Anime

Very vanilla-heavy, but overall cute. A solid six out of ten, I'd say.
So, I've been holding this off for a long time, but now's the time to finally share my slowpoke review of this work from 2006 (and 2008).
It started off completely unimpressive. A bunch of banal coincidences, childhood friend, relatives, an amazing girl, amazing abilities out of nowhere, a guy who's a homegrown genius... Everything got mixed together and I thought about dropping it. But I was insistently told to watch just a bit more, so I watched a bit more and thought: "Well alright, there's some intrigue and some plot here, good enough as background viewing."
And then the further I got into watching all of this... I don't know, they probably used Geass on me somewhere near the end of the first season. Yeah, possibly...
But I couldn't care less anymore! Muhahahaha!! YES, YOUR MAJESTY! ALL HAIL BRITANNIA! First season gets 9/10, second season gets 10/10! ALL HAIL LELOUCH!

Honestly though, it really is a powerful thing in terms of emotional charge. The protagonist starts as a frivolous but already life-battered student, and then goes up a complex ladder of life — with constant ups and downs, and at every new turn you worry about poor Lelouch more and more...
There were characters who were good on paper but vile inside, others ugly on the outside but not so bad in reality. And then the nice guy would reassess his ideals and become a villain, while the villain would suddenly do good deeds — only to fall again afterward, even lower than where he originally stood.
And while some play politics, others go to school, chase cats, and eat pizza. But even those episodes contain plenty of drama, and any day, even the most carefree one, can turn into a catastrophe...

Pizza :'(

In short, if anyone hasn't seen this old classic yet, then Lelouch vi Britannia commands you: go watch it.