Ranked #666

Guilty Crown

Many people are aware of the financial problems faced by the anime industry, and one of the methods that studios have adopted over recent years to try to shore up their crumbling foundations is to adapt popular manga, games, and more recently, Western comics. This approach has become a tried and tested moneymaking endeavour for the majority of studios, but in many cases this is simply due the fact that the source material caters to the lowest common denominator - which usually means fanservice. Unfortunately, the relative success of these shows have allowed them to become the norm rather than the exception, and with that comes a number of problems.

The sad fact is that while it's okay to find inspiration from other sources, the industry has become so used to the adaptation that studios and writers find it difficult to produce work that could be considered "original". Instead, what passes for a unique story tends to be nothing more than a collection of concepts and ideas from other tales that are thrown together in the vain hope that people will rush to buy the end product because ... well, because someone tells them to.

But rather than dwelling on such things, let's take a look at Guilty Crown.

Set in Tokyo in the year 2039, a decade has passed since a mysterious outbreak known as the "Apocalypse Virus" killed thousands of people and brought Japan to its knees - a disaster that would later be called "Lost Christmas". Since that time Japan has lost its independence, and has become a martial state governed by an international organisation known as GHQ. The story opens with a pink-haired girl and a small robot escaping from a futuristic-looking facility, but security forces injure and corner her until she falls off a bridge. The next morning is just like any other day for highschool student Ouma Shu, an awkward young man who is a fan of the pop-group Egoist, whose lead singer just happens to be a waif-like girl with pink hair.

And then everything gets ... weird.

Guilty Crown is a bit of an odd duck as it attempts to blend several disparate themes, but doesn't quite manage to finish the job. The plot has clearly been influenced by several popular franchises - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the execution is where the writers have let themselves down. The narrative is often disjointed, and many events in the storyline appear to have no logic behind them other than to put Shu through an emotional wringer. In addition to this, the writers appear to have taken a rather nonchalant approach to reasoning and rationale, one example of which is how GHQ's repeated massacres are never covered by any sort of media outlet. This seemingly lackadaisical attitude is apparent in several areas of the plot - which is littered with "coincidences" - and these cause the narrative to have a mechanical feeling. In many ways it's almost as if the story was nothing more than a collection of bits that would apparently appeal to the largest number of people.

Aside from the inclusion of numerous well-known aspects that have clearly been transplanted from other popular stories and the "plot-by-numbers" approach, Guilty Crown also suffers from the rather obvious idea that most adults are evil and only kids are able to save the world. That said, the series does have some good points, in particular the way it attempts to recreate a situation similar to that found in "Lord of the Flies" by putting all of the students in one place and imposing self-rule. There are other, similarly dark influences that add a veneer of maturity to proceedings, but sadly these aren't enough to support the inherent weaknesses in the narrative - the main one being the decision to make yet another school-based anime.

In terms of production quality, Guilty Crown is arguably up there with some of the better shows of recent years, but the sometimes stunning visuals and effects are tempered by a few issues that may initially appear to minor, but in actuality are representative of the mentality of the show's creators. It's obvious that a great deal of thought has gone into the background artwork and set designs, but the same isn't true of the characters. For the most part they look good, but the decision to feature highschool students places an immediate limitation that becomes obvious when one considers the variety of features and body shapes found amongst the adults.

The problem lies in the fact that the design of the younger roles includes an element of stereotype in order to impart a degree of familiarity - thereby making the show more accessible to people. It's an old marketing trick that has become a staple of the anime industry over the years, and while Guilty Crown has tried to be a little bit more subtle than most in its usage, one does have to question the logic behind Tsugumi. A cat-eared tsundere loli wearing what is effectively a plug suit (and a maid costume later on), only serves to highlight the thought processes of the show's creators.

Thankfully Production I.G. maintain their standards when it comes to the animation, and the series is littered with flowing, well choreographed action scenes. The characters are well-balanced in their movements, and a degree of care has been taken with those that are injured, disabled, or suffer from an affliction.

Like many anime that run for over twenty episodes, Guilty Crown features two opening and ending sequences - each with an original track written by Supercell. The first OP is a rather dizzying blend of effects, character montages and action scenes while the song "My Dearest" - a suitably fast paced and dramatic pop song performed by Koeda - sets the tone for the series. "The Everlasting Guilty Crown" performed by the fictional band Egoist is the track of choice for the second opening sequence, but while the artwork and design ethic have clearly shifted to promote a bittersweet atmosphere, the actual content is much the same as that of the first OP. Egoist also perform the melancholy ballad "Departures ~Anata ni Okuru Ai no Uta~" for the first ending sequence, which features Ouma Shu and Yuzuriha Inori walking away from each other against a backdrop of character art and effects. The second ED contains a mixture of video footage of landscape speeding by, scenes from the series and a few still images of the school environs that are "projected" onto a screen behind Inori and Shu as they decide to run - all while Koeda performs the rather upbeat rock song "Kokuhaku"

Which brings up one small issue.

Although it's true that some thought has gone into the composition of the opening sequences and that they are very well choreographed, both also feature overt plot spoilers. Now this does happen in other anime, but in general there are efforts to avoid such things occurring - which doesn't appear to be the case with Guilty Crown.

Aside from that minor niggle, the high production standards are also reflected in the quality of the music and audio effects. Sawano Hiroyuki has taken care to ensure that the background pieces are varied and suitably dramatic where necessary. The wide range of sounds and noises are clear and distinct, and the audio/visual choreography shows just how much effort has been made to produce a show that looks and sounds great.

Unfortunately the same can't be said of the actual dialogue.

Now while it's true that Guilty Crown features a range of characters and personality types, for some reason the decision was made to revert to old anime stereotypes and then write justifications into the storyline. The script is littered with monologues, diatribes, conversations and arguments that would grace any show where the "hero" has to lead his people to salvation whilst fighting against the enemy and his inner demons, forming a pseudo-harem along the way, and showing the world just how much of a tragic-yet-heroic figure he is. Thankfully the actors are more than capable, but no matter how good their skills are, prosaic and formulaic dialogue will always be just that.

As for the characters themselves, Ouma Shu is the kind of leading man who can be found in a number of other titles - quiet, reserved, doesn't have many friends, and a bit of a loser - and therein lies the problem. The writers have taken great pains to try to show him as a "human" more than anything else, but in their efforts to promote Shu as the tragic hero, they've ignored one of the most basic rules of characterisation.

In other words, Shu has no personality whatsoever - even at the end of the series when all his "suffering" is over.

It's this apparent inability to develop the characters in any meaningful way that makes them appear as nothing more than inane, and the lack of any real growth means that everyone pretty much ends the series having learned very little (aside from maybe Daryl). In addition to this there's an element of ridiculousness to the choice of characters, the prime example being Yuzuriha Inori (although Tsugumi does come a close second). One has to wonder what chemically induced delusion could have persuaded the show's creators that having the lead singer of a hugely popular band stealing from the enemy in the opening scenes while wearing her stage outfit was a good idea.

Apparently students can recognise her even though she's wearing a school uniform, but soldiers and officers of the military forces controlling Japan have no idea who she is since pink-haired girls wearing fluttery costumes are a dime a dozen in Japan.

Guilty Crown is one of those anime that can only truly be enjoyed if you have never watched any of the titles that it takes its inspirations from - and that becomes a problem if one has watched, and enjoyed, most of them. The main issue is that there are several character types and plot elements that are better used in their original anime, so their inclusion here makes them stand out in less than flattering ways.

The real problem with Guilty Crown though, is the element of arrogance that is prevalent throughout the series, and this comes solely from the show's creators. The basic premise of Guilty Crown is perfectly fine, but everyone from the director and series composers to the producers have assumed that the "anime-by-numbers" approach that they have so clearly used here is enough to make a hit franchise. There appears to have been a major assumption that the audience will swallow the whole thing without automatically referencing other shows that they may have watched, and that's where everything begins to fall apart.

Storytelling is, after all, an art form, and a good writer can captivate their audience without overtly referencing where there inspiration came from. Unfortunately the folks behind Guilty Crown appear to have forgotten this simple fact, and it leaves one with the sad realisation that this anime had the potential to be so much more than it is. read more

With the large amount of Guilty Crown reviews going around lately, It wouldn't be too hard to find a 'decent' review, right? well that's not the case at all, It seems that most of the reviews are either written by blind fan-boys/fan-girls or haters, 10's,9's,4's and 3's seem to be the popular choice of overall rating, though looking at Guilty Crown in a balance way, this anime definitely deserves a 7 and I'll explain why in the next couple of paragraphs which will you most likely will flick through.

= Story (3) =

If you have been watching Guilty Crown or have seen some of the rantings on the forums, you would know that the story is filled with cliché's and awful execution (for the most part anyway), So I won't go that in-depth to the story, basically just think of it as a mecha-action-supernatural-apocalyptic-drama-comedy-Sci Fi-romance-school-fan service super show.

In other words, Shu (Shuu), your average 16-year-old guy living in a future version of Tokyo get's himself wrapped up in the activities of terrorist group defying the government called Funeral Parlour, he meets the leader Gai, find's out his favourite singer is a member of the group and that the government is corrupt blah blah blah

= Art (10) =

If there's one thing that no one can complain about, I'd say it's the art. Every episode looks of cinematic quality and the character designs are well down as you'd expect from Production I.G and Redjuice (supercell). If there is one thing to fault about the art, I believe it's the design of the apocalypse virus, It just doesn't look like some deadly disease that someone would be afraid of, though that doesn't really matter.

