Music is excellent. Far above the level of any other anime of this type and time. Seriously. The insert song Euterpe is mind blowing.
It almost becomes a classy drama when you feel like both sides of the story are equally correct. In the initial episodes, you would think both sides could be believed to be good. But that soon changes, obviously. It's not an intense story to have such a dramatic plot.
Everything's futuristic but security cameras are old-fashioned. They have to move to cover the entire area and that lets Funeral Parlor sneak up. Seriously?
Story is not clear. The screenplay looks confusing. Sometimes you won't know some tricks and witty twists of the story until they're fully exposed, which is a bummer. Due to this weak screenplay, the story loses a lot of its charisma.
As the story nears its end you can finally see how well scripted the whole story is. It becomes fast-paced, interesting, and a bit technical. The drama is very captivating. Let's draw some comparisons. I would say it's far below Death Note, but somewhat close to Steins;Gate.
Be ready for the usual tremendous increase of energy in the protagonist at times of loss or sorrow. Be ready for the usual "changing" of the protagonist into something else because of some loss or sorrow. Be ready for the usual side-characters-trying-to-get-the-protagonist-back-on-the-righteous-path-melodrama, a path he took because of some loss or sorrow. Oh you guessed that one.
In fact, be ready for anything you'd expect in a mecha shonen. Romance, betrayal, loss, vengeance, superpower bursts, friends, and some other things I cannot mention because that would be spoilers.
That said, Guilty Crown might look like a boring anime. But it's surprisingly not. Good to have some quality time. For me, well I almost dropped the anime twice even when I wasn't watching anything else but both the times I picked up it was pretty interesting to do so. I almost missed the anime.
Post episode 16, things become truly electrifying and intense. Add some mind blowing mecha action in that.
With the side arcs, one thing I figured out that the creators have tried to add a feeling of Death Note. Those moments when the arch cool rival type finally sees the power in action (L seeing Death Note in action -- wait did L see it in action? But well he knew at least), another cool rival type (Yu) is made to look like N. There are more similarities. And yes, in case you're wondering, almost everyone in the anime looks like a badass cool rival type at one point or the other -- even the protagonist. This is Cool Rival Types Crown for you. Yes I think I can really do honest anime trailers.
