Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Alright, its taken me since April to reach this point so I may as well dispense with any further delays and say it outright. Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion is not a masterpiece, it isn’t a great show nor is it a very good one. What it is is a marginally good television program that takes concepts and characters from a wide variety of successful anime productions from the last decade and stitches them all together into twenty-five episodes of vulgarity and excess, a Frankenstein’s monster of a production that has the cold manufactured feel of a product of a focus ... group rather than of a motivated team of creative individuals.

Let me take a step back for a moment, because the truth of the matter is that Code Geass brought with it a genuinely compelling concept, one that could have done wonders if the creators at Sunrise had known what the hell they were doing. It takes place in an alternate universe where a version of the British Empire called Britannia, through various quirks of fate, manages to endure and thrive into the 21st century. After witnessing the assasination of his mother and having his and his sister’s lives ruined by his father, an exiled Britannian prince living under the assumed name Lelouch Lamperouge, out of a desire for revenge against the emperor, rises to become a revolutionary leader in an occupied Japan.

This concept could have gone in any number of directions and in the right hands could have been turned into something truly remarkable. Unfortunately Goro Tanaguchi and his team at Sunrise either didn’t realize the potential of what they’d come up with or were simply too caught up in making a commercially successful product to care. For, you see, although the basic premise survived to see the light of day it has been chained to and obscured by a wide variety of disparate concepts and ideas, none of which add anything of substance to the proceedings. This is a program that wants to be a mecha action series at the same time it wants to be a war drama at the same time it wants to be a romance/harem series at the same time it wants to be a high school comedy while above all else its trying to be Death Note with a copy of V for Vendetta in its pocket. It all gives the impression of a program that’s so terribly frightened of being disliked by any one subset of the anime fandom that it rushes to appeal to every conceivable kind of viewer and as a result is never truly exceptional at any of the things it attempts.

Giant robots, for example, are thrown in for no better reason than to draw in and satisfy the needs of the giant robot fandom. I don’t have anything against mecha per se but neither do I have any great love for it leaving me rather indifferent to it overall. All I ask is that it adds something to the experience, that there is some concrete purpose for their presence motivated by the narrative, that the giant robots aren’t merely props easily interchangeable with any other fantastical weaponry. Full Metal Panic provides, in its continuity, a fairly detailed justification for how its variation on the giant robot concept came into being. Patlabor provides a similarly believable rationale as well. Ride Back would have had a wonderful thematic connection to its motorcycle/robot hybrids had the creators had the sense to utilize a specific scene outside of the end credits. Code Geass has no such virtue. The “Knightmare frames” come across as a ploy just as empty and cynical as Gonzo’s additions of giant robots to their adaptations of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo.

The story itself runs into trouble fairly quickly. In the first episode, Lelouch is inspired to begin his campaign against Britannia when he obtains a supernatural ability called Geass from a mysterious girl wearing a tight-fitting straitjacket. This ability allows him to control the will and actions of anyone he chooses with very few actual limitations. All he needs is direct eye contact with his intended victim and that’s it. By comparison the Death Note has a whole page full of rules and restrictions on its use. As a result, a lot of Death Note’s intrigue is generated from the various ways Light Yagami finds to work with or around those rules. The Geass is almost too powerful by comparison. As a result it makes his decision to start a rebellion in Japan as a means of gaining revenge against his father in Britannia seem a very roundabout way of doing things. It would seem more effective to simply hop a plane home, Geass his way past security to get to his father and that would be the end of it. Its not like Lelouch doesn’t accomplish much the same thing with his brother Clovis at the end of the second episode. Of course, if Lelouch were to actually follow the course simple logic would dictate then he wouldn’t have started his rebellion and Code Geass wouldn’t have had the opportunity to indulge in enough overblown spectacle to shame Michael Bay.

This problem is further compounded by the revelation in the second episode that Lelouch is some sort of super-genius strategist. It’s never explained to any degree where his ability comes from, whether the creators want the viewer to assume that its some sort of blood inherited trait or that he was simply educated on the subject. The most the viewer is allowed to understand is that Lelouch’s “strategic brilliance” has something to do with the fact that he’s good at chess, which, if you actually accept that, only explains a fraction of the schemes that he devises. In the end, as a character Lelouch comes across as little more than a plot devise, a strategy generating machine that provides the series with its single greatest source of overblown spectacle.

Out of the rest of the cast the only character who made, or I should say had the potential to leave in impression on me was the anti-Britannian rebel Kallen. She receives an entire episode devoted to her background as the daughter of a Japanese mother and a Britannian father. Much is made of her identification with the Japanese side of her parentage and how her deceased brother figures into things and there is indeed potential for something interesting here. Unfortunately nothing is ever done with any of these elements. Everything that was brought up in that episode is quickly shelved and never brought up again.

It should be noted that a good portion of the issues I have with the show stem from the fact that Code Geass possesses all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the skull. The result is a heavily calculated experience where the hands of the creators can be clearly seen picking and choosing which ideas or scenarios would have the greatest impact regardless of whether or not they make any sense (coincidences are invoked to the point of absurdity). The first episode alone depicts an ethnic cleansing (a scenario the series portrays twice in its first season) and a bloody mass suicide sure to satisfy the more ghoulish members of the viewership. Fanservice is plentiful and obvious with only a scant few female cast members escaping the first season with their dignity, if they ever had any to begin with.

On the technical side of things there isn’t really a whole lot I can complain about. The animation is smooth well done. The color scheme employed can be a little too bright and cheery for its own good with purple mechs and a city that is lit with pink lighting at night but that is a minor complaint overall. Character designs come courtesy of CLAMP so if you like their artwork you’ll like what you see here. If you don’t like CLAMP then there isn’t anything in Code Geass that will convince you otherwise. The soundtrack, credited to Hitomi Kuroishi and Kotaro Nakagawa, isn’t anything spectacular but it is nonetheless serviceable. It is a competent presentation overall, if only.

Yet another review for the highly acclaimed Code Geass. I believe this is the 98th review C.G would’ve received; but I can’t help but review this even if so many others have.

How does such a blatant horribly written show gorging with clichés and plotholes ever be compared to the likes of or considered as Death Note’s rival? I suppose it's because both shows were aired at the same time in Japan. I suppose it's because of "how uncanny" the resemblance between the two anti-heros are. And I suppose it's because they feature "the ends justify the means" views and morals. I started ... watching because of the many reviews that has praised this and the amount of people who recommended this for people who liked Death Note. And so I watched it. And regrettably so.

Meet Lelouch Lamperouge. Former prince of the Britannian Empire, previously named “Lelouch Vi Britannia”. He and his younger sister, Nunnally had left the royal family after their mother had been brutally assassinated many years ago and they now live on campus on Ashford Academy, where he also goes to school at. One day, he comes across a beautiful girl named C.C or C2 who gives him the power of Geass which is located in his left eye. His Geass allows him control people and make them do any of his bidding once. He uses this power to crush the Britannian Empire and under the alias “Zero” he leads the Black Knights, a terrorist organisation, and sets out to free the world from Britannia’s clutches.

I wonder how many clichés we already encountered in that paragraph. We have the “secretly a prince” cliché, the “school environment” cliché, the “mysterious and beautiful girl” cliché and the “revenge on killing my mommy” cliché. And that’s just the beginning.

The story is just one big mess. It had more plot holes than the ozone layer. They just keep adding and adding to the plot but do nothing about it. To keep up with the ‘story’ I had to constantly read the episodes summaries in Wikipedia, which I never had to do with any other series. And quite frankly, this has got to be the most boring series ever. I bet if they took out the mecha part of this the show would’ve been a flop.

Characters. We have a number of characters in this show, whom are mostly ineffective and does not add to the story whatsoever. Why the need for so many characters? Throughout the whole series I think I remembered 5 characters out of a cast of 50+. The White Knights didn’t do much; neither did the Chinese government and where the hell did that guy who I assume is the glasses-girl-who’s-madly-in-love-with-Princess-Euphemia boyfriend come from?!

