Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Directed by Goro Taniguchi, arguably one of the best directorial talents left at studio Sunrise, and written by his Planetes screenwriter Ichiro Okouchi, Code Geass promised to be a true epic series in the making. An interesting alternate history, a lead character that promised to evolve into a ruthless rebel seeking revenge against the father and the country that ruined his and his sisters life and a dash of mecha added into the mix for good measure. So why did it turn into such a complete circus? An absolute mess of jumbled ideas never touched upon in any way that isn`t absurd or laughable, a ... cast of characters who constantly degrade into utter imbeciles and a constantly re-shuffled plot. By the half-way mark of Code Geass, it`s as if focus changed from creating an actually riveting series, to essentially seeing how stupid they could take the whole thing and see how many viewers would go along with the ride.

Story: While Code Geass had an interesting premise that seemingly got off to a good start, it`s unfortunate the creators of the show had no idea how to handle the mass of ideas they had, or perhaps they simply didn`t care. New plot elements are introduced while at the same time are others are pushed back and delayed, sometimes by many episodes, and sometimes taken out of the show entirely, left to be settled in the 2nd season yet to air. The writing completely flat lines half way through and instead of the gripping and fast paced war/revenge story we had, we then dive headfirst into utterly inane romance drama with a resolution so incredibly bone headed that the series has almost turned into a comedy. As the series moves on, almost as if the romance was a checkbox on a "to do" list of the plot, the series gradually builds up again, making you think it may yet recover, despite the still omnipresent idiocy, but the show sees fit to deliver a "plot twist" so completely over the top and ridiculous, the writers have wrecked absolutely everything that the series had built in it`s first half, only to deliver one of the most stupid and pathetic twists in recent years. I can`t imagine the writers had any other intention rather than having the audience laugh at the absurdity of it all. The series seems to want to be so many things at the same time. It wants to be a gripping war story, a drama about revenge, it wants to include romance and tragedy, but without foregoing humour. Unfortuntely it was unable to do any of these right.

Sound: Music wise, the show's soundtrack doesn't impress much if you're familiar with Kotaro Nakagawa. His music here is essentially a rehash of mostly every other show he's done and remixed into one soundtrack. The only stand out area are the vocal tracks by Hitomi and Mikio Sakai, but even those are all too familiar if you're aquainted with their previous works. As far as the OP and EDs go, Colors by FLOW is a great accesible song, and Hitomi no Tsubasa by Access is perfectly catchy in that "I wouldn't admit in real life that I like this" way. The rest of the shows selections vary from the uninspired (2nd ED), to mind numbingly awful (ED1 and it's usual Ali Project rehash and the often hated OP2).

Character:Just as the plot of the series completely crumbles midway through the series, so do the characters. Completely intolerable and annoying side villains are introduced while other much more interesting ones are left to languich and not to reappear until much later. The constantly annoying Suzaku throughout the show is barely even a character, so much his personality and intentions are a joke. Some characters have their personal development completely eradicated from the series, again only to delay it into a second season, while most are barely given even a cursory look, including even supposedly main antagonists. Worst of all is Lelouch, whose descent into a sort of machiavellian evil was purportedly the series main selling point (Episode 1 "the day the devil was born"), is reduced to an utter half wit, commiting imbecilic mistake after another and constantly proving to be all talk and nothing more. A complete let down in every sense.

Value: A seemingly promising series that eventually degrades into nothing more than fanservice and idiocy. Whatever points the series seemed to want to make in it`s first half are utterly invalidated by it`s second. The lack of any sort of resolution, for anything in the series is as confusing as it is aggravating. Being made to wait 4 months for a completely lackluster "ending" only to find out we`ll have to wait even more for any kind of resolution is ridiculous. Knowing that a second season is in the making is irrelevant, there needs to be some kind of payoff for sitting through 25 episodes of this, and all we are left with is having to wait for another 25 episodes.

Enjoyment: As far as rating this show as an enjoyable new series with promise from a once great director, I`d be hard pressed to give it anymore than a 4. Nevertheless, the shows stupidity and constant excesses at least made it worth watching for a few laughs. Laughing at it of course, not with it. Sunrise seems to be stuck in a rut in terms of how it plans out and executes it`s shows. Mai Hime, Mai Otome, and now Code Geass and unfortunately they don`t seem likely to want to change that formula. I expected much more from the people behind this show, a complete shame.

Probably one of the most blatantly obvious train-wrecks of bad writing in the history of serial visual narrative production, shamefully destroying its own at first stimulating concept of alternate reality with awful characterizations, extremely weak script and cheap developments that only serve the purpose of working as a “shock-factor” to keep the audience entranced beyond the notice of a very clear lack of sequential planning.

Honestly speaking, the show is certainly fun and even held itself within certain quality standard during the irregularly interesting initial 11 episodes but as characters exponentially lose their own minds and personalities we are nothing else but witnesses of the now ... classical conceptual phrase in entertainment: “jumping the shark”. By the badly plotted twist in its “praised by the masses” stage 22 the series barely keeps itself as dirty and trashy fun that that makes you willingly embrace the filth of Japanese animation: the very price of marketing in a ridiculous attempt at dramatic storytelling that takes to oblivion without any justification its own suspension of disbelief.

The core problem is, of course, Lelouch. Some may argue it’s hard to portray a genius but in the end it’s as simple as keeping him from committing underdeveloped mistakes just for the sake of progressing the chronicled history. Not to mention how the rest of cast just acts without any justification whatsoever and never lives up to their indicated development or makes any attempt at decently stopping their inevitable crash into mediocrity. Nevertheless I got to admit that despite her poor dialogs Cornelia remained amazingly likeable, and that must say something about the value hidden in the idea of her original concept.

And so, with the lack of any real literary theme so to speak besides the hilariously exploitative Machiavellian motivation of its ridiculous excuse for a lead, the show honors the words of director Goro Tanigushi and exists as just an excuse to create a “hit show” to appeal both males and females. He succeeded for sure, shame it was at the cost of all the artistic merits of the finalized production.

Code Geass is the most overrated anime on the top 20 list.

Although it has a fast-paced plot with quite a few surprises along the way (which is why I finished 25 episodes), I cannot help but feel that it was a complete waste of time.

It seems to me that the creators of Geass sit together, with trend analysis graphs and bar charts on the table, pick out popular elements of the recent years and just throw them into this anime.

So at the end, we get a villain as the main character (Death Note?), lots of ... moral dilemmas, lots of angst and shocks, but no real focus or passion in the story. Characters are 2-dimensional and boring, their actions are completely driven by the plot. And the plot tries its best to deliver as much angst and surprises as possible just for the sake of it.

If you haven't watch it yet, don't waste your time. And if you really have to try, trust your own feeling and forget about all the hype. Drop it when you are bored.

