Okay, so first and foremost, I will warn that this review will have many spoilers. If you have not watched the show, while I will not recommend you do so, please proceed at your own risk, or watch the show first.
I want to start with saying that this is the first show I have written a review for on AniList. The first review I ever wrote was for Darling in the Franxx on MyAnimeList only because of the mere lunacy in the whole "alien plot twist" at the end. In any case, I want to start by saying that Code Geass is worse, which is what spurred me to write this review. Forgive me if the styling or formatting isn't great.
With that out of the way, lets get started with the review. We are introduced in episode 1 to a world where the Britannia Empire rules. We are not given much lore on the rise of the Britannia Empire, but we do see a day in the life of the student Lelouch ~~Lamperouge~~ la Britannia, an "extremely intelligent" ~~student~~ prince living in Japan, which is now Area 11 under the Britannia Empire. I will say this right now, the show tries very hard to portray Lelouch as a genius, with examples such as him defeating Britannian aristocrats in chess in record time, employing chess algorithms in battle strategies, and outsmarting his enemy using tactics that would impress anyone watching this show. Lelouch, however, is really not so much a genius, but rather takes full advantage of 2 things:
- "plot convenience" for Lelouch
- "plot inconvenience" for the enemies.
Lets take an example. After gaining his Geass, Lelouch then starts commanding the other rebels from a Knightmare mecha he acquired. After spouting a few chess maneuvers that the average person would find meaningless, he is able to use the local rebels with limited experience to easily ambush trained Britannian soldiers, defeat experience-hardened generals, and eventually kill Prince Clovis la Britannia. If the anime had somehow demonstrated or given a portrayal of the significance of the chess moves, and provided a slight explanation on why these chess moves would prevail in the situation, I would recognize Lelouch's intellect here. How the opposition suddenly became cannon fodder, I have no idea, but for Clovis and the many generals/strategists with him to not be able to defeat Lelouch and a few rebels does not make Lelouch smart to me. In fact, it makes me think that the Britannians are mere tools to progress the story, because of course the oppressed Japanese people should prevail, even with their lack of experience in the battlefield.
Now, I mentioned plot convenience for Lelouch, but by god, with Suzaku being Lelouch's rival, I must say that Lelouch suffers from an incredible amount of plot inconvenience as well. Suzaku is Lelouch's best friend from 7 years before the setting of the story, when Britannia first invaded. Suzaku suffers mentally throughout the show as he killed his father, a politician trying to stop the Britannian invasion, in hopes for peace in Japan. Suzaku wishes to "change Britannia from the inside", going so far as to die for Britannia if necessary... but this is extremely conflicting due to his principles. As a man who wishes to stick to the rules, Suzaku is willing to comply no matter what, even going so far as to allow the Britannians to kill him if necessary. This is, of course, extremely hypocritical, but most importantly, it is indicative of bad writing. To have a main character where their goals and principles differ so vastly causes actions that are not only insensible and illogical, but also convenient for the side that the author wishes to prevail in times of conflict.
Lets go through a few examples. In the first episode, when Lelouch meets C.C and is confronted by the army, Suzaku is told to shoot Lelouch, and upon refusing, is shot. Suzaku survives, recovers almost immediately, and takes a training simulation to see if he is a good fit for an experimental Knightmare. He then gets a near perfect score and immediately rolls out to the battlefield where Lelouch is commanding the rebels. The amount of convenience here that allows Suzaku to recover from a gunshot wound so easily, and then go back to serve the same army, is unfathomable, but it gets even better. Lelouch wins and kills Clovis, calling for an investigation. This failed, and as such, Suzaku is framed, even though he has proof that he was in an experimental mecha fighting for the Britannians at the time of the murder. The Britannians decide to televise and publicize it, which Lelouch uses to his advantage by creating a hostage situation. The sheer stupidity of a Britannian general to not realize that Britannian citizens could be hurt and taken hostage in this situation is astounding to me. Anyways, Lelouch succeeds in saving Suzaku, which brings us to the scene that sealed this shows fate: The first meeting between Zero (Lelouch) and Suzaku. Suzaku refuses to join Zero as he doesn't agree with Zero's method, citing that this put citizens in danger. I can agree that putting the life of citizens on the line like that is messed up, but Suzaku is not willing to take the life of his opponents either. Suzaku, even being in the army, doesn't recognize that he is at WAR, and in WAR, people DIE. Moreover, Suzaku said he was leaving to go to court to face the charges, because "those are the rules". Suzaku's naivete, the difference in his principles and goals leading to his hypocrisy, and his insane level of stubbornness just ruined the show with similar events later on.
