Guilty Crown

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

One day some director decided to make an anime show where a regular teenage boy, who goes to school and gets super powers because of a serious event that happened (usually a girl appears which grants him that power). Soon after this anime was made, more similar shows kept being created. After a couple of years, Guilty Crown was made, and damn, it changed everything! No I'm just joking, it has nothing fking new in the anime industry. BUT, to everyone that thinks this is a copy of Code Geass, the only thing related between these 2 shows is "Magic girl appears and gives power ... to highschool boy @random" or "Boy finds girl and they go on a honeymoon together fighting baddies everywhere" or this, which is practically the same thing "Highschool boy +random people + magic powers = Bleach", but who the fk cares, it's not like I'VE NEVER SEEN THIS TYPE OF STORY HURRDURRDURR ITZ PURRRRDDY ORIGINAL (Code Geass, Sacred Seven, C, Dantalian no Shoka, Bleach, Reborn, and MANY MORE SHOWS THAT ~TOTALLY~ DON'T HAVE THE SAME SHIT GOING ON!!)

Story: Pretty much already explained this dumb story, and if you've seen many other anime shows you won't expect anything new. But midway through the show, the whole average shounen thing of "one's loss of a loved one transforms or changes the main character into a mature leader" is discarded. It was the ONE episode where I expected Shu to mature like Simon did in Gurren Lagann because it always happens like that in anime right? But I was wrong, oh so very very wrong. Overall I don't even know the point of this story. From the average "Group of good guys vs bad guys" it turns into something fucking crazy and far more stupider like this: "Highschool kids in Japan get infected by some disease shit that turns people into a pink stone and breaks them apart. Main character Shu tries to become the King of the school (lol) because a friend died. He forces dictatorship onto everyone, who soon rebel against him. While that happens some weird government organization who securely closed the area around the infected highschool kids, soon kill them off, and suddenly plan to exterminate Japan. And with an added plus Gai (Shu's friend) is revived and turns against Shu". As you can see this show starts out as an average pathetic shounen show, until the highschool lockdown begins where it changes dramatically. It's just so stupid. A "government" suddenly plans to exterminate Japan without a good reason? Who were the bad guys again? Why did the good guys wanna kill the bad guys? What are they trying to accomplish?

THEN IT HIT ME! This show is nothing. By that I mean it throws in random plot lines at random times trying to make it seem like it's something that has a unique and interesting story, of course all that would make the fanboys and fangirls go "OHMAHGAWD! I DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING!" They only say that because it shouldn't happen, the shitty show doesn't stay on the same FKING PLOT for the whole show. Just like Inori's personalities.

Art: This is where GC goes right. The art is pretty good, though I don't care much since I'm more of the Story type guy. I do dislike Inori, main female character, because of what she wears 24/7. She barely wears anything at all. Like whatthefudge I don't find her to be "smexy" or "cute" at all in the first place, get her to wear some god damn clothes.

Sound: "So everything that makes me whole" TROLLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLMAO. i no spek ingles, plez u talk me in English. Other than that opening, sounds = decent.

Character: No one has their own unique personality. It's like everyone gets a lot of screen time but, nothing about their character traits are shown.

Inori: sucks, since she's clearly a robot from the future with a "daily personality changer" system programmed into her. Plus she's also Shu's sister.

Shu: is your typical failure w/ magic powers who soon becomes epic, in fights, not character, but soon due to death of a loved one he becomes Hitler for some time (aka wannabe Gai).

Gai: is the "badass" who owns everyone and does it with robotic Inori at night. He's so damn godly that once he dies, he comes back to life.

Many other characters too but they juz backgrounds so who cares =D In total there is almost no character development for anyone, other than Shu of course, since he is the main character.
"Noob is Evolving! ...dudududududududu! ITZ LELOUCHE. Oh my bad, it's a Hitler"

Enjoyment: It's just a "watch cuz I'm bored" show.

Overall:
-The fight scenes suck hardcore since Shu can just swipe away like a crazy monkey playing Fruit Ninja and chop them robots to pieces. Overpowered bish!
-Empty characters, almost none are likable
-Pathetic action scenes
-There's a lot of errors in this show, you can see them easily if you actually pay attention to whatever the hell is going on
-Needs more BETTER music, no Ingrish
-No original story
-Typical boy meets girl with powers in highschool anime for 14 episodes
-Story suddenly changes FKING 50 TIMES! (exaggerating a bit)
-Episode 1-14 So yes, it's one of those retardedunoriginalfaggotrystorywheregirlgiveboypowertogopewpewthembaddies
-Episode 15+ Completely funny

GoodDaySir.

P.S If you like this, watch Mars of destruction =D

Usually, I try to be a good sport and watch all of the anime before I make a review. But this time I have to make an exception. There's a time in one's life when there's a need to say "Stop That! Just Stop That!" And the people on the giving side need to adhere to that. Unfortunately, said people are the Japanese animu industry and they DO NOT care about us Westerners' opinions.

I should've seen it, though: The pretty girl during the first scene, the pansy-ass self-insert nobody (who's good on computers, by the way) created for the mere sake of the nobodies ... who watch this show, and the GODLY ANIMUTION.

I'm not gonna talk about how GuiltCrown has the same staff as Code Geass; I didn't watch the latter and I think it's elitist bullcrap anyway. I'm not gonna talk about the jingoism found in GuiltCrown (like there was in Geass) because (if the US armed forces left) China would kick its ass.

