Rated: 1.5 / 5*
* = rating after watching the first 15 1/2 episodes, and I’m not going farther than that.
The thing about giving bad ratings like this, it’s going to give the wrong initial impression about this show. The show starts out great. High school setting with mecha anarchist uprisings, rebelling against the government and stuff, with some superpowers thrown in for good measure. Basically, this guy gets an ability to mind-control someone, but he can only do it once per person. A nice limitation on a strong power. So he has to hijack mechs in order to have a chance against the Brittania regime (a global power made up of all of North and South America, and a couple other European countries, which all use their might and futuristic mechs to take over Japan and their measly outdated tanks; sounds about right). But he has personal reasons for doing so which, in the grand scheme of things, seem a bit too petty. But fine, I’m on board.
Fast paced, you have to really pay attention to the stuff that’s going on for at least the first two episodes. Some nice setup going on. And then… the first warning sign hits. No it wasn’t when Lancelot first makes an appearance (though believe me, that will be addressed in a bit, that duck-fucking piece of–). It was when the green-haired girl shows up alive after taking a bullet to the head. Now, the show does imply a reason for her surviving this (she’s not normal, scientific experiments were done on her that make her superhuman in a sense), which is fine and all. But this plays into Anime Clichés I hate.
Anime Clichés I Hate #1: Plot armor making characters survive something that should’ve killed them. This is particularly pronounced in scenes where a gun (or something) is aimed at the character ready for the kill-shot, the scene changes or fades to black, and you hear a gunshot, but they somehow survive for whatever reason 1+ episodes later (if not 1+ minutes later).
I thought this would happen earlier during the 3rd episode with the brother encounter. But to my surprise, they subverted my expectations and actually have him die (or at least I’m assuming so, 16 episodes later and he’s still dead as far as I can tell, so kudos for that).
Anyway, this cliché hasn’t hit full-blown yet, so we’re still good. But at another major battle later on, and the one after that, and the one after that, this butt-fucking Lancelot mech continually starts to show up and wipe the floor with everyone including the anti-hero protagonist.
Anime Clichés I Hate #2: All-powerful flawless characters and/or mechs/monsters, which may or may not be piloted/controlled by all-powerful flawless characters. They generally have no weakness. Like the Superman of anime, but more obnoxious in nature. Exponentially more obnoxious if combined with cliché #3.
This cliché is bad enough on it’s own, but it generally tends to be combined with the dreaded third cliché. And, unfortunately, this is definitely the case. The same problem I had with Legend of the Galactic Heroes regarding Yang Wenli and Julian. It’s not just that they’re borderline flawless characters, it’s that:
Anime Clichés I Hate #3: Holier-than-thou primary or secondary characters, who always hold the moral high ground no matter what, who (almost) never make mistakes, who can do no wrong, and openly flaunt their moral superiority with speeches towards other primary and/or secondary characters.
Combine cliché #2 and #3 together, and you get one of the worst fucking characters in anime history. I’d rather have cliché #4 than deal with that shit, and that’s saying a lot. Hell, give me cliché #5 in droves rather than that.
Anyway, Suzaku, and that overpowered Lancelot mech, fit #2 and #3 to a tee. I was bearing it for a while, but by episode 11-12 it was driving me up the wall. Not to mention it was causing cliché #1 to happen a lot more frequently. But I stuck with it, because episode 13 and 14 was starting to develop some much-needed dramatic tension between characters that added on another layer regarding the consequences of power and actions and war. It was fantastic and thought provoking between both those episodes. But then, unfortunately, by the end of episode 14, they fuck it all up.
Episode 14 is the make it or break it episode, and its arguably the most famous episode in the series from what I hear. It escalated the dramatic stakes and the impact events were having on Lelouch, and provided interesting dynamics and potential between him and his friends on campus. Once he is discovered for who he is by someone close to him (albeit by an overly convenient scenario), the potential peak quality drama was right there. And what did the creators of the show do when they had this all there, which they could’ve ran with for an episode or two? They took the cowardly way out and did a mind-wipe! It’s a cheap way to reset things a bit so that the series can more-or-less keep going as it had been. I might’ve been ok with this (fat chance), if not for the major plot holes this causes. Lelouch completely wipes this girl’s mind of all memories of him. Not of him being Zero, leader of the Black Knights. Not of the traumatizing incidents of the past couple days. All memories she ever had of him ever since she first met him. Did he not consider the questions this would raise back at school, especially considering the number of friends who had an idea of how close she was to him? But this is great, he gives the excuse that, “We were in an argument, she’s getting back at me by not acknowledging me, just deal with it for a while.” Well that just solves fucking everything doesn’t it? No one is going to find this fucking weird, especially when they address her seriously. It’s fucking stupid!
