Suzaku Kururugi
Suzaku Kururugi is a main character of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, the Lancelot's pilot and Lelouch's best friend and rival. He is voiced by Takahiro Sakurai in Japanese and Yuri Lowenthal in English.
About Suzaku Kururugi
Suzaku Kururugi is a main character of Code Geass, Lelouch's childhood friend and his opposite number. A Japanese boy in the Britannian army, Suzaku believes an unjust system must be changed from within, by obeying it better than its own soldiers. His reward is the Lancelot, the empire's finest Knightmare, and a career spent fighting the Black Knights and Zero, never knowing Zero is the friend he grew up with. Suzaku's sincerity is real. So is the guilt driving it.
Appearance
Suzaku is an athletic Japanese teenager with wavy brown hair, green eyes and an earnest, open face that contrasts with Lelouch's theatrical gloom at every turn. He wears the Britannian military uniform for most of the series, later the white and gold of a Knight of the Round, and he is usually drawn in motion: running, leaping, spinning into kicks. His Knightmare, the white and gold Lancelot, matches him. Everything about Suzaku's design says bright, direct and physical, which is how he fights and how he argues, and the series uses it to hide how much guilt is underneath.
Personality
Suzaku is kind, selfless and stubborn to a degree that damages everyone around him. He throws himself between strangers and gunfire without thinking, apologises to enemies, and holds his principles in rooms where they can only hurt people. He is also running from himself at full speed. His idealism has a death wish inside it, and the people who know him best, Lelouch and Euphemia, both see it. Where Lelouch hides his softness under theatre, Suzaku hides his guilt under goodness, and the series is as hard on that bargain as it is on Lelouch's.
Background & Story
Suzaku is the son of Genbu Kururugi, Japan's last prime minister, in whose home the exiled Lelouch and Nunnally sheltered during the invasion. What happened to his father in 2010 is the secret Suzaku's whole life is built on, and the series holds it back for most of the run. As a teenager he enlists in the Britannian army as an Honorary Britannian, endures open discrimination, and is chosen to pilot the experimental Lancelot because he can be risked. His skill makes him indispensable, then famous, then a Knight of the Round, the Emperor's own knight. Every promotion takes him deeper into the system he hopes to change and further from the people he claims to be changing it for.
Powers & Abilities
- Piloting the Lancelot: Suzaku is a natural ace, the only pilot who can draw out the experimental Lancelot's full performance. His reflexes and spatial sense let him fight veteran aces in production machines and win.
- Physical Ability: Suzaku is absurdly athletic: spinning kicks that disarm soldiers, leaps between Knightmares, and reflexes that let him evade machine gun fire at close range. The series never explains it. It just keeps happening.
- Geass Command: Live: In season 1's climax, Lelouch, desperate to save him, orders Suzaku to live. The command becomes a permanent survival trigger that fires in mortal danger, forcing Suzaku to survive by any means, a gift that turns into one of the series' darkest curses.
Key Relationships
- Lelouch Lamperouge: His childhood friend from the summer before the invasion, the person he most wants to save and the enemy he most often fights. Neither man can aim at the other with a whole heart.
- Euphemia li Britannia: The princess he serves and falls for, the one Britannian royal who shares his hope for Japan. What happens around Euphemia in season 1 breaks something in Suzaku that never fully repairs.
- Kallen Kozuki: His classmate and battlefield rival, ace against ace. They respect each other's skill completely and understand each other's choices not at all.
- Nunnally Lamperouge: The other child of that summer at the Kururugi house. Suzaku's protectiveness toward Nunnally is uncomplicated, which in this series makes it precious.
Quick Answers
Who voices Suzaku Kururugi?
Suzaku is voiced by Takahiro Sakurai in Japanese and Yuri Lowenthal in the English dub.
Why does Suzaku fight for Britannia?
Because he carries a death he caused as a child and a country that lost its war. Suzaku believes results achieved the wrong way are worthless, a direct reply to Lelouch's philosophy, and he is trying to earn Japan a future, and himself forgiveness, by serving honourably inside the system that conquered it.
Partly writing, partly legend. Suzaku's spinning kicks, wall runs and ability to dodge automated fire are presented as trained athleticism and reflexes, and the cast treats them as freakish in universe too. Fans nicknamed the move the Suzaku spin kick, and the staff leaned into it.
What rank does Suzaku reach in Britannia?
In R2 Suzaku is raised to the Knights of the Round, the twelve strongest knights of the empire, as the Knight of Seven. It is the highest a Japanese person has ever climbed inside Britannia, and the series makes sure it costs him the respect of the very people he climbed for.