(this review will cover elements from R2 and R1)

There will probably be a large amount of people who will look at the score I gave code geass and click the "not helpful" button without even bothering to read the first few lines of this review. If this is you, I don't believe you should bother reading this review in the first place, since your mind is obviously not going to be changed. And also, this review is all my own opinion, the large majority of you will probably enjoy code geass a lot, but if you want to hear a different opinion then go ahead ... and read the review.

Intelligent anime. Its probably one of my favourite types of anime. It's so much nicer to get enthralled, shocked, and mindblown by an anime rather than to turn your brain off and enjoy a bunch of generic bullshit that basically copies every other mildly successful show in its genre. Unfortunately however, for every actually intelligent anime there is an equal number of, if not even more shows for which their intelligence is only superficial. While you may not (and probably won't) agree, I believe code geass is one of these shows.

When I first heard of code geass, it was described to me as "death note with mechs". Although the manga was a lot better, I actually enjoyed death note, and I dove into code geass hoping for another helping of interesting characters, and a relatively well paced and clever plot. For me, code geass was just a huge load of cliches, underdeveloped characters, and extremely convenient coincidences all wrapped up together to make a quite lackluster anime. Although I'm not going to go over every single little thing, since that would take forever and I'm too lazy, code geass had almost as may plot holes as mirai nikki (although that also has a mean score over 8, so that shows you something)

It's very surprising how people try to compare lelouch and Light, or the strategic planning that both shows supposedly have. While they were often unrealistic and sometimes made no sense, the plans in death note obviously had a lot of though put into them, and the dialogue passing between Light and L was interesting enough to keep you engrossed in the story. However, all that the so called "strategy" in code geass equates to is "My mech is bigger and more badass than yours." the large majority of battles the black knights face in this anime are won by lelouch procuring a new bigger and more powerful weapon that they use to eliminate the opposition. And when he actually does any real planning it's consisted of lelouch conveniently guessing the opponents next moves as if he's some kind of psychic. As the show goes on he seems to putt less and less logic into his plans. Especially the way they escaped the britannian empire by all dressing up as zero. That was less like a carefully derived strategy and more like something and more like a retarded idea lelouch came up with after he'd had one too many beers. If the britannians honestly couldn't come up with a way to thwart that, then it's no surprise they got outsmarted.

Another annoying Element of code geass is the characters. Unless its a show with an above average amount of episodes, or one that is not character driven, good shows often take the route of keeping the cast of characters smaller, and developing those characters further. However, code geass prefers to go to down the path of piling on so many new and completely useless characters that don't garner the slightest bit of interest from the viewer or develop the plot in any reasonable way that you forget the name of anyone who's not a main character. The white knights did fuck all, in fact you only knew the names of a few of them, and this was true for a large amount of the cast. a result of this many of the characters got so little development and focus that I couldn't care less what happened to them at all. Even lelouch who is the main character gets stuck with a cliched "mah parent(s) were killed omg so sad and compelling" backstory, and thats it.

As for the art, all of the characters look like lanky anorexic beat sprouts who need to go and eat some big macs, but apart from that it was nothing special, and typical for an anime of its time. The sound quality was actually quite good during the actual episodes, however the openings and endings were just boring J-pop that I skipped every time I watched an episode.
Another thing I'd like to mention is the fanservice, and this was definitely a lot more prominent in R2. Kallen in her knightmare shot from very suspicious camera angles, Kallen in the shower, and Kallen and CC doing a variety of other things to please the otakus and their penises. It's disheartening that even a so called intelligent anime like code geass ended up throwing in enough fanservice to make an ecchi harem anime jealous. It may have had plot, but it was hard to notice it with kallen's ass getting shoved in your face for half of every episode.

However, as the series does not drop below a four, it must have its good points. Despite him being a lot less intelligent than people make him out to be, lelouch was at some points relatively interesting to watch, unlike all the other characters. And although I found the majority of all the episodes boring, the final few episodes of each season piqued my interest a bit (Dat spinzaku), and I didn't mind watching them, although R2s ending is a bit overrated.

Overall, I though that although it had its moments, code geass was overall overrated and slightly below average. although some people reading this will understand what I'm going on about, the majority of people who have seen code geass enjoyed it a lot, and the chances are that you will too. However, I personally would not recommend code geass, and I think there are much better anime you could spend your time watching. For alternate recommendations, if you haven't already seen death note (which is unlikely) go and watch it, or for another mech anime try neon genesis evangelion.

Take Death note, some V for Vendatta, and some Neon Genesis Evangelion mix it with Fanservice and add Gary stu characters. Boom, You have Code geass! But you have to turn off your Brains before watching it.
.
.
Firstly about the art and character designs are horrible. They look like shovelled face stickmans. Every character looks like it has been drawn over the same base with hair color and eye color changes. They have no variety or any memorable character design.
.
The sound and opening/ending are good. Perhaps the only decent thing in this anime.
.
Behold the characters. Lelouch is like a Isekai protagonist...Overpowered, has 3-4 female characters in ... love with him, Pretentious smart and basically a Gary Stu who always has a plan to outsmart everyone and has the last laugh always coz he is the main character duh. Nothing spectacular about him, a cheap rippoff of Light Yagami. No complexity, people like him cause he is a badass duh.
His stupid best friend turned rival is also a bland character. He is boring in short and yes his character design is a copy paste of the MC with minor changes
But the most useless and bland characters are the female characters of the show. They are just kept for boob shots and to fall for the protagonist.
.
.
You cant enjoy the show if you want logic and real complex scenarios.
If you enjoy no brainer plots trying to be smart then you can maybe enjoy. This crap is not worth of even 7 overall and its claimed a Masterpiece by some otakus. This is just a Glorified SAO, believe me.
.
The plot conveniences and stupidity of the antagonist parties is hilarious. And serious rebellion is going on but the government hangouts at high schools. If you want high school ecchi why did you have to introduce a heavy and serious plot/threat first?
Well the first season was just a taste of stupidity, 2nd season is worse.

There are several popular anime whose success is difficult to understand, but perhaps none more so than Code Geass. This anime has been called a masterpiece by various sources, often using such adjectives as "deep". This strikes me as a bit odd, because if there's one thing that I think the show lacks, it's intelligence.

The premise seems reminiscent of Death Note, setting up an allegedly intelligent male high school student against incredible odds while armed with nothing but his wit and an incredibly potent superpower. In the case of Code Geass, however, the power the protagonist is given is too useful and lacking in ... any particular weaknesses to allow the kind of entertaining intellectual competition that was present in Death Note. Perhaps to try and compensate for this, the series contains several battles between armies of mecha, but the action in these is actually somewhat dull, and they quickly become repetitive and predictable.

