Code Geass Season 1 is nearly Perfect

Code Geass in general is one of my favorite Anime, it was number two for a long time, and it's still high enough to almost certainly make my 3x3 if I ever made one.

What issues I have with it are pretty much all in R2, much of it coming down to how Suzaku was handled.  A lot of people didn't like him much in season 1 either, and there were certainly some inconsistencies in how he was written already.  But mostly I felt he worked as a foil to Lelouch.

But in-spite of the flaws I still enjoyed a great deal of R2, especially at the end.  I feel the last episode is one of the most perfectly executed series finales in Anime history, which to begin with has a better series finale track record then western television.

But season 1 was nearly perfect.  I say nearly only because it falls short of being as masterful as something like Noir.

The rest of this post is me defending Season 1.  And there will be Spoilers.




Spoilers Warning.

People who want to extend their criticism of the show into season 1 mainly focus on the fate of Euphemia.  BestGuyEver did a video on it, some other random Vlog brought it up in talking about how they'd rewrite the show.

Now I understand the problem here, as someone who doesn't like when female characters are Fridged.  But this is an event that effected the entire world, not just the two male main characters who knew personally her.

How it happened is a contrived coincidence.  But I'm always fine with that in this kind of story, Code Geass has always been similar to Star Wars to me, which is built on contrived coincidences.

 What bugs me is when people talk like this is something that happened because they wrote themselves into a corner and it was the only way out.  Maybe technically that is how it happened, but that's not what it feels like when I watch the show.  It feels like this was always meant to be the centerpiece of season 1, first building up to it, and then the madness that broke out in the aftermath.

I love watching this particular episode of the show, I love the drama and the tragedy of it.  And it fits the kind of story Code Geass is perfectly.