Review of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

What makes an anime addicting? A cool main character? Giant robots? Half-naked girls? Code Geass takes all of that and tries to make a killing. Its premises are not so original. The year's 2017: it's been seven years since the Britannian Empire has conquered Japan, now renamed Area 11, thanks to the overwhelming power of the Knightmare Frames, the show's giant mechs; but the war's not over yet, since terrorists who still call themselves Japanese are trying to retake their country, with no result. At least until our protagonist shows up. The main story has a unique direction, but the methods it uses to develop itselfare kinda questionable: bluntly put, it's a sequence of ridiculously convenient plot devices that result in a forced situation more than just a couple of times; every episode ends up in a cliffhanger, and the fact that there's actually no ending means that the Sunrise guys are making sure that you'll come back for season two.

About the characters, the only remarkable ones are the main ones. Lelouch is one likeable fella: smart, authoritative and with a natural flair for melodrama, he's the guy who makes the anime go round. However, you're obliged to accept the fact that he's some sort of genius-strategist, and they (the Sunrise guys) didn't even bother to explain his backgrounds a bit better, although Kallen gets a whole episode to look deeper in her "Japanese side" (and for your information that was IMO the best episode); C.C. is interesting too, but I don't think they've done much with her. She's just 'there', period.
I found almost all of the rest of the cast either dull, irritating, or just too stupid.
Fanservice has been added in massive doses, and a great part of the ladies isn't... left unseen.

Talking about graphics, I must say that I'm not exactly a fan of the character design and style of drawing, while animation's well done.

Then, even if I often had a feeling that robots were there just "because giant robots", the mech battles were neat: robots were like infantry, and battles were fought and won by giving orders with an actual tactical value. Nothing too complicated though, the show makes it sound like a big deal, but it's nice to see something different from an ultimately-customized-robo clash. Which is exactly what you'll get in the second season.

In the end, Code Geass does its job as pure entertainment: it's ambitious, albeit exaggerated, and the fact that it tries not to disappoint every fandom in the universe drags the quality down. Still, I did like it the first time I watched it, but without any doubt it could have been something more than just a pretty average show.