Lelouch has got to be the most overrated character ever. We’re told he’s smart but so far all I’ve seen is that he’s good at chess. His strategies are bland and under explained to the point where logic seemed to be extinct when coming up with them, as if he just guesses the next move to take correctly. And he is the worst anti-hero I’ve come across. The way tactlessly kill innocent humans isn’t justified to well either. It was quite a bore to see him ‘use’ people, but not actually manipulate him; like getting close to them and puppeteer them in such a way that angers the viewer. But instead, the viewer doesn’t feel anger towards Lelouch for being such a bastard prick who play with people because he DOESN’T play with them. The viewer feels nothing: no anger, no sadness nor even excitement as he continues killing people. In other words, he fails at being an anti hero.

Another thing. The Geass. He can make any person do his bidding once. And that’s about it. He doesn’t try to find any way around the Geass, how he can use it or anything of that nature. Totally boring.

Normally having different art styles is one of the plus sides of anime. However, the art in this had me cringing. The characters are disturbingly anorexic, all of them being 6ft tall and 40kg heavy. It was just ridiculous. The noses are undefined and oddly shaped, as for the rest of their sack of bones of a body. The animators weren’t afraid to show scantily clad woman at the drop of a hat either. Ecchi in this show managed to exceed that of a sleazy harem, and fan service covered just about every minute of this anime.

The only thing I can salute Code Geass for is the music. They manage to skilfully implement everything from jazz music to marching band trumpets in the show. However the openings were a bit of a let down, with average J-Pop taking the spot.

Overall I believe this just seems to be an anime where the creators tried to throw in as many clichés as they can possible and tried to make it an intelligent anime but have failed miserably. Have I mentioned how BORED I was from this? I’m surprised how masochistic I’ve become and actually watched 15 episodes of R2 before it became too much and dropped it.

The most succinct way to describe Code Geass is to call it a cross between Death Note and MEGAS XLR/Gurren Lagann with a generous helping of your average ecchi harem SOL romantic comedy and a dash of Evangelion thrown into the mix. Does it work? Not exactly. Code Geass is one of those shows that brings a lot of good stuff to the table but fucks it up in so many ways once the script comes into question. There are more plot holes here than there are potholes on the Grand Central Parkway, and whether or not that's hyperbole is entirely up for you to ... decide. Despite all of this, I'd like to make it perfectly clear that I actually DO happen to like and enjoy both seasons of Code Geass to the point where I would actually go out of my way to have both seasons on DVD or Blu-ray (provided that Funimation actually gives it a release any time soon >_>). With that said, my enjoyment can only go so far.

Let's just start off with what REALLY gets my goat with this show because there's a lot of that stuff that just doesn't sit right with me one way or another. First up, there's the character designs. Believe it or not, the character designs were the very reason why I never bothered watching Code Geass when it was on [adult swim] way back in 2008/2009. Whilst I do happen to like CLAMP's mangas (i.e. X/1999, Chobits), it's their artwork that just doesn't sit right with me. Why am I mentioning this? Well... CLAMP was contracted to do the original character designs for Code Geass and nothing more. I don't know about you, but I'm not too fond of lanky pretty boys with long arms and big eyes, girls with small waists and melons that realistically should make them collapse under their weight, etc. I'm more of a fan of Naoki Urasawa or Inio Asano's artwork than I am CLAMP's from a character design standpoint. Thankfully, not every character on the show is drawn like such (i.e. Charles zi Britannia), but our boys Lelouch and Suzaku are and we see more of them than we see Charles so... yeah. Why can't we have humans that look like regular humans? I don't fucking know, but it is what it is.

That brings me to another problem I have: fan service. As much as I love my lascivious animated women, the fan service in Code Geass got to a point where I was wondering if I was watching Rosario Vampire again. Any time that there was a serious moment going on where shit was about to go down, in pops Shirley changing into her swimsuit or a shot of Kallen's ass, or Kallen entering a conference room in a bath towel because she wanted to yell at Lelouch, or some other bullshit like that. Yeah... I'm not a huge fan of the girls in this show barring C.C., Cornelia, Euphemia, and a couple of others if only because of the fact that virtually every girl in this show is no better than a fan service character. Would you believe me if I told you the fan service got to a point where there was an out-of-place masturbation scene? Well, there is. When did this show turn into End of Evangelion? I don't know, but that's another story.

Going off on a tangent, another problem that Code Geass has is the fact that it just loves to jump between all that plot-heavy rebellion stuff with light-hearted slice-of-life school stuff and let's just say that in between the fan service and this crap, I had a hard time deciding which was a bigger buzzkill. As stupid as the actual plot of the show got at some points, it certainly managed to keep me engrossed until the episode ends, I load up the next episode, and I see Suzaku and Lelouch chasing a cat for 20 minutes. I'm not even joking, that was actually the plot for an entire episode. You know, it's moments like these that make me see why the uber elitists here on MAL tout Legend of the Galactic Heroes as a superior alternative to Code Geass. At least that show managed to maintain a consistent tone throughout the entire narrative. Of course, there are a lot of reasons why LOGH isn't high on my priority list, but let's not get into that.

On the subject of writing, Code Geass has some of the most glaring plot holes that I've ever come across. It took me a while to actually pick up on them since I was too caught up in my own enjoyment to actually bother analysing the show crtically but when you actually use your critical faculties whilst watching this show, you start seeing more and more stuff to use as snark bait. For example, Lelouch's "Geass" power is so unbelievably broken (broken as in "overpowered," mind you). He can only issue a command once to any individual, but that command is absolute. Basically, Lelouch has the ability to turn anyone into his slave if he so chooses. Sure, there are some arbitrary rules thrown into the mix as a half-hearted attempt to balance out his powers but really... you have to wonder why Lelouch didn't just order a whole bunch of people to be his slaves until he did something else.

On the subject of Geass, the way it's handled is just so bizarre. Geass is supposed to be absolute, but shit like sheer willpower and even a kiss from a sexy green-haired chick can override its influence on you depending on what the episode demands (that last one is not a joke; that's how the R2 actually gets going). At one point in R2, there's a "Geass Canceller" introduced but it's only given to a character who seems to suffer from a severe case of multiple personality disorder and he only bothers using it whenever he wants to. Now, Geass users are prone to having their powers go rogue and this actually does happen to Lelouch at some point. However, this plot point was quickly dealt with and we never hear from it again. Even if you factor in all the other Geass users, the entire conflict surrounding Code Geass feels meaningless at some points. The entire show could've been condensed to 12-15 episodes had Lelouch actually made better use of his powers and there was less bullshit along the way. Alack, that's another story of what could've been.

Speaking of Lelouch, the characters here in Code Geass are so variable in terms of quality. Motivations change at the drop of a hat, characters that were once likeable become complete assholes, and even at that point, the writing behind the bulk of these characters just isn't good most of the time. Let's just say this: Lelouch may very well be a genius, but the anime certainly doesn't do a good job of showing any sort of actual intelligence on his part. In fact, Lelouch may very well be the predecessor of Kirito when it comes down to how perfect he apparently is (right down to the harem of girls waiting to drop their panties and bend over; thankfully, Lelouch has no time for these hoes).

The only indicator we actually have for him being a genius is the fact that he's a chess master and that he somehow has the gift of clairvoyance. Any time some major shit's about to go down, he's able to predict certain events with such a remarkable degree of accuracy to the point where you gotta wonder if Charles and Marianne had Lelouch while a voodoo witch doctor was delivering him. Now, despite his genius status and how he's able to weasel himself out of almost any situation, the guys at Sunrise decided to not make him 100% perfect. He gets cocky and because of this, he makes some REALLY stupid decisions over the course of the show. He ALWAYS ends up letting his emotions get the better of him in battle whenever shit doesn't pan out the way he wants to, he kills off potential allies whilst sparing enemies, and he gets caught up in completely unnecessary battles because of his apparent lack of foresight. Seriously, this guy doesn't seem to understand what back-up plans are and the only reason why he ever makes it out in the first place is because of some "ingenuity" on the battlefield.

Now with Lelouch's failings out of the way, let's talk about Suzaku. A lot of people hate him, but I don't. In fact, I'm rather fond of him at some points if only because of his relationship with Lelouch. What I don't particularly like is the fact that Suzaku is apparently trying to change the system from the inside but he ends up becoming a rank-and-file soldier who effectively slaughters his own people despite the fact that he wants to save them. Question: if he really wants to change the system from the inside, why doesn't he become a politician? Okay, maybe there's some kind of Britannian law that prevents Japanese people from getting into politics but the fact still remains that he's so stupid to the point where he fails to realise that he's NOT helping his own people by becoming a person who's contractually obligated to slaughter the Japanese for whatever reason. People rag on him for his idealistic views, but there are a lot of great characters who have idealistic views on whatever (i.e. Kenzo Tenma from Monster) so that alone isn't enough to make him a bad character. If you really want to give him shit, bitch about how he's incapable of realising that he's NOT helping his own cause whatsoever.