I WILL talk about how this animu will FLOP in the US based on its badly-created and heavily cliched characters and plot alone. GODLY ANIMUTION (along with T&A) can only take you so far for so long.

Finally; before you hit that reply button to curse out at me; remember that you guys are the winners here. Japan is making more of the $#17 you love and licensors in the West are more than ready and willing to bring it to you. So slurp / slobber / whatever to it however you please.

What the hell is going on?
Are all of the studios compete in "who can make most stereotyped and boring anime"?
First s7, phi brain, smth else, now this.

Story and setting some directly from code geass - Japan is SO SUFFERING, evil military forces everywhere, and there is bunch of liberal children who OPPOSE SYSTEM (of course, they are handsome bishounens and a loli, who looks exactly like Kuroneko, and military are all evil, bald and stupid), god spare me, also there is some hybrid of CC, Dalian and that girl from s7.
Technicaly, there is no difference between them (cc and s7 girl GIVE SUPERAWESOME POWER ... to the main character, and Dalian is used by him via penetrating her chest). Ah, and main char have smth like COMMAND SPELL.
 
So, plot is simple - low-lived, miserable and qiute stupid japaneese schoolboy SUDDENLY GETS SUPERPOWER, destroys in one strike all bad guys on mechas, joins liberal kids and becomes defender of GOOD. I believe, I watched something like that in Star Wars, 4th episode, it aired 1975, if i remember correctly.

In sum, there is not even one scene, or idea, or character, which is not copied from other series.
So, why to waste time on this junk?
I'm quit, i'm quit.

Originally I decided to watch this as I was informed that it was similar to Code Geass ( Which I enjoyed greatly by the way). After watching the first few episodes I realised how bad this anime was, it had potential but was ruined with shallow characters and little development. I decided to continue watching to see if it improved as I went along but to no avail. If i had watched this before CG and was told that CG was similar to this I would have never even considered watching it.

This anime is one of the worst I've seen my list may be ... few but I have no preference to which type I watch. This is complete and utter filth. I have to vote this as a score of 1 to counter-act the amount of fan boys who scored it a 10 on its first episode after seeing some fan service and familiar plot which was awful

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

Guilty Crown is a very good example of a anime that throws away the potential originality, in favor of generic action tropes and overdone characterization also a cluster of big budgets, big ideas, many cliches, often bad execution, and a truly horrible fanbase. It uses asspull after asspull and wasn't enjoyable enough for them to be overlooked. The characters were bland and only a few were even slightly likable(Dan, Hare, Cripple, etc), it used every anime cliche in the book, the plot was beyond generic, and it obviously took from other anime without fully understanding what made them good in the first place.

The part of ... the show where Shu is basically king of the school should have been pretty much the entire anime. That arc had tension, politics, polarizing debate, stuff to really make the show interesting and keep its viewers intrigued. The unique concepts the anime had were used well here. Fuck Gai, fuck Funeral Parlour, it was an entirely wasted 10 episodes in the long run. I honestly, honestly can't believe the writers thought they were making the next GiTS when they were writing that abortion.

From there on It isn't coherent, the character development is flawed, they didn't answer all questions and Inori has almost no personality. I dislike almost everything about Guilty crown but I kinda of liked the end. Everything I felt...it was not for Guilty Crown itself. Just the end. It was remotely nice and kinda bitter sweet. So that's why I'd give it a 4 instead a 1.

The plot is very dry and similar to many other anime and is too similar to Code Geass.

A bad character who is presented with a power and than suddenly becomes 'cool' than after an action scene questions what the hell his power is? What was the point of slowly tilting your head forward with a powerful stare if you don't even know what's going on? Not saying Persona 4 is anyway close to Guilty Crown, but after watching both there first episodes and finding they had they same ending (GETS POWER BECOMES AWESOME ENDING) I got bored of the show immediately.

Rebels, mechs, power presented next ... to a girl who is in danger and evil-looking military. Code Geass 2.0

*Update*
I found this review to just be offensive to the anime so I am going to at least watch episode 2
*Update 2*
Can't bring myself to continue, especially after hearing the main character becomes more heroic. Lowered score to 3 as I really realized how much I hate him.

The setting:
So, the animes setting is in the not so far future.
And for some reasons japan got attacked by foreign countries
and now loads of foreign military is stationed in japan.
After the war, that took place in japan, lot's of japanese
people are forced to live in rundown parts of the cities.
And war is not fought with tanks anymore, but with giant robots.

Our maincharacter is a normal student, who gets involved in the battle
of a terrorist group, just because he wanted to help.
... The main character meets a girl in strange clothes at a crashed truck
and they decide to flee, but ofcourse the military chases them down.
And a gun is pointed at the main character.
He's certain to die, but then some strange background popps in
and the girl grants the MC the power to kill all the Soldiers near him.
A power which is reffered to, as the "power of the kings".

The MC then helps the terrorists to do the usual terroriststuff, like
fighting the military out of a ghetto, freeing a person whos charged of
murder, public anouncing of the terroristgroup, now with a fancy name,
declaring that they are actually the good guys.

After terrorising the enemy gobverment, they move on to a big showdown in
some other dimension, fighting some god-thingy.


While i really liked the first season so much, i even bought the DVD,
the second was much weaker, in my opinion, but if you are a fan of
sigtly more intelligent military/mecha-shows, then Code Crown is
just right for you... i mean Geass Guilty... i mean...
Which plot was i just summarising?


