Sounds good i hope...if anyone cares...likewise i'm going to try a different approach, you know to find the review style that suits me best...the other method felt so....by the book...secondly i'm going to a bit more serious this go round, serious anime calls for a serious review just the same as a comedic anime calls for a comedic tone of review. Thirdly I'll just review the whole series as a whole, Season 1 and 2, i think it's easier for me and you, to get the whole picture. Enough ground rules onto the review!
Code geass was one of those...life changing animes for me. Not that it taught me a life lesson like clannad ( We'll get to that later on) it just opened my eyes to what anime could be. Anime doesn't always have a righteous hero who will protect the innocent, i guess it's not just in anime, sometimes stories in general don't always have this.
Lelouch, the main character, was a serious mold breaker for me, perhaps because i had never seen a hero do stuff like that ever (I haven't seen death note but i know that there are similarities.) But it wasn't like i was relieved to have something fresh. I was almost horrified but also entranced by the end of episode one (Season 1). Here was the start of a seemingly normal school anime in my eyes and by the end i saw a sight that almost sickened me. The main "hero" smiling as he killed a whole troop.
But I also was in awe, somehow i was drawn in and that spell never left me till the end of season 1. The show had an awesome insight to the reality of war, the reality of what it means to become more than you are, to rise up from the ashes of defeat, to inspire a nation and to destroy one.
The show was probably my first intro to "real" anime. It showed real problems like corrupt governments and the power of ambition. It showed how one man became more than just one man, becoming a symbol for change.
Through the course of the series however, i found myself hating him sometimes, namely in R2. He became this power hungry villian without a care for anybody but his goals. To some he was always like that, but to me i saw his character change in R2 and i didn't like it. But the fact that I was so bothered by this can attest to the power the story, the characters and whatnot had overall.
By the ending couple of episodes i now looked upon a man who i felt like i grew up with and now stood before me, completely changed. Instantly I found that I was back to the horrified yet awed outlook i had for this character/story that had started so long ago. Though this time it was different.
Then the ending rolled around and...it hit and stuck with me like no other anime ever did before watching this. Without spoiling, (This is incredibly hard to write and not spoil...course if you haven't seen this yet you are missing out on anime gold!) I couldn't of thought of a better ending. Basically after i got through the ending, I found myself utterly amazed and shellshocked at the same time.
Overall this anime changed my thoughts on anime and what it means to be a good one. you don't have to be as serious as this one to be good to me, but rather it's ability to not only draw me into the story but to also have someone like me care so much about these characters and their choices/ actions, good or bad.
So I say to anyone reading still, watch this anime! If you're not sure yet after this, watch the first episode. I believe you'll know whether or not you like it by the end of just the first, I know I did. Course if you have already watched this anime and are reading just because or you hate it and want someone else's opinion on it, I say watch it again. When I first finished I hated it, but eventually I watched it again, a little older and I could appreciate what was going on and understand why things were done/ said. It's one of those animes that can truly be what you want it to be, a tragedy or a inspiring tale of what someone would do for the greater good; and the main character can be a villian or a hero, a harbinger of death or a savior of the world...
-Eriad Eternas-