The other characters aren't exactly much to speak of either... at least, in a positive manner. For one thing, there's Nina Einstein... and let's just say that I can't wait to read a fan fiction where she dies a mercilessly brutal death. She has to be one of the most irritating and infuriating characters out there, and she's the one who's responsible for that out-of-place masturbation scene. We have Kallen, whose potential is overshadowed by the size of those melons and that ass of hers. We have C.C. who's quite a hilarious snarker but she's not really good for anything except plot conveniences, fan service, and Pizza Hut product placement. We have Nunnally, an irritating paraplegic who has no use outside of being a damsel-in-distress with a brother complex. There's also a pot-pourri of other characters but I'm not about to waste more of our time talking about them.

For all the shit I've said about Code Geass in general, the first season on its own was quite entertaining (provided that you don't think too much and just let your inner filthy casual run wild), and it did manage to do some stuff right. For starters, the dynamic between Lelouch, Suzaku, et al was quite lovely and if anything, it's that very relationship that made the ending to the first season that much more intense. The second season on the other hand takes everything I didn't like about the first season and then dials that shit up to 11. We have MORE unlikeable characters (lookin at you, Rolo!), MORE inconsistent characterisation, and MORE disjointed storytelling with all the plot holes you've come to know and love. Oh, and let's not forget the fan service! You know how much I love seeing Kallen's knockers or that sweet ass of hers.

Honestly, the second season is a HUGE drop in quality compared to the first one. Now despite all of that shit I said before, what I really hated about the second season was just how slow it actually was. Say what you will about the first season, but at least it felt like shit was actually progressing from point A to point B. I'm not even joking when I say that I came close to dropping the second season twice because I was so bloody bored out of my mind. Was there stuff happening? Well, yeah but nothing of consequence actually occurs until the final ~6-7 episodes of the season. As strange as it sounds, the second season actually did get off to something of a decent start and it was obvious as to where it wanted to go with the story but it just took so fucking long for ANYTHING of substance to happen. What happened in the meantime you ask? Mecha battles for the sake of having mecha battles, plot twists that would only make sense to someone who's hogging the blunt for too long, and character interactions that just make you wonder if this really was the same show as the first season.

Amazingly enough though, people seem to give this season a pass purely because of that ending. I'm not gonna lie, Code Geass has one of the most intense and ultimately satisfying conclusions of anything I've ever watched. However, that alone isn't enough to excuse all of the bullshit that went on in this season. Yeah, the second season doesn't have as much slice-of-life bullshit as the first season but R2 made up for that deficiency with all of this bad writing. For starters, characterisation is worse here, and I don't even think Sunrise was trying to hide it anymore. For example, we have Lelouch who HATES Rolo because he's not Nunnally and he intends to use Rolo and then kill him once he's outlived his usefulness. However, Rolo ends up kicking the bucket at some point and then apparently, Lelouch loved him like a brother all along even though there was no such interaction that went down between the two which would imply anything of the sort. Suzaku on the other hand ends up doing a complete 180 on his original characterisation. Remember that idealistic idiot who didn't realise he was killing his own people by being a rank-and-file soldier instead of becoming an idealistic politician trying to change the system from within? Well he was all like "fuck that shit" and only cares about the end result rather than the means used to achieve them. On the one hand, at least he acknowledges that he was being an idiot but on the other hand, that gets rid of the one trait of his I actually liked.

Going back to the plot twists, they just really got stupid after a while. I mean, the first season was flawed to high heaven but the plot twists still managed to get me on the edge of my seat until the mood was killed by Bulma, wait I mean Kallen. For example, we find out that Marianne (Lelouch's mother) didn't really die but she was alive all along. Right before she was about to die, she somehow developed a Geass that allowed her to transfer her soul into another body. I'm not making a single word of that up. Can you smell the contrivance anywhere in this whatsoever? Let's not forget how Charles apparently sent Lelouch and Nunnally so that they'd be safe or some bullshit like that (even fans of Code Geass can see the plot holes in this one) or how despite being a racist and cold-hearted jackass for 90% of the show's run, Charles was actually a good guy the entire time. Yeah, I don't buy a single lick of any of this. Oh, and that's not even getting into how Lelouch could apparently control GOD of all things with the sheer power of his own Geass.

Yeah, this show is amazing, right? It's so brilliantly written, so gripping and enthralling and it's a master of manipulating your emotions whilst keeping you on the edge of your seat for more! The characters are the best of their kind, and I wait for the day when common literature could even hope to push out characters as brilliant as Lelouch, Suzaku, and Rolo. Oh God, I couldn't type any of of that with a straight face. From a critical standpoint, Code Geass is BAD. There's no two ways around it, it's a bad series in general. This show really knows how to keep it real, real stupid that is. You know what though? All of this stuff combined isn't enough to dampen my enjoyment whatsoever. I mean, for all that Code Geass got wrong, it must've done *something* right along the way. How else could it have gotten so popular in the first place? A lot of the reasons why I enjoy this show are superficial in the first place. The mecha battles were enthralling (by my standards, anyway), Lelouch's hammy behaviour kept my eyes glued to the screen, and the dubbing across both the English and Japanese tracks was absolutely spectacular.

Make no mistake: if you try to take this show seriously, you *will* hate it. The biggest reason why so many people adore Code Geass in the first place is because of the so-called "rule of cool." Code Geass is one of those shows that just oozes awesomeness (well, by my standards anyway) and at some points, it had me cheering on all of the senseless stupidity just like I do whenever I'm watching Gurren Lagann (yeah, it really does get THAT dumb at some points). Code Geass is the functional equivalent of a Michael Bay movie in anime, except it actually gets some more stuff right that Michael Bay would otherwise get wrong. For one thing, it's actually entertaining to watch for a good ~65% of its run as opposed to the gut-wrenchingly appalling pacing that usually makes his movies painful to watch after the first hour (I'm looking at you, Age of Extinction!). Hell, even if you don't find this show cool in the slightest, you'd definitely have a fun time snarking at how stupid it gets. It would be hard NOT to find a reason to enjoy this programme to some marginal degree.

Now where does this leave Code Geass? Well, I'm painfully aware of its shortcomings but that doesn't stop me from enjoying it. For what it's worth, Code Geass isn't a show that's average in the slightest. If it can evoke all kinds of of reactions out of people, it would only make sense for anyone to give this show a shot and see what they'd get out of it. Besides, it's good popcorn material if you're in the mood for something stupid that you can watch with friends while eating pizza. I mean, the uber elitists and hipsters here on MAL would beg to differ but this show ISN'T the worst thing to come out of humanity. That, my friends would be Kodomo no Jikan but that's another review for a different day. Anyway, that's all for now. Feedback is always welcome and with that, I'm out. Peace :)

There are 95 existing reviews for this over-hyped anime so I don't really expect this review to be long lived and I'm quite happy that it will vanish into nothingness in 24 hours at the most.

I just need to vent some opinions I have about this anime. Did I mention it is over-hyped? Even for fanboys of this anime it must be over-hyped. With a fairly good story it tries to become a mecha version of Death Note and I suppose it succeeds to some extent, but not in a very intriguing manner really. The story has many twists and turns and it is quite ... entertaining at times, but the story can't save this anime from its characters.

Every single character of this anime is bad, not even Lelouch is any good most of the time. Mostly because he's so overplayed. However Lelouch is nothing compared to Kurkrurururugi Suzaku. I was on the verge of dropping this anime at each and ever episode, even while watching the very last episode, because of Kurukgukgururui Suzaku, he was not fabulous to say the least. Apart from these two characters the rest of them were no catches either, I don't really feel like going through a list of bad characters so I'm just going to generalize and say they were the usual generic stereotypical blobs on screen fresh from the "generic steretypical anime character factory" that they copy and paste into their storyboard.