By the end of episode 14, I knew this show irrevocably fucked itself. It spoke to the quality I had to look forward to, it showcased the potential that it would squander, and it proved that it was going to get fucking dumb and fucking worse. But I still wanted to hang with it. I was still curious to see if it would somehow, some way, make up for it.
And then comes episode 16. All I have to say about this episode is that clichés #1 and #2 just came out swinging, full-blast, no-holds-barred. First a character who was riddled with bullets from a dozen cops shows up all bandaged and ready to strike back at the protagonist. Unlike the green-haired chick, there’s no superpowers this guy had that could make him survive this shit. I wanted to stop the show right then and there. In fact, I did. For about an hour. Then I agonizingly crept back to it, thinking, “Ok, show me what else you’ve got.” Boy did I fucking regret doing that.
You remember how I said Suzaku was a holier-than-thou character who pilots a ridiculously overpowered mech? Well apparently he’s not just overpowered when he pilots the mech. He’s overpowered outside of it. He outruns the targeting system of an automated ceiling turret, runs along the side of a wall, and side-kicks the turret off the ceiling. And at that point I lost my shit. It was more than bad enough that that happened, but just seeing how he ran and dodged the bullets, like the footage was sped-up. This would be hilarious if it was live-action, but this is a fucking anime that takes itself seriously and expects you to take it seriously, and is highly ambitious with the themes it covers, and the battles, the drama, and all that other crap. And it momentarily turns a relatively normal human being into the fucking Flash for a few seconds. Am I the only one seeing this– what the fuck!?
I called it quits right then and there. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Fuck Suzaku. He’s the amalgamation of Wenli from Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and Amuro Ray from Gundam Wing. It’s not just that he’s holier-than-thou, he seems completely oblivious to the atrocities Brittania commits, and only focuses on the atrocities done by Japan/Elevens and Zero and the Black Knights. His character and his logic are such bullshit. He shouldn’t have even been the pilot of the Lancelot mech, that should’ve gone to some random Brittanian (the show’s reasoning for this is shit). At least Wenli had some legit concerns and grievances regarding his own position on that show; fucking Suzaku doesn’t even give me that, at least not for the first 16 episodes. What’s also bad about him is that Zero doesn’t ever calculate Lancelot’s involvement in the skirmishes as a remote possibility. That’s the ultimate problem with characters like Suzaku, it tends to come at the expense of everyone else. I’d like to see a show where a character like Suzaku is in it, with everyone saying behind his back (or even to his face), that he’s stupid and full of shit, and have opponents keep an eye out for him, plan to do strategic strikes quickly, and do a coordinated retreat at the first sight of him. Fuck him, and fuck this show. It dared to promise potential for greatness and squander it in my face by eating it in front of me, turning around, and letting out a wet fart.
So I ended up dropping this show and picking up Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World, which is a better (and more perverted) version of Sword Art Online (which should’ve ended in its first season, with some of the last episode of the 2nd season being the finale), that suffers from none of these fucking clichés I hate, promotes subservient women who kick ass for their man, states that hard work will be rewarded, and the chad gets all the girls and bangs them in end. It’s not perfect, because it doesn’t know if it wants to be a hentai or an anime at times (I guess it’s technically ecchi, since it doesn’t show penetration or full-frontal nudity, but it does do everything else), it probably should’ve gone more with the latter, though the hentai/ecchi moments are not bad (especially in episode 4). Its scope is a bit too scaled down compared to something like Sword Art Online, and it could benefit from another season (please don’t fuck it up if it’s given that). Plus there’s the whole implication that this whole thing is only possible because of suicide, and it comes off as wish-fulfillment by the show’s creator. But in spite of all that, it’s the most satisfying Japanese animation I’ve seen in years. Fuck Code Geass, watch Harem in the Labyrinth. It’s only 12 episodes long, and more satisfying with less stupid shit in it. And it being an ecchi series, that is saying a lot.
PS: And what does Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World have to do with Code Geass? Absolutely nothing!
Anime Clichés I Hate #4: Beta bitch males who constantly get their asses kicked by women because of the awkward situations they wind up in, or because the women are cunts and the male is incapable of mustering up the mental and/or physical fortitude of standing up to her and putting her in her place. Often found in ecchi anime.
Anime Clichés I Hate #5: No real ground rules when it comes to magic/mecha powers. They can pull whatever ability out of their ass whenever they want, without any buildup or explanation, and you just have to go along with it.
The Anomalous Host 