= Sound (9) =

Sound is also a great part of Guilty Crown, the insert music and the OST is brilliant, the first OP 'Euterpe' was only used in the first episode which was disappointing since the second OP which lasted for 11 episodes wasn't hardly as good. The best OP in my opinion and one of my favourite anime openings is the third and last one 'The Everlasting Guilty Crown', It seriously made the other two seem like crap in comparison.

= Character (7.5) =

7.5? That's not even an score according to MAL is what you might say though that's really the only score I can give it, The characters and their developments weren't very good though they weren't just good either, sort of in-between.

The problem with the characters is that they introduced too many too fast, there wasn't really any-time to grow attached to them or even remember some of them at all. You didn't know which ones were supposed to be Minor or Main characters or just background ones in most of the first half.

Another problem was the likeability of the main characters in most of the FIRST HALF, Shu just sit's around most of the time, being a indecisive, annoying loser. Gai was just emotionless (for the most part) and all Inori could do was use the power of singing(?), provide fan-service and dodge (she might of shot a gun once) but that's it.

Though, (without spoiling anything) In the second half, the main characters had great development.

= Enjoyment (7) =

Enjoyment levels really depend on how serious you take Guilty Crown, don't go into the series expecting a masterpiece because you will most definitely be disappointed and hating on it. Though if you are a simple person (no offence) and just like your anime with ton's of great looking action scenes and a little bit of everything rolled in one (even if the result is total mess) then you will obviously enjoy the series a lot more.

= Overall (7) =

Overall, Guilty Crown is definitely not a masterpiece, though it does NOT deserve the crap reputation it gets, sure the story becomes screwed up beyond repair with the can of cliché's they sprung at you each episode and the character development doesn't really start until halfway through the series, what really matters at the end of the day is how much the viewer enjoys the anime, people will hate, like or love GC and that's their opinion just as this review gives my opinion, I don't really care about the 'helpful' or 'not helpful' clicks, as long as my review isn't buried so deep that it can't be of at least some help to the many users who are looking for a new anime to enjoy, and that's the whole point of reviews, to help people decide whether a anime would be to their liking or not. read more

When I saw Guilty Crown on the preview list with the synopsis and the production team, I thought this was it. I thought that this would be an anime that would save the industry. Guess what? I was right. After all if you cannot be a good example, then you will just have to be a terrible warning.

Lets get to the good points. Art. It is Production I.G we are talking about here. Even the haters have to agree that the art is amazing. The animations were fluid and detailed. The character designs are appealing as well. The only problem is the uninteresting mecha designs though lets be honest, there are only a few ways that you can draw a giant robot. It is obvious that they spent a large part of their budget in this department. The music is beautiful too except for some engrish and the fact that sometimes the music does not really match the mood of a particular scene.

Oh boy, it is time for the bad stuff; namely the plot. Now I am not going to say that the premises is a copy of Code Geass or anything like that because there is no problem exploring a concept that has been done before. It does become a problem, however, when a previously explored concept is horribly executed. The writers wants you to take the show seriously but it is especially hard to do that when hardly anything follows logic along with the lack of consistency and cohesion of the story. To me it just seemed like the authors all got together and wrote 50 plot progressions and added them into a box. Before every episode they draw one out of the box and say "this is what today's episode is going to be about". This sort of progression leaves little to no explanation nor even any information for the viewer to infer what is happening. Surprisingly the producers think they have enough time to produce a beach episode which again makes me unable to take this show seriously.

The character is another aspect of this anime that made it not enjoyable for me. None of the protagonists' nor the antagonists' motives are explored other than the generic good guys versus the bad guys black and white conflict. The bad guys kill people and the good guys are the heroes of justice oppressed and hunted down by the bad guys. With the inconsistencies of personalities and sudden illogical character "development", it is hard to even give a damn about the characters. The special ability of the protagonist is basically a Deus ex machina used for plot convenience. Coupled with several layers of plot armour that protects the protagonists just makes the characters that much more uninteresting.

With the huge budget, superb production team, and the so called golden time slot given to this show, it pains me physically to see it become the train wreck that is Guilty Crown. Perhaps through a modicum of sadism that exists in every human being, I decided to savor every aspect of its shortcoming by finishing the show; despite all the crap that was thrown at me since episode 3. All in all it seemed to me that 80% of the budget was spent on art and music and a janitor was hired to write the plot. The flashy action scenes and music basically carried this show. At the end of the day I just cannot decide whether or not this is an anime or just a new form of advertisement for promoting Supercell's songs.

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Guilty Crown is an shounen-mecha anime project that premiered on “FUJI TV’s” “noitaminA” program block. Usually noitaminA is known for its popular animes such as “Anohana” and “Black Rock Shooter”, these animes excel extremely well at the aspect animation and music. - Guilty Crown is no exception. Nonetheless, noitaminA's standard has been changing lately and its main purpose is to make money with fan service and early merchandises. – Guilty Crown is no exception.
As one of my favourite animes, I wanted to review Guilty Crown a long time ago but I couldn’t make up my mind because of the mostly negative assessments this anime’s got. However, I realized that there are plenty of honest evaluations either which made up my determination to write this review. Sit back and enjoy please.


The story takes place in Tokyo where a meteorite carrying a deadly cancer virus has crashed, which led to many deaths and a nation-wide infection making Japan depend on an international organization known as GHQ. This incident becomes known as “Lost Christmas”. One decade later in 2039, a teenage boy named Ouma Shu mysteriously meets a pink haired girl called Yuzuriha Inori and gains a special power to draw out people’s voids, weapons based on the person’s feelings. He then joins this girl into an organization fighting against the government and all authorities in order to break free from the arbitrariness of GHQ.

All in all a pretty weird and strange story with quite curious developments, but still somehow original. Even though the story seems very far away from reality it still has got a lot of potential, in my opinion. Basically, it revolves around a boy who becomes the big shot from one day to another. However, the execution was not done very precisely with many flaws and watching a new episode will make you feel like as if you missed something last time. In the end, it has an interesting concept but producers somehow managed to mess it up with all the fan-service and weird twists, which just made it not convincing enough.

Contrary to that, the art is incomparably well done and amazing. Everything seems to be thought out well with futuristic designs and impressive fighting robots. In addition, Guilty Crown excels at its animations especially fighting scenes, making the battles really colorful and tense. Every character has its individual artwork which distinguishes them significantly from the others. This makes the anime to a literally art spectacular due to its unique designs and features which emphasizes the whole genre of Guilty Crown.

Just as marvelous are the OSTs and Openings Guilty Crown uses. The idea of introducing a new formed band by “Supercell” called “Egoist” into the anime is just great. The OSTs fit perfectly into the genre and are partly sung in German making it really interesting. Guilty Crown mostly uses the same theme but shifting it between minor and major and pitching either high or low makes it always perfect and fitting.

The Characters and their background weren’t too original or special. The shy and sweet protagonist Ouma Shu who slowly becomes determined and strong, what you could call “coming of age”. (?) Then there is this strange “boy meets girl” arrangement where he meets this mysterious beauty coincidentally moving in with him and changing his life radically. And contrary to the protagonist, there is that decisive and reliable rival, Shu looks up to. In addition, there are too many other characters introduced in too small intervals causing the viewer problems to get an idea of who plays a major or minor role. Anyways, these characteristics are quite typical in the shounen-genre with only small differences. However, a large variety of characters had great developments making it really exciting and sometimes even fascinating.

Although there were many negative aspects, I surprisingly enjoyed Guilty Crown, but that just depends on every person individually if they expect too much of this they will most likely be disappointed. And on the other hand, if you just watch it without thinking too much into the story and backgrounds you will simply be amazed by how great the animations and art is done. I just want to say that this depends on the viewer and his or her own criteria. I personally loved it because of the stunning visuals and lovely and innovative details.

Overall, I would say that Guilty Crown isn’t particularly bad but definitely not very good. It has its deficits in the aspects of story and execution but is a masterpiece regarding visuals. In my opinion, Guilty Crown showed a lot of wasted potential. Guilty Crown could have been much better if the producers wouldn’t have valued the fan service and profit. Nonetheless, I have recommended this anime to friends quite often and they always gave me positive feedback, so I have no hesitation to recommend Guilty Crown to anyone. But I have to admit that Guilty Crown is a really superficial anime and people who treasure a good and clear storyline may be a bit disappointed with Guilty Crown.

Every feedback helps me 
KonaKonaSama
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Should you watch this anime? Here's a quick check list. (Absolutely NO SPOILER)

1. Do you like near perfection art/animation?
2. Do you like boobs, butts, lolicons?
3. Do you like mecha and superpowers?

If you say 'yes' to 2/3 above then you should definitely give this anime a try, but let us continue...

4. Do you like bipolar characters? Emo? PMS? Post-traumatic Stress Disorder?
5. Do you like unpredictable story development?

If you say 'yes' to 1/2 above then you should enjoy this anime somewhat.

Now for the ultimate question..

6. Do you like cluster-fuck plots full of inconsistencies? Meaning your brain will not be able to comprehend what you are watching. In extreme cases, you may feel the urge to go murder your neighbor's pets.

