Lagore

Wanna hear a joke?  What do you get when you combine all of the currently existing anime fandoms with bipolar characters, frenetic pacing, and a Pizza Hut commercial?  That's right!  You get Code Geass, the most evil show ever created by man.

Now, it may come off as disingenuous to give an incredibly popular show such as this such a low rating.  How could this show do so well if it was this horrible?  My reasoning is that most people are gullible morons who will absolutely eat up the cliches, fanwank, and rushed pacing.  Er... except you, of course.  Let's explore:

-STORY-

The plot of Code Geass revolves around Lelouch, an oddly named adolescent who appears to have a sever case of multiple personality disorder.  Within the first two episodes, Lelouch gains a superpower, saves a mysterious girl, gets into a mech battle, kills the president, and becomes leader of an underground resistance movement, and starts wearing a cape and a giant magic eight ball on his head.  I hope that gives you some idea of the freakishly fast pacing of this show.  The plot does not have any room to breath, simply jumping from one major plot point to another.

Code Geass feels like it was designed by a committee.  No, it actually feels like it was designed by several committees composed of basement-dwelling otakus, each working on separate unrelated shows, who realized at the last minute that they could only create one, and thusly combined all of the ideas into the trainwreck that is Code Geass.  It seems scientifically formulated to appeal to as wide an audience as physically possible.  Do you like mecha shows?  Well Code Geass has plenty of giant fighting robots!  Do you like school comedies?  Yes, it has that too!  Action, yuri, drama, comedy, magic, super powers, ecchi, fantasy, incest, love triangles, martial arts, secret identities, military, anti-heros, political intrigue, psychological, harem, sci-fi, shonen, yaoi, suspense, thrillers, or war shows?  Well Gode Geass has all of those and more, and crammed together to make the most cliche-saturated piece of garbage ever created.

-ANIMATION-

As much as I hate to say anything good about Code Geass, the animation genuinely is better than average.  It is crisp, colorful, and has a unique look to it, especially when it comes to the character design.  Admittedly, all of the characters are tall and look bizarrely thin, and all the women have massive chests.  And the animation doesn't exactly fit the mood of the story.  But still, the animation gets the job done, and is pretty pleasant to look at.

-CHARACTERS-

Okay, now most of the characters in this are pretty bad cliches, but none of them are genuinely terrible.  None, except Lelouch himself.  Lelouch is very clearly the most inconsistant character I have ever seen in any story.  His personality changes from scene to scene, depending on what genre he is working in at the moment.  In one episode he may flit between hardened leader, loving older brother, clever trickster, diabolical mastermind, and distant angsty hero.  Or maybe this is all just a clever act on his part.  But then which one is the real Lelouch?  Is he a tortured soul who cannot act like himself around anyone?  Because if that's the case, the audience is never given any indication that this is all a chore for him.  He seems to just naturally fall into whatever role the script calls for now.  No, I think the more likely explanation is severe brian damage.

-OVERALL-

No one should ever watch this show ever.  This show represents everything that is wrong with anime.  No!  It represents everything that is wrong with storytelling in general.  It has no original ideas of it's own, and only exists to appeal to people who are fanatics about anime and genuinely enjoy watching these cliches pan out.  And if you are one of those people, at least watch a show that focuses on whatever your specific anime kink is.  Don't jump to this schizophrenic show that combines all of the anime cliches into one package.  For fuck's sake people!  You know that there are some genuinely entertaining shows out there that aren't simply soulless Frankenstein monsters, combining the severed body parts of dozens of other genres.  You do realize that don't you?

Now go watch something that's actually good.