These problems are fairly minor compared to some of Code Geass' other issues though. For one, the characters are archetypical and uninteresting, although that problem becomes more apparent in the next season than in this one. Some of them are quite grating as well, a trait for which Suzaku, one of the most important characters in the series, deserves special mention. The plot is a bigger problem than the characters are. It starts off tolerable enough, with the premise looking like it might deliver an enjoyable conflict between Lelouch and his opposition, but it kind of collapses toward the end of the season. About twenty episodes in, an event occurs that makes it look like there will be an end to all hostilities and Lelouch is unwilling to stop it. This could actually have served as a possible ending to the series, but instead it is resolved with one of the most contrived and nonsensical occurrences I've ever witnessed in anime. The next few episodes seem to waste a bit of time almost, and then it ends with a cliffhanger ending that could also have possibly served as an ending to the series but is also resolved by an utterly nonsensical chain of events that makes several supposedly intelligent characters embarrass themselves so that there can be a second season.

The art and sound are less worrying. The art style is kind of strange and not visually appealing, but it also isn't terrible. The music is actually somewhat enjoyable and the voice acting is competent. There are a few other things that work somewhat as well. It's kind of enjoyable to watch the fight scenes early on and there are some conflicts that Lelouch gets out of using reasonable tactics rather than something impossible or a deus ex machina. There's a few episodes early on that are fairly solid, and Lelouch is tolerable as a protagonist.

So that's Code Geass. A poorly written anime with a messy plot and bad characters. Its creators clearly thought that they were more clever than I think they are, and evidently a lot of people agree with them. The bright side is that this season has a few strengths and is certainly not as terrible as the second season is.

For me personally the story was a drag. I crawled to the finish line. The politics are not really that clever and the fights not very outstanding. What should hold this story together, are the connections between the characters and the tragic story of Lelouch and his "friends". Sadly this is just awful to watch, cause the characters are such a mess and there is no red string anywhere. No one really thinks like a human being and Lelouch is just... an idiot. He doesn't use his powers right and everyone just seems like they have air in their heads.
I just crawled to the ... finish line, cause my friend told me how much of a genius Lelouch is... which he isn't... If you can look past these awful characters, it is actually half decent.

[Spoiler Warning]

So I was told that my Made in Abyss review was too long and too negative. So instead I decided to go watch a show rated in the top 20’s(!!!) No way this one is as bad as Made in Abyss, right?

I was wrong. It’s worse. Don’t watch this show. It’s fucking terrible. I could write a manifesto about everything wrong with this show, BUT since I promised to make it shorter, I decided to only write about one scene, as I feel it exemplifies everything wrong this show perfectly.

But first; music ok, opening good, characters bad, writing bad, animation whatever. I have ... seen a few anime’s in my days. None have made me literally wish for my time back as much as Code Geass did. If you’re a real edgy boi who does not give one shit about writing this show might be ok for you.
Similarly, if you are looking for something to laugh at because of how stupid and dumb it is you might also find some enjoyment in this show. Otherwise, I would stay the fuck away. Anyway, that’s it for the spoiler free parts of this review.

SPOILERS

So the episode I want to talk about is episode 22 “Bloodstained Euphie”. Up until this point the show has portrayed itself as a smart political anime, all while taking itself very seriously. Everything so far has been working towards setting up this huge conflict between ideologies as to how one would go about freeing Japan. Euphie, who is Ledouche’s sister or whatever is the holy good character of the show. She is real nice and wants good for everyone. So she has set up this zone where Japan would be remade or some shit, whatever sounds swell. Ledouche’s entire reason for working with the black knights so far seems to be his goal of destroying Britannia as revenge for his sister going blind. So from what we know, he has no sincere intentions what so ever to make it better for the Japanese people. YET, when he goes to meet Euphie at her grand opening of new Japan he agrees to stop the fighting and work with her to save the world. This is after talking for like three minutes and her just shouting at him over and over how she wants to do good blah blah blah. AND THIS IS NOT EVEN WHAT IS WRONG THIS SCENE! After Ledouche SUPRISINGLY agrees, seemingly giving up on his revenge plans he decides to prank Euphie.
It goes something like:
“Hey Euphie, I can actually control people with my mind.”
“Haha, no way…”
“Yeah, really!! If I were to tell u to kill all Japanese people you totally would lol xdddd”

And to no ones surprise, the mind controlling powers CONVENIENTLY malfunctions and Ledouche accidentally makes Euphie kill all Japanese people. This conflict is what the entire rest of the season is based on, and why the gigantic climatic ending happens in the first place. This fucking random convenient malfunction of the geass, which happens ONE TIME and happens the ONE TIME everything would have been “fixed”.

And this is exactly what’s wrong with this show. The writing is utter garbage, and it is not like this is an isolated incident. The ENTIRE plot is built on random fucking coincidences like this one, and their whole purpose appears to be trying to make sense of the previous bullshit the writers pulled. The show takes itself so fucking seriously, yet cannot solve or progress anything with writing, there is no logical progression of the events that occur, it is just random fucking bullshit one after another for the whole fucking show.

A big plot point is how smart Ledouche is supposed to be. But even that they couldn’t actually SHOW but had to write out. The opening scene is Ledouche playing chess with some rich guy and Ledouche is in the real bind. Oh no, how is he gonna win this chess game in this incredible deficit?
Oh, you thought I’d answer? Haha no that’s not how we do things in this show. Instead the following scene is Ledouche and his friends walking out of the rich guys house with Ledouche’s friend telling him “wow I can’t believe you won that!!!”.


Anyway this show sucks, don’t watch it
1/10

This show is just all around bad for me. I want to like it, but there's nothing to like.

The story was amusing; I loved the idea of large scale kingdoms fighting each other using rl setting(s), but they lost me when they introduced mecha. That was a huge blunder to what I was hoping for with this show.

Lelouch is an interesting character, but I quickly lost interest in him and this show over time. He sort of fell into the generic anti hero trope for me.

The art and sound are great but it's not enough reason to watch a show. It's like eating an apple ... just because it looks good and even though it tastes like ass, you still eat it anyway.

I had high hopes for this show, but they blew it. They had the perfect plot concept, an (almost) perfect MC, but they managed to ruin it within a few episodes.

The only reason why I bothered watching more than half of this show's episodes is because JYB voices Lelouch, and I have a inexplicable bias towards him. But, as I said, art and sound isn't enough reason to watch a show.

For years this anime has hyped to the f’ing T, so much so that I caved and decided to watch it. I started code geass when I moved earlier this year, I had downloaded some anime to save data and because I didn’t have WiFi, I was hesitant at first because I dislike early 2000s anime art style but was willing to make an exception for this anime because of all of its praise.

So I started watching code geass and after a few episodes, I knew that this anime was poorly written and highly predictable that I was never going to enjoy it but ... despite this, I kept watching, and my god I hated every single moment, there were so many plot holes, the voice acting was horrendous, the dialog mediocre, there were so many things wrong in this show that I was lost for words.