If you say 'yes' to #6 then you may have mental disorders of some sort, but you will no doubt 'enjoy' this anime and call it a masterpiece.

If you say 'no' to #6 then you should be proud because your brain is still in good working condition. You will also 'enjoy' this anime but in a different way. Even though your brain wants to self-destruct due to incoherent cluster-fuck plots this anime has to offer, you will find yourself unable to stop watching it. Your brain will then go into defensive mode. It will stop trying to interpret the plot and convert it to idiotic incomprehensible comedy instead.

Now on to my review:

Story:
The story is your typical save the world shounen anime. However, the producers manage to mind-fuck the viewers by poorly delivering inconsistent plots throughout the entire length of anime. You will find yourself saying 'what the fuck' over and over until you get used to it and start laughing instead.

Character:
Each major characters are filled with emotions and are professionally portrayed. However, they are very mentally unstable for the most part. You will have a great time trying to decipher their emotions, but don't bother because as I've said before, they're fucked up in the head.

Art/Animation:
This is arguably the most beautiful anime of all time in my opinion. You will no doubt feel like the characters, backgrounds, and special effects are fornicating with your eyeballs.

Sound/Voice/Music:
Voice acting is top notch. Sound effect is great. Music is beautifully utilized in the show, but they're mediocre by themselves.

Enjoyment:
You will fall in love with the first 1/3 of the show. Then you will feel confused, enraged, and mind-fucked from there on out. If you manage to overcome all the anger and denial, you will realize that you're being trolled. Finally, you will not give a fuck about the show anymore and have a blast watching it all the way through.

Overall:
10/10 because I've never been trolled so hard in my life

Thanks for reading.

Enjoy the anime and please..... stay safe.

---
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No memorable quotes in Guilty Crown so to speak.

Honestly, I've been meaning to write this review for quite some time now, it's just that actually making myself go through the effort of reviewing this crap makes me die on the inside.

So yeah, back in 2005, Microsoft announced that they would be releasing Windows Vista, which for those of you who don't know (although I can't see how that's possible because it's so brilliant) was supposed to be the follow up Operating System to Windows XP - Microsoft boasted that it would be a fantastic new OS; fixing the security problems of XP and adding excellent new features that would only serve to enhance what was, is and always will be, Microsoft's best Operating System.

When Guilty Crown was announced, Production I.G (or at least someone in the production staff of GC) decided it'd be a good idea to make a similar boast; Guilty Crown was supposed to be a brand new, revolutionary new anime that would kick start a "new age" for Japanese animation.

Windows Vista was finally released in November 2006 and sold about 20 million licences, and to this date, it's considered to be an absolute disaster; an atrocious Operating System that a very close friend of mine described as "A pile of shit with a current running through it" and that description is very true, Windows Vista really is a load of bullshit.

So why the comparison with Guilty Crown you ask?

Guilty Crown is Windows Vista: The Animation, an absolute disaster of a show that makes no sense whatsoever. I wasted 22 weeks on this crap to come to this conclusion: Guilty Crown is the biggest load of godawful bullshit to come out of Japan since Idea Factory made Mars of Destruction, and honestly, if this is how people in Japan see the "new age" of anime, then may God have mercy on us all because we'll be in for years and years of crap.

Now that I've got that (admittedly rather lengthy) comparison out of the way, I'll move on to...the rest of Guilty Crown.

As many of you will no doubt know, Guilty Crown has become quite famous for having no story whatsoever, or at least not one that is coherent enough to make sense - actually the claim that this show even has a story is an absolutely insane one, any one who's able to find the story should be locked up in an asylum immediately and kept there for the rest of their lives - you've clearly got a screw loose, either that or you were smoking some really crazy shit, whatever suits you, anyway I digress.

Alright, so admittedly, Guilty Crown at least starts off with a story - Imagine Code Geass except with Shinji Ikari as the main protagonist and you've got the basic idea down, he gets some mad power that allows him to use Edel Raids, fights some government people by using his dandere sex slave and generally goes on happy go lucky adventures that do nothing to help the "plot" in a desperate effort to "Liberate Japan" and to wallow in his own chauvinistic angst.

Yeah, I know, bullshit am I right?

The best thing about Guilty Crown is its masterful ability to pick up plot points and dispose of them like nothing happened - then completely forget about them later on, it's brilliant, a truly excellent way of story telling. Example: Early on in the series the characters are desperately trying to free a character who's apparently "important" to their cause and spend a complete waste of two episodes freeing someone who is as important as a Disney Channel extra - I enjoyed every single minute of that time burning experience.

Another example (and probably the most famous one) is the introduction of a completely new character about mid-way through the series, only for the series to totally forget about him, then remember that they introduced someone who looked important - upon said characters introduction, my immediate reaction was: "....Oh so this is what GC considers to be a story...Ha".

Now to avoid wasting any more of your time, my time and time of the space that I'm typing in, I won't talk any more about the "story" as it may be called by some people; all I'm going to say is, if you legitimately think that this story is good, then get your priorities straight, this isn't even the type of show that you could possibly enjoy upon your first viewing of anime, it's a complete and utter load of garbage.

Animation wise, GC fares a bit better, Redjuice did do some actually okay character designs that - when they're standing still anyway - look good, and for the first few episodes Guilty Crown is okay in the animation department, it's a good example of how to do SCENERY PORN and make it look interesting. However somewhere along the line (I can't remember when) the animation quality starts to dip rapidly; I don't know whether or not it was because the budget was cut or something else happened, but GC starts to take some serious hits later on, characters look off model, the fight scenes and general animation are choppy, the SCENERY PORN doesn't look as amazing as it did, and whenever the characters are supposed to look "angry" they just end up looking like they have some serious constipation issues.

Honestly the only reason I didn't lower the animation score is because of that SCENERY PORN.

Music wise, Guilty Crown is a very mixed bag; the opening themes by Supercell are actually alright until someone starts singing, to get the full enjoyment of them, you need to imagine that no one is singing and that it's just music playing. The ending themes are pretty whimsical - and rather generic - pieces that attempt to make Guilty Crown seem deeper than it actually is...yeah it didn't go well that's for sure.

Then we have that atrocious song that dandere sex slave starts singing in nearly every episode that I can care to remember - this song is nothing but a pretentious attempt to appeal to pacifists and people who dislike war in general (to the point where it's actually insulting), it does nothing to actually add to the show and is ridiculously annoying, especially when later on it's revealed to pull a 20th Century Boys in a desperate attempt to "change the world" through music - at least in 20th CB the song actually represented something meaningful, this song represents how utterly garbage this show is.

As for the rest of the soundtrack...it's okay I guess, nothing too special, and probably forgettable where it not for the shows insistence on repeating the same tracks over and over again like a really bad broken record - it's a shame there's only a few of them, they actually had the potential to be alright.

I have nothing to really say about the voice acting apart from the fact that it gets the job done, the only significant complaint I have is Yuki Kaji's painful voice. Listening to him talk is worse than most methods of torture, made even worse by the fact he never shuts up - his voice is a constant moan midway through sounding like it's broken and like he's in the middle of an orgasm, scratching chalkboards with your finger nails sounds better.

Now before I begin this next part, let me start by saying that I couldn't help but laugh repeatedly at this section, the "characters" in Guilty Crown are not characters, heck I'd struggle to say they were even archetypes anymore, what we have in Guilty Crown is a desperate attempt at throwing separate piles of shit together - then watching them to see what they do.

At no point do you ever feel any connection to Shinji Ikari the 2nd, dandere sex slave, Gary Stu, Wheelchair slut, cat maid prostitute, Daryl, Chibodee Crockett and purple robot man. In fact the only people who are even remotely watchable are those last three - oh and can someone please tell me why the writers thought it would be a good idea to throw in Aki from Aki-Sora in here? Seeing a slightly disturbing (if relatively mature) incest anime is something I can just about put myself through, watching an anime where the reasoning behind everything is out of an incestuous love for your Shotacon brother who's already got a sex slave is definitely not.

As for the rest of the characters that appear, you may as well call them Shinji the 2nd's harem for the attention they're given, they all seem to want to somehow get into those pants of his.

But back to those last three characters; throughout my horrid experience of Guilty Crown, I found that when the anime is focused on these three characters (particularly purple robot guy) it's a rather pain free experience, heck I actually enjoyed watching them, not that they're good characters (really, they're pretty damn poor) but in comparison to the rest of the cast from this abysmal horror, they're about as complex as all the psychological stuff from Evangelion.

When it comes to enjoyment, I enjoyed one thing about this show and one thing only - laughing at it so hard that it actually became something I looked forward to. I looked forward to those Thursdays in which I wasted 24 minutes watching this masterpiece, watching it and laughing at how dreadfully awesome it is. But yeah in all seriousness, there isn't a lot to enjoy about Guilty Crown apart from the epic laughs that it induces (all of which are made even better because the show takes itself so seriously).

In closing, Guilty Crown is a complete disaster of an anime and has rightly earned itself some pretty belligerent haters as well as some equally belligerent criticism, not to be a total Opinion Nazi here, but if you like this - and by like I mean, actually like this show rather than liking it out of a sense of irony or deliberate sarcasm - you are either one of the following: new to anime to the point that you don't yet know what an actual good show, or (and probably more accurately) a complete and total idiot.

There's a panel in Air Gear that cries out rather brilliantly: "Rip-offs are the best!"