Yeah, i'm pretty sure you all have already heard of the jokes, that
Guilty Crown is basically a copy of Code Geass and yes,
GC is not only a ripoff of CG, but also a very shameless ripoff.
Even to the point of giving the MC's iconic power the same name,
'The Power of the Kings'.

GC is basically a kick in the teeth for everyone who worked on CG.
GC is basically just copying most parts and adding some stolen ideas
from other series. It's like one of these movies, which are only made
out of clips of several other movies and then voiced over so it
becomes an other plot.
But don't get me wrong, i'm not against "borrowing" ideas,
i think good stolen is better, then bad selfmade.

Unfortunatly, in Episode 12 of GC the shit hits the fan.
The meachafan in this case was me, and it hit me right into the mouth,
so it left a very bitter taste.
In episode 12 GC starts to become "original".
It suddenly adds so many things to te plot, it's becoming a total
clusterfuck of ideas.
Not good ideas, but badly stolen ideas smashed together and only
holding up through brute force.

Episode 12 suddenly adds incest, some sort of crazy demonqueen, amnesia,
greek gods, steroid abuse and god knows what else.
Everything sewed together by bad and formost lazy writing.

Yep, that's my opinion.
And of course i took the time to write, where my thoughts came from,
so enjoy my look at Guilty Crown!



The characters:

Shu Ouma:
Talking about the characters is quite difficult in this case, because
the people in this anime have no character, for the most part,
aside from one exeption, which i will address later.

As i already told you, the exeption will be spoken of later, so the
MC follows the rule of having no character.
At the beginning he's the just a coward, whose only problem is, that
he gets in his own way, over and over again.
He get's in his own way, then he learns his lesson, then makes another
obvious mistake, learns his new lesson and changes from coward to hero,
step by step.

Ironically, the best description i have for him, is 'void', the name
of the weapons he pulls out of other people.
I'll go into detail with the Voidpower later, since there is quite a lot i have to write about it.

In Episode 12 it's suddenly reveald, that he suffers from amesia.
Well, he doesn't exacly suffer, since he just doesn't seem to care.
There is at least a whole year missing from his memory, but he never asked
what happend there.
This is especially strange, considering the fact, that the memoryloss covers the
lost christmas incident.
Did he never ask himself, where he was at that point?
Did they not talk in school about such a big event so he could realise,
that his memory is missing?
Speaking of not caring about anything, why was he shocked, when he realised,
where his mother worked?
Did he never ask her?
Especially if she's sometimes away for days?
Is this even legal, to let his underageed kid home alone?
At least here in germany it isn't... did nobody look out for Shu?
And I'm pretty sure, that's something everybody was asked by a teacher in Kindergarten
or elementary school, 'What do your mommy and daddy do?'
And did he never realise, that he has no father?
Why is that topic never brought up?
Those are massive plotholes.
Did the MC never question his unusual livestyle?
There are just so many questions...
Did the writer really think we whouldn't notice that?
If so, i'll take that as an insult.

Fact is, this kind of amnesia often serves as a cheap way to built up tension.
The writer tells you,
"There happend something, stay tuned for it's stunning revelation"
It's just their way of admitting, they arn't able to built up tension with the
stuff happening RIGHT NOW, they have to foreshadow.
That way, the audience can ignore that nothing interesting is happening right now,
and just wait for the final showdown.



Inori:
Just as the maincharackter, she basically has no charackter.
She's just doing what she's told, and looking cute in her skimpy and
absolutly not battleready outfits.
And from time to time, she's acts as the MacGuffin to advance the plot,
when the writer couldn't think of anything better.
Oh, and she's a famous songstress... which is kinda stupid, when she's
part of a terroristgroup, which has to stay undetected at first.
Also, there is actually no reason for her to be a songstress.
Well, aside from two things,
1) To have her be famous, in order to rebuild the scene, when Suzaku
enters the classroom. Since was famous by that point too, because
of his trial.
2) Make musicvideos where she puts on even more skimpy outfits.

I already wrote, that she's basically nothing but a Macguffin.
Since it was already foreshadowed, that the Void a person has,
can change, this will mean, that, in the final battle, Inoris heart will
suddenly change and shu will pull his ultimante weapon out of his a...
I mean, out of her chest.
Lazy writing in it's finest...

Oh, by the way, she looks like Shus sister, so he only helped her at the beginning,
because he had the hots for his sister... our hero ladies & gentlemen...
Isn't the love between siblings a wonderfull thing?
A little sticky and a little sweaty... i suddenly feel ill...
Seriously, that's probably the first idea, which wasn't stolen from Code Geass
and this makes me feel like i want to throw up...
Great writing...



Gai Tsutsugami:
The supposed to be badass character is named Gai.
His first entrance made with a guitar played in the background,
flashlights everywhere, beating up some thugs, who want to rob our
MC, because he's an idiot and ran into a ghetto, without keeping in mind,
that it's probably not safe for a kid at night, when he's carrying an
expensice looking ROBOT!!!!
As i already said, Gai is the badass character but because being just badass
whould be boring, so the writer added the plottwist, that he's actually ill
and will die eventually.
Oh and by the way, he's just as old as Shu...
Yeah, i know, i don't know what he took in order to grow up that much faster,
than Shubut,.... who am i kidding?
I'm sure it's just bad writing again.
Oh, and he knows Shu and his "beloved" sister since their childhood.
Gai was washed up to the beach, where Shu and his sister were playing.
They met during the year, that's missing in Shu's memory.
So it was the fate of Shu and Gai to meet again, right?
On the other side, it could be just lazy writing again,
since this is just a very easy way, to establish a connection between
two characters, who never met before.
Still, if you think about it, since the audience did not experience
the growth of their bond, it still means nothing and is, yet again, instulting
it's audience since the writer thinks the audience is not intelligent enough
to realise obvious plot holes.