On a side note, lets talk about Ashford Academy for a second. Kallen, being a rebel, doesnt come to school often, but of course, the day she comes back, she's immediately put onto the student council. Guess what, Lelouch is on the council... I smell plot convenience coming. Ah yes, Lelouch being a genius, slipped up, and now Kallen suspects he knows her true identity as a rebel... but of course, with her on the council now, they can have a party with champagne (even though they are teenagers?). Lelouch ends up spilling champagne on Kallen so we can get some fanservice from a Kallen bath scene, Lelouch brings her clothes and a towel, but Kallen tells him to stay so they can talk, then a conveniently timed phone call comes in, which Lelouch picks up and hands to Kallen. On the other end is Zero, or at least, a pre-recorded dialogue that Lelouch made his servant play with his Geass. The timing here is insane, and not only depended on Kallen being in the bath, but also on Kallen asking Lelouch to stay and for Lelouch to pick up the phone. At this point, it's clear that there is 0 intellect in this plan, but rather a dependence on context.
Speaking of further examples of convenience, let's talk about how Suzaku is suddenly enrolled into Ashford Academy, into the same class as Lelouch, out of the blue. It gets even better with the complete shit storywriting. After he is enrolled, Suzaku meets Euphemia and a romance between the two is developed, then we see a cat steal Lelouch's helmet that he uses to hide his identity as Zero, then they find the cat and Ashford throws a welcoming party for the cat... but in the same episode, we see the story explore the drug addiction that Kallen's mother suffers from... tell me, how the hell can you have cuts between an extremely serious topic like drugs that the Japanese use to relive their glory days, and a slice of life-like "chase the cat" scene in the same episode? Right when I thought the story was taking a good turn for once by showing more of the suffering of the Japanese, and expanding upon Kallen's character and her hatred for the Britannians, the show goes to ruin it with a welcoming party for a cat that stole the Zero helmet. Then there's Nina... oh my god, Nina... she masturbated to Euphemia using the edge of a table because Euphemia saved her life, then theres a scene to Zero and the rest of the Black Knights strategizing over an operation, and then it cuts back to Nunally walking in on her right after she finishes...?
The insane part is, this very same episode introduces Mao, and that brings me to my next complaint: Shirley. Shirley to Lelouch is basically the Hinata x Sakura to Naruto. Not only is Shirley useless, she is so poorly written that every line she ever speaks is about "Lulu". "Why doesn't Lulu pick up the phone?" "Why did he end the call like that? HMPH!" I didn't hate Sakura nor Hinata not Orihime as much as I hated Shirley, cuz her entire personality is her obsession with "Lulu". A useless version of Asuna from SAO is what I think of her. I won't say her
Mao then traps Lelouch with shirley and Mao pointing a gun at Lelouch, but then Mao goes into a cable car to grab a shotgun, only for C.C to trap him inside the cable car and send him off... convenience much? Anyways, Lelouch manages to use his Geass on Shirley to make her forget everything she knew about him, which is so stupid as everyone knew she loved her "Lulu". Of course, this is hardly addressed, and whenever it is addressed, it is brushed off. He then switches gears and used an extremely smart (no sarcasm here) plan by using Geass on himself so that Mao's mind reading Geass wouldn't work on him. However, Mao abducts C.C to an abandoned amusement park, holding her hostage and threatening to kill her, but Lelouch magically learned how to hack (it was never stated that he was a technological genius of any sort), he perfectly predicted the time to broadcast his pre-recorded message, and even predicted the timing of the dialogue as well as the nature of the conversation, making it look like he was chatting real-time. I guess Lelouch became God for a while, because this is absolutely nuts. To add salt onto the wound, Lelouch was able to make it hacking the broadcast, to using Geass on an entire police squad, to Mao's location, ending with Mao being riddled with bullets from multiple different cops. Keep this in mind for now, this will be important later.