Yeah, not so much with Guilty Crown.
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The first few episodes had some problems, but nothing unforgivable, and the show actually seemed really awesome at first. There was so much they could do in the world they had set up.

Would the main character become a cunning LeLouche? Perhaps a brave Suzaku? Will we identify with his teen angst like we do with Shinji? Will he seem human?

The answer to all of these questions ends up being "no." The main character is someone you increasingly dislike as the show goes on.

Not only is he generic, he's a bad execution of the generic shonen protagonist. He doesn't feel very human, and his courage & competency literally manifest only as required by the plot, only to disappear immediately afterwards.

Sadly, despite an A-list team and a huge budget they really just made an unbelievably bad series. I can't understand how this could have happened. Even mediocre garbage like Symphogear told a more emotional story, and that show was butchered by a huge budget-cut (and a much worse premise, honestly).

Fairly early on you start feeling a sense of disappointment as they layer on extremely generic "twists" that the main character literally cuts through with a magic sword.

The worst part of this show rears its head mid-way through, but it becomes especially prominent in the second half. I am referring to the fact that people change sides without ANY reason to do so, only to change back later without any serious reasons for their actions. The worst example of this by far is the student council president.

It's my guess that the flailing writers looked for any opportunity to inject some kind of pathos into a story that is honestly much to happy for its apocalyptic setting. "Why don't we have his mom help the bad guys for a while?" "Oh yeah! Awesome! The audience will be shocked!"

So many of these twists end up half-baked. Mana's character is a particularly strange creation, honestly. Who came up with the idea to add in all the (barely avoided) creepy incest and rape to a show that is already struggling to tell a convincing story about geopolitics? Not to mention the plague that turns people into crystals. Not to mention the terrorist v.s. government war. Not to mention the other sub-plots that get forgotten until the last episode clumsily ties everything together with a big "reset" button after a boring "final battle" influenced by strange forces never explained.

Not only does an abundance of cheese-ball dialogue ruin the mood on the few truly dramatic scenes, but the writers lacked the balls to really hit us with anything big. The audience never feels much when people die, because the people that die are almost exclusively fodder.

There was one exception to this, but it felt really artificial. It was a terrible 3-episode mini-arc where the main character ends up killing the sibling of his friend, but special circumstances removed all the moral questions in this case. Why not make your main character kill a friend who wasn't already about to die? It worked in Evangelion. Twice in-fact.

Even the action - which should be the one area this show simply cannot fail on - is often really simplistic and boring. If you compare the knightmare suits duels from Geass to the mech battles here, it's just pathetic. Not that these battles ever end up mattering, since the entire show is setup to allow the main character to save everyone repeatedly.

If they had just stopped trying to layer on really shallow twists and developed the core Japan v.s. The World narrative a little more, putting Shu in a moral dilemma regarding Gai's ultimate actions, and dropped the character Mana entirely then this would have been a much better story.

Watch it for yourself. Maybe with low expectations you will enjoy it as a "pretty mess" as some have suggested. As for me, I can't see myself ever recommending it to anyone after this post. It's a cautionary tale for writers, perhaps, but beyond that it has little value.

We all weep for the show that COULD have been. What a waste.
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If you have read or seen another Guilty Crown reviews you have probably noticed that there is two sides. Those two sides are the haters and the lovers. Also it has alot of romance in it even though MAL's genres doesnt include it.
Anyway lets get onto the review.

= (Story 4) =

The story is not something speciel. Most fo the time i didn't think about it, but after watching the show and thinking bad i realised it was pretty bad. As i said, there's nothing special about the story. It's very sad cause the story could have been so much more then it was. Èven though this show made you wanna watch the next episode right away, but if you want a good story don't watch Guilty Crown.

= (Art 9) =

Everything about the art was just amazing. The backgrounds were amazing. It made the scene alot better because of the feeling i got by the backgrounds. The colors were kinder dark which gave the show the feeling it was supposed to have. The character design were also amazingly done. Now the best thing about the art was the crystal virus. It was just so beautiful. This is definitely the best artwork I.G. Production has ever done. I've never seen something like this before.

= (Sound 10) =

The Sound were just as stunning as the art. All the openings and ending were done by Supercell which is one of my favorite bands so that just gave this series a plus. The first opening Euterpe was so beautiful that i couldn't move and do nothing but to listen to the amazing song. Sadly it was only played in the first episode. The second opening My Dearest was amazing as well and quickly became one of my favorite openings i have ever heard. The same goes for the third opening The everlasting guilty crown. It was almost just as amazing and was perfect for a opening. It really pumped up the mood and made you ready for another episode. The first ending Departures ~Anata ni Okuru Ai no Uta~ was amazing for an ending because it was very calm and that's what a good ending has to be. The second ending Kokuhaku was also very good even though i prefer the first ending over the second. Also the OST for this show were fantastic. It could change me from happy to sad in only 10 seconds I've never seen a anime with as good soundtrack as Guilty Crown. If your not gonna check out the show at least give the music a shot.

= (Characters 5) =

Now alot of people has different opinions on the characters. Some says the development were amazing and some says it was very bad because it was to fast. I have to agree with both sides. I'm just gonna list some of the characters and give you my opinion on them because there's so many character that i can't even list them

Inori: Inori is the main Female character. Inoris development were actually pretty good. Now its kinda hard to explain her development because she didn't really change on her outside, but her inside. She was just fighting for what she thought was right. But slowly though the series you could feel for her. You could could feel her love towards Shu, especially in the last few episodes.

Shu: Shu is the completely opposite of Inori in terms of character development. He isn't really relatable because he changes to much. He goes from Jesus to Hitler in 1 episode. In the first half of the series hes this quite guy who just help out the Funeral Parlour, but in the second half hes the evil king. So overall hes just to cliché.

Gai: Gai.... I can't really say that much about him. Hes a badass character who leads the Funeral Parlour. He means a lot to the series, but i just can't relate to him. He dosen't get any development. He just never changes which i find really annoying.

= (Enjoyment 8) =

Even though it was a very cliché anime it's just one of those series i couldn't help but love! I was bored once in this series and it made me wanna watch it over and over again. If your gonna watch this anime you shouldn't really be thinking. And yes i am on the lover side, but i do understand why some people don't like this show.

= (Overall 8) =

Overall i give it 8. Even though the character's where cliché and the story where really odd, i still enjoyed it though out the entire show. Now do i recommend you this anime? Well, i think u should at least give it a try. read more

Ah, Guilty Crown. By this point, everyone has already read every single mixed reaction to this anime, a lot of people have reviewed it before it even finished, and everybody pretty much chose what side they were on since Episode 18. In Japan, the BD/DVD sales are decent, the main characters are popular, and the ratings are...well...they're not really that great. Everybody was hyped up upon hearing the dream team assembled for this production and the team behind it declared that this anime was going to be used to define a new generation. Does it succeed? Hell no!

It doesn't even succeed on its own. Guilty Crown hits practically every wrong note, every wrong story choice, every wrong amount of emotions throughout the majority of its 22-episode run. What's left is a visually stunning, but passionless product that feels like Sucker Punch if it was directed by Michael Bay. Every single anime fetish and cliche was crammed into this series with almost none of them used very well, and the beautiful animation is rarely given a chance to tell the story. Instead, the story is told through terribly written dialogue and badly placed narratives that miss the mark on when to give the explanation.

Music-wise, I'm not a huge fan of it. A lot of people like Supercell and the soundtrack they produced for this anime, but it doesn't do much for me. On top of that, while I liked the second opening, I dislike the first opening and both endings. I really don't think the peaceful, whimsical sort of music really suits this show. There is nothing in the show that really warrants that. And don't even get me started on the main girl's singing and how they worked it into the plot. Judging by the translations, all I have to say that I think the songs are pretentious as hell.

Story-wise, the anime is supposed to represent Japan's current status of being ruled over by other countries, except with mechs and diseases from outer space. However, in reality, the story is more about how a boy turned from loser to Jesus. So, it's a coming of age story mixed with Japan's issues, right? Summary-wise, yes. However, once you actually see the story, it becomes very confusing. A majority of the story feels like it was made up the writers as it went, and that's very rarely a good sign. The main character in question goes from one side to another, never picking a position for long and just letting the story control him because he's a slave to the writers. Also, while there are disconnections between the episodes in general, the huge ones occur between the first half, the third-quarter, and the last-quarter of the anime. The first half is a typical wimp turning hero story that's awfully padded with barely anything of substance happening. The third quarter has pacing that is so fast you can't digest the information properly, and to make matters worse, is focused on a story completely different from the first half. The last quarter finds some middle ground, but requires buildup from the first three-quarters to work effectively, and unfortunately it fails at that for the most part. Oh, and practically all of it is plotholed without even attempting to create a world where all the weird and stupid stuff can happen. Some explanations are given (though not very well) and apparently there's a novel that will explain some stuff more, but the anime expects you to roll with its logic for the most part. I'm sorry, but if a character jumps super high, and then never does it again for the rest of the series, despite being given plenty opportunities to do so, you're not creating a very good world.

So, it's basically a mediocre teen story, right? It would be if it wasn't for the goddamn symbolism this show uses. There's so much Christianity shoved into this anime with no attempts at subtlety whatsoever, and this is the part of the story that I actively hated. If you're going to use something as serious as religion in your story, you better do it right, or know what you're talking about. Instead, it was just phoned-in pretentious bullshit that I can only describe as disgusting. Also, and this is the big one, the story never flowed naturally. Through a combination of terrible pacing, writing, directing, and editing, scenes that should have been moving came off as empty, characters who should have changed felt like they changed because the writers said so, and for one of the longest series on Noitamina, it felt like a lot was cut-out (probably the reason why the novel is needed).