Annoying Nerd-Girl:
Well... to be honest, i can't remember her name and it's way much to
much work to look it up.
She has no character, no purpose aside from being fapmaterial for lolicons.
She does nothing but dressing up in a skintights rubbersuit with nekomimi
or Maid-outfits.
Even during operations she's totally useless.
Well, on the bright side, she's fully aware of this.
So she doesn't get in the way and instead plays Dance Central...



Ayase Shinomiya:
As i mentioned earlier, there is an exeption to the no-character rule.
Ayase is a really interesting character.
Almost to good, for this kind of show... i guess you can drop the 'almost'...
However, she's paralysed, but she's not the typical wheelchair-girl
you get in anime. She exepts her circumstances but that doesn't mean,
she let's other people push her around.
Even though she can't keep up with the other footsoldiers,
she knows what she is capable of and she's very proud in what she can do,
and that's piloting a huge robot and kick the MC's ass(pluspoint) even
without her meacha.

Handicapped people in TV are a rarity, especially in anime.
And when there are any, they are often portraied as extremely helpless
and dependent, like Nunnaly from Code Geass. She did basically nothing
on her own.
I worked some years ago with handicapped people and most of them tried not
to show their hanicap and others drowned in self-pity.
Only a few were really OK with their handicap and just make the best out of it.
I think showing a fictional character who is able to do her best could show
people that do can still do something, if you are aware of want you can still do.

And a in a mecha show, this is not to much to ask for.
Paralised people can drive cars, so why not pilot a robot?

But why the rubbersuit for her, too?
OK, fanservice, but if you think about it, it's really stupid.
For one, this thing serves no purpose since she's not actually in the field.
So it has no protective value.
And just think of how hard it has to be to get in and out of that thing,
especially for her?



The three Goons:
Yeah, the three guys who are foorsoldiers for the Undertakers,
that white haired guy, the big guy and the Tamaki ripoff...
I don't think any of these even have names, just as they don't have characters
or real roles in the operations, so let's just skip them.



Shu's schoolmates:
Voiddispenser, nothing more, nothing less.

Speaking of the Voidpower...

Yeah... one of the biggest flaws of this show, the iconic void powers.



The Voidpower:
First things first, void means, there is nothing.
So if there is a sword, a giant flower, or a fridge, there is no "void",
there IS something!!! So this power already fails at it's name.
Great start...

Second, in true Code Geass fashion, Shu has to have eyecontact with the person,
he draws the void from. At least at first. Some episodes later he explains,
he has problems with keeping eyecontact... *nocomment*
So Shu is told, that he doesn't have to hold eyecontact,
his victim just has to think that they are looking into each others eyes,
which is stupid.
I Code Geass it made sense, in a certain way.
Lelouch had to look into his opponents eyes in order to give basically controll
his opponents soul. You know, the eyes are the windows to the soul.
Lelouch looks into the other persons souls, taps into it and gives it a direct order.
This whould also make sense in Guilty Crown, but no, Shu has to stand in his own way,
again, and somebody has to help him. This is mainly, because the writer has no sense
for character development, so he has to take every slight chance he gets to
make someone into some sort of mentor-character and thus form a bond with Shu.
So Shu has at least some reason to fight on for the terrorists.
And if i remember correctly, he doesn't even try to make eyecontact in later episodes,
so that whole thing was pointless.

As you might see by now, the mainproblem of the voidpower is,
it's ignoring it's own rules.
I personally like weapons, which are unique er character,
like the Pactio cards in Mahou Sensei Negima,
the Volt weapons in Freezing,
the Fragments in Needless,
the unique machas in Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari
or the different Geasses in Code Geass
and the list goes on and on.
This is a very simple trick to open up to a large variety of differnent
situations.
But these things always have to follow rules.
Somethings that was done greatly in COde Geass, you watched the maincharacter
actually studying his power in order to use it effectivly.

Guilty Crown doesn't have specific rules stated out
and the vague defined rules that it has, are broken,
for example, in episode 11 Shu draws out a pair of scissors, which are able to cut
somebodys string of life. OK, nice idea.
Some missiles are shot at Shu. He swings the scissors and the missiles explode.
OK, here it gets strange.
1. He wasn't actually using the scissors, so he isn't cutting anything.
If this works, the next question is, to what extend does it work?
Can he just wave it and everyone and everything within several kilometers dies?
The anime Shingetsutan Tsukihime shows how this kind of power and it's rules
are handled propperly.
The maincharacter in that show also has the power to see the lifestring and
then cut it, destroying his target immediatly.
The difference is, in Shingetsutan Tsukihime Shiki has to close in on his target,
in order to acutally touch it AND he has to cut exacly the lifestring in order to
succeed. Shiki has to follow these rules in order to win his fight.
Shu's enemy just dissapears without being an actual threat.

2. Why is he able to run up a straight wall?
Did he just kill gravity with his scissors?


To summ it up:
The Voidweapons are nothing but a Deaus Ex Machina.
It doesn't follow any rules, it's just an "iwin"-button for the maincharacter.
Up until episode 12 ther was absolutly NOTHING that could withstand Shu's firepower.
With Irinos void alone he whould have been able to destroy nearly any foe.
That's also something, this show lacks, ther is up til now, no proper villian.
Simply nobody can match Shu.


