Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

(Brief Spoilers tagged for Seasons 1 and 2)

So I finished Code Geass now, thoughts?

Simply peak

One of the best dubs in anime, great animation for the time, unbelieveably engaging and stressful hooks episode to episode and a fantastic cast. It's pretty obvious this was gonna pop off the second I came back to this show. (I dropped it for a bit after 1 episode, wasn't bad at all just had stuff to do.)

Episodes can go from 0 to 100 before you know it, especially early on the series establishes this really healthy blend of double life for multiple characters where its mixed with school and some extremely action heavy things like a character being apart of the resistance, being royalty, being apart of the military etc. It manages to make each individual character which hides this from one another while at school interesting asf, the fact they make the school segments a means for things to slow down while still giving heavy characterisation and tension honestly makes me feel as if its one of the most under appreciated aspects to Code Geass

Also yeah, there's just way too many good characters. Lelouch and Suzaku are the obvious stars (also my fucking god JYB and Yuri put up some of their best performances especially JYB this is without a doubt his best). C2, Kallen and Shirley were all really well made characters who also worked kinda great for a sorta love triangle with Lelouch i suppose? I never rolled my eyes at it or anything I genuinely felt as if the chemistry worked well between lelouch and any of them. The show also does a really good job with side characters and villains, making sure they get consistent content and for some even redeeming aspects. (Only villain I didn't really enjoy was V2)

Lot of big things get settup extremely well so in a world with a lot of potentially bullshit powers and mechs, nothing actually ends up bullshit. One of my favourite examples of this is used through the character Mao and how his circumstances are essential for understanding an extremely detrimental moment later completely unrelated to him (iykyk)

Coming into this I expected Lelouch to be similiar to Light, but in truth hes much more similiar to Eren. The only difference here is you almost always have a comfortable grasp at his mindset, where as Eren as much as I love him it can be inconsistent or just drastically change a little too much for people between seasons. You understand Lelouch from beginning to end, but the same goes for so many people in this series too. One of the best aspects of the action actually is how you're never just rooting for one side, this is pretty prominent across the series tbh.

S2 on its own btw I still think was a fucking banger but I still reckon S1 had more heavy hitting pacing all throughout, I also ended up missing a lot of those casual times even if they did bring it back for a bit in a really smart way.

Also ending delivers, thank god. I feel like no matter the position you take you can end up satisfied.

If I had to add any last notes, I kinda wish Kallen didn't get sidelined, she felt like she was leading up to being one of the best easily but got hard shutdown on content by the end, I also wish the stuff with the bomb was explained a bit better

Spoiler, click to viewclick to hide

(like seriously, how TF did Nanalee and Guilford live?)

But yea, that's all I gotta say, this is an experience you don't get often.

Also yea, top 3 anime and has my favourite opening in any series period