And don't even get me started on the characters that feel like they came from Independence Day. The cast literally goes like this: I'm Shu, and I'm the wimpy hero stereotype. I'm Inori, and I'm the emotionless girl stereotype. I'm Ayase, and I'm the disabled badass stereotype. I'm Tsugumi, and I'm the kooky girl stereotype. I'm Scarface, and I'm the over-the-top villain stereotype. And so on and so forth. And most of them perform their roles very poorly. I have never seen a more unlikeable and inconsistent cast since The Social Network or School Days. None of them ever get out of their stereotype, and half of them don't even fulfill their role all that well. The best characters are just tolerable, while the worst characters are really unlikeable. Especially the three main characters, who feel like cutouts/wish-fulfillment symbols rather than their own individual beings, to the point that I go, "Why are they the mains?". Oh, and the story heavily favors the main character, barely giving more than cliffnotes on everyone else, including the main love interest. It feels like a self-insert fanfiction that thinks that if you make the main as flawed as possible, rather than be a Gary-Stu like most of those types of fanfics, you'll be seen as more relatable and likeable. Well, if that was the plan, then it fucking backfired, didn't it? How about making the character likeable first before you make him flawed? How about making him a character first before you make them a symbol. And how about applying that to every other character while you're at it?

You'll notice I'm not exactly spoiling much with this review (in fact, I barely refer to the characters by name). That's because for all of Guilty Crown's problems, it needs to be seen to be believed. While I am highly against spending money on this series since that just opens the way for sequels and such, I believe everyone should watch this in order to see just how much of a great concept an anime can ruin. The symbolism and few fresh ideas are executed poorly, the pacing never reaches middle ground, the characters aren't human, but rather what writers think qualify as human, and to top it all off, why spend so much money and effort on the animation if you're not going to let the animation tell the story? Besides a few fight scenes and the voids, there wasn't one time I saw the animation bring life into either the characters or the setting.

I've seen a lot of people say this anime is an entertaining trainwreck/popcorn anime. You know, that's not really a compliment when you look at the production team's goal, right? It's obvious when watching this anime that they're trying to make it good, but they somehow sucked the passion out of it. It was fun to discuss the anime while it aired, but now that it's finished, that perk has sailed. The only thing I'll give this anime credit for (besides the fact that it ended) is that it's uniquely bad and it will stick in my mind for a good while, which I guess is a plus. But like all popcorn stuff, you watch it once, you never look back, and you re-watch some much better stuff that you've seen over the past years. read more

When I saw a preview of this anime I thought 'This seems like it can be good and it'll help me kill some time while I wait for new episodes of recent animes to air'

However, when I began watching I thought 'Let me guess, he's an ordinary HS boy who meets a chick and gets powers.'

Sure enough that's just what happens. Honestly, it's to the point where anime creators don't even bother hiding the fact that their story line are a generic cliche. Mind you, cliches exists in all forms of the media but when your industry is saturated with the same story told over and over and over again then perhaps you should try a new story or give the audience a different spin on the story. But then again, what's one more generic story heaped on there, right? They all manage to become successful anyway, right? right? sigh.

So the story is about some poor, innocent Japanese High school boy who for some odd reason has his homework and computer sitting in an abandoned warehouse, we'll just pretend this is normal and not actually an illogical way to get the boy to meet the girl. Anyway, some mystical monotone talking anime chick with powers just so happens to end up while she is being chased by some goons with guns...

See where this is going?

So she is injured and of course we now have to see how innocent and lovely she is by having her sing a song randomly. Never mind the fact that she is injured and dudes with guns are looking for her. Yeah it's totally smart to draw the guys with guns to you by pretending like you're on Glee.

So the sweet, innocent, high school anime boy archetype finds her first and is of course instantly in love with her. Cause you know, watching someone with big shimmering eyes means that you have found your soul mate at seventeen. They have a "misunderstanding" where she or her little robot attacks him, mind you, not lethally...Yeah let's just forget that she should be expecting dudes with guns.

They have a little moment of her watching his video homework and she calls it beautiful to establish their connection.

Dudes with guns finally appear and threaten the boy and take the girl away. Pretty much, the boy gets the location of where to take the robot from the robot (cause the story has to progress) and he meets the leader of a "terrorist" organization. Stuff happens and he gets powers and can fight suddenly while the girl falls helplessly in his arms with her wh*re clothes on.

The anime tries to have moments of depths after the boy joins their terrorist group by putting him in a possible position to betray the group's leader, for some reason can't have the power himself. But that plots falls flat fast and you're basically just watching a simple good guys vs bad guys where the good guy's leader does questionable things but is still good because everyone is happy and loves him. This anime is pretty much a weaker Eureka 7 that fails miserably. None of the characters are worth rooting for, the plot is paper thin and transparent, and over all not very enjoyable.

Look out for the following cliches that other animes have done much better:

Anime boy is in HS
Anime girl is in terrorist group
Anime boy meets and fall in love with Anime girl
Anime girl has obligation towards terrorist leader (He gave her a name *eye roll*)
Anime boy gets random powers
Anime boy now joins terrorist group cause for some reason they NEED him to save them. Never mind the fact that their members are stronger and have more of a cause to fight than him.
Anime boy gets jealous of terrorist leader's relationship with Anime girl.
Anime girl tells Anime boy to simply trust and believe for him to fall in line
Anime girl dresses like a wh*re but can shoot a gun with perfect accuracy and is better than all the other characters.
Anime girl suddenly enters HS and ends up in Anime boy's class
Bad guys are interested in Anime boy
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I began watching Guilty Crown on a whim. It was a pure coincidence. If I had anything else to do that day, I probably would never have started watching. However, it just so happened that I was bored out of my mind and at the bottom of my current "to watch" list. When I saw Guilty Crown peeking out at me from another member's favorite anime list, I couldn't resist the temptation. Reading the synopsis turned me off. It didn't seem very promising. "Boy has power in his right hand that makes him special." Okay... cool?

So I started reading the reviews. They were horrendously mixed, ranging from three to nine with very little middle ground. Well, the positive reviews piqued my curiosity. The negative reviews seemed rather confrontational and angry, as if the show had somehow personally wronged the writers. They railed and ragged on clichés, flat characters, and brought up similarities to other shows.

Being immensely bored and slightly curious, I couldn't help but make Guilty Crown a guilty pleasure. I'll admit that the story takes a while to warm up. The first episode was incredibly cliché, with the generic "boy meets girl; boy becomes superman; boy is involved with terrorists" story going on up until the end. But it diverged. The character (of his own volition) refused to acknowledge his power and left me wondering what could possibly happen next.

Indeed, what could this story be about if the main character refused to join up with what I had assumed to be the protagonist group? Well, Inori happened. Now, I've seen people complain endless about her. She's essentially Ein with pink hair, a lovely singing voice, and a sword in her chest--right?

Sure, if you watch the first six episodes or so. Once you get past the initial "OMG SHE'S SO ," you'll start seeing how she grows. She's a parasitic character. That is what makes her, well, her. She simply cannot function without a strong character to depend on. I don't see how that makes her unrealistic? There are people like that in this world. The only hiccup is the justification. She's weak because she's a blank slate. Okay, maybe that is a little cliché. Does it make the character terrible? No... if she didn't grow at all, then yeah, it would be cliché. Instead, facets of her personality are revealed throughout the show, including the afore mentioned shaky justification.

I'm surprised people don't talk about Gai. He's a sixteen year old who leads a terrorist group, who is a better killer than trained soldiers, a genius tactician, and has the ability to see Voids (which is all too convenient since the main character has the power to extract these Voids). There isn't anything realistic about him for quite some time. He is my least favorite character of the series. He "grows" the most, if you can call it that, but his character itself is subjugated to Shu's growth.

While I'm addressing things that were detrimental to my enjoyment, I'll mention that there were a few inconsistencies as far as Voids are concerned, and a certain character that is built up as being incredibly important with a pretty serious power who is completely ignored in the second half of the show. Actually, if I recall correctly, he stops making an appearance before the plot changing event even occurs. I'm not particularly put-out with his exclusion, but a little explanation would be nice.

As for other inconsistencies, the Void regulations are pretty flighty. The whole "person must be under seventeen" rule is pretty laudable, and the Voids themselves don't seem to be very relevant to a person's heart except in a select few cases--which, if I might add, is downplayed afterwards. You have a character whose Void seems pretty useful, put to heavy use for support purposes, but then you find out that his power is actually among the weakest of the bunch.

However, I can overlook these inconsistencies. I can overlook some questionable plot devices. I can overlook quite a bit as far as this show is concerned. Why? To put it simply, the show is beautiful. The art is magnificent, and the sound wonderful. Everything is so fluid and Inori is just stunning. Couple that amazing art with a cliché story that becomes progressively darker, and I simply cannot help but enjoy it.