So, to my final verdict:
Story: 1/10
It's just pathetic.
The writing is lazy, the plot is boring.
And you through the plothole, you can drive a truck, blindfolded.

Art: 6/10
The first two episodes have rather good art, but later the overall lazyness
drops in and you realise, that the first two episodes were just to catch the
audiences attention.
I doesn't get horrible, but it stays mediocre.

Sound: 7/10
This is basically the best about this show.
I have read, that many people like the opening and ending of this anime,
and while it's not my personal taste, i'm still able to see, why they like it.

Character: 2/10
1 pluspoint catched by Ayase.
Nothing more to say, moving on!

Enjoyment: 1/10
There was really nothing i really enjoyed about Guilty Crown.
Maybe if they had reduced the cast, so for example Ayase had more screentime,
but not even she can rescue at least on additional point.


Overall: 3,4/10
All in all, this anime is just poor.


For me, personally, this was the worst anime of 2011, while i have to add,
havn't seen everything last year.
But to be honest, if there was something even worse i hope i will never find out.


For those who still watch this show, i hope it gets better, so you are able
to enjoy it to the end.


Thanks for reading my whole review.
I hope you enjoyed it.

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.

What the hell did I just watch. This the second time I have ever gotten physically mad at an anime, the last time was at Aldnoah S1's ending. This anime could be described as the most beautiful, and best sounding train wreck I have ever seen.
Plot:1/10
HA, what plot? You mean that shit on the wall? No explanations, random subplots never explained, contradicting statements, and no pacing whatsoever. Was the author high or something?
Art:9/10
Amazing art, with fluid animation and the use of color is just right. Fight scenes were animated well, they made me feel hype. As well, good looking and well designed (visually) characters.
Sound:10/10 ...
The only saving grace to this anime, the first op was amazing, the second not as good but still awesome. Both EDs were great as well. To top it off the OST's knocked my socks off. If you are gonna watch this, watch it for the sound.
Character:2/10
I hate these types of MC, self loathing, cowards. If that was expanded on and we could see the MC's growth it would be amazing but suddenly they want to make him badass. It's still jarring to me how they tried to do that, it seemed like a lame way to produce character development. Other characters don't really develop, they are just kind of there...
Enjoyment:2/10
Fight scenes:Amazing, everything else:boring as crap. Like I said the ending and the overall story has made me physically mad, I DID NOT ENJOY.
Overall:3/10
Fuck me for trying to stay to the end to see if something good happened. I felt like I was torturing myself as I binged, clicking ep after ep. At certain points I just wanted to drop it, but the nagging voice in my mind urged me on, to see if anything redeemable happens. Guess what, they just had to prove me wrong. I wasted 11 hours on this shit and I want my 11 hours back.

Guilty Crown has beautiful animation and great music.... and that's it. This show is one of the worst trainwrecks I've ever seen, everything aside from the animation and the music (so practically everything that is important) is bad. So many plot holes, poorly written characters, so much unnecessary fanservice, so much Code Geass (but a bad version of it) and a main character whose personality changes every 4 episodes (no, that's not great character development, just laziness and stupidity), our main heroine is a emotionless doll that looks pretty and we still don't know if our main antagonist is actually an evil guy, oh and ... our stupid, bland protagonist has a harem. While watching this, I almost believed that the producers made a list with the most unoriginal anime tropes and decided to put them all in one anime: Guilty Crown.

~story~ 1/10
We start in a school setting, where we meet our main character Ouma Shu and the first thing he does is monologuing about not fitting in and being anti-social. Wow, you can't say that the writers weren't straightforward. And because of the fact that he is an angsty, teenage outcast he decides to have lunch in an abandoned building. There he finds a half naked idol, who is making a cat cradle..... (happens to me every day) and he behaves awkward (because he's the anti-social main character) and out of nowhere the police barges in to arrest the girl, Inori, and our awesome main character starts whining and says that he "wanted to get close to her and touch her hand", okay...... it's not like he knows her or anything so that's maybe more than a little bit creepy. The first 5 minutes of this show were ridiculous, a half naked idol (oh wait, those are her normal clothes, great, the main heroine dresses up like a stripper 24/7) who is a terrorist or something, a whiny anti-social main character who is totally not going to fall in love with pinkhaired stripper-chan and the evil police.... I love the premise of this show so much. Then the robot of stripper-chan appears and gives Shu some kind of vial, so of course our whiny main character decides to oppose the evil police and bring this vial to the terrorists base. There he meets Gai, the leader of stripper-chan's terrorist gang. Shu decides to save stripper-chan and breaks to vial..... now he has super powers, he can pull weapons out of people's (of course especially women's) chest and it totally doesn't look like he's pulling weapons out of stripper-chan's boobs. And that's the first episode.... and one of the best. Just try to imagine how bad the other episodes are *shudder*.
I'm not going to spoil every episode like this, don't worry. Well, let's go to the second episode, we learn that those weapons are voids, and the represent their owner (this does raise the question 'why is Shu's void useful?' because it's owner certainly isn't). We also meet the other terrorists who want to free poor Japan from the evil world that's ruling it *sigh*. First we meet Ayase, a young woman in a wheelchair who pilots a mecha and has enormous boobs, we also have a loli named Tsugumi. By now you have probably realized that every female in this show is a fanservice object... even the main character's stepmother. I'm so done with this show! Then we meet the villains, who are evil for the sake of being evil, especially Daryl, a guy who wants to be called 'the butcher' and murders people for fun, such a subtle and nuanced evil. After kicking the evil governments ass, our favorite main character decides that it's time to go back to high-school and then the most original thing ever happens.... stripper-chan is a transfer student and joins his school. I'm not making this up, this famous idol, who is a part-time terrorist just joins Shu's school as a transfer student, HOW? Well, now at least we can have stupid high-school comedy moments.... yeah! During the other episodes we see our 'hero' being a whiny emo outcast... but wait, this guy with an enormous amount of friends who all want to die for him or want to bang him is a social outcast? Yeah right, at least he behaves like he's a friendless loner for no good reason, but he also joins the terrorist group and is actually a badass during battles... but then goes back to acting like an anti-social jerk in other scenes. Until episode 12 everything is quite predictable: fan service, Shu being cool during battles, fanservice, Shu being an useless anti-social jerk hitting on Inori, fanservice, the evil government being evil, fighting, fanservice, Shu being an annoying jerk, Inori being emotionless and pretty, every female falling in love with Shu for no good reason, a beach episode, Gai hitting Shu (high point of the show), Shu being whiny and more fanservice. And then episode 12 turns everything upside down in a bad way, what follows is: the only likeable main character dies, so the viewer is tortured with more Shu and stripper-chan, Shu taking over his high school like some kind of dictator, there is an evil organization called "Daath" that just appears without any explanation and has superpowers or something, scientists apparently find a way to bring dead people back to life but only use it once (what? That's stupid) and a finale battle between good and evil....... SO ORIGINAL!

