Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-96.48.106.168-20130321043033/@comment-173.74.16.4-20140722192818

Juan Jimenez wrote: Lelouch is dead. The creator has stated that Lelouch is in fact dead. People love saying this, but there is a lot lost in translation from what the creator stated and what is printed in English.

My wife speaks fluent japanese and has read the original interview. At no point does the creator come out and say, "LeLouche is dead." He talks multiple times regarding a happy ending versus a sad/bad/tragic ending. Some of the feeling is lost because of this. Without any prior knowledge of the series (she hasn't watched it), I gave her the gist of the ending after she read the article. She said that the feel of what the creator replied with was that he thought it was a happy ending, but that in no way would she think it relates to LeLouche being alive or dead. She compared his answer to a politician give a 'tap dance' answer to a question they didn't want to clearly answer. Based on the cultural differences between Japan and the U.S, she felt that it could go either way.

The U.S. 'happy ending' is the cinderella story where everyone lives happily ever after, while in many Japanese stories, a 'happy ending' is that of a better state and does not imply a protagonist lives happily ever after. As the two culture's storytelling slowly meshes together, things are becoming more similar, but still tend to sway one way or the other. This is a large reason why, especially in U.S. films over 10 years old, the antagonist was so easy to recognize and be against. Often in Japanese stories, there may not even be a true antagonist, but someone more fitting of an anti-protagonist or anti-hero type of character. Think of it as a character that is trying to do good things, but probably not going about it in the best of ways. This fits almost every "antagonist" character in the series. They are all fighting for a better world, some of the methods aren't what most would consider on the side of good though.

TL;DR - The creator never stated, "LeLouche is dead." He said he thought it was a "happy ending" and that some viewers might view it as a "bad ending".