Now we have Euphemia coming to Ashford Academy, yet nobody recognized her with her hat on, but once the hat flew off, everyone rushed her... really? Come on. Additionally, at the festival, Euphemia decides to announce that she is willing to treat the Japanese well, even giving back their nationality. Lelouch wants to stop this, but comes to terms with Euphemia and even admits defeat, revealing his identity as Zero and Euphemias brother. He then jokes that "I could make you kill the Japanese if I wanted to", and then his Geass decided that was the breaking point of Geass overuse, losing control on his Geass and causing her to commit mass genocide with all the Japanese gathered. At the end, Lelouch had no choice but to shoot her, which caused her to die even with multiple of Britannias best doctors attempting to save her. Now, remember how Mao had been riddled with bullets earlier? He directly stated that "Britannia medicine had advanced" later when he was shown to have survived that attack, but this "medicine" couldnt save Euphemia from a single gunshot wound? Moreover, this sent Suzaku into complete rage at Zero for killing Euphemia, even though she had just committed mass genocide against the Japanese.
As the show progresses, Suzaku stays rooted in his hypocrisy, destroying any chance of good storywriting by constantly piling on convenience on convenience. My god, the scene when the Britannians corner Zero and Suzaku with the Knightmare disabling technology, then try to bomb the two was hard to watch. This scene also reminds me of Kallen, whose shit character I'll have to come back to. I physically cringed when, instead of locating the technology and attempting to destroy it, she entered the field to try to save Lelouch, which got her in danger as her Knightmare was disabled. Moreover, Lelouch was stunned at the fact that Suzaku was stupid enough to let himself get bombed just so Zero would be taken with him. To force Lelouch to use his single use Geass on Suzaku, commanding him to "live", is an issue of its own which snowballs even all the way to the end of Season 2. If Suzaku's suicidal tendencies or self-hate had been expanded upon, maybe his behavior in this scene might be a bit more bearable, but even then, it's extremely hard to watch.
Their final confrontation when they end up on the island is pure chaos: Kallen has a mental breakdown after Zero is revealed to be Lelouch. It had been revealed in earlier episodes that Zero was a Britannian, so Kallen having a breakdown here makes 0 sense. The final confrontation also was hard because while Kallen was stuck with Suzaku, we saw how Kallen tried to convince Suzaku of her ideology, but Suzaku wasn't having any of it. Suzaku now knew of the plans that Zero had, and we as the audience till now did not know what Suzaku's plan truly was. How did he plan to change Britannia from the inside? What specifically would he do? This is never answered as nobody ever asked him this question, which is why it is so hard for me to accept that he would stay so rooted to his goal. He even betrayed his best friend Lelouch by turning him in to the king and tried so hard to kill him even if it meant suicide, he even killed his own father to stop the war, but yet he won't kill his enemies on the battlefield? He doesn't want anyone else to die? Suzaku is the biggest hypocrite I've ever seen, is probably one of the most hated characters of the show, and in all honesty, one of the worst written characters I've ever seen.
At the end of the day, I feel like the story of this show is no more than a 5/10. Lelouch in the final confrontation said "I don't have the time to argue over which one of us is the bigger hypocrite", and in all honesty, it says a lot about the story here. I know I'm gonna get a lot of hate for this review, but after seeing the high popularity of this show and having watched it for myself, there's no way I can agree to them. The music/OSTs/OPs are amazing for sure, but they definitely cannot carry the absolute shit story here. A story where plot convenience and inconvenience alternates for both sides is a story I simply cannot praise the way the rest of the community does.
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