So just for sh*ts and giggles I decided to write my own wall texts about my thoughts of the series over all.
*Disclaimer*
First though, I am going to assume that Lelouch is dead for all intents and purposes in this post unless Taniguchi himself comes out and say that Lelouch trolled everyone and he is indeed alive. Secondly, when I point out lingering plot points I will not mean romantic development and will for the most part turn a blind eye to it. Both of those reasons is to avoid some dragging in debate on whether Lelouch is alive or dead or any arguments from the romance thread. Also about how I generally rate things, unless something is absolutely perfect and I have no complaints no matter how small, nor any ways to feasibly improve it, I do not give a perfect score so the best is likely going to be a 9 out of 10. If you disagree with my line of thinking then it is likely best to just stop reading right here and save yourself a headache.
Animation/Art Quality: 8/10
Well, I liked the Clamp designs, the characters were well animated for the most parts. However the most glaring flaw was the character art being off in some frames, though until it hit a certain episode it did not strike me as overly intrusive. However an entire episode of distorted character animation dragged the mark down for me as it looked like the episode did not even belong in the series.
A few things I loved about Code Geass if nothing else are the mecha designs, especially the Rakshata originals, most notably the Guren. Also the land based battles with the land spinners were very well done and added a nice original touch to the mecha series, much like the underwater mecha fighting did in Mars Daybreak for me. However I was duly disappointed with the wide spread use of the float system turning the mecha action into almost standard Gundam-esque fairs. Not that it is bad per say, but it did take away from one of the things that attracted me to the series in it's land based engagments.
All in all though despite some faults, the character and mecha designs and original concept carried it over.
Music/Voice acting: 9/10
I have quite a few bones to pick with this series, and if you continue reading most of them will be in the plot section, but the music is one area where I just did not have much to complain about. I loved the majority of the tracks within the show, especially the Hitomi tracks and "All Hail Britannia!!!" which sometimes I still play on repeat. And notably in several of the more emotional scenes of the series, Shirley's and Rolo's death come to mind immediately, the music complimented the mood very well.
The voice acting was very good over all, Lelouch, C.C, Suzaku and especially Kallen (biased fanboy mode on for a second there
) are a given. However, many of the side characters are also memorable, from Milly's playful tones in her performance to Loyd's quirky voice and screams. However there is one thing that annoyed me and that was in the Ashford episode, with the girl that was geassed into giving back Lelouch his hat. Admittedly it might be mainly personal preference here and it was just two or three short lines but really I found her performance to be especially subpar especially when compared to the others within the show.
Overall, no big glaring faults so it is a solid 9.
Story/Characters: 5/10
The crux of any entertainment medium aside from gaming, it is my view that no matter how well composed the musical score is, how fluid the animation or how pretty the characters, if the story falls flat on it's face, none of that matters. So how does R2 fair? To be honest, perhaps I went into this season with too high of an expectation, but for the most part it felt that almost the entire season they were trying to imitate R1 and some of the elements that made it successful to the detriment of the overall story. While the Ashford comedy was somewhat entertaining and let you see one part of Lelouch, the slow pace and focus of it early on could be blamed for much of the poor pacing and rushed, or I would say lack there of, developments on several key plots and characters. Most notably Charles, V.V and Marianne and their Ragnarok plan as well as Schneizel who was lackluster for a "final villain" type of character.
I have brought this up many times but Marianne was a prime example of this as throughout the series we have met characters who knew her and literally almost worshiped the ground she walked on. She was set up on a silver pedestal, Charles loved her so much V.V was scared she may derail Charles from their promise, Jeremiah respected her so much that he betrayed Britannia for her children(and this guy rushed at Lelouch proclaiming "All Hail Britannia!", I wouldn't have been surprised if he started singing "All Hail Britannia!!!" in that scene), Bismark mentioned her skill and shouted her name right before his death, Cornelia personally investigated the circumstances of her death. While it may not be a lot of characters considering the size of the caste but factor in how many of that caste were Britannian and how many out of those actually know her. Then look back and lo and behold, the majority of the people that knew her respected her to some degree. However she was introduced and her personality completely derails the image that was established about her, without any development on the how and why it was so before her character was killed off. Also for a key player in what drove Lelouch down this path, her reasoning for agreeing to the Ragnarok plan was not even explained. At least we know why Charles and V.V decided on it, they were disillusioned with the world because of what they saw. Marianne did not even have that development. All in all, for a character that was so important to what drives Lelouch initially she was about as well developed as Rivalz.
Many of the other characters and plots do not fair much better, like C.C who had her entire background shoved in our faces in one episode, Suzaku's connection to Geass that was brought up in R1 but apparently buried and forgotten, Kallen's drive to understand Lelouch only to fail despite knowing all three of the facets of his personality either through personal experience or through someone important to Lelouch, the origins or even some information of the world of C, the sword of Akasha and more notably Geass itself. Despite however the apparent lack of time to explain, develop and conclude those major plot points satisfactorily, they still felt that the slow pacing and the focus on Ashford to be justified. And for the most part, in place of proper development of those plot points, the show was too reliant on the big "oh my god" moments to move the plot along. In general, the show tried to go off in too many directions and in the end could not bring it all together satisfactorily and ended up wasting too much time early on because of it.
Now how did it all wrap up? Looking at the ending, it was a beautiful scene with Lelouch's death and sacrifice. I'd say off the top of my head, that death scene was one of the best if not the best I have seen in a long while. Of course a certain G Gundam death scene tops it but I digress. Now why did I bring this up? It is because, the scene itself aside, there are a few glaring problems I have with the events. Firstly, the very core of Lelouch's character is that he is a realist. He may have some idealistic qualities in him, but at the very core he is a realist. What the ending spelled for me was that he turned more into the idealist that Suzaku was, even down to dieing to atone for his sins. Having someone to blame does not make every opportunistic, self serving person become a saint. If there is one thing history has taught us, it is that we humans have a knack for finding reasons to kill each other for power. One point that I thought really drove home in R1 was that dieing is not atonement, which was illustrated with Suzaku and what I thought was the reason for the Live Geass to be placed on him. That instead of dieing as you want, you have to live for others to atone. Another point is that by declaring that he deserves to die for all the sins he has made with Geass he deserves to die, he, in a way, in validates the good he has done with it as well. He may have trampled over the lives of others but if it was not for him, the Black Knights would not exist, and they would not have gotten as far as they did. Maintaining the peace he created while living and carrying their sins should be the burden of both Suzaku and Lelouch. Also the jump for Kallen from thinking Lelouch was the devil that must be stopped to suddenly knowing everything in his plans was a bit sudden, although perhaps I was hoping for one final encounter that seemed to be what her development was building up to but never was.
While there were many elements I liked within the plot, R2 was just trying too hard to capitalize on the commercial success of R1 by forcing the elements of what initially drew viewers into the series and not doing a proper job of answering the questions raised in R1. I found that in this area, the good just could not outweighed the bad. Too many plot points remained unresolved and the general rushed pacing towards the end dragged the show down for me.
Overall Score: 6.5/10
Overall, while I did have some major problems with the season, Code Geass was still a good series to me, it had the potential to be a great series but this season made it fall short of the mark. I would still recommend this series to people and the series itself had many interesting ideas. Now if only we can get a copy of what Taniguchi had originally planned for R2.....