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(this review will cover elements from R2 and R1)

There will probably be a large amount of people who will look at the score I gave code geass and click the "not helpful" button without even bothering to read the first few lines of this review. If this is you, I don't believe you should bother reading this review in the first place, since your mind is obviously not going to be changed. And also, this review is all my own opinion, the large majority of you will probably enjoy code geass a lot, but if you want to hear a different opinion then go ahead ... and read the review.

Intelligent anime. Its probably one of my favourite types of anime. It's so much nicer to get enthralled, shocked, and mindblown by an anime rather than to turn your brain off and enjoy a bunch of generic bullshit that basically copies every other mildly successful show in its genre. Unfortunately however, for every actually intelligent anime there is an equal number of, if not even more shows for which their intelligence is only superficial. While you may not (and probably won't) agree, I believe code geass is one of these shows.

When I first heard of code geass, it was described to me as "death note with mechs". Although the manga was a lot better, I actually enjoyed death note, and I dove into code geass hoping for another helping of interesting characters, and a relatively well paced and clever plot. For me, code geass was just a huge load of cliches, underdeveloped characters, and extremely convenient coincidences all wrapped up together to make a quite lackluster anime. Although I'm not going to go over every single little thing, since that would take forever and I'm too lazy, code geass had almost as may plot holes as mirai nikki (although that also has a mean score over 8, so that shows you something)

It's very surprising how people try to compare lelouch and Light, or the strategic planning that both shows supposedly have. While they were often unrealistic and sometimes made no sense, the plans in death note obviously had a lot of though put into them, and the dialogue passing between Light and L was interesting enough to keep you engrossed in the story. However, all that the so called "strategy" in code geass equates to is "My mech is bigger and more badass than yours." the large majority of battles the black knights face in this anime are won by lelouch procuring a new bigger and more powerful weapon that they use to eliminate the opposition. And when he actually does any real planning it's consisted of lelouch conveniently guessing the opponents next moves as if he's some kind of psychic. As the show goes on he seems to putt less and less logic into his plans. Especially the way they escaped the britannian empire by all dressing up as zero. That was less like a carefully derived strategy and more like something and more like a retarded idea lelouch came up with after he'd had one too many beers. If the britannians honestly couldn't come up with a way to thwart that, then it's no surprise they got outsmarted.

Another annoying Element of code geass is the characters. Unless its a show with an above average amount of episodes, or one that is not character driven, good shows often take the route of keeping the cast of characters smaller, and developing those characters further. However, code geass prefers to go to down the path of piling on so many new and completely useless characters that don't garner the slightest bit of interest from the viewer or develop the plot in any reasonable way that you forget the name of anyone who's not a main character. The white knights did fuck all, in fact you only knew the names of a few of them, and this was true for a large amount of the cast. a result of this many of the characters got so little development and focus that I couldn't care less what happened to them at all. Even lelouch who is the main character gets stuck with a cliched "mah parent(s) were killed omg so sad and compelling" backstory, and thats it.

As for the art, all of the characters look like lanky anorexic beat sprouts who need to go and eat some big macs, but apart from that it was nothing special, and typical for an anime of its time. The sound quality was actually quite good during the actual episodes, however the openings and endings were just boring J-pop that I skipped every time I watched an episode.
Another thing I'd like to mention is the fanservice, and this was definitely a lot more prominent in R2. Kallen in her knightmare shot from very suspicious camera angles, Kallen in the shower, and Kallen and CC doing a variety of other things to please the otakus and their penises. It's disheartening that even a so called intelligent anime like code geass ended up throwing in enough fanservice to make an ecchi harem anime jealous. It may have had plot, but it was hard to notice it with kallen's ass getting shoved in your face for half of every episode.

However, as the series does not drop below a four, it must have its good points. Despite him being a lot less intelligent than people make him out to be, lelouch was at some points relatively interesting to watch, unlike all the other characters. And although I found the majority of all the episodes boring, the final few episodes of each season piqued my interest a bit (Dat spinzaku), and I didn't mind watching them, although R2s ending is a bit overrated.

Overall, I though that although it had its moments, code geass was overall overrated and slightly below average. although some people reading this will understand what I'm going on about, the majority of people who have seen code geass enjoyed it a lot, and the chances are that you will too. However, I personally would not recommend code geass, and I think there are much better anime you could spend your time watching. For alternate recommendations, if you haven't already seen death note (which is unlikely) go and watch it, or for another mech anime try neon genesis evangelion.