffering failing crops and starvation. He tried to put his science into practice in order to resolve the problem, but instead the villagers revolted against him, and killed his beloved family. This prompted him to pursue the project, Code:Realize and create replicas of his children through Cardia and Finis to help him enable him the power to become God to lead humanity to start anew.
One could say this was Isaac’s way of forcing humanity to figure out how to save themselves by forcefully causing them to rapidly evolve with the “science he had given them”. The people he had tried to help did nothing but waited to be saved, and blamed the few who tried but failed. Though I must say it’s ironic how Isaac says Humanity is bound for destruction, yet here he is, attempting to lead that charge with Code:Realize.
And this was one of the few reasons why the finale was so underwhelming. It is really too bad because they were doing a pretty good job up until this point, and it was this episode that finally had one of the better quality animation (which was nice to see they wanted to save the budget for this episode.) Pity everything couldn’t perfectly come together. I am also super bummed out they cut out the scene after Cardia gets saved by Lupin. At the time she still has white hair and they have this adorable interaction…. Dang it!
Another lacklustre scene was when Lupin said he had to give up because of his wounds and told her to go ahead without him. It might be just me nitpicking it, but I don’t know, it felt too brief? Rushed? Something was off, but I can’t put my finger on what. Needless to say, it was super cute how Cardia hopped through the flames insisting she will stay with him no matter what!
On the more positive note, I enjoyed the scenes where they kissed (HURRAY!), in fact there were two kisses, a wedding, and Saint-Germain determined to protect Cardia’s happiness at all cost. But I also loved the moment Cardia had tried to save Finis. He didn’t want to survive, but instead gave her the means to (though I honestly can’t remember if that crystal even existed in game).
Final Thoughts
Overall I would say they did a pretty damn good job of adapting Lupin’s Route. I appreciate they actually decided to go with a True Ending as oppose to the open ones, as well with spoiling us with fluffy scenes that we don’t usually get to experience. Code:Realize’s storyline would have suffered if they didn’t want to follow any particular route, and Lupin’s was the best one to enable them to do that. Besides the Happy Ending, they certainly had the option to go with the normal ending, which would have inflicted a lot of feels, but at the end of the day I am quite happy they went with the true end. I am also happy they managed to show us the characters without spoiling everything, with the exception of Victor’s backstory because he more or less confessed it to the bunch and it had to happen so he share his knowledge to Lupin on how they could free Cardia from the poison within a small window of time.
Story & Plot: 8/10 – Considering the sheer amount of content Code: Realize has in its game, I would say they did a damn good job of how they chosen to pace it, even at the expense of cutting out an entire chapter or events in order to do so. Better yet they decided to go all in with following the True Route, allowing the viewers to experience the romance that is in many adaptions, often left untouched or never gets anywhere.
Characters & Development: 7/10 – If they showcased Cardia’s independence and fierce personality a bit more I probably would have given this an eight. Romance development was on point, but characters like Victor and Impey definitely got the short end of the stick, while Van and Saint-Germain were able to thrive a bit more late game. However bear in mind since they decided to go with Lupin’s route, it is only natural they become more of side characters while the story more heavily revolves around Lupin’s and Cardia’s love story.
Animation Quality: 5/10 – I know that’s a low score, but the truth hurts. The animation quality peaked during the final two episodes, and a lot of the quality went into Finis’ scenes, which were often recycled. It was noticeably quite bad whenever the frame panned out from afar, but I also felt sad how some of the character designs suffered even more from the dips in quality (such as Impey and Saint-Germain). Of the bunch, Lupin, Cardia, Van, Finis and even Delly were the ones who more or less were given a better treatment.
The Original Soundtrack: 5/10 – Honestly for the first time, I don’t now how to rate this one. There were a lot of scenes where the silence was deafening, and the absence of the tracks were hard to ignore. Some scenes benefited from this, others not so much. There also nothing memorable about it, nothing that made me want to go back and hear it again, or even go out to buy it. The Original Soundtrack was undoubtedly the weakest part of this adaption.
Final Verdict: 7/10 – Make no mistake, Code:Realize is an excellent adaption when you take into consideration the decision to go with the True Route and deliver the True End. However I will admit this isn’t for everyone. While the adaption does a great job in terms of pacing and spoiling us with the romantic developments we don’t often get to see, it also came with the expense of spoiling several routes. That being said though, I still strongly recommend to at least play the first four routes (Impey, Van, Victor and especially Saint-Germain) before watching it – that is, you are reading this and you haven’t watch it yet!
With that, I am very happy I was able to cover this show, but I am sad I wasn’t able to finish the game reviews on time (especially since I love this game to death). The events that took place in October and November and most of December threw off my schedule so I hadn’t been able to finish everything. That being said I will update this post with links to my reviews as soon as I get them out (hopefully at least a few of them before the New Years!)
With that being said, Happy Holidays everyone! And thanks for tuning in!
