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.
