Review of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

Even though I`ve been watching anime since childhood, Code Geass is one of the few popular anime that I just never bothered to watch. It was my girlfriend`s favorite anime, and she sang it`s praises to me many times but I never gave it a chance, and sadly I eventually got spoiled about the last episode, which probably made me care even less about the anime. But recently I finally decided to sit down and watch it to the end, no matter how good or bad it would be. Fortunately for me, it ended up being an amazing watch and I very much enjoyed my time,even though my expectations were over the roof. But of course, to me no story is perfect, and Code Geass was no different. The writing had many flaws and a lot of episodes were extremely unnecessary and kinda interrupted my overall enjoyment of the main plot sometimes.
Though by far my BIGGEST complaint is about how convenient the writing was sometimes. So many times characters would coincidentally be at the right place, at the right time, and with a conveniently placed object that they needed there as well. I just despise when writers do these things, as its lazy and anyone can do that, and while I understand most viewers do not mind those things, I do and I can`t just turn off my brain to ignore it. Still, the overall story was good enough that I could forgive those scenes and move on.
Now that I have talked about what I disliked the most, I can safely say that this anime deserves all the praise I heard it get over the years. Especially Lelouch, who really turned out to be one of the best anime protagonists I have ever seen. I fully expected some genius and flawless characters that never fails, but thankfully I was very wrong about that. Even though I think that for a high school student he should have been way more affected by the serious situations he finds himself in all the time, his emotions were portrayed well enough, and the character development he goes through was pretty satisfying to watch. And about the other main characters, I think they were also well done. They all had their backstory, and I feel their personality and actions made sense. Even some minor characters eventually had their place in the spotlight, even if just for a short time. Though a couple characters were obviously just made for filler and their presence hurt the plot more than improved it, but it was just for a couple episodes.
Another point I must talk about is the artstyle. I will be honest, I never liked it, especially NOW that I am an artist myself. The characters bodies are just drawn too long and skinny, which for me took a long time to get used to. But I guess that`s just Clamp`s style, and while I really like some of the female characters, I think this series would have been much better drawn by other artists.
Anyway, I could go on but to make things short, I can just say that I think Code Geass is a MUST watch for any anime fan. It`s a very mature story consisting of themes like war, racism, love, drugs, death, all which I am always happy to see in my anime and games. I feel it could have been much better with some parts done differently, but it is what it is.
Sadly, nowadays you just don`t see anime like this anymore, so maybe it was for the best that I waited till now to watch it. That way I can appreciate it even more.