And Geass still sucks but is entertaining garbage. For more rants listen to this

On the subject of silliness, I have two things for Gurren Lagann.

Giga drill breaker. And then that final fight. You remember that fight, right? The one where they were hurling galaxies at each other?

I love both series to death, but it really seems to me that you’re just being unfair towards Geass. : /

Although, I thought of it quite differently, I never thought of Lelouch as “good”. Hell, he shoots a guy in the head in the first episode, and he’s in high school. Throughout the first series, I thought they used the interplay of him doing terrible things and getting people killed vs. him being sad about it quite well — he was a character I could get behind.. UNTIL SEASON 2.

It’s as tho they threw much of that out the window, and he honestly just seems like he’s descending into madness, doing terrible things continuously. I truly hope they pull a Light Yagami and make him the bad guy as that’s the only way I won’t end up hating this show. But as of right now, the deus ex machina way he gets out of situations coupled with the meandering plot makes me want to punch someone.

darker than black on the other hand can marry me because I’m so in love.

Isnt Code Geass the same? I mean, Lelouch wants peace through equality and justice, but tries to change the system by using terror, while Suzaku wants the same thing, but tries to get it through changing the system from within.

No one is really bad in that case. Even Britannia isnt that bad. Everyone has a chance, just nobody is equal, everyone has to fight for power. Even elevens can make it somewhere if they want too.

As for a shallow plot, the plot doesnt make a show smart. A show is smart when it forces you to choose between 2 sides, while none of the sides is really bad or good.
I admitt, Geass is a little biased, but browsing on some forums, and you will see enough people liking Suzaku more then Lelouch.

That doesn’t mean that Geass is going to win any writing prizes, and the show is indeed quite pandering to the fans (fanservice, wish fulfillment and so forth), rather than anything especially deep, but hey…giving people credit where it is due or even representing things correctly isn’t too much to ask.

I don’t see why flaws in storytelling should be accepted just because it’s anime. It’s not like anime is a lesser medium than anything else. Bad writing is just bad writing.

You do bring up good points about Geass which I forgot about, since when I wrote this post I was in a position where I hadn’t seen the show in a good several months. I’m watching series 2 and I plan to write a post on how I’ve changed my views slightly on the show. It’s still trashy as hell, but it’s not the show that’s pretentious, it’s just the fans.

ps: I hope to god you watched End of Eva in addition to the TV end… since the TV end isn’t the real ending.

Still, I’ve seen more than my share of mecha series and despite some obvious problems (including one very big plot hole) are there are series with far worse offenses. I liked Eva, but the final episodes made me want to see a shrink (along with slapping Asuka)and Eureka 7 was waaayyyyyy to long to keep up with when I watched it on adult swim

It is a bit ridicuous how inept the Brittanians are considering their military superiority. I can see a few battles being lost before they realized that they actually needed to use strategy, but until the first season finale (when of course, reality finally steps back in with every possible thing going wrong) everything goes Lelouch’s way. And if the Lancelot and the Geass are not Deus Ex Machina personified, I don’t know what is. But it’s *anime*, I can forgive a few things in all series.

But I disagree with your opinion that the series is black vs. white. It certainly starts out that way, the steward is more concerned about appearances than the innocent lives he will take to maintain them and Lelouch has a legitmiate gripe. But the series becomes gothic (trust me, I had to take a college class about the gothic) because the nature of the characters is reversed.

No matter which way you slice it, Lelouch is a terrorist. He manipulates people into working for him, threatens a massacre (even if it is a bluff), goes out of his way to win public support, sacrifices people with similar goals (JLF) to cause damage to the enemy, plans to force an innocent person into shooting him to rally support and finally betrays his followers to search for his sister. In short, he is without a doubt not a good person. But comparisons to Light are not completely accurate. While he want to create a new world for the right reasons: a place where his sister can be safe. And he feels deep regret when he realizes the cost of what he’s doing after he kills a friends father in battle.

On the other hand, the White Knight who believes that a victory through dishonest means is worthless becomes the world’s greatest hypocrite. Suzaku killed his own father, sparing Japan much destruction and in season two sells out his best friend for a promotion.

Yes, TTGL is clever, if the viewer’s intelligent enough (there now, everyone go away and pat yourselves on the back smugly). Although noting that it’s clever and actually agreeing with its argument are not necessarily connected. Yes, I am probably an anti-spiral at heart.

Yes, Code Geass is, like Death Note a show which wants to show off its clever bits. There’s a certain educational purpose in battering the viewer over the head with a moral dilemma, even if it doesn’t make for the subtlest of experiences.

As for declaring anything to be the deepest anime of the year, I’d hesitate; I think depth resides in the viewer not on the screen – because I’m a pretentious fag.

But Yeah Gurren lagann is definitely worthy of the best title of 2007.