So after finishing the first season and being left with this feeling of remorse and Unfulfillment, I came here to post my review and to warn any newcomer wanting to watch this show, DON'T, this anime isn't worth your time and is highly and disgustingly overrated/overhyped.

Just a disclaimer here, this review will be for R1 and R2. There will also be spoilers mentioned in this review. So this will mainly be for people that have already watched this anime, or atleast have watched season 1.

Code Geass is one of the worst anime ever made. I don't think there are any other anime or manga that I've seen that are worse than Code Geass in terms of quality.

STORY/PLOT: 1/10

The story is very simple. Lelouch gets his Geass power and wants to get revenge on the Britannian Empire. Eventually Lelouch does accomplish his goal due to asspulls, plot holes, deus ex ... machina, and retcons. It's actually hilarious to me how this anime tries to be intelligent, yet ends up being the complete opposite.

One problem I have with the story is the filler highschool episodes. None of these episodes have anything to do with the story. It's literally all just a bunch of garbage filler that doesn't progress the plot.

Another example of filler episodes that had nothing to do with the plot; the entire Mao arc! This is easily the worst episodes Code Geass has to offer. One part of this arc made absolutely no sense whatsoever that I just have to talk about it. In episode 14 Mao and Shirley both have guns to Lelouch's back and says if he uses the Geass he will shoot. Mao then goes back into the train to pick up a shotgun. He then says "I will just take care of them both". And then C2 helps Lelouch escape. If you cant see the awful writing in that then I don't know what to tell you. He had a fucking GUN aleady, and then he goes back to get another gun for no reason at all. That's only one example of stupid shit from Code Geass, there are many more examples of stupid shit.

Another example of stupid shit from Code Geass; Mao not dying even though he was shot like hundreds of times. Now you know how I said this anime tries to be smart but fails at it? This just the perfect example of that. Many Geass fans often say that he survived due to advanced medical technology. That still makes absolutely no sense! It doesn't matter how advanced technology is, if someone gets shot 100 times then they have no possible chance of surviving.

Don't even get me started on that stupid plot twist involving Euphy. I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about. That was hands down one of the lamest asspull/plot twists I've ever seen in the anime.

Another problem with the plot would be the mech fights. There's just too much mech fights in this anime that don't go anywhere. It's even worse in season 2 because the writers just throw strategy out the window. Season 2 is just about who has the stronger mech, not about who is more strategic. For example, there was a moment where Lelouch was cornered by the Chinese Federation. What did he do to escape you might ask? He fucking got a stronger mech, not by outwitting his enemies. And Kallen must've fought Suzaku like 100 times in these boring ass mechs. It just gets absolutely boring to watch. I didn't watch this anime to see these stupid Shounen mech battles, I came to see Lelouch outwitting his opponents. This anime is FILLED filled with lame mech battles that don't go anywhere. Funny thing is, even when Lelouch outsmarts his enemies Suzaku just comes out of nowhere and then saves the day. Everyone just goes home after that. This is how the show just gets extremely repetitive and boring for me.

Another plot hole is when Lelouch somehow commanded the entire country to follow him. I'm pretty sure it was stated that the Geass requires eye contact to actually work. I don't think it's possible ofr Lelouch to make eye contact to every single individual, therefore this makes absolutely no sense.

Even more plot holes, why didn't the Emperor just kill Lelouch? He had no use for Lelouch so I don't understand why he didn't kill him? It was never explained why he decided to wipe his memories and have him live a normal life.

Another plot hole that I have that made no sense; how did the Black Knights produce over a million zero outfits without being noticed? This was one of the worst asspulls I've seen in any anime! It makes no sense for them to not be noticed due to the amount of resources and people that were used to produce these costumes.

There's one thing that I always didn't make sense to me. Ever since Lelouch's first broadcast, how the fuck did people not know that it was him? It's quite weird how the people that have known Lelouch for all his life didn't instantly recognize his voice.

Overall, the plot of Code Geass is awful. There are many plot holes or just things that make absolutely no sense. People say Code Geass has a good ending, but I honestly don't care about it. I also didn't care about Lelouch finally achieving his goal because it was only possible due to asspulls and plot holes.


ART/ANIMATION 0/10

Lets be honest here, the art in Code Geass is absolute trash. How can I take these characters seriously when they're all built like sticks with their noodle ass arms. I also was never impressed with the animation. It was just average animation, nothing impressive at all.

CHARACTERS:

There's only one decent character in Code Geass. That's it, only one decent character.People always talk about how Lelouch is such a well written character, but I completely disagree with that.

So lets talk about why Lelouch is overrated. There are a lot of character inconsistencies in Code Geass. One example of a character inconsistency is when Lelouch was crying when Rollo died. This made absolutely no sense. This is the same character that said he will just use Rollo until he becomes useless and then he'll throw them away. That made no sense because he pities Rollo when Rollo dies...?

Suzaku is definitely the worst character in the series. Suzaku always believed that the results don't matter if you used the wrong method to gain those results. One episode he completely changes his beliefs. He says that the results are the only thing that matters, not the means. This is just bad writing at it's finest. This isn't even called characterdevelopment, this is just a character inconsistency. He just randomly changes his beliefs and it was poorly executed. The second I watched this part I just cringed way too hard.

Every single time Lelouch outsmarts his enemies, Suzaku comes and sends the Black Knights home with his broken Lancelot. This same thing happens over and over and over again for the majority of the first season that it just becomes ridiculous and frustating. Suzaku is such an unlikeable character it's just insane! He first says that results don't matter if the methods to achieve that result is morally wrong. Suzaku says that Lelouch's ways of doing things are wrong, yet he never did anything to accomplish his goal himself! They both have the same goal but at least Lelouch was doing SOMETHING. Suzaku did absolutely nothing to accomplish his goal, therefore he's a badly written character. It seems to me that he was a scumbag that only cared about gaining more power.

Lets talk about Kallen for a bit. i love me some fanservice once in a while. That's pretty much all there is to this character. I couldn't care less about her motives and her backstory at all. Here's why I didn't care; her brother wasn't even introduced to us, so why should I care about her wanting to get revenge? We don't even get to see an in depth backstory at all so why should I care about this character?

C2 has got to be the most boring character I've seen in an anime. She doesn't do much at all. She's just a boring one dimensional character that I never really cared about.

There are a LOT of characters that are pretty much living plot devices. Rollo is the perfect example of a living plot device. He has poor characterization, he's one dimensional, and the only thing he did was help Lelouch. Jeremiah is another example of a living plot device, mainly in season 2. He just comes out of nowhere and says that he wants to team up with Lelouch..? I understand that he was loyal to Lelouch's mother, but that just came out of nowhere. That's just a stupid asspull that was used just to get Lelouch out of the bad situation he was in.

