Aight ladies and gentlemen. I'm here with a mission. Code Geass > Death Note and here's why.
Characters
Lelouch vs Light
In the battle of protagonists, Lelouch takes the dub. While I do like Light with the way he goes about fooling L and the investigators; his plans are absolutely super; and how he got Naomi to reveal her true identity to him. Just marvelous. But, he has a glaring issue. Light is not relatable. Not one bit. He has a God complex. His entire goal of killing the criminals is to make the public view him, Kira, as a God. He'll rule over the people with fear killing those who oppose him and striking fear into the civilians, punishing those that do wrong in the world. Sure, he appears to be a benevolent guy who wants to kill criminals and keep the good in the world, but in reality he's doing it just to stand atop others.
Lelouch on the other hand IS relatable. As shown multiple times in the show, he did what he did for Nunally to live in a more peaceful world. From his perspective his father abandoned him, his mother, and his disabled sister for being too weak. Now coupled with the fact that the Britannian Empire oppressed the Japanese, or Elevens, Lelouch becoming Zero to take down that Empire is completely justified imo. And speaking of Nunally, Lelouch cared deeply for his sister. Refusing to lie to her when Suzaku tried to bait him with the phone call, losing his shit when he thought she died, etc. Him despising Rolo for unrightfully taking over Nunally's spot as his younger sibling was completely justified. He cared for those around him, that was shown explicitly through the show. I think it was clear that he had some level of feelings for Shirley, and he himself flat out stated that he loved Euphy. While Lelouch did lie and manipulate others with his Geass, he did it to protect. With Shirley for example, he made her lose her memories in an effort to keep her out danger. C.C. told him that to protect those that you love, you have sometimes push them out of your life. He didn't use those close to him as pawns.
Light, however, DID do that. He was flat out willing to kill his own sister just to not be revealed as Kira...like bruh, not cool.
He was just using folks to advance his plans and goals. Lelouch mid-diffs Light for better protagonist.
The Antagonists
This is where Death Note shines out though. L is very much superior to Schneizel. I liked the latter, my second favorite character in CG, but I wasn't really getting his motivations. That whole forcing peace stuff to the people was kinda random but he was a very competent character and he was a great chess match for Lelouch. Don't even get me started on Charles. Was hyped up as the story went on but ultimately did nothing and was very underwhelming. L played his role perfectly. He was a guy that has been a detective for what I assume all his life and was accustomed to catching bad guys and being on the side of justice. So when Kira comes around as this mass murderer, L justifiably takes action to stop evil. Mello is meh and Near is even worse than Charles but L is good enough here to allow the antagonists to win it out for DN.
The Cast
As a whole, the CG cast is much better than DN. They were much more fleshed out than DN was. Aizawa and Light's dad being the only two fully fleshed out characters in DN. CG's simply has more. Cornelia, Shirley, Suzaku, Kallen, Ohgi, Orange, Rolo, and Ohgi's wife whose name I forgot. They're all better than what DN has to offer. Naomi had potential but she died too early. Misa is likely but suffers the same problem as Light by not being relatable. Idk how many women in the world fall in love on first sight with a killer and start worshipping them. Maybe a bit, but I highly doubt it's a lot. And Light's other girlfriend was just kinda random lol. Mikami is pretty decent I suppose. He's funny. Though, I admit, CG has some pretty meh characters themselves like Nina but overall, CG wins the characters category.
This is gonna take awhile for me to finish. I'll come back later with my review over the Plot and the Ending of both series but right now, have a little read.
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