CodeGeass/Episode02

Shortest possible synopsis: Protagonist BadGuy? wins the battle. Pretty much everyone from the intro sequence is introduced.

Where were we? Oh yes. The SociallyIneptMaleMainCharacter (He is a genius, plays chess, hates his own countrymen, doesn't study, wins bets with nobelmen) had just gone utterly stark raving bonkers, and decided to change the world (meaning, destroy Brittannia.)
Oh, and had got mind-control superpowers to do it with.

So, what does he do when a (different) woman (with an unusual costume, so we'll see her - and her cleavage - again, too) turns up in a mech?

He steals it. It takes him a couple of tries (his power seems to need eye contact) but he steals it.
And then spends pretty much the whole episode playing chess with mechs against the white poncy-prince. (And his fat and useless, and sweaty, general, too. Let's name him 'toto'.)

He recruits the terrorists, gives them mechs; (Stolen from a supply train, which isn't actually contrived, he goes to the trouble of working out that since the government is covering all of this up they won't be marching troops in openly.) and goes on to win.

Oh, did I mention that the prince had declared that the whole slum should be cleared? With prejudice? He has a good evil laugh about that.

Then the AngelicLayer octopus guy turns up. He wants to test a new toy. To do so, he recruits the other male lead (who's NotDead?) and throws him in it. On the basis that heck, he's had an hour to read the manual and has never been allowed near a mech before, and what harm could it do anyway?

Oh yes. Mechs run on batteries and have a limited charge time. Never seen that before. It isn't important this episode. Lancelots mech additionally has MuscularEntropy? and a spinning maze cube such as is used to release ancient evil upon the world.

His new mech? It was in the intro. It's white and gold and named 'Lancelot' and it's like some kind of ninja camel on speed. Far too many pointy knees and elbows at odd angles, but it jumps in the air and spins a lot and is very fast (the other mecha in this series act much like tanks most of the time) and wins.
And just for giggles, it's got an energy shield.

ChessBoy? gets kinda annoyed. There he was, happily playing chess, when some other guy turns up and plays "My queen is invincible, and I get three extra moves and the board is on fire.", stuffs a cat up his nose and beats the kitten flavoured snot out of him.

But then he stops to save some bystander, and gets recalled. "In a real war, you have to remember that it's people fighting" thinks Hiro Gooey.

Shaking thoughts from another series out of his head, he then goes off and does what he should have done in the first place - mind controls the white prince into giving the orders to stop, just before the army annihilates the cowering terrorists (and the refugees).

And then, because you can't end an episode without a big pointless overly dramatic reveal (and with the main (mind-controlling) character and the ruler of the land in the same general location, the ending we just had isn't exactly non-obvious) we reveal that Hiro is actually white princes brother, also royalty and has come back from the dead. (Although some of this might only be true since he's possessed by the return of the king, he makes enough chess references to his past life to make it unlikely.)

CategoryAnime/EpisodeSynopsis | OP=Vitenka