Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Code Geass is an anime that I really *wanted* to enjoy, but no matter how hard I tried, I never really did.

I think the setup of the story had potential to be very good, but the execution never lifted it beyond average. The Geass sounds like a very cool, interesting ability, but I think the story suffered for making it too complicated and overpowered at points.
The show doesn't seem to know what to focus on; taking elements from genres like mech and high school anime, while also drawing heavily from other popular shows of the time, most noticeably (to me): Death Note. Smart young man ... is granted God-like power and tries to use it reshape the world around his own views, with no regard for collateral damage, becoming an anti-hero in the process.
While watching, I found it hard to get past my annoyance that the plot seemed a carbon copy of Death Note (which I adore), however; to look at this objectively, perhaps it's unfair to single out Code Geass for doing this, as you can argue that many popular anime subgenres do this all the time - the setup for many magical girl shows is basically the same, the setup for many long-running shounen shows is basically the same, etc. So I guess if this plot setup appeals to you, and you'd prefer to see it against a backdrop of mech fighters and political shenanigans instead of the gothic-detective setting of Death Note, then there's no reason to let that put you off. I would say though, that I don't think Code Geass pulls off these elements all that well. Instead of an intriguing battle of strategic minds, the plot often just comes off as convoluted.

There's not much to say about the characters, as none of them are very memorable to me. LeLouch himself - and I'm sorry to make this comparison again, but it's true - is a carbon copy of Light from Death Note, only devoid of any likeability even right from the start, and not quite as smart. Suzaku and Kallen are...just okay. C.C. is literally just a plot device, and her motivations are never explained at all. The other members of the royal family all blend into one in my mind, to be honest.

I don't really have any complaints about the sound. The score isn't really memorable, but I don't remember it being bad either. There are several very good openings; namely 'Colors' and 'O2', classic shounen opening songs. To note, I watched the English dub, which was fine. I never really watched the Japanese audio so I can't compare.

The art, however, is a sore point for me. The character designs are by Clamp, whose art style is quite distinctive across all their works. The problem, for me, is...I just DON'T like it. It just looks ugly to me. HOWEVER: I don't mean that it's of low-quality, and I don't mean any disrespect to the Clamp artists by that; they are accomplished artists and their designs are a deliberate stylistic choice - I get that. Their art just isn't for me; it's purely down to preference. So while I do think of this as a negative for the show, any viewer who likes what they see of the characters shouldn't have this problem. To each their own.

I can understand why Code Geass is still a popular anime. It has some cool elements that are reasonably enjoyable to watch. There's nothing wrong with an anime combining elements from many different genres - doing this well really has the potential to create a masterpiece. Sadly, I don't think Code Geass achieves that; it has the feel of a story deliberately assembled to appeal to as many viewers as possible, rather than a compelling story written from the heart. Not the worst anime I've seen by any means, but overall, it's uninspiring. Not for me.

- spoilers alert thanks -

i really don't know how i feel about this show. the first 12 or so episodes were so unengaging for me, i was very tempted to drop the show entirely.

i think this show tried to be too many things at once. it had elements of mecha, political intrigue, supernatural powers/fantasy, psychology, even horror too, and on top of that there were the school and slice-of-life aspects too. and there was a lot of nudity which i was quite taken aback by and didn't like at all, it ruined the mood for me. i don't think it successfully managed to balance everything, ... there were many times where the change in tone felt quite jarring.

the idea behind the show is interesting, i liked it. there is a lot of potential with supernatural powers and i am curious about the other types of geass and all their details and limits etc. also i liked seeing how lelouch would use his geass on different people and how he would manipulate situations to his advantage. his motivations were solid too.

the action was pretty great with the knightmares, there was a lot of tension in the battle scenes, and seeing lelouch use his tactical skills was entertaining. the colours were bright, and the worldbuilding was done quite well.

now the negatives. eek.

i didn't like the art style of the characters, they looked far too elongated and it took a long time for me to get used to seeing it. but that isn't a huge negative aspect and i'm willing to look past it as a unique element of the show.

i definitely did not get as attached to the characters as i have with other shows. there were so many characters and i didn't care about most of them because they added nothing interesting to the show (like all the generals, and the black knights and even the student council team, especially nina, girl you stupid). i was only interested in lelouch and cc tbh, nobody else was compelling enough to keep my attention, except cornelia i guess. and maybe lloyd because he was a bit wacky which was a nice change from the rigid mentalities of some of the other characters

plus there are so many loose ends and unexplained plot points, we know nothing about cc which really annoys me because she seems interesting, and some characters were so overly naive and idealistic it was painful (i understand that it helped move the story and was a good comparison to lelouch's attitudes, but it still annoyed me)

however, i think the negatives aren't all awful enough for me to say i hated the show. i just had to struggle through it a lot until i became invested

--- watched from 29/04/2020 to 06/05/2020 ---

Code Geass might be the only anime I've tried to watch more than once, to you know give it another try.
Every time I do, that's right I've done it about five times now, I always stop at about the same point.