I'm not going to lie; there are plenty of areas that could have been handled better. The second half of the show, while my favorite in terms of mood, felt rushed at times. The first half annoyed me with its developments. The character's choices were predictable at times. But, even though we could predict them, it was because of the way the story was told. (I'll refer to everything revolving around Hare. Did we see that coming? Yes. Does that make it cliché? A little. Does that mean it wasn't realistic or handled well? I'd beg to differ. I felt that the changes in mood that resulted were worth giving in to a few minor clichés to attain.)

This is a show you're either going to love or hate. You will either latch on to the little things, or you'll take the bigger picture into mind and just enjoy it as it comes. I personally enjoyed every second of the show and would re-watch if I had the time. Some people may draw parallels to Code Geass, but I don't see them unless I specifically look for similarities. Even then, the ones I see are just general clichés rather than pieces drawn from the show. Some people may complain about the fanservice. I guess they'd be referring to Inori, or Ayase in her flight suit. To be honest, I didn't see any of that as fanservice. It's debatable, and heavily reliant on taste.

This show is not a master piece. It's good, yes, but isn't particularly insightful or groundbreaking. It's eye candy, and interesting enough to spend a few days over. I'll be sad to see it end, but it lacks that certain force other shows have. read more

Let me tell you a story. You can think it to be a tale, a legend or even start your own religion based to its awesomeness, but more importantly, read it.

Once upon a time there was a man who loved flying. It was his passion, not his only reason to live, but he certainly enjoyed it more than some other things in his life. One day the man was flying with his airplane like he often did. The day was beautiful and sunny, the man was happy. Before the man realized, his airplane started to lose height. Airplane wasn't working anymore, the man had to do emergency landing. 5 seconds before the airplane touched the ground the man yelled "I made it!" But he was wrong, the airplane crashed and he died.

You are probably wondering what on earth this has to do Guilty Crown. Just wait.

There was two other man who saw the unfortunate accident. Other of the man said "At least he had some good flying." And the another said "He is dead." Like most of the stories created, this one also has a lesson to give. I'm going to give you thinking break.
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5 stars shall be enough. The lesson; everything has good sides and everything has bad sides - flying is fun and dying sucks.

Now to the serious Guilty Crown review, I will keep it simple.

Good sides;

- Art is amazing, fabulous, great, unique - it's feels like rainbows are having sex in your eyeballs.
- Souds are also memorable and could say - the shit. Ignoring the engrish op song.
- Dem bitches are sexy, especially Inori. One of the sexiest teens anime can offer.

Bad sides;

- Script ( seriously, is the writer 5 or 12?)
- Plot, there is none, or it's extremely weak, slow paced and going nowhere.
- Fight plans and tactics are based to luck and Gai's prophet-like powers (e.g. episode 7, student council bitch on the boat, not a single doubt that she wouldn't be there, yet everyone would have died without her being there).
- Because of the setting, there is not a change that everything wouldn't be okay in the end, there is no excitement.
- Characters don't have actual personalities, seriously, they don't.
- Characters don't have motives. Random student starts hanging with the team, that's it. "Japan has been under the control of a multinational organization called GHQ." There is obviosly people in the slums who has lost everything because this organization. Instead of giving mc role to someone who has reason to fight, they give the role to suck-@-life teen just to start another school based shonen with lot of teens and eyecandies.
- Inori is completely different "character" every time she appears.
- There is no actual character development.
- In the end, all the characters are bad, at least they are failures as characters.
- Fan service. It could be bearable, sometimes it's fun and works, but in GC case, it's just to much. Inori doesn't even have an actual outfit, she is wearing a sex toy. In the end, she is nothing more than a doll or a robot. Pure eyecandy, her whole meaning of existence seems to be fan service.
- Action is completely stupid. Inori's superhuman abilities made some of the running and action scenes completely useless. She could have just use her powers, but no. Director decided it would look cool if there is action on every single episode. No matter how mindless, unneeded and illogical it is. Basically to fool viewers.
- Direction contains fail and errors. Funniest failure scene would be when Inori defended Shu from 3 elite swat man. She is standing in the middle without any shelter, 3 swat men with machine guns running towards her (none is shooting). Inori speaks to Shu, makes some nice moves, take guns and shoots the men. So badass! So hardcore!
- Overall execution is nowhere near well done.
- Seriously needs more music, they have it, why don't they use it?
- Guilty Crown is the epitome of unoriginality. There nothing original, n-o-t-h-i-n-g.
- Biggest failure is what it tries to be, a revolutionary story based to war and tactic, story around action and sci-fi. In reality, it's nothing what it tries to be, it's completely 100% school based ecchi harem.


I don't hate with passion. I like flying, but dying is just to much. Every unhelpful vote will be handled as people being afraid to admit the truth~

Thanks for reading my awesome review.


-The flying man read more

Quite possibly the most soulless show to hit the anime industry in a long, long time, Guilty Crown is a true example of "don't judge a book by its cover." Yes, this show by studio Production I.G. may in fact have some of the most impressive TV anime visuals ever, while also having a modestly good OST (Save that god awful OP by Supercell), but once one peels away these more superficial aspects and dives into the core of this production, there is nothing but a hollow shell.

Guilty Crown is supposed to be about Japan in a semi-futuristic setting after some sort of viral pandemic that is currently being occupied by foreign powers and how some terrorist organization called the Undertakers is trying to stand up for all the injustices taking place in the country behind the eyes of its citizens. Our main character Shu is some random high school boy who is obsessed with some singer from a band named Inori, who just so happens to be a member of this terrorist organization, and after a chance meeting with her among other things, he obtains something called the King's Power and becomes involved in some chaotic conflict with these terrorists.

It is quite easy coming into this show to be misled into thinking that there is some sort of plot that one would find thrilling, interesting, and emotionally involving. The longer one watches this show though, it becomes quite apparent that it is none of these things. The plot while seemingly complex on the outside, is actually extremely simple minded. The conflicts of the show range from the absurd to the more absurd. Worst of all, the characters of this show are either extremely boring or extremely annoying.

There are a myriad of issues that have gave rise to these failures during the course of this show, and they're easy to name, but most of all I would have to say that they mostly stem from the terrible cast.

The main character Shu is especially annoying in this cast. His motivations in the story are ill-explained, his internal conflicts are not given nearly enough exposition for the audience to understand him, and several times throughout the story he treads the line of coming off as little better than an ass hole. At times he is angsting to the audience about not going rambo on some military police, and at other times he is complaining when he discovers that the female gender actually does possess the concept of individualism. I'm not a person who hates angst, or characters that are flawed, or what have you, but this show has done everything possible to make sure that the main character is not only incomprehensible, but also someone extremely revolting. I'm not sure if it was intentional by the writers though, because I can't see a reason to portray one's own main protagonist in such a negative way, especially when at times he comes off incredibly chauvinistic.

Still, Shu is not the only offender here. The female lead Inori comes from a long list of poorly conceived dandere archetype characters in anime (Silent girls who emote very little basically). There is no established reason for the audience to care about her, especially considering that there is no reason to believe she even has a pulse. In a way she is just a doll, a mere object that is supposed to stand there and look pretty. It is hard to believe she is even a main character considering that one has to concentrate really hard to even realize she's there.

The terrorist leader Gai is supposed to be some sort of badass, but everything he does just makes his character look really stupid. He does not seem to care about the future of his terrorist organization at all considering he enjoys engaging in extremely dangerous stunts over and over again without any concern for his or his organization's safety. Perhaps this type of character would fit better in some sort of shonen action show, but considering how seriously this story takes itself, one can't help but feel that everything he does is way too over the top. This person apparently can take down giant mechas by himself, dodge near nuclear scale explosions standing still, and charm any girl he wants just because he can. It is especially overbearing for the show to really try to make you think he's really cool.

The worst side of the cast is definitely the villains though. Any subtlety in storytelling that one might expect form this sort of show is tossed out the window as this setting is divided into white, black, and more black. Some of the villains are downright insane. The overall seriousness of the show takes a huge hit as a result. It is hard to take a plot seriously when you have bulging eye crazy villains beating up poor women in the slums. To top it all off there is a very prevalent xenophobic attitude in the show, which can be seen in all these villains, but especially the one named Dan who is some big shot evil American dude apparently. This sort of attitude is definitely not helpful for Japan, and is not very flattering to have your show perceived as being a bit racist in portrayal.

More or less the rest of the cast is of the same poorly written shtick. They're extremely cliche and archetypal, which leads most of them to either being boring or annoying because the story does nothing to make the character feel like they have life or feeling. There's nothing relateable about them, nor is there anything about them that the audience can use to see that they are just more than their character archetype. In the end the characters come off as a sign of extremely lazy writing in the show, or a desire of the creators to pander to every audience imaginable in an attempt to grab as much cash possible, or perhaps both. Frankly, it just makes for a very nauseating experience.

More generally, even beyond the characters, the show just doesn't have anything compelling going for it. The plot has this weird dichotomy where it is wanting to be taken as seriously, but at the same time does everything in the most over the top manner that can't help but make one roll their eyes over each scene. A show that uses the rule of cool effectively isn't bad, there's been plenty of examples of anime in the past that have done this, but because of this weird dichotomy, the attempts to employ it here just fall severely flat. Perhaps again it is the fault of this cast, but it is also this incredible misuse of the setting for this story. I think placing this story in a much more fictionalized world would have helped it tremendously for one thing. Still, every episode seeks to top itself, no matter how ridiculous it is getting, and it is hard to believe that this should be a good thing for a show of this kind.

