Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Image from: http://myanimelist.net/anime/1575/Code_Geass:_Hangyaku_no_Lelouch

Name: Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion コードギアス 反逆のルルーシュ Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch

Sequel: Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch R2

Status: Completed

Episode: 25

Release date (for eng subs): -

Summary:

On August 10th of the year 2010 the Holy Empire of Britannia began a campaign of conquest, its sights set on Japan. Operations were completed in one month thanks to Britannia's deployment of new mobile humanoid armor vehicles dubbed Knightmare Frames. Japan's rights and identity were stripped away, the once proud nation now referred to as Area 11. Its citizens, Elevens, are forced to scratch out a living while the Britannian aristocracy lives comfortably within their settlements. Pockets of resistance appear throughout Area 11, working towards independence for Japan.

Lelouch, an exiled Imperial Prince of Britannia posing as a student, finds himself in the heart of the ongoing conflict for the island nation. Through a chance meeting with a mysterious girl named C.C., Lelouch gains his Geass, the power of the king. Now endowed with absolute dominance over any person, Lelouch may finally realize his goal of bringing down Britannia from within!

Summary Source: Bandai Entertainment

Summary from: http://myanimelist.net/anime/1575/Code_Geass:_Hangyaku_no_Lelouch

Personal Ratings: 4

Idea: 2 / 5

Mecha, political and strategic type of anime. An anime similar to the gundam and other mecha series. So it itself isn't realy a unique idea. The underlying concept for this anime is very typical. You can pick any mecha type series and be sure to hope that almost 90% of the animes are similar to this.

Unique use of Idea: 3 / 5

From the Mecha point of view, Code geass stick strictly to the use of mecha on earth. Many of the mecha anime out there, at some point, would have their setting in outer space. However, Code Geass sticks to their use for Mecha as military weapons, and focuses more on the politics and strategy then the fights. Strategies are more in depth and well thought out than most of the other animes out there.
Unlike a lot of mecha anime that have their characters start out as either an ordinary student, or a military student, Code Geass starts their main character off in an unusual way.

While Lelouch maybe a "ordinary student", he starts off with a connection between the enemy's forces - he is the youngest prince. And he has no military knowledge what so ever.

Execution:

Development: 4 / 5

There are some problems regarding the smoothness and the execution of the anime. I feel that the timing of certain episodes and scenes were just not right, and not chronological. There are a lot of times where I can feel the time gap in between the episodes, which makes it feel like a break in the plot itself. It gives the anime a little disadvantage when it comes to fulfilling viewer’s expectations of the anime (same problem with robotics;notes) when it comes to cliff-hanger endings. So instead of a steady gentle up slop build of the story, it felt like a bumpy uphill route.

As for the tactics, I’m not sure if I’m being fair comparing it to a recent anime, because it would be unfair in terms of quality, but Aldnoah Zero did a much nicer and cleaner job in this aspect.

The anime puts Lelouche in a very unrealistic and hard situations, one in which – most of the time – is created by he himself. However, there are many times this restrictions do not apply to him, because he “cheats”. I do think that there should be a reason for all those restrictions he put himself in. If not it would be a useless and unneeded part of the anime. Aldnoah Zero on the other hand abide by all the “rules”, which is what makes it unrespectable and appealing.

In this anime, there isn’t really such a thing called the “right” or the “good” side. There are only difference of opinions. It is precisely because of this biasness that actually ensure that the predictability of this anime remains minimal. The un-biasness also gives a more realistic side to the anime, making it targeted towards a more mature group of people. Honestly, even until now, I do not feel that I grasp the whole content of the anime. The content itself is very rich and full. It is hard to grasp and understand every single thing at every stage of the anime.

Emotions: 4 / 5

There are times which I feel that the anime has a lot of emotions, but sometimes I feel the lack of it. I’m not sure if this was because of the unsmooth progress of the anime.

As for other emotions like anger, I did feel that there was a lack of anger coming from Lelouche.

I think this is probably due to the lack of attachment to his past, because much anger raised from his past with the royal family. A good and long OVA about Lelouche’s past would have been nice.