This anime has one of the most ridiculous stories ever, the best moments in the story were when Shu was suffering or being slapped in his face. I couldn't care less about the characters and there are so many unanswered questions (Like who and what is Daath? How did a certain person come back to life? Why do all this girls fall in love with Shu? Why is Mana evil? Why does a certain person die at the end of the story? If voids are supposed to represent the soul of their owner, why is there a guy with a void that is a damn fridge? How does Shu win the final battle? Why does it take characters 30 seconds to fall of a building? Why do people like this show?)

Also the pacing is just off, sometimes the story is rushed, while at other times there is a whole episode dedicated to visiting a beach. A BEACH, as if this show needed another lazy excuse for fanservice. The plot was inconsistent, filled with plot holes and some of the plot twists don't make sense at all.
[CONCLUSION]
A high-schoolboy meets a girl with a weird hair color by accident, he gets superpowers and the girl turns out to be somewhat supernatural, our high-schoolboy has a harem and joins a terrorist group that's trying to free Japan, there is fanservice and his childhood friend becomes his enemy. I've seen this story somewhere before, it resembles a certain other anime called Code Geass, an anime I didn't love but it was at least ten times as good as this mess.

Lazy writing, horrible characters, fanservice, stupid plot twists, plot holes, pacing problems and a bad ending. This story deserves an award for being mind numbing stupid. Also, every women is portrayed as some kind of stupid sex object that can't do anything else than falling in love and being rescued by men. It's painful to watch!

~art~ 10/10
It's pretty, really pretty. I'm not joking, I loved the art of this show. The battles look fantastic and the backgrounds are detailed. Even the characters look really good and original (this can't be said about their personality), the animators did an amazing job and I hate them for it. Thanks to the beautiful animation and music, I gave this anime a try, thank you animators, thank you.
[CONCLUSION]
Beautiful, it's amazing. It's the best thing about this anime, though that's not saying much. You probably realized that I dislike this show, but the animation is on a whole new level, it's really great.

~sound~ 8/10
The opening songs were great. 'My Dearest' and 'The Everlasting Guilty Crown' are both upbeat songs. Supercell deserves all the praise it got, their songs were great and the less upbeat, sad song 'Euterpe' is just as good. The ending songs weren't very spectacular but certainly above average. The background music and sound effects are both fitting and the (Japanese) voice actors did a great job with that horrible script, they made ridiculous lines sound less stupid, which is a great achievement. One problem: now and then there is a j-pop song playing in the background during battles, which is unfitting.
[CONCLUSION]
The music and the sounds were great, the voice actors did a good job and aside from some small problems, the sound is good. It's aside from the animation the only good thing that came forth from this mess.

~characters~ 1/10
Hahaha my favorite part, our main character is one of the most annoying fictional characters I've ever encountered. Shu is an
unlikable and unpleasant person who spends the first half of the show whining and hitting on an emotionless doll (best main character ever) he has no character development, only personality swaps (I'm a whiny brad, 10 minutes later I'm a badass, 10 minutes later I'm a dictator ruling my school) and speaking of a lack of character development, his girlfriend Inori has no personality to begin with so there is no character development at all. She is an emotionless pretty doll, nothing more and nothing less. We also have Gai who is not the worst character of the bunch (not like that is saying very much), he was bland but at least he had a personality and him hitting Shu in his face was hilarious. The villains are evil for no good reason, Dan Eagleman is my hero (and the most awesome character of this show) and every female is part of Shu's harem or a fanservice object. We still don't know who the guys who are working for Daath are and Mana is just there for the incest vibes.
[CONCLUSION]
Everyone who loves poorly written characters will love this show, especially if you love incest vibes and useless half naked women. This cast is more than bad, it's an insult to anime and women, or humanity in general.