The anime opens fairly strong, with simple and quick background on the world. The character style is a little odd but it doesn't take long to get use to and the action in the show is really well put together.

So good opening story setting, animation, and music. But after all that all the problems I have with this show come right back in ... the form of Suzaku.

Suzaku, is awful. This could be almost ignored if he was a side character, like the even worse Nina, but he the 2nd main character to Lelouch. Lelouch isn't awful, but as a main character he is only good next to some of the others.
I think the only characters I enjoyed seeing were Kallen and Jeremiah.

I think without characters like Suzaku and Nina being so badly written I could have finished season 1, but it's just not something I can sit through.

Contains a few opinions on the characters


Code Geass, such big expectations going in... To be honest it was kind of disappointing. DONT get me wrong, the story is one of the best I've ever seen, an animation witch still holds up well, but I've never been so disappointed in the characters my whole life.

The characters I don't like at all...

Nina Einstein: A girl so obsessed with a person who they don't have the slightest chance at all. It makes me sick how obsessed with Princes Euphemia she was.

Suzaku Kururugi: as this would be the right choice IRL doesn't mean I like this idiot. ... SPOILER!!!! he killed his own father so the war could end (or so I remember lol) this is like sucking pp to not be gay, it's the most idiotic thing I've seen IML.

Shirley Fenette: the love interest I guess... it's not her fault I hate these kinds of characters to be fair. I despise the characters who have 0 confidence (probably because I kind of see my self in them).

This is aimed towards people intending to watch the entire saga.

Lets say this straight off the bat. Season 1 will make you want to rip your hair out, kill many characters and stop watching. The story itself is quite good. But its the characters you wanna get rid of. Many of them feel like they were made to have 50 IQ. Art and sound wasn't bad at all. If you do manage to watch the entire thing, you'll be in for a treat.

Season 2:

This really suprised me, it was thousands of times better than season 1. I wont spoil but there were some problems worth ... mentioning. One, there really are some plot holes and 0 IQ moments. The story gets way to confusing at moments especially in later arc's. But overall its still a 8.5/10. It improves on everything S1 did good and fixes everything it did bad.

Spin off's/OVA's:

Nothing special here to be honest, they aren't bad aren't great.
That being said I do think the alternate universe movies are worth a watch. I really enjoyed them.

Anyways I doubt many people will ever see this review. Still I hope this'll help you.

Code Geass was decently entertaining, well written, and had good animation, but overall failed to excite. The OST had some great tracks that were just underused. The biggest flaw I saw, was the handling of Lelouch's intelligence. I've often seen Lelouch be compared to Light Yagami, as if they are the same character. This isn't the case at all, Light is an egotistical maniac genius with a god-complex, Lelouch seems much more like a regular guy with a family to protect and his own dreams, goals and desires, as well as being much more humble.

The main gripe I had with the show was it ... never really had any "mind games" per say. Unlike Death Note, which this show is often compared to, which had many instances of inductive reasoning, process of elimination, setting up traps, and other psychological tricks, Geass had none of these. Most of the encounters were not won with intelligence but just "oh, my robot is stronger than yours. we win". Every time something smart DOES happen, it's an asspull that is usually incredibly simple to explain, like "oh I set up mines under the enemy beforehand" or "we flanked them so we win". What was front and center in Geass was just regular combat, not that "big brain moment" I was expecting.

Everything else was satisfactory however. The animation looks good especially considering this show's age. The story does a great job making a whole fictional world under the Britannian empire. And the characters while usually one-dimensional are fun to watch. The show is very sexual with lots of nudity and sexual positions so make of that what you will.