Tbh, Lelouch really carried this trash ass show. Even though I consider him to be just a decent character, he's far superior to every other character in the series. Every other character is just awful, and that's all there is to it. I don't want to drag this review out more, so that's it.

ART: 0/10
ANIMATION: 1/10
CHARACTERS: 0/10
PLOT: 0/10

This awful anime does not deserve the score it has. Absolute dog shit.

***SPOILERS***

Before I start, I implore you to read the review first before trying to chop my head off. If there is ANYTHING I say in this review that isn't 100% accurate, feel free to let me know. Also, I have not watched the second season nor plan to for a long while because of how appalling season one was.

Now, since this is a very negative review, there will be spoilers as I said before because it would be impossible to address the major flaws in this series without revealing large parts of the plot, so let's get into this.
The largest and most impossible to ignore ... flaw with this show is filler. I am truly baffled as to how a show can have this much critical success when well over 50% of the show is filler. How the fuck can you even pack THIS much filler into a 25 episode anime? And don't come at me with this "it's not filler, it's slow paced" bullshit; it's filler.

Since I'm going to assume you've already watched this anime before reading this review because of the spoilers warning I gave earlier, I'm going to skip giving a backstory since you all should already know the plot. The story is about our protagonist Lelouch trying to reclaim Japan from the Holy Empire of Brittania as Zero, assisted by the "Geass" given to him by C.C., a power that allows Lelouch to bend anyone to his will once he has made eye-contact with him/her. Unfortunately, the plot elements that contribute to this main plotline are less than 50% of the episodes.

Already at episode 6 we have a filler episode that contributes absolutely nothing to the main story, "The Stolen Mask". It is an episode about Lelouch trying to recover his Zero mask from a cat who stole it, yes, that takes up an entire episode.
The entire Mao arc also contributed absolutely nothing to the main plot. It is a completely pointless side-story that takes up about 4 episodes, the most impactful thing to come out of that pointless side-story is Lelouch using his Geass on Shirley to get her to forget ever knowing about Zero. The worst part is that this happens during our protagonists first encounter with Mao, then this meaningless side story of Mao continues on for another three episodes. Can someone explain to me how the kidnapping and recovery of Nunnally contributed ANYTHING to the main story? What was accomplished by the end of the Mao arc? A character (Shirley) with awful characterization that didn't give me a reason to care about her as a character lost her memory of Lelouch. Oh my, soak up four episodes with this shit, fuck freeing Japan from the grips of the Holy Empire.

The parts of the show where this bullshit (aka blatant filler) isn't going on, are (for the most part) just side-stories of x group has captured x area, Zero and friends will free the people of x area. I can't call these parts of the show filler though, because they do have some correlation with the main plot, however these are simply just side-stories.

The show starts showing some semblance of coherence around episode 18 after Suzaku is knighted by Euphemia. Unfortunately, three episodes later we have another POINTLESS filler episode "The School Festival Declaration" where everyone builds a giant pizza. Are you fucking kidding me? Four episodes away from the end of the series and it's fucking "let's build a pizza" day.
I'm getting a headache writing this..on the topic of pizza though, there was something particularly cringe-worthy about the shameless Pizza Hut product placement.

Sigh, regardless, continuing on from let's build a pizza day, the show again shows a bit of coherence for three episodes, then ends on a cliffhanger.

Overall - This anime was recommended to me because all I had been watching up until this was psychological, dark, dementia type anime like Lain, NHK, Koi Kaze etc, and this was my break from those types of shows, so I had absolutely no bias while coming into the show, all i was expecting was something decent so my review is purely objective.

This was truly one of the most fatiguing and frustrating anime experiences I've ever had. The only reason I didn't give this a 1 is because the art and sound were fairly good. This show is compared to Death Note a lot but I don't see the comparison whatsoever. Death Note, while not flawless, has a coherent plot. Geass is a clusterfuck of filler and side-stories with poor characterization. I couldn't find myself able to give a shit about any of the characters, the characterization was that bad. HOW THE FUCK IS THIS SO POPULAR? You know what I shouldn't be surprised because garbage like Ghoul are among the most popular, and that pile of shit was actually better than Geass, even though it's like comparing dog shit to cow shit.
Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent now because writing this really annoyed me.

3/10, do yourself a favor and don't watch it.

I know this show has been reviewed to death, but I'm going to try to write an honest review. I'll get straight to the points:

ADDICTIVENESS- 10. It's hard to stop watching the show, it does a good job of compelling you to watch the next episode. That's not enough to make the show good, but it's something.

STORY - 3 The similarity with death note is the characters have different philosophies, but what they want is ultimately a good world, a good thing (they just have different ideas of how to get there). Unfortunately, I think the twists in this story go ... way to far, and the main character does atrocious things for selfish reasons. We see characters twisted by their trauma, sometimes in an almost elfen leid kind of way.

CHARACTERS -3. There are some pretty fleshed out characters, but this is a show that takes things too far and gives us characters to hate. At first, you can kind of understand him and where he's coming from, but he takes things too far and doesn't consider alternatives. If you like to have a character you can hate, then Lelouch you. The rest of us will be repulsed.

Music - 10. The way they used music is one of the best things about the show. Excellent job.

Art - 10. I'm not overly critical of art - it was good and enjoyable.

Overall enjoyment - 0. You end up hating or feeling detached from almost every major character. There's nothing enjoyable about that. There are no morals to be learned, and ultimately nothing to redeem the downhill this show takes.

Code Geass is a bad show, why?.
Well, for start the character they are flags, Its unique attribute is to be "smart" and even is. Light, for example, at least knew how to bring a situation or make plans instead Lelouch is disgusting character that manages all by chance and end of the day, does not even have a real evolution.
Another problem I have with the program is its design. Seriously, it's horrible, you know I hate with all my heart to elderly degenerate CLAMP. But, beyond that is my main problem with the show and its artists that displeases me ... The design is ... definitely bad, the heads are small, the characters are 3 meters, arms and legs are long, and Pokeballs eyes seem, are disproportionate, and at the end of the day, the mechas ... are pretty good, I remember shows like Neon Genesis Evangelion and although I do not like them, admit they are pretty bad ass.
But after all, my main problem with this show is its script. The strategies are full of deus ex machinas that has not been presented. Without going any further, in the second episode, Lelouch gets a fucking army of robots to their friends when they never said they were there. Also as I said, situations happen because the script requires it, in the second episode seems that Lelouch will die, oh no wait, a lady falls from the sky and will save, in the first look set to kill Lelouch ah not expected. If the girl with no personality magically doing it with his magic .... Are you serious ?. So the situation is not resolved, and if you're going to do, has the power of a bitch girl at least.
Hopefully, the technical work and mobility of the characters is very well done and robots unlike humans in the series. They have a very masculine design

4/10 Very Bad
In conclusion, is it Code Geass recommend? ... There really is very poorly written and does not serve to casualfag material.