There was a nervous factor that pops up for certain scenes, so I think the anime did fairly ok for this category.

Planning: 4 / 5

The balance between the action, tactics, and daily life was really good. When I watched this show, there wasn’t a single time which I thought was boring due to the unbalanced selection of length in any category of the anime. There would always be a refreshing, fun, breather episode to help the viewers balance out the heavy content. However, those episodes do not feel like a filler episode, but has actual connections to the whole anime and story line itself.

To show more planning, I did think that they should have somewhat introduced all the related character – mostly Lelouche’s siblings and family members – in the first few episodes. I especially think that introducing to us his family would have helped with the understanding of the storyline a lot better.

Character Development:

Main Character: 5 / 5

For 1 thing, I actually like how they were not very biased to Lelouche, just because he is the main character. They were true to his character and abilities, to the point that it was a very realistic anime. Every character in this show has their negative and positive side. If I were to give an opinion, I would say that this anime is actually a very negative anime, and it really shows the ugly side of humanity. Almost no important character in this show is spared from this.

Side Character: 5 / 5

One thing is for sure is that they make the weirdest side characters, but you can't really tell it in this season. I think that they didn't neglect the development of the side characters, and each and every one of them were very well thought out and they had a very distinct characteristic. They were smart in actually meeting the minimum requirement needed for each character, so that most of the time would be focused on the story line, in a way that was fulfilling enough. Most anime tend to neglect the side characters a lot.

Seiyuu: 3 / 4

I don't think that I have any complains about their casting, but somehow I'm just not very satisfied with Fukuyama Jun (Lelouch) and Takahiro Sakurai (Suzaku). For Jun, even though I thought he was probably the perfect Lelouch, I did think that there was too much of a significant difference between his "kind" voice and his "zero" voice in the show. It becomes such that there was too much of a gap between the two, they almost feel like their 2 totally different person. But never the less, I really like "Zero's" voice. 

As for Sakuai, I did think that he probably played the best "Suzaku" he could with his vocal range. But somehow I didn't feel very comfortable with his voice throughout the whole show. I could tell that he was trying to keep his voice on the same tone while doing different vocal expressions, but it just made him sound very uncomfortable and out of his element.

For the side characters, I really love their voices.

OST:

The OST tracks itself is really pretty and gorgeous. However, the use of the OST within the anime itself was not very good. There were a lot of times that they suddenly change the OST track or stop the track in the middle. There were no proper transition or any smooth fade out of the tracks. So there were some scenes which felt sloppy and choppy because of the OST.

Art Ratings: 3
Honestly, it would be unfair to compare the animation and the art of this anime to the recent animes, mainly because of the advanced in technology and the differences in taste and preferences of the viewers that changed over time (since this anime can be considered "old").
However, if I were to judge based on the design, I would have to say that it pales in comparison to other mecha anime like gundam. The Mecha design was not very fantastic, and it didn't have that 'wow' factor in it, and honestly, when I first saw it, I was really disappointed.

As for the character design, I thought that it was quite good, the character's personality and appearances compliments each other.

But obviously, code geass's strong point do not lay in their artistic side, but the storyline itself.


Similar Animes:
Aldnoah Zero
Both Mecha anime, and both main character relies on strategic performance in their battles, while their rivals (Suzaku) relies on physical and machine capabilities. In both animes, they also have a discrimination between two groups of people.

The difference would be that the main character for aldnoah zero has some form of combat abilities, while Leleouch literally has close to none. Politics in the anime is also not as in depth as code geass.

Death Note
For Death Note, the only similarity is that there is a clash between 2 intellectual person. Death note keeps their action scene minimal, and both their main characters do not have have fighting abilities. There is also no mecha involved in this anime.

Mobile Suit Gundam Seed
I would say that all gundam anime comes under this. Most, if not all, gundam animes have some form of politics in their shows, and mainly action. The only difference there is would be that there is minimal strategic planning involved.

Recommended for:

Gender: Both

Age: 16 and above

My Ratings: PG-13