6/10

I'm not a fan of mecha anime, in the way that whatever pull the ideal example of that genre has on its admirers won't pull or push me away. In my anime I want something unique, or surprising or relatable to pull me in no matter the genre so when I planned my anime to watch list I added the highly rated and reviewed Code Geass as an obvious choice. The first 10 episodes i watched in quick succession with the hope that it would give me a good idea of what to expect from the show. Instead I was left with ... the feeling that I had wasted 4 hours of my life on something that was reasonably entertaining but entirely uninteresting. Today I decided to watch another episode of the show I had dropped in a different mind space (I may be under the influence of substances) in the hopes that such a highly rated show would have some substance that I was missing. Instead I reaffirmed my desire to drop it and found myself writing this review.
Story: 6
I just didn't care about the story. Some thought was put into it but I'm pretty sure that thought was just researching past anime.
Art: 6
In comparison to 2 anime made in earlier years it is equally fine. Those anime (Monster and Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu) take characters that are distinguishable from each other and create an interesting story while Code Geass has those same characters enacting a predicable narrative.
Sound: 7
I'm not one to comment on intro/outro but I will say that tension, voices and sound effects were delivered well enough.
Character: 7
Again I have only watched 11 episodes but the reason to be interest in this anime is not character development/interesting characters. The characters introduced to me were uninteresting and interchangeable with the many similar characters I have met during my time watching TV.
Enjoyment: 4
Obviously I've dropped this anime and am resolute in my desire not to try it again. Pure enjoyment in my experience is like beauty; almost entirely in the eye of the beholder. I can enjoy violence and explosions, I'm sure I could enjoy people getting into suits and shooting at each other, but I need something to pull me in. Code Geass with it's misc. green haired bishoujo alien paired with a tsundre super-inteligent brunet bent on revenge didn't have enough to offer for me personally.
Overall: 6
I could say my time spent watching Code Geass was a waste but I'd prefer to believe that it was time spent reminding myself there was a reason i watched Neon Genisis Evangellion all the way through. That reason was that I was curious about the ending, I wanted to see how things would play out. In the case of Code Geass I will happily go to my grave without knowing whatever it wants to tell me

Above average series. Not quite as good as R2, but definitely worth a watch.

Story is fair; it's somewhat interesting but has nothing special about it. At some points It was barely interesting enough to keep me entertained

I Liked the art. It took me a bit to get used to the very lanky character designs, but in the end I liked them. The fight scenes are not good, but that is not this story's strength (and this is one of the older anime I have watched).

I liked the first OP and ending a lot. That is all that stuck out to me for ... music

I feel like Lelouch's transition from a high school student to a leader of a rebellion is too abrupt. Shirley annoyed me at first but I eventually grew to like her.

Not worth a re-watch in my opinion.

Overall : Fair. However, the second season's ending is worth it, so watch them both.

Story

The premise of Code geass is what happens when you mix the genres of mecha, political thriller, high school slice of life, etc into a blender. It tries to do all these genres at once, but it doesnt suceed much in any of them. Some episodes can be overly dramatic (and cheesy) and then the following episodes are far more light hearted like a high school slice of life anime. That could be a very jarring experience. As such, the tone and direction is all the place. The world of code geass is not overly complicated or unique even, nothing memorable about that. The mecha ... battles are probably the least interesting aspect of this series, nothing original and very derivative from other shows. Not sure if the creators had no direction for this series and thus mixed three genres to see what would hit the wall.

Art

Most of the time, the artwork and animation is great. There are some scenes where characters are off model like overly tall and skinny but those are few and far between. Suzaku really reminds me of Syaorann Li from cardcaptors. Same artist I believe.

Sound

The first opening, COLORS by flow is a banger for sure. Probably one of the best anime openings for a 2000s anime. The second opening is not as impressive but still decent to good. The backround music is decent, but not as overly memorable as the openings or endings.

Character

Lelouch is a decent lead, usually over the top and cheesy but he is endearing. I did not find most of the cast interesting. Suzaku is fairly bland and one note. Same goes for Kallen. The most interesting thing I noticed about CC was her love of pizza. How much pizza does she eat? Is that the only thing she eat? The supporting cast is even more forgettable that I forgot most of their names already.

Enjoyment

Code geass was an anime that came out in the mid to late 2000s. I did not watch the series when it was premiering, but at the time I would be the right target age demographic. More than a decade later, I finally finished the series after all the hype from the series and I would say I was midly dissapointed. I expected better world building with more compelling characters, but what I got instead was a cheesy derivative story that lacks cohesion. I guess that makes sense as the series was sponsored by Pizza Hut for some time. However as a time capsule of the anime landscape of the late 2000s, this series suceeds. It incorporates many of the popular anime tropes of that time. Just watching the series made me feel nostalagic about that time.

Overall

If you want a compelling anime with great world building and characters, it is hard to recommend this series. if you want to experience the epitome of the popular anime in the late 2000s, then this is a good representation. I got most enjoyment when I approached it from this angle. You can also look at the anime as an ambitious Pizza Hut advert. I still wonder if the characters eat anything else besides pizza. Overall this is one of the more unexpected anime watching experiences I had. When I think of this series, the first thing I think of is pizza. I might be hungry.