The Story:
The story of Guilty Crown at first was understandable. A group of rebels trying to over throw the corrupt government by stealing a top secret weapon that gives its user a great power so that they can use it to free Japan. You know this sounds an awful alike another Anime I know called Code Geass. Well even if Guilty Crown's story isn't as "Original" as they said, I was willing to look passed that because I was interested to were they going to go with it.
The first episode really set to tone with the whole Void power and I was actually excited up until episode 4, after that it started to go down the path of no return. By that point, the story was starting to become one big mess of cliches and lackluster writing. It was like the writing staff could not make up their minds on how the story should unfold. Plus it seemed like they just made stuff up along the way with how to use a Void and some of the back-story for characters, not to the virus that was threatening mankind. Make up your damn minds already!!! Just pick one and stick to it. This is easily my biggest complaint about this series, but how does everything else hold up. Pretty good actually.
The Art:
Production I.G's animation and Redjuice's designs were differently one of the highlights of this Anime. The action scenes were well done and the animation was pretty fluid and had a cinematic quality to it. So in all honesty, this was simple eye-candy and there's nothing wrong with that. I enjoyed the art quite well and there really isn't much more I can say.
The Sound:
Another highlight for Guilty Crown was the soundtrack. supercells music was just the right fit for this show and plus the OP and ED themes were also done well with EGOIST performing them. The song "The Everlasting Guilty Crown" was one of my favorite things about Guilty Crown. I'll even go as far to mention that the voice-acting was top notch but hey that's what you get when you have great seiyuu's like Nakamura Yuuichi and Hanazawa Kana working on this.
The Characters:
The characters of Guilty Crown are pretty much divided into two categories: ether you'll like some of them or you'll hate some of them. One of the shows main protagonists, Shu, falls somewhere in-between for me. I never really hated the guy but I feel his character could of grown to be something better rather than him suffer from the "Shinji Ikari Complex" of feeling sorry for yourself. He does mature in the second half, little by little though.
The other two protagonists, Inori and Gai, are pretty much a mixed bag as well. Inori was just another cliche of a silent girl with no emotions in the begin and Gai being the all knowing leader who has a connection with Shu in the past. There isn't much more I can say about these two without spoiling anything.
The other characters of Guilty Crown were not all that great or even that interesting with the exception of Ayase, Tsugumi and maybe even Hare. Hare was pretty likable but it was Ayase and Tsugumi who stole the show. Honestly, to me they were the best characters in the whole series and why couldn't the story be about them or have Ayase be the main female lead. She would have been much better than Inori.
Enjoyment:
Now even with all of Guilty Crown's story problems, I did enjoy this Anime at times. Like I said the first episode had a great start until it fell flat on its face around episode 5 and so on, but I still enjoyed the Art and OST. Not to mention Ayase and Tsugumi and even all of the different Voids. It was cool to see what kind of Void each person had and it did. I would of enjoy this series a lot more if writers had a much solid story to tell.
Overall:
So in the end, Guilty Crown measured up to being average series that was to hyped up. Its really a shame because I did wanted this to succeeded in the long run but the mess-mash of the plot held it back from being something much more then it did. With all that said, would I ever watch this again? Probably not but I am glad that I at least gave it a shot. So if your interesting in watching this, watch at least couple episodes and see if this Anime is right for you. Hopefully we'll get to see Redjuice's designs and supercell's music return in another Anime in the future.
Final Score Card:
Story: 3/10
Art: 9/10
Sound: 9/10
Characters: 6/10
Enjoyment: 7/10
Overall: 6/10