Imagine a small restaurant that sells one specialty food. This restaurant gets a following and it has something good going. Then with the pressure of having to serve more dishes, it turns to something it shouldn't have. It decided to offer foods not remotely related to their specialty food. It began to sell burgers, pasta, sushi, and curry. It became such a jumbled mess that the original specialty food was lost. Though it retained its popularity, it was no longer for the original reason. This, is how I see Code Geass.

Code Geass started with a plot that centered around the character Lelouch and his desire ... for revenge against his corrupt father. With his mastery in strategy, he leads the rebels against government forces with the use of large machines. This, is a promising start.

However, as the plot progresses, you can see that the story was not carefully crafted beforehand. It seems as though as time passes, new ideas are thrown into the mix and we are taken further and further away from the core of the story. And as the story becomes unnecessarily complex (Using simple ideas and forcibly mutating them to seem complex), they struggle to explain or conclude each part.

To not spoil the show, the end is basically "things look like they went wrong, but it was my plan all along!" This is so cliche and the easy way out in trying to make an ending for the out-of-control story that they no longer had any idea what they were doing with. (see spoiler review below)

Code Geass is good for some amusement, but don't expect a master piece.

<<SPOILER REVIEW>> (a more in-depth review, but with slight spoilers)

I'm going to go back to discuss the ending. Throughout the show, we slowly start to see Lelouch's descent into power madness and corruption. These are the same traits we know his father to have. We see him struggle with the idea that he is becoming like his father...and then we're told at the end that it was all a plot and he did it on purpose... It just cheapens the whole inner struggle. I just find this to be silly.

One of the most overrated Garbage in Anime. Period.

Well I don't really have grudges against mecha/military anime. I personally enjoyed the thrilling experience of Aldnoah. Zero and quite consistently watching some military anime. But Code Geass was REALLY BAD.

I peronally finished this series because some ppl insisted me on watching this series. I thought the story was going to get better at some point... but it never did.

Story (1/10):
Code Geass is setup in the universe where Japan is a colony and the ruling country is ... Britannia? Is this coincidence or possible hatred against western countries... that aside let's go to the next one.

Countless ... Pizza Hut Ads. Is this anime about Pizza?

The main characters are never injured and side characters always die. EVEN WHEN THEY ARE OUTNUMBERED 100 to 1. It's like saying couple of local men from the middle east defeated the entire US forces there.
LET'S GET THE LOGIC OFF THE FLOOR BOOIS!

Princess Euphemia incident (those who watched know)... JUST OOF
I mean the story-writer just tried to find a way to f*** up the story in such a SMOOTH way haha

So a couple of hs students can steal military equipment from the best country in the world? JUST WTF

The story could have ended if LeLouche killed Kururugi, who is obviously a traitor at one point... but heck no. Kururugi LITERALLY TRIED TO KILL YOU multiple times but.. eh if he dies the story ends so...

So somehow LeLouche and Kururugi are better pilots then experienced military men... ???? wait whaa

Britannian army gets wrecked by Japanese forces!!! Let's tell Japan's dominance!... wait is this a propaganda? I mean... this could have been avoided if the writers decided to come up with a different world map and maybe AN ORIGINAL NAME FOR THE COUNTRIES?

LeLouche always messes up his powers so the story doesn't end.

Pretty bad gundam fights. Fights aren't intense at all.

And countless more to just get the conflict going in the most boring ways as possible. It's like Mirai Nikki on drugs except it's not interesting.
Yes, this STORY IS FULL OF PLOT HOLES

Art: (1/10)
Please welcome
People with body out of proportion!
Stick Figures!
Really Thin Arms and Legs!
REALLY BIG EYES!
wait... are these people really human?


Sound (6/10)
hey, at least they have a catchy opening!

Character(1/10)
Just... Kururugi and LeLouche are just big d-bags and idiots

Overall (1/10)
Code Geass, this rating is reserved for you.

NOTE: This review applies to the first 2 seasons of Code Geass. I do not plan to watch and review Season 3.

The Positive Side: Code Geass takes place in an alternate future, wherein Britannia (Great Britain with mechs and Nazis, basically) has conquered Japan. Lelouch, an exiled Britannian Prince, seeks to topple the Britannian tyranny to avenge his mother and create a kinder world for his blind younger sister, Nunelly. He is aided by a mysterious power called Geass, which allows him to give irresistible orders and bend other people to his will.
Code Geass has an intriguing premise and some very strong ... portrayals of war, racism, colonialism and cultural disenfranchisement. One of my favorite details of the setting is that under Britannian rule, Japan and the Japanese people have been stripped of their name, and live under the designation, “Area 11.” It’s a brilliant detail that shows the lengths to which Britannia goes to destroy Japan’s sense of identity.
Through the first season, Code Geass exhibits strong characterization on all sides of its conflict. Lelouch’s friend and archrival, Suzaku, opposes him throughout the first season, and while we are inclined to root for Lelouch, given the horrific atrocities of the Britanian’s, it easy to understand why Suzaku is on the other side, and hard to blame him or dislike him. Another excellent addition to the supporting cast is Kallen Kozuki, a daring young freedom fighter and half-Japanese Britannian student who joins up with Lelouch’s rebellion on behalf of her abused and down-trodden Japanese mother. The brilliance of Kallen is that she is able to maintain a kind of purity of character when Lelouch begins to slip morally ambiguous behavior. While Lelouch embodies the duality of war—noble intentions with seemingly unavoidable, evil methods—Kallen embodies the courageous patriot, and as long she remains in the focus of the narrative, she ensures we have someone to root for.
War is an immense and difficult topic to handle in anime, and it’s rare to find a Shonen series that doesn’t reduce it to a conflict between obvious heroes and uniformly sadistic and irredeemable villains. Code Geass refuses this simplification, and for that at least, it deserves a little respect.

