Review of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

I started this knowing nothing other than the fact that it has a great opening and it's very very very popular. I finished it with a new anime on my top 5 all-time-favourites list. Story 10/10: The premise is interesting enough that it pulled me in from the very beginning, and then it kept getting better and better to the point where I gave up even trying to guess where it would go because I'm obviously not smart enough to ever be right. It had a quite a few plot twists that left me with my mouth hanging open, and the whole Geass power thingy isone of the most interesting abilities I've encountered in anime, so I'm satisfied.

Art 10/10: I know not everyone agrees with this but I found the overall art style incredibly beautiful and a pleasure to look at, everything is pretty much perfect from colour use to special effects and action scenes (especially in the last two episodes), which is very interesting considering that this anime came out in freaking 2006 and I don't tend to like older anime when it comes to the art. My favourite part other than the fight scenes has to be the colour combinations used in the character designs - the lack of harmony between hair and eye colours might be jarring for some but to me it makes the characters feel really unique. Another positive is that this show might have my favourite anime tears in existence.

Sound 9/10: The first opening is one of the best anime openings like ever, but it took some time until I grew to love any of the other opening or ending themes. On the other hand, the background music was pretty amazing, it always fit the mood perfectly and there were a lot of songs that really set the mood of the scenes they were used in. The voice acting was incredible as well, and Jun Fukuyama has now become one of my favourite voice actors because of his ability to use a different voice for all of Lelouch's personas.

Character 10/10: I spent way too much time trying to decide whose side I should be on, and I'm still not sure, so that must say something. Every major character was developed in some way, although it was always in a way that furthered the plot, but that made it even better, and the side characters were treated so so well, I absolutely did not expect to grow to love so many characters this much, and most of all Lelouch, who is defintiely one of the best protagonists I've come across in fictional media. I also didn't expect this anime to have such a wonderful cast of female characters :')

Enjoyment 9/10: Getting through the first four episodes was quite difficult for some reason but then episodes five pulled me in and never let go, so I ended up binge-watching the rest of it in about 2 days. I even cried a few times, and that ending absolutely destroyed me.

Overall 10/10: I must say, this anime absolutely deserves the hype that it gets even 12 years later, and, in my humble opinion, is the only anime that could be said to almost be on par with FMAB. I would definitely recommend it to anyone, and I'd guess it doesn't fail as an introduction to anime in general either. It is also one of the shows that deserve to be rewatched, even if you don't typically tend to do that.