I believe this was mostly because of the production committee behind GC played everything “too safe”, and “laziness” was to blame.
GC took a lot of themes and tropes from many other different animes and mashed them all up together, packaged them so well that it could easily appeal to the mass audience. In one way, GC was quite a hit and a commercial success, but on the other hand, it became a train wreck and a huge loss of potential.
One of the many tropes GC used was by making a “relatable” male protagonist, Shu Ouma, who was presented as a shy boy who had difficulties in making friends with others, he was a coward, low self-esteem and selfish, in essence, hardly any good trades. He felt that he would be of no use to the world. In a sense, many teenagers who are still developing could well face these issues in real life and may find Shu “relatable”, as personally I did face similar troubles years ago.
GC then proceeded to develop him more as a character by having various traumatic events of different magnitudes affecting him. Unfortunately, I can’t help myself but feel that the creators put a rather half-assed effort on this. Minor events that shouldn’t affect Shu so much made him depressed for weeks, yet a much larger event which should have a bigger impact on him, Shu just brushed it off as if it never happened. The said traumatic events affected Shu in practically any way the creators made it convenient for themselves to portray Shu the way they wanted to.
As a consequence, any thoughts of believing Shu as a “real” character was turned into dust. His progressive growth as a character was nonsensical, and he was like a totally different character throughout the series, he turned from Haruyuki into Kirito at some point, and turned into Lelouch thereafter. He was socially inept at the beginning, and then suddenly he became so likable to others around that he managed to form a pseudo-harem and even became a leader. I understand how major life events can turn a person 180 degrees, but sadly it wasn’t done very well here.
Another mess of a character in GC would be Inori Yuzuriha, the poster girl of the series. Her character designs were no doubt decent, sadly it felt way out of place when used in the show. Who on earth would wear a sideboob outfit in the middle of a fight against robots? Sorry but to me she was created merely to help promote the sales of merchandises and Blu-rays. Her personality was also tailored into what could be the perfect waifu material – soft spoken, kuudere, beautiful, sexy (who was never aware that Shu was ogling at her tities), strong-willed, badass and wasn’t afraid to kill. Sounds to me she was the ultimate otaku fantasy wife who should be able to fulfill most of their fetishes.
All of these were fine should they provided a fine backstory for her, but unfortunately there wasn’t any, despite the fact that she was very relevant to the plot. I found myself picturing her as a sex combat maid android sent from the future, as it made much more sense this way. (sigh)
Speaking of the plot, I am often perplexed by the fact that the anime producers did not want to let go of the school setting. Yep you guessed it, the usual school festivals and onsen scenes were present. The terrorists were mostly teenagers who for some reason so immensely talented and trained well enough to stand up against the military. Gai was merely a 17 years old boy but he acted as if he was Hitler, somehow Inori could shoot more accurately than James Bond because she was "talented and trained", and the wanted serial killer cum super hacker was only 14. The fact that they were merely teens made it convenient for the producers to brush off any silly actions the characters made as “pubescent mood swings” or “because love is blind”.
Furthermore, they made all the good guys in GC teenagers, and most of the adults were the bad guys. The black and white hat that were assigned to the characters were so blatantly obvious that it was difficult to take the antagonists’ ultimate evil goal seriously, and the show did not actually explain it well on the motive of their plans, simply throwing in the mask of “I am evil just because I am” to them.
The plot elements introduced in GC were actually very interesting, especially the concept of the shape of a people’s heart in the form of “Voids”, which I believe to hold immense potential to make a great show if handled well. However, it seemed to me that the producers were lazy to elaborate on the Void concept, using it merely as a convenient Dues Ex Machina that Shu and Gai often pulled off to solve whatever difficult situations they were stuck in. What happened to “as the emotions and fears of a person change, so do the form of their Voids?” I never see any change in a person’s Void whatsoever in the show regardless of the so-called “change of feelings and fears” occurring in said person.
Notice how I repeated the word “convenience” so many times in this review, basically, this summed up how lazy the writers were when they were concocting the plot of GC. This extends further to the Apocalypse Virus, the Lost Christmas incident and the subsequent selective amnesia Shu had, the ultimate motive of the antagonists, to the entire setting of GC itself. The writers hardly finished anything they started.
Ultimately, GC could be seen as a summer blockbuster anime which came in with a bang, and ended without leaving a trace of excellence behind. With its beautiful presentation and many tropes thrown in, it might appeal to anime newcomers, and personally I also believe that GC is a decent choice to introduce anime to others. But the poorly written plot and characters left a bitter taste to those who expected a mesmerizing tale from one of the most famous modern animes out there.
