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"The right to use my friends as a weapon, that is my guilty crown."
When an anime of the season becomes really hyped, it’s often hard for it to live up to all the expectations created around it, but does this necessarily make it a bad show? Of course not!
This was my second time watching the series, and I really liked it much more this time through, most likely because I didn’t have big expectations this time.
Point being, you shouldn’t judge something based on what you thought it would be, but rather what it is...
Story: (7 / 10)
Guilty Crown is often accused of being “too inspired”, and trying to mix too many concepts together, making it a big mess, and this is actually somewhat true. Unfortunately, because of this, a lot of plot holes are left open, and some events seem very illogical, only there to progress the story.
However, looking at the big picture, it all makes for a very decent story. The backstory, and overall concept of it, I find very interesting, even if it’s not executed all that well.
There are also a lot of smaller “twists” to the story, and all in all, it’s still enough to keep you interested.
Art: (8 / 10)
Guilty Crown is, undoubtedly, a beautiful show. With its fluid animations, and detailed backgrounds, as well as the character designs, this is one of the series’ high points.
There is some fanservice here and there (plugsuit loli), but it doesn’t really feel all that “forced”, and it’s definitely not something that will ruin your experience with this show, even if you’re very sensitive to this kind of stuff...
The opening and ending scenes are also very well made, with maybe the exception of the first one, which mostly shows a couple of characters walking away, in front of a black background.
However, something I find interesting is that this is a show which has “foreshadowing” (I wouldn’t really call it a spoiler, since it’s so very subtle) of the actual ending of the series in one of it’s opening sequences. Then again, this is such a subtle thing, and I would’ve probably never noticed it if someone else didn’t point it out to me, and I then spent several minutes rewatching the OP...
Sound: (9/ 10)
The voice acting in Guilty Crown was really nothing amazing, in my opinion, nor was it bad in any way. All actors seem to do a pretty good job with their characters, and there really isn’t one voice that stood out among the rest (neither good nor bad).
What more than makes up for this though, and what’s another big high point for the series, is the music. In fact, the music was what first made me discover and want to watch this at all.
All of the opening and ending themes, as well as all songs by EGOIST (the fictional band in Guilty Crown) are written and performed by members of Supercell (Ryo being the writer/composer, and Chelly & Koeda being the singers).
Koeda (only) sings two songs; “My Dearest”, which is the first opening theme, and “Kokuhaku”, which is the second ending theme.
Chelly on the other hand, has a much bigger role. Apart from singing the second opening theme “Everlasting Guilty Crown”, and the first ending theme “Departures”, she is also the singing voice for Yuzuriha Inori, the vocalist from EGOIST.
(Fun fact: those two songs are actually officially listed under EGOIST, as opposed to Supercell, even if EGOIST technically IS Supercell...)
The show has 3 very prominent songs, “Euterpe”, “Bios”, and “Hill of Sorrow”, which are used in pretty much all of the more intense moments, aside from the first one, which is sung by Inori now and then during some of the calmer moments of the series.
“Hill of Sorrow” is more or less only played during the second half of the series, while Bios is played during the first.
I think a good comparison would be that these two songs are to Guilty Crown, what “Magia” is to Madoka. Thankfully, they’re all very good songs, and when you hear one of these, you know something’s gonna go down.
Characters: (7 / 10)
I mostly liked the characters in Guilty Crown. The main character, Ouma Shu, is at first sort of a lonely guy, lacking confidence, and is overall just a pretty generic “teenage hero”. However, during the second half of the series he really steps up to become a much more awesome character, and it’s something I really like about him.
Then you also have Inori, and the mystery surrounding her and Mana, and all the other various side characters really make up for a funny and fitting cast, in my opinion.
I see a lot of people complaining about the character development, or rather the lack thereof, and this is not really something I understand. Most of the characters undergo at least some development throughout the show, with a lot of them actually having somewhat big changes.
The above example about Shu is pretty good. He’s at first a really kind person, trying to help people even though he’s scared and knows he lack the proper abilities to do so, but soon enough he realises that “kindness is pointless”, and becomes a much “tougher” character, doing what has to be done to reach his goal.
Inori also makes for a very good example.
At first Inori is shown as this silent, almost helpless member of the Undertakers, but as the show goes on, and she spends more time with Shu, she develops a lot more feelings for pretty much everything.
Learning about the powers she possess and how she’s related to Mana also makes for an overall more interesting character.
Enjoyment: (8 / 10)
I really enjoyed this show, especially the second time through when I dropped the (rather few) expectations I had for it the first time around.
Deciding to watch a series almost solely because you like the music is pretty much hit-or-miss, but in this case, even if the story wasn’t anything amazing, the concept of being able to draw out people’s hearts as weapons, as well as the overall feel of the show really got me hooked almost immediately.