~enjoyment~ 3/10
Actually, it was extremely enjoyable. I was laughing out loud while watching this, the pure stupidity of this show turned it into a hilarious comedy. And watching Shu suffer was the ultimate wishfulfillment, how is it possible to create a main character so unlikable? This show is a glorious trainwreck with beautiful animation and awesome music, but it's still a trainwreck. Still, laughing about the stupidity of this show is fun.
[CONCLUSION]
This show is bad, the things that make an anime great are well-written stories and characters. And let's face, this anime has a horrible story and a terrible cast. If it was not for the 'pretty colors' and 'nice music' everyone would have neglected this anime. It is funny when it's supposed to be serious and it's plain bad when it's supposed to be funny. And the fanservice, the damn fanservice is everywhere, because why would you write a good story when you can just use fanservice to keep viewers interested?

Do you want to watch it? No, you don't want to watch this show. I warned you, don't blame me if you lose you faith in humanity after watching this. This train wreck is not worth your time, and I want those 8 hours of my life back! Peace.

HERE'S WHAT I ORIGINALLY POSTED (at the bottom, you'll see my feelings now that I've watched further in):

...Also, I'll be leaving out the story for this anime. It's quite bland, but at the same time, it's a bit hard to go into any detail without blowing the whole plot for you. I'm sure there are plenty of other reviews for this anime that include the story, but to get it done and over with I gave it a 6/10.
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I'm going to start off with the sound. 8/10.

--The Music--
It's absolutely beautiful. Everything from the lyrics of the intro soundtrack and outro soundtrack to the person singing ... the verses. Most of the time, Inori will be shown singing the songs. This is mainly because in the world of Guilty Crown Inori has created them, being an online star and such.
Usually, I never actually comment on music. In fact, I don't even stick around for it. I skip it and just move on to the anime. This is a different case.

"So everything that makes me whole, ima kini na sasageyou."
"So everything that makes me whole, I now present and offer to you."

I honestly don't know why I find that verse alone (among many others) to be so beautiful.

--The Voice-Acting--
I think the voice acting in this anime is very good. It doesn't really sound all that cheesy to me, and it seems more realistic than traditional script for anime.

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Next up is the art. 8/10.

--The Style of Art--
The style of this art revolves around a sort of moody atmosphere. Generally the color palette of the surroundings are dark variants of... eh, dark colors. The style (in terms of general character design and color) is also quite similar to that of Sora no Otoshimono, though is much more serious. You don't really see the main characters turning into chibi-form every 2 minutes.

--The Quality of the Art--
The quality is very good, it's very clear and even though the colors are very dark most of the time, you always know what is going on. The scenes that include fighting aren't like trying to run Crysis 2 on an unplugged laptop (like some anime that I've seen), and are actually quite seamless.

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Next, character. 6/10.

--Character Build-up--
I'd say that the character is a meager 6/10 because the only character build-up that I've seen within 4 episodes of the anime is Shu (the main protagonist). Though I do care about Inori, and some of Shu's friends... I guess I really don't have enough of any emotion from them to actually give a crap for more than a minute, if that makes sense. To sum it up, the only character I can actually relate to, feel for, and hate at times is Shu because he's the only character that's been truly introduced.
Maybe I haven't watched the anime enough, but so far all I've seen is Shu being a depressed emo bitch (excuse my language). Don't get me wrong though, this doesn't at all hinder my enjoyment of the anime. There are plenty of twists and questions I'd like to get answered that have me sitting on the edge of my seat, though not to an extent where I'm lost and mind fucked... we'll leave that for later though.

--Character Interactions--
So far I haven't seen too much important interaction from most of the characters. It's only been limited to Gai, Inori, and Shu. This is also the reason I give the character portion a 6/10. It would've been at least two points higher if there were more interaction between him and his classmates about what is going on in the current time, and what everyone thinks about it (or something so that he can increase his relationship standing with everyone).

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Right, now for enjoyment. 8/10.
Sure, the story is bland and I can already guess what happens. Sure, the characters are bland, and I can already guess what's going to happen.
That doesn't at all (like I've said in the character section) mean I don't like and enjoy everything that's going on though. For me, it's not all about the story when it comes to anime. It comes down to how much I can follow the dialogue without getting my head burned to a crisp from thinking to much... like Spice and Wolf. Great anime, but the economics confused the hell out of me at times (lol).
From the action scenes, to the art (which I am very fond of), to the music (which, again, I am very fond of) I can actually appreciate this anime for what it is. Some people may hate it, but I think that a lot of work has indeed been put into this anime. I look forward to completing it in the future.

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Overall I gave this anime a 7/10. I don't believe I need to explain why, the answer is above.

Aside from that, if you're looking for an anime similar to Code Geass then this is what you might be looking for. It has tiny hints of romance, but it's not unrealistically chaotic like To Love-Ru, or any other romance... it's almost like Brave 10 when it comes to romance.
If you're not into the main protagonist being an emo bitch that takes a long time to decide on things, this anime might not be good for you at the same time. It isn't too much of a big deal, but if you're very sensitive towards these things, you might want to stay away.


HERE'S WHAT I THINK ABOUT THIS ANIME NOW:
Very bad, characters are terrible. I recently found out that I absolutely hate every guy in this anime, they're all bitches, pussies, psycho, idiots, or all of the above.
As for the females? Hate them too. They're all on the bitchy side as well. Character interaction? Close to nothing. And if it's something, it's always Sho whining and saying to much like a fucking retard -- I find myself repeatedly telling my screen to shut the hell up while facepalming. This of course hinders my ability to enjoy the anime in the slightest, especially when each individual character annoys the living shit out of me.
I was wrong to say this was like Code Geass. It was good for the first two episodes, then just got straight up annoying. Might as well be a damn Yaoi, I'd have as much interest in watching that as I do this (close to none).