Did you notice the CLAMP influences? Of course you did, I don't have anything against CLAMP, they've done XXXholic, but really? CLAMP in a shounen? No.

In conclusion this animes screenplay is an abomination, which leaves character interaction between the incredibly boring characters wanting in such a terrible manner that it drags this entire anime down.

Code Geass. I don't really know what to say about it. On one side, It has a great story and Art. On the other side, nearly every character is a stereotype and not memorable at all. My biggest problem with Code Geass though, is the way it feels like 3 genres of animé thrown into a blender. Sometimes it's Action/Adventure and stuck to the plot, at other times It goes school comedy and harem. I would not really mind it, though it feels that only 40% of the episodes stick to the plot, and that's sure to annoy you. In fact, when I finished it, ... first thing that came to mind was how mediocre it was. I don't know why people keep comparing this mecha-wreck it to Death Note. I clearly recommend you pass on this

Code Geass:Lelouch of the Rebellion portrays an intelligent young man's stuggle against the ruthless and discriminating government in an alternate history. Coupled with supernatural aspects and usage of advanced technology, it looks like this anime will take you in for a good ride.
Unfortunately, from my point of view, it ended up to be a complete drag filled with fanservice, ridiculous plot lines and shallow, underdeveloped characters. And don't forget the completely irrelevant mecha which was added just for the sake of adding it.


Story: A boy receives supernatural powers which have the potential of making him omnipotent. He also has a defined goal: creating a ... peaceful world for his sister. He is also supposed to be the master strategist...however, instead of using his Geass he goes on and starts the mecha war for no particular reason. With the power given to him he could've just waltzed into the government building and crowned himself as the new leader. End of story. No, the master strategist insisted on cool mecha wars. That is the main problem in the story: the mysterious power completely loses its meaning in the context of events portrayed. The whole thing could've rotated around the rebellion without any kind of magic powers and you wouldn't even notice. It's like they casted it out of the series and only used it in order to create ridiculous plot twists (Euphie's story) which ended up to be laughable. Filled with useless tidbits, plot holes,cliches, ridiculous plot twists the story gets a 4/10.


Art: While smooth, it had a fair share of still shot-camera pans, closeups and sometimes the anatomy of characters would get so ridiculous it puts slenderman to shame. I don't think any of this is justifiable with "style". 6/10


Sound: Average as it gets. The bg music was unremarkable but it did serve its purpose. 5/10



Characters: Flat and unlively, poorly written and completely one-dimensional.I don't even feel like going into details there. The cast was pretty big, yet none of them actually stood out. 4/10


Enjoyment: I really tried to enjoy the series, unfortunately, the obvious flaws stood out way too much. I failed to find it entertaining. 4/10



Overall: Average. If you're able to get past the flaws and just enjoy it for the animation, character design and action, then you might enjoy this show. If you're looking for a rich and interesting plot with lively, loveable characters, steer clear. 5/10

It's been a while since I watched this, but I felt like I should weigh in against the mountain of praise.

Code Geass is an exercise in wasted potential. The basic idea of the show could have been interesting with the right handling, but not like this.

I never sat through more than a couple of episodes at a time. I was constantly annoyed by the fact that the show expects viewers to accept whatever Lelouch does as brilliant, instead of thinking for themselves. In particular, there is one part that had me thinking "Why is he doing this? ... He has access to military hardware and personel. He has a thousand easy ways to solve this problem without being anywhere near it. This is positively moronic." If he was a chess player, he'd be the kind that plays only with his queen, and that can only go so far. If he was really that brilliant he'd make masterful use of all his pieces instead.

What's more, the overall feel of the show is really not that different from every other show made for teenage audience. Maybe I've tried a few thousand more titles than the people who like this thing, but seriously, it's the usual circus. "Look how (insert hyperbole here) this is!" all day long. It takes more than that to hold my interest.

I was quite excited Code Geass, which was strange as I'm not usually interested in the sort of "Giant Robot" genre. And I'm certainly no fan of Clamp's designs/art either. I watched, regardless, as there had been a lot of hype surrounding it, and I was quite interested in it based on what I had seen.

Code Geass is a series which left me confused about ow I should feel towards it. On one hand I had just viewed a wonderfully animated, well developed story with nice character designs and some plot twists which drew me in intensely. On the other, I had just viewed an ... anime with grossly styled art, fairly typical character personalities, and an abundance of scenes that tried to hard to shock, and succeeded - for all the wrong reasons.

I'm not sure what else to say. But I feel Code Geass is an anime you'll either love or hate, it's probably best to give it a go and make your mind up yourself, but I seriously warn anyone who has heard all the hype - it's not THAT good.

This review covers both the first and the second season of Code Geass. Code Geass is one of the most enjoyable anime I've ever seen. It's addictive, has awesome mecha fights, great music and an interesting main character. But it's also one of the most overrated anime ever created.

"What! Code Geass, overrated? Blasphemy! How dare you to insult one of the most popular and amazing anime this way, you just didn't understand this masterpiece!"

Well, Code Geass is not a masterpiece, the first season was pretty good, but the second season was just retarded. Why?

~Story~ 4/10
Our main character Lelouch is an exiled Britannian prince, ... who wants to avenge his dead mother and disabled sister. And (of course) the evil Britannian empire occupied Japan (again) and (of course) our hero joins with the brave rebels who want to free poor Japan (again). In exactly how many anime is Japan occupied by a foreign nation? It's not even funny anymore, do Japanese people have some kind of victim-syndrome?
But okay, our hero accidentally meets C.C. a pretty, mysterious girl who gives him superpowers, Geass. Now, Lelouch has to ability to control the will of everyone he sees, of course there are some limitations but Geass is extremely strong. This raises the question: Why did it take Lelouch so many episodes to achieve his goals? He did some things in the least effective way possible so the viewer could see more mecha fights and bombastic speeches, this is fun but it just doesn't make sense. Another problem with the story is that it doesn't really knows if it wants to be a high-school comedy or a serious and dramatic mecha anime with politics. You can't mix these two ideas and expect them to work, it is really weird that the viewers are supposed to care about stupid high-school drama after they have seen wars in which a lot of people died. Well, we see our protagonist in high-school and he teams up with the rebels and he tries to free Japan while having fun with the school council. The story progresses, apparently everyone in his school is either a rebel or part of the military and Lelouche wins every fight because of his "brilliant" strategies or Geass. There is a lot of melodrama, Lelouche has a harem, there is fanservice and he wins more battles, that's pretty much the first season. Then comes the second season, which is rated higher then the first, WHY? There were a few plot holes during the first season but during the second season there were plot holes everywhere. There were even more stupid comedic filler episodes and "awesome" new characters no one cared about (Rollo). Oh and almost every character aside from Lelouch and Suzaku became useless and added nothing to the plot, because of this there was almost no character development. And a lot of people have Geass-power because... Actually, I don't really know why. And Geass is now an explanation for everything. How did Lelouch win this fight against a stronger army? Geass. Why was his mother alive out of nowhere in a random supernatural Geass-world? Geass. A serious problem? Lelouch will Geass ex machina himself out of it. Also the fact that C.C. turned into a fanservice object because of amnesia is not okay. And then the ending, the greatest anime ending ever made! Haha no, the ending didn't make sense, Lelouch is not a hero, his behavior was out of character and this is not how world peace or politics works. But it's sad and there are feels, so everyone loved it *sigh*.
[CONCLUSION]
The first season was decent, but the second season was a train wreck. At first Lelouch used Geass, but the power of Geass was limited and he tried to use cool strategies (though a bit stupid at times), but after a while every battle is won because of Geass and plot convience. And I'm not going to talk about the ridiculous amount of plot holes or the dead mother of Lelouch who appears in some kind of supernatural Geass-world for no good reason. Also the combination of high-school comedy and dramatic war scenes did not work, the same goes for Lelouche's bombastic speeches and hand gestures. And there are more explosions then in a Michael Bay movie, why? Because it looks cool and it's fun. That's exactly the problem with this anime, they try desperately to make everything look cool and fun while the plot is a mess.

