Going to start with this one first because it's the one I don't like too much. I get that the show is meant to be quite cheesy (with the amount of pizza there is, I'm not surprised), however it worked against me in this case, which is unfortunate. But! I prefer the second season since it does improve upon the first in most areas.
Story - I found the story somewhat intriguing. In R1, we see Lelouch moving around the political landscape in Area 11, which made sense because he was trying to build up his organization before tackling larger problems. On the other hand, R2 was mostly Lelouch working on a global scale as we can see by his dealings with the Chinese Federation and Brittania as a whole. I prefer R2 more because it's better paced for me than the first season, plus gives a lot of closure the show as a whole.
Characters - Man, I kind of don't want to comment on this one too much. I don't like Lelouch as much though I do recognize his genius. He is driven by his emotions and I do like how it does lead to his downfall in R1 and parts of R2. Not every character can be perfect and I think Lelouch is a good example of that. On the other hand, I understood Suzaku's motivations and found it ironic that Lelouch picked him to be the new Zero. It's something like glory to zero (I'm terrible). I liked other characters too, such as Karen and Orange, though I found that the only really dynamic characters out of the cast would be Lelouch, Suzaku (at the end), Karen, and possibly Ougi/Vileta. I may be forgetting a few, but the majority of the cast was defined by one major quality throughout the show.
Art - My major gripe with the show, I didn't like the CLAMP style with the noodle arms and the weird hands. The mech design looked cool but the colors agh. So I basically spent like most of R1 getting used to it, and then R2 was a bit better about it. Still a problem, but hey I guess the justification for the mech was to be intimidating so that worked.
Sound - Not my favorite, found it a little too overtheatrical for my tastes. The tubas didn't help either during the dialogue, and I had trouble hearing when the characters would speak because the music would be loud. I guess it would be kind of pointless for me to hear dialogue when I'm watching it subbed but it does help to know which character is speaking some times T^T
So for now, I'm rating R1 as 6/10 and R2 as 7/10. It's something I might rewatch, but I have too much in my backlog.
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