First of all, I liked watching Code Geass and the first season is really good at least until the middle of it. It had what it takes to appeal to a large audience. It's the kind of series really hard to make because you're trying to please all the fans and sometimes things get fucked up. But not in Code Geass. You have fast-paced mecha battles, slight humor to liven up the show, "complex" strategic battle, a large cast for guys and gals to pick a favorite and so on. Code Geass was one of the best anime of its year if not the best.
But then towards the end, someone realized that this anime had a very good cash machine potential ( I really don't know if that's what happened ) and tried to increase it. Way to go to fuck things up. So the first half of the season was really good but then you get developments and plot twists that make no sense. For example the Euphinator scene. Why would Lelouch joke about ordering his sister to kill "Elevens"? It felt so "not at all" natural. It's the same as joking about ordering her to suck his dadidudongo. You don't do that, not to your sister or anybody. Anyway let's just look past it since that scene got what it wanted, that is a HUGE twist of events.
As a whole, R1 had a lot of good stuff going on and became the kind of anime you expect a sequel. And so R2 came. I remember being so hyped about it that I watched most episodes twice. But that makes your mind go "What the fuck just happened" after the second viewing.
The first thing to mention that everyone must have observed is "PLOT HOLES". A classic example would be the Geass, the Lelouch Geass.
In the first season, you see Lelouch ordering a girl to draw crosses on a wall everyday to test the duration of his power. Okay... that's a good idea.
In R2 Lelouch lost his Geass and those who were geassed just weren't anymore as the cross drawing girl stopped doing her stuff ( There is the possibility she is fucking dead but who knows).
Again okay... that makes sense.
Then you have Suzaku detonate a Freya Bomb because of a R1 past Geass...
--> What the fuck just happened?
What about the chess games between Schneizel and Lelouch?
It was so retarded I didn't know how to react.
Plot holes are flaws but if you don't pay too much attention, it's not that bothering.
Let's just move on.
The art is really good, a least for female viewers ( I'm not saying guys must hate it ). You can't go wrong with Clamp-style but seriously, sometimes you do...
I'm talking about the facial expressions. That's right, Lelouch may be a bishounen but I really think he should keep the Zero Mask on to prevent showing his shocked face. Another one would be the "Nina learned about Euphie's death's face". It must be the ugliest face I have ever seen in an anime, worse than any monster in a Tim Burton movie. And what about big round anime eyes becoming dot eyes? Too goddamn weird. Just look at Lelouch's contact lens and the size of his eye. Don't you think there is something wrong here?
Concerning the music, openings and endings are awesome. Really good choices, nothing to say here except they rocks.
The downside would be the themes. Why the hell do we always hear trumpets in Code Geass?
Characters are the biggest flaw in R2. Not only do they get shittier, they don't make sense. And here comes Kaname Ougi, the shittiest, most useless character in Code Geass history, worse than a Knight of Rounds yet with more screentime to fuck things up. How come this guy gets to be Prime Minister? In R1 he was so useless that his crew decided to take orders from a stranger.
In R2 he doesn't get any better and infects his crew with stupidity. He fell in love with Viletta who he took advantage of because she got amnesiac ( what a creepo... ), he wanted to leave the Black Knights because he realized he was a useless piece of shit, but when Lelouch was discovered as a former Britannian prince, he and his comrades went all batshit over his ass. It's like: "-Damned that former Britannian prince who saved our sorry asses multiple times, we can't let him live after he helped us get back our territory. -Yeah, we can't forgive him for what he's done, that is defending us from the Britannian Empire. If it weren't for him we would still be getting our asses kicked in our own country. -Totally, guys you are so right let's just trust this NOT former Britannian prince Schneizel who tried to kill us multiple times, if you think about it, it makes more sense since he wants to beat us into submission"...
Moreover, the pacing in R2 messed up so many things like character screentime for the Knights of Rounds or even Marianne. The remaining Knights'fight against Suzaku could be described by 3 screenshots: Suzaku&Lancelot, sword slashes, Suzaku&Lancelot...
I'm not gonna talk about Marianne, she's just too useless for the plot.
In conclusion, Code Geass is great but R2 is such a bad sequel I can't even give it a 5 because after viewing all those episodes I had a bitter aftertaste. It has a lot of qualities but fucked up too much on a lot of points to redeem itself. I gave it a 4 because it could be so much better with a planned R3. If you try to make it a cash machine at least try to make a good one.
Finally I'm not trying to underrate the show, I couldn't care less about its score.
I also don't give a shit about how many "helpful" "not helpful" I get on this review but I'd like to read about some opinions so give feedback if you want. By the way, trolls are welcome.