~Art~ 6/10
I'm not a fan of this art style, CLAMP's character designs look ridiculous. Every girl has big boobs and every guy looks like a bishie. Also it was too colorful during the more dramatic and the darker parts of the story. And the facial expressions are a bit over-the-top at times, I don't think that the makers were trying to make me laugh when the characters were sad or angry, but their facial expressions were so stupid now and then. Though I have to admit, the animation was original and the battles looked very nice.
[CONCLUSION]
I hated the character designs, but that is something personal. It was a little bit too colorful and Lelouch looked like a clown when he was sad or angry. Still, I think that the animation was pretty good.

~Music~ 8/10
The opening were all in between average and good, they were not extremely special, but they were fitting. I really liked 'COLORS' by FLOW, but it wasn't very original. The same thing goes for the ending songs. The background music was very good but a little bit too bombastic at times. There was nothing wrong with the (Japanese) voice acting, actually it was very good.
[CONCLUSION]
The music was great, the opening and ending song were fitting and there wasn't one bad opening or ending song. Also, the background music and the voice acting were very good.

~Characters~ 3/10
Lelouch is an interesting character, everyone else isn't. Literally no one aside from Lelouch is interesting, let alone well-written. Suzaku is just an annoying, hypocritical whiner, Nunnaly is the useless, cute little sister in a wheelchair, C.C went from a powerful mysterious women to a fanservice object with amnesia, Shirley was just fanservice combined with forced drama and she kept screaming 'Lulu' at Lelouch in the most annoying way possible, Charles Vi Britannia is a stereotypical cartoon villain, Kallen was just part of Lelouche's stupid harem, what was actually the purpose of Rollo aside from annoying the viewers? Euphemia was a bland cute and nice girl and some girls were just in there for fanservice. I almost believed that Nina was the most interesting character of the whole supporting cast.... ok never mind, I take that back, poor table *shiver*.
But even the best character of this show, Lelouch, is not that good. His motivations and behavior keeps changing when the plot needs them to change. And everyone thinks that Lelouch is a genius, why actually? Because he plays chess or comes up with farfetched strategies that magically work? Lelouch is a perfect, pretty boy who is supposed to be smart and has a harem, when I think about it, he reminds me of Kirito from Sword Art Online.... ok, I also take that back, he's a better character than Kirito (not like that's saying much), but still he is not a brilliantly written character like his enormous fan base claims. His character development is inconsistent and the fact that during the final episode he stops behaving like an enormous jerk, doesn't turn him into a hero, this jerk started a war that killed millions of humans for the sake of his stupid revenge and his stupid sister. He's either an anti-hero or just a villain, so please stop with the "All hail Lelouch, he's the savior of mankind"-crap.
[CONCLUSION]
The characters were so damn bland. Most of them were annoying or useless, some of them were quite decent during the first season, but during the second season everyone aside from Lelouch and Suzaku turned into furniture, they just were there without contributing anything to the plot. We also got a bunch of new characters during the second season where no one asked for (yes Rollo, I'm talking about you). But the worst thing was what they did with C.C. She lost her memories and went from a supernatural and powerful women to dumb little girl who was constantly half-naked for the sake of fanservice, this annoyed the heck out of me. Good job writers, good job!

~Enjoyment~ 9/10
Bombastic speeches with over-the-top arm gestures and dramatic background music, epic mecha battles, a lot of explosions and an awesome though ridiculous ending: this show is extremely enjoyable. I was entertained from the first till the last episode, yes this show had a lot of problems but it was never boring. I can understand why people like this show so much, it's plain fun!
[CONCLUSION]
An enjoyable show with a lot of problems, if you love Michael Bay movies, you'll also love Code Geass. If you just want to have fun and turn your brain off, then go watch this show. But if you prefer well-written characters, consistent story lines and if you hate plot holes and characters that are nothing more than plot devices or fanservice, go watch something else, you'll wast your time on Code Geass. Peace!

*MINOR SPOILERS WITHIN*

I'm not really sure why Code Geass is so positively rated. There are definitely some good parts, however the show has so many pitfalls that they completely cancel out any good qualities. The first thing that I really didn't like about it was the plot structure. Many people compare this show to Death Note, and side by side, Code Geass absolutely pales in comparison. On average each individual episode did very little to forward Lelouch's goal of taking down the Brittanian Empire. The majority of the episodes felt either like filler, or they would follow a predictable formula like this: Lelouch plans something ... sneaky, he totally destroys the empire's forces, then right as they are about to win Suzeku rolls in and undoes absolutely everything. Seriously, this happens over and over for the entire first season. Then in the middle of the season Mao shows up, with absolutely no explanation and starts causing Lelouch to do an even more pitiful job then he is already doing of forwarding the rebellion. The season finale was absolute rubbish as well. It did nothing at all to conclude the plot of the first season and left such an inordinate number of cliffhangers that it just felt like a cheap gimmick to trick you into watching the second season. After the first four or five episodes out of twenty five in R1, it felt like nothing significant to the plot really happened at all besides minor character development.

Besides the plot, I really hated the fan-service in this anime as well. Any show that has to rely on huge boobs or pantie shots to garner the attention of the audience is not one worth watching. There were two nude scenes with Kallen, one where Euphemia takes off her clothes for literally no reason, and a scene where Nina is straight up masturbating to pictures of Euphemia. All these scenes did very little if anything to add to the plot, and in some cases detracted from it.

Code Geass does have very good action and does a great job of creating suspense. I admit that when I watched this show it had me hooked for the first season. In retrospect however, there are just so many problems with what could have been an absolutely amazing anime that it completely counters everything that this show does well.

*** I tried to be vague, but when talking about characters below I gave a small spoiler from the first couple episodes relating to one of the characters. Skip Suzaku's paragraph if you don't want a slight spoiler ***

This is an anti-hero tale. It's based in a world where a militaristic society has taken over most of the world, and it oppresses those that it conquers. The emperor has a strong conquers the weak mentality, and his beliefs are pretty extreme. A hidden and disgraced prince is the main character of this story. He starts out as a good guy, and though his ultimate goal ... is for the greater good (long term) he does a lot of morally questionable things to reach his goals. The power he obtains in the beginning (his geass) is said to isolate him from everyone in the end, and it's easy to see how that will happen as the story unfolds.

I'll start with the two main characters, since they are the key characters in this story. They were friends as children. One is a prince in hiding, and the other is the former leader of Japan's son.

Lelouch and Suzaku are supposed to be two sides of the same coin. However, they're not so dissimilar that I agree with that. They both are incredibly selfishly driven, but they simply end up on opposing sides even though their ultimate goal is the same. One is the brains, and the other is the brawn. Truthfully it is silly how Suzaku keeps getting in the way, and it's almost an unbelievable fact but not in a good way since the mech fighting scenes are not practical.

Lelouch is very intelligent and the storytelling never contradicts his intellect. He only loses when the completely unexpected happens which is basically when others act completely out of character. The irony is that happens more often than it should. He definitely does some morally questionable things throughout the story, but when you get to see the opposition it becomes difficult to disagree with his ideals. One element never changes, and that is Lelouch has a master plan and a goal that he will do anything to attain. Nobody else even has an idea of what that is, or that they are merely pieces on a chessboard.

Suzaku's ideals are supposed to be for the greater good in that he doesn't want innocent people to be harmed by a rebellion. He thinks that following the rules is the just and righteous path. The sad truth is that he's a soldier for an army that constantly murders innocent civilians and persecutes them. In the very beginning he is almost murdered by a superior and then framed and nearly executed. We're talking first couple episodes folks. Even knowing this he thinks it's wrong to go against the system. His selfish need for atonement drives his ideals, and though he's supposed to be the one attempting to follow a more righteous path, he is on just as destructive a path as Lelouch. The difference between the two is that Lelouch knows his path is one of destruction, and he knows the pains he will have to suffer to accomplish his goals. Suzaku represents hypocrisy at it's finest. I really started to dislike his character as time went on.

Then there's the story. If you summarize it, then it sounds like an incredible series. Unfortunately, the delivery is completely flawed in so many ways. There are scenes that are crammed with dialogue and void of all dramatic emotion, and then you have long and uneventful scenes void of all emotion as well. The action scenes that are in the series are mediocre at best, and really not believable in how they transpire. The animation was ok, the supporting characters were just ok, but the overall story was very good. It was fast when it should have been slow and slow when it should have been fast, so the pacing really killed it. Frankly, I was incredibly disappointed. Oh, and if you are wondering about the music, then don't wonder. It's not a big help to the story at all. Thankfully there is a second season to follow, but do not expect a well presented first season, and don't expect to be wowed in any kind of way.

