-Music/Sound(10)
Fantastic, this anime's music plays the biggest role in the anime. It alone is what carried the mess of a plot on its shoulder and having one of MC's be a musician who sings these wonderful songs to us on an episode to episode basis is simply wonderful. I also mean to exaggerate the importance of the music in the plot itself. So, for music absolutely no complaints here. As for the voice actors... I liked them, but they weren't anything special, especially in the dub. (Shu's voice actor in the dub couldn't have fit his character better, but that's what annoyed me...)
-Visuals(10)
You've all heard it before and now I'm going to say it again: this anime is without a doubt eye-candy. The animation is consistent and beautiful. I really loved the animation having to do with voids especially, whether it was the voids being put to use as weapons or even simply being extracted. Episode 4 really ehpasizes the beauty of the series and was the hook that kept me going at the begining.Hell, one of our main antagonists goes as far as screaming," IT'S BEAUTIFUL," during one particular scene, to which I couldn't agree more. Character designs were good, excluding Inori's character design (which was excellent.)Amazing visuals overall.
-Story(5)
In most anime the story is the heart and soul of the show. For Guilty Crown the story felt like it was put off to the side as a, "We'll think about that after we make the series beautiful," and it showed. I love post apocalyptic settings, but this one was kinda just meh. The apocalypse virus seemed like a cool idea at first until it was thrown aside being labeled as : generic kill off the human race type thing. The idea of Voids also struck me as being cool, until they didn't put enough depth on the concept. The rest of the story is a mix of clichés, although those didn't bother me as much as they did other people. I also hear a lot of people basically calling Guilty Crown the failed version of Code Geass, why is this you might ask? You're asking the wrong person because I have never watched said show nor do I ever intend to( I do not like the mech genre, Endlaves in Guilty Crown played a very insignificant role being why I continued watching it.) As for the ending of Guilty Crown all I can say is I was disappointed. It seemed kind of dull compared to the rest of the series in terms of ACTION, however the emotion towards the end of the series, was heartfelt all the way to the very ending. Unfortunately, emotion also included anger, and I honestly can't believe how much of a 'WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING' ending this was. It was a complete bull shit ending that made no sense until you watched it 5 times(this dropped the overall score from 8 to a 7. The 7 was me being to generous.)Plot holes were obvious, but nothing that couldn't be figured out with a little inference(lets just hope you aren't used to being spoon fed every answer otherwise this is not the anime for you.) As for the anime's two part setup all I can say is that the second half is much stronger in terms of character development and to some extent story and is a huge step up as the series takes a much darker tone. This is unfortunate considering most people did not stick around long enough to enjoy the second half. The story of Guilty Crown required far more then 22 episodes, to be honest it could have been an anime of two 25 episode seasons with all the content they tried to stuff in this tiny little anime and if they had done that this anime would be SO much better. Overall the story was mediocre, it had a lot of flaws and the cliches weren't hard to see, but its nothing you can't enjoy.
-Characters(7)
The characters are by far the most hated part of the anime for most people, even more so then the story for MOST people. Shu is annoying and bitchy, I almost dropped this series on episode 1 simply because Shu annoyed me so much, but I think the main reason I disliked him at first was because he was different. I was so use to the reckless badassory of most male main characters that this change felt very sudden and uncomfortable. After a while, although, his character started to man up. Did it take too long? Yes, but at least it happened. In the end Shu was the most developed character of the anime, although parts of his development made me hate him with a passion. Next we have Inori to which I immediately drew parallels to Mikasa of Attack on Titan, for the first... I don't know 10 episodes, before she became a damsel in distress. This disappointed me because to be honest I like stronger female characters that don't become very reliant on the male characters(like Mikasa.) She was also labeled as completely emotionless which is true, but her character has a lot of depth (unfortunately this depth is not explained to its fullest in the anime itself, however it was explained in the visual novel Lost Xmas which I had the pleasure of enjoying.) People also say she has an insignificant role in the plot, but I find her to be the source of every part of Shu's development. Without her, Shu would be the wuss he was at the beginning and this story wouldn't have gone anywhere.Also vice versa we have Shu to aid the developement of Inori's development, she goes from being a lost character at the begining with no true sense of purpose, to a person who has found a way to be human in the fucked up world they live in (I love dandere/kuudere archetype characters don't ask why because I don't even know.) This co-dependent relationship is what makes Inori and Shu simply wonderful. As for Gai, he's a badass sure, but his motivation or lack there of is... Disappointing?That's probably the right word. The rest of the cast was okay, though the antagonists stuck out to me as good characters. Overall I feel like most people make the characters out worse then they actually are. The characters that needed to develop, did (although some were done in a very shitty way) and I personally didn't hate any character that I wasn't supposed hate(besides one...)The number one thing you will notice about the Guilty Crown main characters is that they are broken. There is no better way to describe them as just being plane broken, but thats part of the reason they are enjoyable to watch.
-Enjoyment(10)
I already said this was my favorite anime, right? The visuals during the action scenes were consistent and awesome. The music added a great emotion to a lot of scenes ,the OST is DEFINITELY something worth finding and downloading. Inori was adorable, Inori and Shu together was even more adorable. I love this show and I am able to say that yo
-Overall(7)
Guilty Crown didn't have the greatest characters, nor the greatest story, but there's something about it that makes people like me really love the show. On the other hand if you nitpick this anime for every little thing it does, you will end up hating it like some people. So, is it okay for me to rate this anime as good considering everything wrong with it? Yes, because if you look at the music, the visuals, and even sometimes even the characters you could tell this anime was setup for greatness. Unfortunately, in the end the plot and (for the most part) the characters are what dragged this anime down for most people. Do I recommend this anime? I'd say you should procceed with caution, because you will a)love this anime, or b)beat the shit out of it for every little thing, depending on how you look at the series. So, go ahead give it a try, you might be in for a nice (or horrible) surprise.