The plot also has very distracting elements at play, in particular, very poorly used and unsubtle fanservice. Several times throughout the show, even in the serious action scenes, the audience has to bear witness to blatant fanservice that comes off enormously tasteless. Things from females butt tapping computer screens in body suits, to boobs swaying in a very sexualized manner after physical violence, are just very distracting to a show's enjoyment when the show does not seem to be about this kind of senseless fanservice. It again just feels like a money garb in this show to pander to a certain kind of audience in this show in a very disgusting manner. The worst and most blatant example of it is Inori's outfit that shows so much skin that it ends up just looking hilariously stupid rather than hot and appealing. Honestly everything portraying the females in this show just seems extremely sexist. The female characters feel little better than sex dolls.

Without making this too long winded, I think I can safely say that Guilty Crown is an amalgamation of all the worst aspects of modern anime industry. This is the type of show that reminds me of why I went away from American TV shows in the first place and it makes me very sad to see the same sort of attitude being placed into anime. For a Production IG show, this is an incredibly disappointing affair.

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At first, I was a little skeptical about watching this anime and kept putting it off, cause I heard some not so good things about it but my friend really insisted I get on it, so I decided to give it a chance and finally see for myself. I was more than pleasantly surprised. Finished it within 2 days. There were definitely some problems within the show but the hate for the anime seems a bit harsh. Maybe it was the fact that I got to finish it in one go without waiting, maybe it's just the fact that I came in without super high expectations, either way it was an enjoyable ride and onto the details!

Story: 5/10
Nothing special here really. Boy meets mysterious girl and gets a super power and is suddenly thrust into a war. The first half of the show was indeed pretty cliche and felt somewhat disconnected. Some events felt like it didn't matter if it happened at all. I suppose it was just to show off what Shu's power can do and him getting used to using his power. The second half of the story really did catch my interest though. It got darker, scenes were more thought out and interesting, though plot holes were present left and right and even during the "explanations" episodes, it felt unsatisfying and still left too many questions unanswered.

Art: 10/10
Absolutely amazing work. Kinda hard to watch this and not have googly eyes over the quality. Every single details up to the fight scenes were all done very well, so no complaints.

Music: 10/10
Another wonderful part of the anime. Music fitted in perfectly with the scenes and most tunes I just had to look up after hearing it right away because it was catchy and epic. The openings and ending themes were also really memorable to me.

Characters: 6/10
This has to be the most...debatable section for me. Throughout the show I was having really mixed feelings for the main characters and even for the side characters. Shu was your typical main lead, who started out weak and under confident with himself. Throughout the show he had some pretty good development as a character though. It was kind of annoying to watch him at the beginning but he grows on you after a while and I started to feel for him. Its kinda hard not to compare him to Lelouch or Light, and said that he was underwhelming compared to them, which is true. But as his own stand-alone character, he was a solid character. As for our lead girl, Inori, it's pretty hard...while I always had a soft spot for emotionless, quiet girls, Inori was a weird case. Her actions were very inconsistent and it was hard to tell what she was thinking at all times. Only towards the end did I start to find her character a little more interesting, but by that time the show was already ending. If anything, the characters just didn't seem to have enough time to fully be development and fleshed out. The side characters had there ups and down but only about 2 (Ayase and Hare) stood out to me.

Enjoyment and Overall: 8/10
I was gonna give this anime a 7, but because of the enjoyment factor, bumping it up to an 8. I thoroughly enjoyed watching every episode and looked forward to the next one, finishing it rather fast.

I actually would recommend this anime, not just when you're bored and have nothing to watch, but to actually enjoy it. Its definitely not perfect, but not many animes can be perfect. It just depends if you can look past those points and not try to nick-pick on every single detail. read more

Cliches. What anime nowadays doesn't have cliched moments? In my opinion, using cliches isn't that bad. That is, when it's not overdone and poorly used.

Guilty Crown is the perfect example of an interesting premise going wrong. It is a very formulatic show : following every damn cliches in anime history. It seems Production I.G tried really hard to make something revolutionary. It is revolutionary ; this anime completely changed my opinion of what a poorly written plot is. And not only the plot, the characters are mostly one-dimensional, and some of them bipolar.

First of all, the story is just plain uninteresting. It's mostly a mash-up of every cliches the team behind the production could find. I mean, couldn't they come up with something more original than the usual "boy meets girl who grants him power. (Actually, she carries the power, but it's pretty much the same thing.)" And then, the main character, Shu, joins some resistance team to go against the government. This sounds fine and all, but we've never got to know the motive of the resistance group. Why did they go against the government? What was the point, exactly? Especially after the first half of the show, it seems like the resistance group thing was dropped because I.G ran out of ideas and tried to take another direction. Now, we're presented with some episode trying to be overly symbolic a la Neon Genesis Evangelion, but it failed epicly. Not only was the whole thing pulled out of nowhere, it transitioned to the worst part of the story. Let me remind you, the beginning of the anime was about a corrupt government abusing their powers; a problem on a national scale. In the second half, it's about a school (with no teachers apparently) in crisis, trying to escape the zone they're isolated in, or they'll die. It's hard to take a show seriously when it takes another direction that is completely different, in a bad way. Overall, the story did not satisfy me, and I really doubt the remaining episodes will do Guilty Crown justice.

I find it very ironic that some episodes are rushed, yet I.G still managed to pull off a BEACH episode in a supposedly "serious" plot. Atleast perverts got what they wanted.

Now, let's talk about the so called "void" power Shu has. The power itself is very interesting, I mean, extracting weapons and tools out of a person's body, and the tool/weapon representing their personality, who thought of that? The problem is that the power is FILLED with inconsistencies. Let me begin with how the power is convenient, up until the second half of the anime, every tool/weapon Shu would draw in a difficult situation would be JUST THE RIGHT THING to deal with it. Every time Shu would draw out a void, it could be convenient for the situation and would get him out of that difficult situation easily. That is the perfect example of what a deus ex machina is, used in a bad way. Of course, Gai has the power to see people's void. How did he get that power? No one knows. It just sounds like a convenient excuse used as a plot device because the writers have no idea how to make a progress a plot correctly. The second inconsistency is people fainting from void extraction. Basically, when a void is extracted out of a person's body, they faint out of "shock". Now for the inconsistency, sometimes people faint, sometimes they don't. There is NO explanation as to why they sometimes do and don't. I heard some people claim that when Shu held someone's hand while having their void extracted, it would prevent them from fainting, but I do remember times where he held their hand and they fainted anyway. It seems like the power wasn't explained because what if the writers run out of ideas again? They'd probably add another unforeshadowed element to voids and we, as watchers, will be forced to accept it.

Also, why the fuck can Shu only extract voids from people under 17 years old?

To go back to the one-dimensional characters, I believe Shu and Inori are the WORST PROTAGONISTS to EVER exist. To this day, I still laugh at the interview where I.G claimed that they wanted Shu to be the new Shinji Ikari.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha.... Are you fucking kidding me? Shu is just your average pussy character that doesn't want to hurt people, even though they are killing without remorse and hesitation. I.G tried to make a character full of flaws with no real strength. They succeeded, but no way in hell is that close to be a realistic character. It's not that he doesn't want to hurt people, he's just scared. What a lame protagonist, right? Never once does he really change, his personality is and always be that of the average useless main character. And in the second half of the show, his personality takes a sudden 180. I'm sorry, I.G, but people don't instantly change like that, this character is a complete joke.

Inori, on the other hand, has no personality. Or too many. She behaves in a different way in every episode, it's really strange. At first, she completely depends on Gai, but suddenly decides to switch to Shu. I don't understand exactly why she's so dependent on people, since we've almost never seen her take a decision herself.

I won't continue talking about characters because honestly... I have no clue about them and their motives or whatever. Especially the "villains".

I.G can be praised for two things about Guilty Crown. First the animation and art, done by Redjuice, are excellent. The animation is realistic, with a somewhat dark mood attached to it. In my opinion, it's pretty solid, very fluid, I don't remember seeing many repeated frames, and animation quality was consistent in every episode. Still, the style itself is pretty generic and isn't memorable. Same thing applies to the background animation. The details are amazing, I.G really did put a lot of work into the animation. (I wish they had done the same thing with the story.) Personally, I really liked the metal-like effect when a void is being extracted. It's pretty cool.

Music is quite good. I personaly really like the second opening by EGOIST, which is essentially supercell. The animation of the opening sequences are well done, although the moments in the anime don't really seem to happen in the story. The background music is also very fitting and helps deliver the mood of the show.

In the end, do I enjoy Guilty Crown? Yes. Guilty Crown is a very enjoyable anime, there are a lot of action scenes, animation is amazing and so is the music. Story is still terrible though. read more

Guilty Crown belongs to what could possibly be the most frustrating of shows: ones which are well produced but poorly executed. Sharp visuals and a strong soundtrack are always a plus. However, they don't compensate for haphazard writing and overly hammy direction. Guilty Crown suffers from both of these.

The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic Japan, that is ridden with a deadly disease after a catastrophe called Lost Christmas. The nation has been taken over by militarists in order to supposedly prevent the spread of the disease. Shu is a normal high school student, going about his life adhering to the status quo. That is until gets involved with Inori, the lead singer of the music sensation Egotist, and member of the resistance group Funeral Parlor. Shu then finds himself in the middle of the action, gaining the power to draw items called 'voids' from the hearts of other people. All he wants is to get back to his normal life, but circumstances keep pushing him back into the conflict, which goes deeper than he ever imagined; holding the fate of the human species in the balance.