There are plenty of twists and turns. There are lots of betrayals, but the delivery itself is sort of a betrayal when you look at the potential of this series. I wanted to love it, but I just sort of liked it.

When I first watched Code Geass, I immediately thought of a Death Note/Gundam SEED mixture, one of which I loved and one of which I absolutely hated.

Code Geass might have been good if the characters weren't archetypes of every other anime character there is. Sure, people go insane over Lelouch, but he's an over rated character, and simply isn't as awesome as Light.

In fact, he's a pathetic wimp, and is not very intelligent at all. He's the only real character that the anime goes into depth about, but then again that isn't saying much, because the story simply lacks ... character analysis.

The plot was intriguing. The use of ridiculous plot twists gets over done pretty quickly. Plot twists are good, as long as they're believable and not dim-witted to an extreme. There's no aspect of "mystery" and "I want to watch more of this" anywhere in the show, unlike Evangelion or Death Note.

Even though Evangelion was a character-based show, at least the concept of Angels and Nerv kept the watcher interested enough to keep viewing. However, in Code Geass, there wasn't anything that made me want to keep on watching it, besides Lelouch's shitty past.

All of the characters are all stereotypes, and never is the told anything interesting about them before they all die. There were way too many characters in this story, first of all. Also, unlike Light, Lelouch is a pathetic attempt at an anti-hero.

I know I compare a lot of this to Death Note, because the anime takes much of the aspects of Death Note and makes them a lot worse.

I watched this because of all the rave reviews. My expectations were high, and I was unfortunately disappointed. I stopped after 20 episodes, because I just couldn't get myself to waste any more time on something I didn't love, not even to see the epic cliff hanger ending that had been enough to keep me going this far.

My favorite animes include Gintama and the Full Metal Panic series (all 3 seasons), so you have an idea of the type of things I like-- action, comedy, etc. In fact, because I loved the FMPs so much, I thought for sure I'd like Code ... Geass since they both are a mix of big genres like mecha, school, drama, war, etc. Due to their similarity, I'm going to do my review on CG in comparison to FMP.

Story-- I do like that CG involved strategery and mind games, but the whole Britannia world domination thing seemed quite propaganda-ish. Also, while there were good plot twists here and there, the over arching conflict seemed really lame and mostly just a manifestation of teenage angst. I also felt like it took itself too seriously at times and was overly dramatic... and did not do a good job of comic relief. FMP also dealt with war and was dark at points, but the comic relief was executed perfectly.

Art-- The mecha designs were pretty flashy and the animation quality was great. I'm not a fan of the anorexic CLAMP character design, but that's a personal preference rather than a flaw of production.

Sound-- The theme songs were average anime music. The sound effects were pretty good. Even though the tone and attitude of his voice was appropriate, I didn't think the maturity of the (Japanese) voice actor matched Lelouch's young 17 year old character.

Character-- This was my biggest problem with this show... the characters whom I could care less about. FMP drastically outshined CG in character quality and development. Lelouch just needs to take some anger management classes; I have to say, though, that his egotism is so extreme that it is almost funny. Suzaku just needs to see a shrink about his father issues. Angst, angst, angst. No real depth, no real relationships. None of the romantic connections are believable nor do I sense any ounce of true chemistry. Most of the girls just seem to be there for fan service or to fill a token plot role. While characters like Chidori and Sousuke from FMP feel so alive, three dimensional and multi-faceted, all of the characters in CG feel flat and dull like props. It's hard to like a show when I don't feel moved by the characters.

Enjoyment-- Obviously I didn't enjoy Code Geass from the characters, relationships or story point-of-view, but I did enjoy the flashy mecha fights and strategery.

Conclusion: Given that so many people love this show, I would still recommend that you watch it and try it out for yourself. But know that you aren't alone if you don't think this is as much of a masterpiece as everyone declares ;).

The only reason to like code Geass is you have not seen Gundam Seed, or are a little slow to realize everything that was stolen from the series. Yes all anime rip off each other, specially mecha/space operas, but this was a little much.

Also the mech types are a hybrid of classic 80's mechas and Capped mechas with spears like from Escaflowne (also recomended over this), with a couple special units looking like Evangelion with swords.

The anime ends up being half decent, like a show to watch if you really cant find anything else. But you prolly need to expand your ... horizons a little bit if you find this to be one of your favorite anime.

Anyway, nothing special here.

[SPOILER WARNING]

First off, this anime ends horribly. People talk about anime suddenly ending with no resolution. Sometimes they overreact – Deadman Wonderland and Attack on Titan end an arc but keep the big story unfinished. It’s frustrating, since the arcs are integral to a bigger story and don’t stand on their own. Code Geass, however, simply ends. Worse, it ends on a cliffhanger. I know there’s a second season, but you don’t separate seasons (Or episodes, or books) for the sake of it. You separate them because they’re different stories. This one’s unfinished and this is a huge blow.

More news at 11.

At first, it’s tempting ... to view the anime as exploration of Japan under Western influence. World War II wasn’t so long ago, and we all heard about how the Japanese are poor victims. This story is false, and bones have a way of digging themselves out. Japan was an aggressor in WWII and responsible for some true horrors. So seeing a story in which they are oppressed can be bizarre – you have to wonder whether in the world of Code Geass they found the bones in Shinjiku. The big Western oppressor this time is the UK, whose main contribution to the world after WWII was Big Beat and Dubstep.

It’s not about politics. The Geass is a physical manifestation of power. The creators wisely chose to never talk about how it actually works. There’s no D&D-esque magic system behind it, only a few limits to help us understand power better. A Geass is limited, because power comes in different forms. A Geass can also be used once, but can consume you.

Power doesn’t just come in isolation. Something drives power. The user wants to achieve something with that power. We hear about how some people just want to feel powerful, but why do they want to feel powerful? Powerful is ability and security. Power cannot be an end. If it is an end, it is only because power is the means to get many ends. Power never stands alone.

Here’s your main problem with the anime. Power here stands alone. Excluding Euphie, the story is an ordinary one about oppressed people rising against their overseers, but so what? What does the British empire stand for? What do the Japanese stand for? You cannot just kill the tyrant but have to replace it with something. A person once said that anarchy is a ‘tyranny of people with guns’. Since humans are pack animals, leaders come by naturally and can be good for us. Leaders work differently, though even when they seem similar. Both the Nazis and the Japanese did unethical human experiments, but for different ends.

The series is soaked by the theme of power. The position of every character is established quickly, and is an important part of everyone’s lives. Notice how Rivalz is obviously inferior to Lelouch, how no woman swoon over him and he’s mostly just there. During high school scenes, we follow the most powerful people – the student council whose head is the daughter of the principle. Lelouch is a person who lost his position of power and that’s the same story for Jeremiah. Cornelia’s and Euphemia’s relationship isn’t just about protecting the little sister – one is clearly more powerful than the other.

It’s a fantastic stage to test what drives power and they squash it. The two sides fighting stand for nothing. Many stories use the typical Hitler-esque tyrant, which is cliched but at least something. Here, the British Empire only protect its own existence without ever answering why it exists in the first place. The Japanese want to free themselves, but they only free themselves into a vague ‘equality’ thing.

Then again, it’s not a story of simple evil vs. simple good. Many scenes show us the Britinnians, their lives and how they’re actual human beings. The inclusion of school life comedy is brilliant. It shows us there are people behind the oppressors who might be used to their lives of privilege, but they’re still people. When everything falls apart, there’s no sadism but empathy towards the upper class.

If the creators can write vibrant scenes about everyday life, why can’t they imbue their characters with motives and ideologies? Relationships with the same structure work differently. Both Lelouch and Cornelia protect their little sisters, but Lelouch is the soft warm protector whereas Cornelia is the condescending one. A small character arc involving Jeremiah – a clear villain and an asshole – shows us the pain of falling from a position of power. Even while the series sides with Lelouch, it doesn’t shy away from how his power can hurt his enemies.