The Negative Side: Like its protagonist, Code Geass starts off full of promise and blazing ambition, but loses its path, and ultimately, seems to forget what it was trying to achieve in the first place. Code Geass should have been one of the greatest anime ever made, but its faults are so numerous and distracting that it’s often irritating to watch, and ultimately, very hard to take seriously.
Let’s begin with the artwork. While the mecha are well-drawn and have intriguing designs, and most of the action is very fluid, the artists flounder any time they’re required to draw a person. Nearly every member of the cast is suffering from Terminal Anorexia, Chihuahua Head Syndrome and Early Onset Yaoi Hands. Even the girls have yaoi hands. There’s a few martial artists and soldiers in the cast, but the quality of the mecha fights makes every fight not involving a mecha look even more ridiculous. Everyone moves like they’re filled with helium instead of blood. Supposedly human characters leap five times their height, defy gravity and inertia and spontaneously spin with nothing to draw traction from but thin air. If this was explicitly a supernatural martial arts anime like Ranma ½ or Fist of the North Star, I’d have no problem with this kind of silliness, but Geass’s efforts to feel grounded and real are shattered in nearly every hand-to-hand fight.
Even more irritating is Geass’s insistence on cramming fan-service into scenes where it has no business being. There’s a moment late n the first season where Kallen and Suzaku become mysteriously stranded on a tropical Island. Kallen, in a complete defiance of the concept of logical priorities, decides this is the perfect time to take a shower. Suzaku stumbles on Kallen while she’s naked and bathing in a waterfall. Kallen immediately recognizes Suzaku as an enemy, draws her knife and charges him.
This should have been one of the tensest and most dramatic scenes in the series. Kallen and Suzaku have both been built as sympathetic and complex characters, and without a moment’s warning, both are thrust into mortal danger. In that moment, I was afraid that one of them was surely going to die, and I was unsure of who I was rooting for. Sadly, the animator’s insistence of baring Kallen’s breasts, coupled with Suzaku’s subsequent take-down (which puts Kallen in a position far too reminiscent of being raped) ruins the tone of the scene. Instead of witnessing two noble characters in a struggle for their beliefs and their survival, we witness a display of the creator’s own bad taste. The fanservice is almost invariably of the creepy variety, either nonconsensual ‘accidents’ or used as a point of shaming the girls. Roughly half the battle-scenes are ruined by pointless close-ups of the girls’ breasts and rear-ends. There are moments when Code Geass feels like it was created as a guide on how not to use fan-service.
Despite the writers’ knack for characterization, Code Geass degrades its strongest women to a disgusting degree. Kallen, a fearless revolutionary who has been fighting against Britannia even longer than Lelouch, is forced to wear playboy bunny suit, to her own shame and humiliation. She is later captured and strapped to a table with what is quite obviously bondage gear, forced to wear a dress that exposes a solid fifty percent of her breasts, and is nearly raped by one of her captors. C.C. spends most of the series as a stoic, mysterious ally with her own agenda and desires, and is one of the only characters in the series who calls out Lelouch on his stupidity and immoral hypocrisy. Following a convenient memory lapse in Season 2, C.C. is reduced to a cringing slave-girl, perpetually terrified of being beaten and eagerly subordinating herself to Lelouch, even when asked to remove her clothes.
Code Geass often uses chess motifs to support its themes of clever planning and manipulation. This would probably be a lot more effective if anyone who worked on the show had ever learned the rules of chess. Every time a characters busts out a chess board, you can count on hilariously stupid and illegal moves. At one point, a character moves his king into check. Amusingly, his opponent is horrified.
Speaking of clever planning… despite the fact that Code Geass puts focus on tactical intelligence, many of Lelouch’s decisions are mind-blowingly stupid. He walks into obvious traps even he knows they are traps, and is unnecessarily hostile and paranoid towards people who ought to be his allies. Britannia is not exempt from this, as we see in Season 2, when they dismiss the idea of multiple countries working together in a military campaign laughable, and claim that the result would be ‘an unruly mob’.
…Hey, Britannians? Remember that whole “World War 2” thing? You know, the one that both Britain and Japan fought in? Turns out countries can actually work together pretty well when they have a common enemy.
Despite the strength of the characters, the dialogue is frequently hammy and ridiculous. Sometimes this is justified by Lelouch’s fondness for theatrics, but sometimes, it’s just plain stupid. There is no context in which the words, “Attention, people of Japan. Could you all just die, please?” will not be ridiculous.
I really wish I could separate seasons 1 and 2, because season 1 is vastly better, but unfortunately, season 1 ends on a total cliff-hanger that demands I take both seasons as halves of the same story.
Code Geass’s death blow comes near the end of Season 2. I will refrain from giving spoilers here, but will say that the strong characterization given to the main characters is wasted, as they seem to forget their own defining motivations. When characters stop behaving in a way that makes sense for who and what they are, it’s simply not possible to believe in them the way we believe in all the characters we love most dearly. Where there were once compelling and complex characters, there are now puppets, spouting nonsensical monologues about vague ideals and coldly marching through whatever actions the writers thrust upon them. No matter how many convoluted schemes or dramatic twists Code Geass hurls at you, the entire effort ends up feeling hollow and pointless.

Final Verdict: Code Geass is riddled with obnoxious faults in taste and style, but beneath these faults, there’s artistic ambition, moral insight and a cast of memorable and exciting characters. It’s truly a pity this show was less than it could have been. If you’re curious as to why this anime is so highly rated, feel free to check it out. Otherwise… I, INKSPIDER VI BRITANNIA, COMMAND YOU… to go watch something better.

Code Geass is the tale of an ambigously-disowned prince who has spent his entire life so far daydreaming about how he will get his revenge on his dad in the event that he acquires a very specific superpower, and when a mysterious witch grants him said very specific superpower with no conditionality, he promptly proceeds to indulge in his 14 year-old fantasy.

If you're somewhere in the rough ballpark of your mid-20s to your mid-30s and you've been around the Anime Bloc for a while, then you likely remember a very vivid time in your teenage years where you just couldn't get away from Code ... Geass. I was one of them, trust me. We talked at length about its interesting themes, its cool robot fights, its schemes, its plots, its characters, and all of these things came about with some very interesting ideas.

The trouble is, we remember just that: Ideas. Loose inklings and thoughts and scenes that have floated around in our heads over the years, and maybe a few threads that string all these memories all along. They were a neat symphony of everything we found nostalgic about the edginess of the Late 2000s, wrapped into one package.

And therein lies the problem: If i'm going to oversimplify, Code Geass is very much a show that wants to have its cake and eat it too. This phrase does not even begin to describe the cacophony of error that is Code Geass. It wants to be a dumb popcorn action flick and a political thriller jam-packed with intrigue, and a scathing social commentary on occupation and authority, while it's at it, and perhaps it will dash in high school drama, too. It's a simply nauseating concoction of tropes and schemes only (barely) held together by the virtue that it moves along at such a blistering pace that we are given little - if any - time to digest what has just transpired, before we are off to the next titular set-piece in our adventure.

This issue is most apparent in Code Geass' cinematography; The way such that scenes transpire are such that there is very little resolution given in any particular scene, such that, by any logical consequence, the scenes often end such that you are left wondering how any of the involved actors ever escaped. Scenes simply "end", cutting to the next one with little resolution. This, in turn, creates a simply bizarre tempo to the show at large that, by the end of virtually even the second episode, I was left in utter consternation at the series of events which had just transpired. Plot points which seem like they should have been enormous scenes from which would have been built up for episodes and only revealed at the end, and just as unceremoniously resolved as the show drops everything and leaps headlong into the next scene. Just as soon as what is seemingly a main antagonist is confronted and killed are we jettisoned into the future and plopped right in the midst of a school drama. Likewise, the show injects tension into scenarios in which there should logically be none, all the while leaving you wondering just how one got to this point to begin with. The ironic result is a show that both shows too little and too much, all at once. What we are left to puzzle together is an utterly nonsensical romp which takes itself far more seriously than this show has any right to, until it culminates into an anti-climax from which we are shown that everything yet nothing is relevant, all at once.

