Or as I heard someone call it “buffed up Yagami Light Vs crapped down Kira Yamato”
The Holy Empire of Britannia has conquered over a third of the world and relegated the defeated populations to near-slave status. In Area 11 (previously Japan), the high-school student Lelouch Lamperouge bides his time until he is able to start a movement to destroy Britannia, but his schedule is pushed forward when he meets C.C., a mysterious and dubiously inhuman girl with whom he creates a “contract” and obtains the Geass, the power to force anyone who looks into his left eye to invariably obey any and all commands. On the counterpart, aside from the imperial army, trying order to stop his steadily growing movement is Suzaku Kururugi, an Eleven (Previously called Japanese) who pilots an experimental mecha and is a childhood friend of Lelouch.
Up to that, it sounds like a cliché sci-fi anime, but the twists are very much worth it. To begin with, despite being a “generally good person” if he can afford to be, Lelouch is no cookie-cutter idealist, he’s a down-right Machiavellian bastard with an immense strategic insight and no problem moving, ordering and sacrificing men as chess pieces. The Geass is to him nothing but a convenient tool, he wins his battles by strategic prowess instead of gimmicky firepower and in fact, he’s not even the main fighter of his group. Basically, he’s the direct opposite of the traditional angsty anime hero: He’s a guy who really knows what the hell he is doing, why he is doing it, how to do it and with enough balls to do it.
On the opposite, I want to kill Suzaku. The comparison with Kira Yamato is perfect on the ideological and personal level, particularly the GSD incarnation (Hell, he’s got a Lacus-lookalike as romantic interest), with the exception that Kira actually had an army and politically influencing allies backing his ideas whereas Suzaku is blindly sticking to his wish to create a peaceful world despite having no way whatsoever to pull it off. I guess they HAD to fit the angsty teen somewhere and it serves to boost yaoi-fan ratings with how he and Lelouch are suspiciously similar to Kira and Athrun. His Lancelot does look pretty darn sweet in comparison to the other Knightmares.
The rest of the cast is nice though average, with honorary mentions for Cornelia for being clever enough to counter Lelouch, C.C. for being a bit more dignified than the common stray-mysterious-freeloader-girl and whatever the cat was called for sharing my ideas on Suzaku.
Overall, while it’s not THAT out of the average mold, it’s a very nice way to waste half an hour a week. The mechas are nice enough (I love the Guren) though hardly the central focus and the main character is, for once, not an annoying wimp. Even if he does get his fashion and publicity advice from Count Dracula and Tuxedo Mask respectively.
On a bizarre note are constant refernces to Pizza Hut and an official image released by Sunrise as publicity showing Lelouch having a very firm grasp of C.C.’s butt (?).