The ‘Grand Purpose’ is integral to any piece of art. Everything connects to it, and it makes the flaws more understandable. Without the grand purpose, there is nothing to review. Even shows whose only purpose is to show big boobs have this purpose. Often, average shows swing between two such purpose and commit. Code Geass doesn’t even swing between purposes but simply doesn’t have one. It goes through the motions, provides good storytelling that leads nowhere.

Credit must go to the designers. The series sports one of the best character design I’ve seen. As pure beauty few anime match it. In fact, the characters are so beautiful that it feels like a plot point. Everyone radiates sex appeal, but somehow no one has sex with anyone. The overly-slender bodies do contrast with this. They’re not just thin but long, but every face is plastic-surgery perfect. Every stare is full of confidence with sensual lips. Even the voice-actors give a sexual smugness to it all. CC and Milly always sound teasing, like they’re just about to invite you to their rooms. It’s nice, but sometimes bizarre.

It’s also fairly expressive. Notice the contrast in design between Lelouch and Suzaku. Suzaku has a softer, cuter look with the curly hair. Lelouch has sharp eyes, black hair that falls in spikes. These designs amplifies their personalities. Rivalz is being stuck with a goofy blue hairdo. The decision to give characters similar but different hair colors is meaningful. Euphy’s pink is brighter than Cornelia’s purple, just like their personality.

The gigantic robots don’t fare so well. The action scenes are a constant thorn in the anime. Although there are emotional moments in those scenes, they take the chess game technique to the extreme. They become more about Lelouch’s genius rather than the characters. Imagine JoJo but with giant robots. JoJo was nice, but its storytelling was built for shallow stories driven by excitement. Here, the storytelling always aims for something deeper. If the robots had a cool look to them, then fine. The designers went full lazy and just had gigantic hulks of metal with arms and legs. None of the imagination that fuels the character design (A character who appears for a barely a minute looks better than most anime characters) reaches them.

Contrast this anime with Future Diary. It’s another overly ambitious anime with so much going on it couldn’t flesh it all out. When Future Diary tackles an idea, it does so with full conviction. It may need more length, but when it’s about comedy it’s all about comedy. When it’s horror, it’s all horror. More importantly, Future Diary wasn’t about build-up but about arcs. Each arc had its own style. All of the elements in Geass aren’t spread evenly but crammed together into one gigantic arc that builds up to a huge climax. There is very little resolution in this anime. Some may enjoy the cliffhangers, the ‘what’ll happen next?’ but that’s boring. The most exciting anime are those that are exciting because what’s happening, in the present tense. They’ll keep you coming back.

Code Geass fails only because what it set out to do is be the best anime ever. It’s overall a good show with a dynamic story and a wide cast, each with their own point of view. Although it slips often to cheap thriller mode, the characters’ personality dominate it more than conventions. Even if it’s not the best anime ever, most creators can’t even attempt something this ambitious.

3 sexy homosapiens out of 5

*Sees that some people rise their guns towards him* Wow! Hold on! Let me explain why a 6, okay!? ...
*People lowing their guns*

Ok... *clears throat* Code Geass is what you have when a pussy tries to be Light Yagami. *people rise their guns again* Okay, fine! I get it. You guys just love Code Geass!

*Sigh* Even before I started to watch a lot of anime like I do nowadays about a year ago, I knew about Code Geass. It's just one of those great 00's Animes like Death Note (that actually were emitted at the same time), Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann, Samurai Champloo, Full Metal Alchemist, ... Ergo Proxy, Welcome to the NHK, etc. And well... I thinks I was expecting more.

If there's one word that would describe Code Geass for me that would be: Melodramatic. Honestly, I have seen "Telenovelas" less dramatic that this series. I have only watched the first episode of Season 2, but in Season 1 they pretty much forced a lot to feel something, without a proper construction.

One of the things that I expected the most were brilliant plans by Zero, similar to the ones from Kira in Death Note... And well for me that never happens, the only time that I can see a plan similar to Kira is the one to (Spoiler) save her sister Nunnally from Mao. (End Spoiler) And it's just amazing how they ruin everything so fast, I mean, the construction itself by the end-half the season is quite good, and it has some amazing scenes, but oh my god do they ruin every scene in the end at the worst way possible. For example, the fact that (Spoiler) Shirley knows about Zero, the way the arc ended while it was quite good, the way they continued the story was just mediocre. While I can see how the strategy worked for Lelouch at the beginning by convincing everyone, the fact that they never ask a thing to her it's just shockingly stupid. (End Spoiler) Something that I loved from Death Note was that with these types of situations, Light tried his best to get out of them while taking a risk to get more involved in it, a bigger lie to cover a lie and so on, in Code Geass this never happens. Another really good scene is when (Spoiler) Zero kills Euphemia, this scene is actually really good, but by God does the production of it it's stupid, I mean seriously a fucking sentence that he didn't wanted to say and boom, everything fucked up. I cringed and watch the following scene in little jumps because I was ashamed of watching this. In the end, when Zero kills her, he says that she was probably his first love... Are you fucking serious!? We never had a romantic scene between you, not even as kids, I believe Shirley was more your first fu***** first love. (End spoiler). While you can see some decent military tactics, at least 3 times Lelouch is saved by luck *cof* *cof* C.C. *cof* *cof*. Which comes the next point.

There are actually some pretty good characters and construction of them, such as C.C., Mao and Shirley, but they are wasted by the end or how they act in the end and doesn’t let them appreciate them. The episodes where Mao appears are for me the best ones that this series have. But again, the strategies from Lelouch are not quite good, for example (Spoiler) If Mao could read the mind… What happens if you think in another language? Apparently Lelouch is good in English and they’re speaking Japanese, what would have happen? Or any other language. Other thing is in the last game of chess… If everything reduced to the weight of the pieces why not simply put yourself in the balance to deactivate the bomb? Because as far as I know, if he got the balance to be in his favor because of the weight, he would deactivate the bomb, and yes, it might have not work out, but I’m just surprised that this obvious option was never mentioned (End Spoiler). Yet, the romance is relatively good in this series, not anything exceptional but certainly not bad.

I consider an insult (at least in this first season) to compare Lelouch and Light, it’s pretty obvious that in getting information and doing a plan with it, Light is WAY better than Lelouch, otherwise, Lelouch would have known in short time that Suzaku was the pilot of Lancelot.

Anyway, CodeGeass has a relatively good construction, and some great scenes, but these scenes don’t last too much because of the execution that they follow and plot armor Lelouch has. This is why I consider Code Geass to be tolerable, not bad, but certainly not good.

I really hope it gets better in Season 2, and by the scores it appearently is.

Oh boy, what I can say about the beloved Code Geass anime? Well, I can pretty much tell you that I was hoping for something really good, but then I ended up very dissapointed mid-way through the season (this review is for R1 only)

This anime kicked ass when it first started. It had a seemingly good plot with a good character. One that was hell bent on having revenge, going so far as to kill off his own half siblings. Not to mention the cool power of geass. I really wanted to see Lelouch slowly bring Britinia down to its knees and watch him acheive ... his goal throughout the show.

Sadly, the anime turned rotten about halfway through. Idk why, but by the time I was already on episode 15 or so, I realized that this anime went by fast. Too fast. Things just didn't seem right. Infact, the pacing was completely fucked. Things were going by way too fast, one minute we are attacking something and the next we are doing something else with little to no explanation. Plus there was just too much shit going on. We had all these things going on over the series and we only see them bit by bit in each episode or something. The awful pacing and the overload of random crap were the two main downfalls for this series.

Things also began to get really repetitive, half the episodes were the same shit. Black Knights attack, Cornellia fights them, Zero almost acheives his goal, Suzaku shows up, Zero's plans get fucked up, Black Knights retreat to fight another day (and repeat the whole bullshit all over again).

Am I going to watch R2? Maybe, maybe not. The only reason I am considering watching the second season is because of of the HUGE cliffhanger ending, which is tearing at my soul.

This series was overall dissapointing and does not deserve all the 10's it gets on MAL. Seriously? What do people see in this crap? This is defiantly another overrated anime with a LARGE fanbase (which really makes me wonder why so many people give it such HIGH ratings when it has so many flaws).

The beginning of this anime is totally illogical and contradicting. The whole world just all of a sudden decided to invade Japan? I mean come on, what's so good about the country that it's worth invading like that. It's full of people, running out of land, and running out of resources. The anime didn't give any reason whatsoever as to why the Area 7 people were looked down upon so much. On top of that, the invading countries are all developed countries, I thought the world was done with annexing other countries?..