It's characters - every last one of them, right down to the eponymous Lelouch himself - are horrendously incompetent. By any metric, any of our hero's stratagems would be so thoroughly thwarted by any amount of protocol, and the amount of violations of even the most basic modicum of 'sense' in the world of Code Geass is immediately disregarded. In fact, the sole saving grace to Lelouch's machinations ever seeing the light of day would therein lie in the show's - if I can even call it this - "characterization". Actors in Code Geass routinely act in so confounding of nature that they often act in ways perpendicular to their motivations and current knowledge...and this is to say nothing in all of the specific instances in which one could discuss: There are too many egregious examples to list out, to say nothing of spoilers. Few members of the cast seem to ever display much in they way of competence. Fortune - in Lelouch's case, maybe - but competence is in such short of display that the actions on display seem to go so contrary to their motivations (or even common sense) that there is no explanation for them aside for the sake of shoehorning in tension. Any exchange of ideas or ideals are likewise only performed in the form of characters monologuist to one another. They all speak at length, and rarely - if ever - complete their thoughts. Truly the worst of Code Geass comes out whenever a monologue transpires: Much like the rest of the show, one is left wondering if the display of over-flowered nonsense was meant to be seen as foolish or as impressive.

Code Geass is a cascading array of failures on almost every level of production, without shame or humor, and what genuinely impressive shows of mechanical design in its mecha and sound are sadly overshadowed by the mess that is the show at large.

Do you feel like nobody loves you and the universe is out to ruin your life? Are you too smart for your own good? Then Code Geass is the anime for you.

Code Geass is very visually appealing, and the alternate universe setting is intriguing. Unfortunately these are squandered by melodramatic writing and obnoxious characters. The chief offender is Lelouch, the protagonist himself, who is one of those holier-than-thou genius characters with beautiful eyes and a tragic backstory. C.C., the geas-giver, is a prime example of women as plot devices; and Nunnally, Lelouch's poor little blind sister, is like a throwback to the uselessly delicate girls ... of Victorian literature. Even Kallen, supposedly a strong female character, is the frequent subject of the male gaze, and furthermore cannot help herself from falling in love with Lelouch, who is a heartless cardboard cutout whose one redeeming feature is his fashion sense.

This is a show where nothing good ever really happens. I watched half the season and felt that anything this show was trying to make me feel was not worth feeling. Lelouch is not a lead deserving of my sympathies or attention - all of his choices are milked for utmost drama possible, not substance. Code Geass is like a hamfisted JV mecha version of Death Note.

Im just putting up a warning here before you continue on. This review will contain vulgar language and in normal cases i don't think it is necessary. But this piss poor anime infuriates me on every level, something no anime, manga or game have been able to do before, so cudos to that.



This is by far the worst anime i have ever seen.

First up is the dialogue and story;
The only comparison i can make here is being forced to watch a highschoolers poorest atempt to write drama. Its clunky, over dramatic, edgy and make no sense in most sceens. Things seams to happen with ... no after fought and seams more to happen because it looks "cool" rather then to make sense.

Example for this:
The very first episode. The stolen truck. There is no way in hell that ANY rebel that went this far into stealing a goddamn weapon with said aledged power, would swirve of the highway because a dumb shit on a moped went up on it. And why they are there in the first place is beyond me aswel. Not the truck, the protagonist.
This could have been averted so easily. A un forsceen police blockade, the military blowing up the bridge. But HELL NO! instead a goddamn tool on a moped are the thing that stops the 10 ton truck filled with what is assumed to be a nuke.
That whole sceen is just down right lazy writing that looks "cool" on the surface but executes like shit.

And there are so many sceens in each episode that are equally stupid that im not going to go over because then this review would be 100 pages long.

Next up is the art;
And jesus on a cross is the art piss poor. Im not giving this whole show a 1 out of 10 for some elaborate meme or shitty reason, it is a damn terrible show and im here to state why it is so.
Design, this is something the author and makers of this show are so unfamiliar with that it's goddamn terrifying. The only thing that comes close to the poor choises made in this series would be if you googled the term "Sparkle dog" if you can't find it add "furry" to it and you will see what i mean.
This show have not understood the term "less is more" by a long shot. its all over the place, the outfits looks dumb as shit and the castle thing in the first few episodes, the one that is compltly white. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT THING? it surves no arcitectual purpose what so ever.
All the towers with bridges that leads nowhere, its pale with coating, oh and how about the none existing windows? That whole shit is a safty hazzard like no other.

So what about the sound?;
Honestly i can't tell. It was not terrible but at the same time it was not memorable. Being extremly forgettable but not bad id say i put it at decent at best.

Characters;
Jesus fucking christ. There should be a negative number for this category. The whole time im watching this im just sitting there and hoping "Please make laluche die". And why? because he is the edgy fuck boi of the block that will emotinaly exploit anyone got get anything he wants.
He is not a well written villan type, but rather a shitty and lazy written protagonist type.
And the names in this show is the worst i have ever heard. They make me infact feel like the show wants to be pretentious and takes itself so seriously that it just feels disgusting.

Lets name a few:
"Lelouch Lamperouge" it sounds so slimy and rich boi esque. I don't know how to describe it, maybe pretentious fits in here aswell.

"Euphemia li Britannia" From my understanding, the family is royal? So it would make a small bit of sense why the last name is what it is. To bad its garbage since "Britannia" is the dumbest sounding take on "britan" i have ever heard.

"Nina Einstein"
Yeah, no. Not taking yourself just a TAD to serious now are you?
Fun fact, when looking up her name i got in the top results "top 10 most annoying anime characters! [HD]" with her face as the thumbnail. Nice one.

Why not add our number 1 nation? GrEaTu BrItAnIaUeUeUeU. In all seriousness, i have never heard of a dumber name in a anime when it comes to nations.

And that leads us to enjoyment and overall;

Well, what do you think yourself? I just spent the whole review shitting on the show, so its a clear 1 right? Wrong. I have not been this much entertained in years. Me and my brother went to see this show and it took us over 1 hour per episode due to the sheer amount of times we had to pause, point out something hilariously stupid and laugh about it.
Im not kidding when i say this, but code geass might be the holy grail of shitty anime. But in the sense of its so horribly bad its actually enjoyable.
Think arnold swartcneger movies that is packed to the brim with cheesy one liners. The movie itself is shit, but goddamn, those one liners gets me every time.
And that is the case with this anime. Every elephant misstake gets me every time. Its like "haha, ok, they can't fuck it up even more" and then they did.