I think most of us can agree that when we read the synopsis of Guilty Crown, we all set our hopes high. What doesn't sound cool about a teen being able to extract people's hearts and use them as weapons, to defend Japan against the the apocalypse "Lost Christmas" ?
The story, or rather the plot, has great potential as stated before. And it reaches up to it a lot of times, but fails to stay at the top level for most of the episodes. It's sad, thinking back on how they could have done things better, to make this an even more memorable anime. Because it is definitely memorable. The story is very emotionally strong, as well as it tackles some of the problems of today's society. Another thing that is unfortunately pulling the story down, is due to the potential. You have mecha's, different void weapons, the year is 2029 with amazing technology, but unfortunately they don't take full advantage of this considering some of the big fights that are happening. They could do a lot more out of it. I am not saying there are no awesome fights, because there definitely is, but after watching Gurren Lagann I sadly have an amazing mecha anime to compare with.
(Some minor spoilers in this section, if you haven't watched the anime please just skip this section.)
While watching this anime, and especially in the second arc (or the final 10 episodes) I had many questions. While being spoiled by anime such as Angel Beats and Gurren Lagann, I expected an explaination of everything. That moment when you go "Ah! So that's why." This is something I have to put as a weakness for Guilty Crown. There were still a lot of questions to be answered when it ended, and this was not because the ending was open, but more like a lot of stuff was not explained well enough. But the ending was great though. After watching quite a bit of anime, you get more used to endings that are not all fairytails. And you actually start to like these type of endings better. The ending was beautiful and touching, and I will leave it at that.
When it comes to the characters, they are well developed with strong personalities. You have the all sensetive, sympatic, strong and at times pityfull protagonist, (Shu) you have the funny cute girl that always stays positive (Tsugumi) and the passionate supporter that stays next to the protagonist no matter when. (Inori). (These are just selected few. Ayase, Hare and Yahiro are also very well made characters that I could have written a chapter about each, but I feel like I should keep these reviews a bit read-friendly.) But I must also note that the character I feel that is lacking this good development is Gai. It might not be the personality development, but rather how his story is told in the anime. As said before, there are some questions in this anime that could have been answered better, or rather visualised better, and Gai's story is one of them.
The artwork in Guilty Crown is outstanding. One of the better artworks I've seen in anime. The characters look amazing, the visuals are awesome, and the environment is detailed and well definied. Absolutely nothing that pulls this anime down, rather way up.
The sound is very good. And there is specifically two songs/soundtracks that pulls this up. The first opening song, which went straight into my playlist and will go as one of my favorites, and Inori's singing. Inori's singing brings chills all over my body. But, I think that the second opening a long with soundtracks while fights are going on and other happenings could be better. But, when it comes to soundtracks it really depends on each and every person on how they interpret the soundtracks.
Overall, this anime will stay a memorable anime for me. The story is very good, the art is amazing, the first opening is outstanding, the characters are memorable, and I really did enjoy it. The final episodes are strong with a lot of awesome fight-scenes and emotions. I would definitely recommend this anime, as it will stay a memorable anime for me, that I will remember a long time.
