Code Geass finally remembers that mecha battles are supposed to look like warfare, not just explosions with dialogue. The Wyvern unit feels like soldiers you could actually break, not plot armor with legs, and the CGI camera work treats every frame like a real three-dimensional space instead of a flat anime stage. This is the franchise at its most confident about showing rather than explaining, even when the exposition hits hard. The characters are mostly broken people doing broken things, which makes their survival feel contingent instead of inevitable. Lelouch's universe finally has a corner where the geass users aren't destiny's chosen, they're just desperate. This first episode costs you nothing but your assumption that Code Geass couldn't get better at what it was always best at.

In 2017, the Holy Britannian Empire is invading Europe, and the desperate European army forms a special unit called Wyvern, or W-0, to stem its mounting losses. Its members are former Japanese citizens, known as Elevens, recruited from the ghettos to pilot humanoid Knightmare frames on lethal missions in the hope of earning a name for themselves. Among them is Lieutenant Akito Hyuuga, whose skill in combat has earned him the nickname "Hannibal's Ghost." When a European regiment trying to retake a key city is pinned down by Britannian forces, W-0 is sent in to rescue it. The operation turns suicidal when the commanding officer triggers the Knightmares' self-destruct sequence to take out as many of the enemy as possible, leaving Akito the only one still standing. The film is a mecha action entry set in the Code Geass world.