R2 was RIDICULOUSLY bad. It's a perfect case study in what happens when a company starts pressuring a writer. It's the same thing that happened with other series (such as Naruto).
It got to the point where I was only watching because I didn't want to just stop. I didn't like Lelouch. I didn't like Suzaku. I didn't like Rolo (I HATED him, actually). I hated Nunnally.
The characters I liked?
Lloyd, Cornelia, Shirley, CC, Arthur (the cat) and Kallen.
Of the 40 billion others, they all mostly made me want to kill myself.
It's sad, because it had a LOT of potential. While things were getting a little iffy at the end of season 1, I was still really excited for the second. 2 episodes in and I was already like, "What is this crap?"
Quote:
To me the ending of the first season really seemed more like one hell of a cliff-hanger.
It was a cliff-hanger. CG was never, to my knowledge, meant to be only one season.
The problem wasn't starting off "Some time later..." It was the other decisions they made.
The ending overall summed it up nicely. Had I seen the first season and that last scene, I would have been excited (albeit, extremely confused) about the rest of it.
But, on the whole, it was just terrible. Bad story-telling (rushed, with too many small things packed in), bad character development, and overall conflicting messages.
The only thing I thought was really good in R2 was the art, which was just as great as the first (and better in some ways).
Edited, Oct 14th 2009 6:05pm by idiggory