You know, I really was about to give up on the mech genre for awhile. I would be lying if I said giant robots beating the crap out of each-other till one of them falls over to a singing orchestra doesn't appeal to me, but what I've seen hasn't impressed me too much. Gurren Laggan had the excuse of not being supposed to be good, but I.S Infinite Stratos and Evangelion had pretty much sucked the tolerance of out of me with the pace of a tortoise running a marathon, so thanks a lot Code Geass for being actual being good! I won't lie, it has flaws big enough to fly an apache helicopter through, but its story and characters are solid to keep me limping around the junkyard of mech anime in hope of finding something half as good until I fall over and suffocate on the discarded OP's...
Code Geass has a cast large to populate some European countries, but for now let's talk about Lelouch Lamperouge, a main character smarter than any teenager has any right to be. So when a mysterious woman grants him the power to give a command that his subject must obey, he does the typical thing anyone would do in that situation, and starts to take over the world under the alias "Zero", but not before telling an entire army squad to off themselves. He may seem like an cocky, emotionless git at the beginning but once you learn his motivation you really begin to understand him, and as the pressure of leadership piles on him, you see his confident demeanor start to crack. He really was an entertaining character, partly because he could produce some epic inspirational speeches when he wanted to, and partly because his character is complicated enough to drive the story forward, even if he could be a little annoying to watch occasionally. Suzaku Kururugi is Lelouch's childhood friend, but now is a soldier for Brittania. What makes it interesting it that even though he and Lelouch have essentially the same goals, they go about in completely different ways, which not only creates good tension, it also makes you question Lelouch and whether he's doing the right thing. Another purpose for his character I think was to let the viewer into the Brittanian Empire, so that the "generic evil empire" stamp avoids them. It lets you see that even some royalty aren't sure if they're doing the right thing, and this gives good contrast for the show.
My biggest problem with the show is that its tone is more shaky than laundry dryer on a treadmill. Imagine someone sneaks into your house in the middle of the night and takes all the labels of your soup jars; you would be confused if you aren't one of those people that didn't fall off their bicycle as a child, and that's how I felt about the show's tone. Code Geass has a completely unnecessary high-school setting(which seems to be a requirement for anime these days) so after a heart-pounding mech fight, the show's a freakin' slice-of-life; love triangles intact. The show also has an extremely dark moment near the end, and while it pleasantly shocked me, it just seemed out of place.
Animation is decent enough, and even shines during some of the mech fights, but when nothing interesting is happening, it's painfully average. I understand that choice, but I don't want to be bored while the characters talk about postal stamps either! The sound fits the show, but fits like I fit into my skinny jeans, with rips and pain on both sides. I hardly ever acknowledged the background music, and even the OP's weren't that amazing, so all in all, a "meh" sound wise.
Code Geass is an intelligent anime, with good action, colorful characters, and nice pace, but it can't seem decide what it wants to be in the end. It flicks through ideas but never settles on one, and never impressed me animation wise. However, I still have the watch the second series, and this is all building to towards soe kin dof grand conclusion. Code Geass is worth your time, no doubt about it, but I'm not going out of my way to get others to see it. But wait I'm writing a positive review on it. So does that means I'm contradicting myself? You know, it's time to stop padding this review out.
Final Verdict: 8/10
