One of the more popular anime in the last several months was undoubtedly Guilty Crown. Produced by Aniplex and Production I.G., Guilty Crown is a 22 episode sci-fi drama centered around a teenage boy named Shu Ouma.
In the near future, Japan is recovering from a near-apocalyptic event which took place 10 years ago, known as Lost Christmas. Tokyo was the site of a deadly virus outbreak that turned people into crystals, and in order to prevent it from spreading, a group of countries occupies Japan and places those infected under quarantine. Enraged at the treatment of the Japanese people by the occupying forces and the inaction of the Japanese government, a rebel group called the Undertakers rises up against them. Caught in the midst of a battle between the rebels and occupying forces, Shu suddenly finds himself bestowed with an experimental secret weapon: the power of voids.
Guilty Crown got off to a great start: it had an intriguing story, great character designs by Redjuice, and a wonderful soundtrack by Supercell. It had the potential to be one of the best anime of the year, but as the story dragged on, it’s easy to find yourself asking what exactly is going on more often than enjoying the series.
While the series had great production values and an interesting setting, it was very poorly executed. It’s one thing for the hero to suddenly obtain something that helps him win, but it’s another when that happens in every single episode. Whenever Shu was in a bind, he would literally pull something out of thin air that he would use to his advantage. It takes the seriousness out of the series and destroys any sense of suspense.
Another area where Guilty Crown scores poorly is with character backgrounds. After 22 episodes, you still don’t really know who some of the major side characters really are. They are still “that escaped prisoner” or “the old guy that looks like a scientist”. A little more explanation, like what they’re relationship to the main characters are and a title would’ve helped.
A lot of the characters also lacked consistency. There is so much backstabbing going on between so many characters that even if you kept a spreadsheet of it all, you would probably still be lost. As an example, in one episode a character tried to save a girl he was in love with and the next thing you know, he’s trying to kill her. Did something happen between them? Nope, the girl doesn’t even know his name and they never met during that time.
Guilty Crown had the potential to be great, but in its ambition, went too far overboard with the drama and forgot to cover some essential background information. It may be amazing when a hero nabs a win out of thin air for the first time or shocking when a friend stabs the main character in the back, but repeating that a few dozen times in the same series is just ridiculous. Guilty Crown is like the B-rated movie that everyone wants to see, but isn’t worth it. Watch it if you’re looking for good animation and music, but don’t bother if you want a decent story.
It’s surprising how such a good looking anime was equipped with such a bad storytelling. It had a promising start, but soon I noticed that great character designs and a very good soundtrack aren’t enough for an good anime.
Later on some things were just weird and repetitive, like the Shu wimp mode on/ Shu wimp mode off switch, I can’t count how many times Shu lost it, after you already thought that he finally found the courage to be cool :(
He was the worst main character I’ve seen in a long time.
And I’m still not sure about the motivation of the villains, they were just evil and liked to kill a lot of japanese people for what ever reason.
There are many other things I disliked about GC, but I still watched it to the bitter end. Yet I’m mainly sad about the untouched potential of Guilty Crown.
An incredibly accurate review. I initially watched Guilty Crown to enjoy the music and art. I didn’t expect much of a plot. The first episode itself already indicated a less than well laid out of plot where there is hardly an introduction to Shu at all. He merely appears, runs like coward then is mysteriously able to wield powers without any prior training or need to learn how to handle a sword. It’s either his character is amazingly lucky or putting your hand into a good looking girls’ soul is enough a boost to let him go super powered.
The second episode just dropped the ball on everything. Revenge intertwined with dang naivety and revenge.
Throughout the series, people died with no apparent goal or reason. The Apocalypse virus was merely an excuse to get characters running around killing each other. Where was its source? Why is Mana even relevant? Gai even? Who would ever know?!
I hate how everybody is always picking out the bad things! Guilty crown was a good anime! yes a lot of stuff where unclear, but its way better than some other anime’s I have seen before!
sorry for randomly commenting, but it really bugs me people only pick out the bad parts. even I can say good thing about the worst anime i have ever seen (kaichou wa maiden sama). people worked hard making this anime, so lets just al appreciate it! : D
I hated the main character and the story but the art and the music was really awesome. I think the people who decided to waste these two on such a horrible scrip should be fired on the spot.
I wasn’t expecting much to begin with, but by the end even I was shaking my head at how bad the story got.
The first half had enough to grab my interest but the further this series progressed, the more non-nonsensical it got. By the last four episodes, I was constantly wondering WTF; I don’t get it.
The series offers little to no explanation as to what, why, or how things are happening. Ultimately, everything amounts to little more than a bunch of explosions and dead people, and leaves the me wondering what the point of the 14 episodes were.
3/10