Now, admittedly the premise sounds pretty intriguing , and could have actually made for something pretty compelling... that is if the writing was any good. Unfortunately, it is not. It is bad. It is really bad. The plot is just overflowing with silly cliches. Whether it be the action-pack conflict or Shu's mundane school life, the plot consists of retreaded and uninspired material; to the point of being laughably obnoxious. When it is not wallowing in cliches, the story takes some ridiculous and downright asinine twists. It is as if the writers didn't know where they wanted the story to go, and were pulling ideas out of their butts as the story went on. Sure, there are somethings that are foreshadowed and some characters whose roles don't become clear until far into the story; but honestly the reasoning behind them is just so flimsy and often make minimal sense, if any at all. This all leads up to an ending which is completely unsatisfying, even for those who enjoyed the show.

The cast for this show is just as unorganized as the plotting. Shu isn't exactly a terrible lead, he is just exceedingly bland. All that could really be said about him is that he has a kind heart and struggles under pressure, because he spends majority of the show looking like a sad wet puppy following the ideas of everyone but himself. Now, it is clear that the creators meant him to change from this wimpy kid into a mature young man, which would have been perfectly fine if his character development wasn't so forced that it feels hollow and insincere. The rest of the cast is no better, if anything they are far worse. Leading lady Inori has next to no personality at all. Besides her striking look, she is hopelessly dull; nothing more than a glorified plot devise. That the show is intent on forcing viewers to sympathize with her helps nothing. Funeral Parlor leader Gai likewise has inconsistent characterization. This is especially true for the latter half, where his motives are largely unclear at first; then become utterly contrived in an attempt to make his actions sympathetic at the series end. The other characters are barely worth mentioning and all into simple archetypes such as the fiery Ayase, spunky Tsugumi, psychotic Daryl, etc. This over-sized cast eats up eats up the running time, while providing little in way of substance.

Director Araki Tetsurou previously did good work with the wickedly exhilarating Death Note and stupidly fun Highschool of the Dead, and manages to breathe at least some life into this dreck. If nothing else, the action sequences in Guilty Crown are energetic. There are some moments that will certainly get the adrenaline rushing and are very well animated. If only Tetsurou directed the shows dramatic moments as well as its action; he has always had a penchant for over-the-top drama, and that does not work in favor of this series. Often quite drama is the most effective and the most compelling; Guilty Crown doesn't understand this, its drama is constantly heavy-handed and overwrought. Moments that might have been interesting in theory are completely ruined because of how overblown the show is dramatically. It is as if the show decided to supplement plot and characterization by making this as dramatic as possible, it does not work.

As previously mentioned, the show is strong as far as visuals go. The landscapes alone look quite something to behold. The futuristic cities look fantastic, but also fittingly oppressive under the military rule. The otherworldly fields of crystals seen throughout the show are a dazzling sight, despite their rather ominous role in the plot. Likewise, character designs are striking and attractive; once again anime has brought us into a world occupied by gorgeous, or at least above average, looking people. Inori is particularly eye catching in her more often than not revealing outfits; as is the inexplicably cat-themed Tsugumi. The animation usually looks great, at times it is rough around the edges, but that is expected for a TV anime; and it comes in full force when it is time to show off. The music is, of course, also well produced and nice to listen to. Whether it actually fits is up in the air, as the soundtrack features a ridiculous number of insert songs. At times it can be very effective in setting the mood of a scene, but other times it sounds silly and feels out of place.

In the end, Guilty Crown is a big, loud, glossy mess. The show provides plenty of eye-candy and some nice tunes, but falls flat on its face where it really matters. The plot is wildly confused and constantly tripping over itself. The characters are poorly developed and largely irrelevant. Honestly, there isn't very many reasons to watch this. Sure, it is very pretty on the surface, but underneath the decadent facade it is completely empty.
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Guilty Crown

'You think you can understand the hearts of others so easily?'

Guilty Crown is set in 2039, 10 years after the apocalypse virus destroyed Japan's economy. The story revolves around Shu Ouma, a 17 year old boy who receives the void genom allowing him to extract people's hearts and use them as weapons

Story - 7
The story is very cliché and very similar to Code Geass. Admittedly I did think Code Geass was better, but Guilty Crown seems a lot more futuristic. I personally liked the story though so it's up to personal preference

Art - 10
Guilty Crown has gorgeous animation and it's definitely one of the series stronger points

Sound - 10
The soundtrack is just perfect. Both OPs are wonderful and the OST is really well done. It really fits the mood of the series

Character - 7
The characters are all quite generic but likeable. Personally, I liked Shu's character and enjoyed watching his confidence grow throughout the series

Enjoyment - 9
The story might be cliché but it is still enjoyable. I'll definitely re-watch it at some point.

Overall - 8
The story was too generic and the characters were a little boring. Also, I found the episodes in the middle to be quite boring. Overall, it's a good series but it could have been better
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"The Madness of Winter 2011"

Guilty Crown, in short, is simply another show about some pubescent ball-less adolescent with superpowers who meets a soulless, but incredibly cute girl

The premise is simple, but also lack any originality and thought. Seventeen-year-old truant Gai Tsutsugami forms a terrorist group called the "Undertaker" to fight against the government for some poorly explained purpose and the main character Shu Ouma, caught amidst in the chaos of this atrocious plot, is forced to join their group. Like every other loser in this show (though he stands atop of everyone), his reason for joining is simply to make a move on the zero-dimensional cute girl who wears a super revealing outrageous outfit

The "highlights" of pretty much every episode ends with the same formula. Main character violates lifeless girl (and along with many victims) and pulls out something called a 'void' (void means empty by the way) which allows him to gain all the advantage in a battle by performing highly skilled acrobat techniques and overcome any illogical situations.

All the characters are bland and zero-dimensional. Most of their personalities are easily determined by their looks.

The song "Egotist" and the first ending song were good, and I liked the first three seconds of the first opening song as well. The rest of the soundtracks were okay mostly because I'd forgotten about them.

Thanks to Production I.G., the overall animation is spectacular and it seems that this is where all the money and 'brainpower' went - mostly towards designing Inori Yuzuriha (why did they even bother giving her a last name?)

I truly enjoyed the monkey writing and ludicrousness of this show. The enjoyment of what you will receive from Guilty Crown is equivalent to what you get on Fox.

Having seen this show once was more than enough, to go through it again would be torture. read more

This show is split up into like 2 seasons : (1-12), (13-22). The first part was fine though the plot was a bit confused but not so bad. A current shounen with a current plot, good art and perfect animation. It could stop here when the heros finally return to save everyone...then they're all happy ... then happy ending. If it was, I would have just rated it as "average" or "fine" score... But no, starting from the 13th episode, it began to disappoint me.

I'll talk a little about the characters before the second part...Well, they're all annoying! they have poor personality, I only like Tsugumi and Ayase. Inori is doing nothing serious, just serving as a tool for Shu. She's emotionless but she's singer, an emotionless person with sexy clothes, there is something wrong with her...Gai doesn't really suit the role of leader by apparence, he's way too perfect and cool.

Let's start with the second part. Everything seems to be alright, they try to cover little by little the pain they suffered after what happened, they even did a festival. But the government decides to lock them in the infected zone to let the virus kill them, I don't understand why they don't just come to kill them instead of locking and isolating them with that immense wall that came from nowhere around the infected zone. Starting from here the show has completely derived. The protagonist became insane because one of his friend died though he already saw the death of many people, he suddenly turned to good side to a despotic side, all characters changed because of his influence. This "second season" has completely messed up the show, a new story that came from nowhere, that's completely illogical.

I'm really disappointed of this show even if I'm still only at the 17th epi. I don't think it can get better though I'll still watch it just by curiosity and I may edit after the end of the show.

1-12 episodes (overall : 6), You can stop watching from episode 12, there is a real ending
13-17 episodes (overall : 2), If you continue from there, it's probable that it ruins your enjoyment from the 12 first episodes especially if you had a liking for the characters. read more

BEST COMEDY OF 2011-2012. 10/10.

Oh wait. This isn't a comedy?

Well then.

Where do I even start with this mess, then?

Guilty Crown seemed to promise to be one of the best series of the season when it first aired. Boy, was I wrong.

The writing in this show is an absolute mess and tends to try to just throw random plot devices at you in random intervals to try and surprise you. It is not particularly surprising, but it's a bit cute (cute as in, a child seems to be writing the show).

The characters are really awful. The writing staff seems to be trying their hardest to make characters of a certain archetype, and to make characters stick to their archetype without fail. I'm not sure if they realize that character complexity is derived from the fact that people aren't simple enough to act only based on a single characteristic, or if they're just trying to create characters that might possibly mature. So far, it seems to be the former.

The show has many laughable situations. Take episode 6, for example. Fully armed guards, holding guns in their hands, charge at an enemy instead of shooting with their guns, resulting in a teenage girl killing them without returning a single shot. Hilarious, but I don't think that was really the intention.

That's not to say the show's completely awful. The art, animation, and music are really quite good, even if at times they cut a few corners. But really, a mess with art, animation, and music is still a mess.

So? The bottom line? Don't take this show seriously. You'll be able to enjoy it a lot more if you don't. Because... well... it's funny to ridicule at least. read more