STORY: 4
ART: 8
SOUND: 8
CHARACTER: 2
ENJOYMENT: 2
OVERALL: 4

Just as the average idiot that is fooled by fast food commercials, I must admit I felt the same when watching Guilty Crown. I'm not that much of an avid anime viewer, to be honest, I watch a fairly modest amount of anime to base an opinion (At least I hope so). I decided to try out Guilty Crown because I was enticed by the animation and mechas. Of course, I had no idea it was a decision that I would regret.

Judging from the first episode, I couldn't really say much. I decided to continue with the hope that it would get better. Boy, was ... I ever wrong.

Each episode I watched, the more I hated the show, and its characters.
With unlikable characters, it was even harder to watch. But what made it extremely unbearable was the amalgamation of every single anime cliche. I'm not saying that cliches shouldn't be used. Sometimes they work or you need to use it for the sake of the plot, but in this case, they overdid it.

Compiling typical high school anime cliches such as cultural festivals and beach episodes with serious science fiction anime cliches like mechas, monster girls, and evil government scientists, it just didn't and couldn't work. Because of all these cliches pieced together, there was no discernible plot that was comprehensible. Well, there was a plot of course, but it wasn't easy to follow or properly explained.

I can rant all day and night about the show, but I must admit that the animation and visual effects were superb. Not to mention, SOME elements of plot that I managed to extract, like the Apocalypse Virus, and the Void Genome. Those I found fascinating and I honestly wished they focused more on just ONE those elements because it would be a far more successful show, or at least more bearable to watch.

Alas, I am just one opinion in the world. For those who actually enjoyed the show , I apologize and I accept your opinions as well. Maybe I missed something when I watched it. Or maybe I took it too seriously. I don't know. Anyways, feel free to watch Guilty Crown and judge it yourself. If you find something I missed, please let me know and enlighten me.

guilty crown

as far as sound and graphics its as expected from a modern anime.nice colors nice cg and pretty nice animation with good effects and a good music score.

but thats all there is to it and its not enough considaring that most animes today are above mediocre in sound and visual work.

the characters development is at least lacking the basics and there are many secondary characters who give the feeling that are completely fake.no real agentas no real feelings and some of them have nothing to do with the plot.it feels like the writer didnt have enough ideas of how to fill the senario so ... he/she made up some random people so that the protagonists wont be alone.

the concept is pretty good.i must say is somewhat original.but they arent taking advantage of its uniqueness.im completely dissapointed from that.another anime with great,even amazing concept but lame story.most of the time due to some useless scenes and characters you'll lose the point in all of it and get confused.i seems that the writers who worked on this anime are unskilled teenagers with no actual experience on story telling.it just leaves you with a bad taste...

So far the only reason thats keeping me from dropping it is only my curiosity.

a friend suggested this anime to me.when i asked him "why should i watch it" he said that the female protagonist is "kawai" and "moe"...i think that says it all.

If you have time to kill watch it with no expectations.if not then simply ignore it.

All i can say is that im dissapointed.very dissapointed.this anime had the potential to be a lot better but they messed up.it feels like they didnt take the time to write a good plot and just went ahead straight to production just to make the sales and get money...

maybe you should watch it to see with your own eyes how they butchered a great concept world by writting a poor amateur story.

the one good thing in this anime is the action...that only lasts for a dosen seconds everytime.but not good enough to suffer through the rest of the useless scenes.

P.S. whats with the incest and the overexagerated violence?whats the point in all this?the amateur writers immaturity is evident through the whole story...trying to show strong images to cause feelings to the oddience just to get their interest in the story pumped up ,cause there is no other reason to watch it.

edit:after i finished the series i had mixed emotions.in the end you start to understand a few things better but still it fails at everything its trying to do.

One word to describe this anime: Overrated.

Yes it is overrated not because of it's great artwork, but because the most important aspects of a show the characters and story are extremely weak.

Story

It's just a mess. Talk about Deus Ex Machina...it just seems that every thing almost always works out OR they seem to be doing fine and all of sudden something just happens that's suppose to shock us GASP..no. It tries to be complex, new, but it's not. It's all stuff I've seen a million times before and well that just makes the story plain mediocre and uninteresting. I give it a 4.

Characters

Turrible (in a ... Charles Barkley voice). No one you can relate to, no one you can sympathize with because the characters just do not develop throughout the entire anime. The lack of going deeper than the skin, really hurts the shows characters. I ended up hating most of them, especially Shu, Inori and Gai. I felt worse for the guy who's brother had been infected with the virus. He had a lot more depth than the 3 main leads. I give the characters a 2.

Art

Great. That's all I can say, but makes me think they probably spent too much on the artwork rather than on story/character development which is a damn shame. I give the artwork a 9.

Sound
A few good songs in here, but your typical jpop stuff. Voice acting...well ok I guess. Inori is the silent type just plain boring. I give it a 7

Enjoyment/Overall

I basically watched it expecting more and well I was just disappointed. It's not deep and it's only good to look at. That's about it. I would not recommend it. It's extremely overrated. It's just a plain mediocre anime. Not worth watching.