After the beginning of the anime the story line gradually grew better (thank god). ... Much more interesting and has a good futuristic feel to it. However, what the hell happened to the end?!? It ended so suddenly ( I didn't read the manga so I don't know if that's how it ended ) and for any anime to end like that is already a 'D' in my book. A cliff hanger ending is ridiculous.

Code Geass - Hangyaku no Lelouch

I have watched this anime 4 or 5 times in my entire life now and I am still fascinated and enthralled by it. In the field of mecha, it is my favorite and especially the protagonist always manages to convince me.

But what also surprises me again and again, is how much "potential" has been lost here. Code Geass had everything, a successful setting, an antihero protagonist with a decent buildup, characters, abilities, and a goal. But what was made of it? Instead of creating an actual masterpiece, you got a half-finished series here that couldn't even take itself seriously.
You ... often had the feeling that they were gambling to determine the course of the story.

I can hardly say which of the two seasons is better, as they both completely even each other out, but I think season 1 had the upper hand here. And yet the producers managed to make the atmosphere so monotonous and empty. The process of the plot was provoked only by questionable events.
The plans of Lelouch had mostly no strategic background and often the buildup to this was done completely offscreen, making it hard to say how this chain reaction of events was even possible.
Fortunately, Lelouch didn't have a winning streak and lost far more often than he won, this at least gave the series an "uncertainty" as to how things would progress.

[Storyline 5]

The entire basic concept, almost none of it was used. But at least enough to get to the average.

The story revolves around the fact that the great empire of Britania, had completely subjugated Japan and the losers lost their title of "Japan" and were only called Elevens. This resulted in extreme contempt and very strong racism towards the losers, causing them to lose their human rights.

Lelouch, who lost everything in the past because of his father, has decided to use all his plot armor to create a new world for his sister and overthrow his father. On the way to his goal, he had to find allies, raise an army and try not to fail before reaching his goal.
As mentioned before, not much was made of this. It's still worth watching, but all the wasted potential can hardly be ignored.

A war between Britain and Japan was not enough, we have robots here after all. I thought so at the beginning, but then even stronger and even stronger robots were added so that it soon became just ridiculous. It resulted in the fact that the "ability" of the pilots was no longer in the foreground, but how powerful his machine is. Since normal standard models couldn't even harm them and the Special models had massive laser cannons. Thus, the military balance was completely ruined, making the military forces meaningless if one of these robots was present. The only exception was Lelouch, but he really couldn't handle the robots, so it looked like they were all superior in battle.

Even though most of the scenes had no real explanations and most of the events "simply" happened to advance the plot. Just like Lelouch getting his ability. The soldiers NEVER shoot Lelouch before he finishes his poses and gives his order (each soldier prefers to wait to see what the guy is up to while they shoot the others immediately). How Euphy and Kallen got stranded on the island in the first place and quite a bit more. As RPG events this could have been accepted, but not in a series. They had no foundation, it just happened.

Still, the best point in the plot was watching Lelouch achieve his goals and how often he fails, this gave it all a certain charm. Especially the contrast with Suzaku and first and foremost the build-up to Euphemia, which had the best final arc in the entire anime. Among other things, I think this was one of the best endings for a character arc. Even if some things would have to be changed as they felt too forced.

On a note, I found the comedy episodes here to be better than the actual story episodes. This "bizarre" flow helped them, as well as seeing how the characters did.

[Characters 5]

Unexpected but was, apart from the antagonists of which you have not seen much anyway. Is carried this first season only by 3 characters. Lelouch, Suzaku, and Euphemia. The rest were either boring, flat or just supporting cast. Unfortunately, it's a very obvious problem that most of the female characters (especially Kallen) are just pure fan service and have no real character traits whatsoever.
Although most of the characters here are stereotypes, they are not to be underestimated as they have been given significantly more personality, at least the 2 protagonists.

Lelouch, the protagonist of the story and one of the most popular and well-known antiheroes in the entire anime scene. But how did it come to this?
There are simply not many antiheroes and especially few who have as much style and charisma as he does. His charismatic and confident personality and his constant yoyo pose make him stand out in a class of his own. But then there is his personality, his goals, and his problems. Although he always seems more self-confident, he is very easily upset by unexpected events. Likewise, he showed that he is very weak indirect dealings with people he makes and can hardly adapt to changes in situations. He also has strong hypocritical traits, which he later becomes aware of. He always finds excuses for his actions and makes so many mistakes in the course of the story, which turn out to have huge consequences.
But I would love to know why he is such a strategic genius, this is never really made clear.

Suzaku is the typical friend and helper, practically man's best friend. His personality and background are practically a perfect contrast to Lelouch. Which makes the two very well balanced by their complete opposites and yet respect for their friendship. In the course of the plot, he is very often confronted with his past and his will, whether or not he can change Britania from the inside.

As mentioned before, the other secondary characters are very average and have few characteristics worth mentioning. Another problem is that the authors had no idea how to deal with the female characters and instead only show their asses and tits. The rest of their screentime was then divided accordingly. Characters like C.C and Kallen had some background, but that was it.

[Music 7]

The outros are very pleasant and fitting to the work, I find this music direction very nice anyway.

The first intro was also still convincing, the second however visually as well as musically very weak.

The biggest strength here would have been the Osts, which are not overwhelming but give the series various charms. With the smaller character themes like C.C. and Lelouch, as well as those of the British family and the fights.

[Animations 7]

Yes, the character drawing style is relatively bad and you have to get used to it. It's completely disproportionate, but this has nothing to do with the animation.

The mecha fights are very high quality and detailed, especially they improve as the story progresses.

The character animations are variable from scene to scene. Now and then it's normal, and then there are moments when it's best not to pause.

This colorful design both hurt and helped the anime, on one hand, it was visually appealing and fit the style. On the other hand, it created a different atmosphere than the plot needed.

[Conclusion]

Code Geass is one of my favorites among the anime and will remain one of my favorites. But he only just got a 6/10 in the area of quality. This series had various strengths and weaknesses that could have been more than compensated for.


[Enjoymnent 9]

What makes an anime addicting? A cool main character? Giant robots? Half-naked girls?
Code Geass takes all of that and tries to make a killing.

Its premises are not so original. The year's 2017: it's been seven years since the Britannian Empire has conquered Japan, now renamed Area 11, thanks to the overwhelming power of the Knightmare Frames, the show's giant mechs; but the war's not over yet, since terrorists who still call themselves Japanese are trying to retake their country, with no result. At least until our protagonist shows up.

The main story has a unique direction, but the methods it uses to develop itself ... are kinda questionable: bluntly put, it's a sequence of ridiculously convenient plot devices that result in a forced situation more than just a couple of times; every episode ends up in a cliffhanger, and the fact that there's actually no ending means that the Sunrise guys are making sure that you'll come back for season two.

About the characters, the only remarkable ones are the main ones. Lelouch is one likeable fella: smart, authoritative and with a natural flair for melodrama, he's the guy who makes the anime go round. However, you're obliged to accept the fact that he's some sort of genius-strategist, and they (the Sunrise guys) didn't even bother to explain his backgrounds a bit better, although Kallen gets a whole episode to look deeper in her "Japanese side" (and for your information that was IMO the best episode); C.C. is interesting too, but I don't think they've done much with her. She's just 'there', period.
I found almost all of the rest of the cast either dull, irritating, or just too stupid.
Fanservice has been added in massive doses, and a great part of the ladies isn't... left unseen.

Talking about graphics, I must say that I'm not exactly a fan of the character design and style of drawing, while animation's well done.

Then, even if I often had a feeling that robots were there just "because giant robots", the mech battles were neat: robots were like infantry, and battles were fought and won by giving orders with an actual tactical value. Nothing too complicated though, the show makes it sound like a big deal, but it's nice to see something different from an ultimately-customized-robo clash. Which is exactly what you'll get in the second season.

In the end, Code Geass does its job as pure entertainment: it's ambitious, albeit exaggerated, and the fact that it tries not to disappoint every fandom in the universe drags the quality down. Still, I did like it the first time I watched it, but without any doubt it could have been something more than just a pretty average show.