Anime Better and worse? Heh?
(Written for episodes 13-22. Spoilers incoming!)
So the second “arc” of Guilty Crown is a moderate step up from the first. This is in part due to the pace of the show, which gets ramped Up To Eleven and Darker And Edgier in equal measures. However, this is also its downfall, because too much is laid out that only get hastily wrapped up in the last two episodes.
Character-wise, Shu and Inori actually start to develop, although not to their best extent. Shu’s Tragic Hero side is brought out in full force: he doesn’t get a break. Even his Start Of Darkness doesn’t help anything. Instead, the reality of trying to assert full authority comes around and brutally smacks him down. Inori breaks out of her emotionless-girl shell to solidify a persona: however, that mainly seems to be “love doll for Shu.” The introduction of Mana trying to control her mind is intriguing, though, but one wonders how much more the writers could’ve done if she tried fighting against her eventual fate more.
The plot’s improved and for the most part is more overt in its delivery. Ignoring the whole Daath shebang, which comes out of nowhere and concludes just as quickly, the whole downfall of Shu’s kingdom and the aftermath thereof is played engagingly. However, the various actions and motivations of the characters come to a head way too fast: “train wreck” is one way to think of it. One side is GHQ and resurrected!Gai, another’s Shu and the school (with Arisa as her own wild card), and then there’s the UN thing that comes out of nowhere.... All the different factions just amount to whiplash.
The ending is rather lackluster, to boot. Inori taking Shu’s burden and dying in his place seems to fly in the face of everything that the show was building up for, and Shu going blind is an ineffective bid for sympathy. Sure, the final few scenes were touching enough, but it feels... hollow? That’s a good enough word.
Final thoughts? Definitely could have been paced better. If Guilty Crown had been given four more episodes, it would have been able to flesh out its ideas better and give characters more satisfying conclusions. GC needed to finish strong to overcome previous stumbling blocks: instead, everything fell in on itself like an house of cards.
Anime Does it merit the backlash? Eh...
(Written as of episode 12, or the first "arc.")
Guilty Crown is, in a word... interesting. In a few more, it definitely is Love It Or Hate It material. The problem is that too many people compare it to Code Geass, its spiritual predecessor, and thus expect it to be better than sliced bread. It’s not. Guilty Crown is the summer blockbuster of anime – to watch it properly, tune out and enjoy the pretty colors, or else you’re going to get one mighty headache trying to figure out what’s going on.
The greatest criticism that anyone can have with this show are the characters, namely Shu and Inori. The two of them combined are about as interesting as a soggy piece of cardboard, which is really a shame when you look at the more dynamic/creative side characters. Take Shu. He’s whiny and stunningly socially retarded, and yet he gets all the attention as the lead. Inori, on the other hand, is grating just because she’s void of any personality whatsoever. This is at least handwaved away later on, but when her persona changes every other episode then you know something’s wrong. The plot isn’t amazing either, and there are a few points that made the usually-accepting me groan or squick in equal measures (the whole incest subtext and Eigen Plot), but if you don’t dig down and analyze it, it’s passable for what it is: a dystopian rebellion archetype. Voids may be decried as Deus Ex Machinas, but in the context of the show, there’s little way they can’t be without dropping to useless status. If Hare were to have a big machine gun as hers instead of what it is, I’d be scared.
Now, to the good. The graphics and music are breathtaking. Production IG pulled out the stops here and it definitely shows, with a lot of the fight scenes and backgrounds being amazingly designed. Many of the side characters also sidestep the problems that plague Shu and Inori to various results (Ayase and Yahiro being two who were well pulled off). There’s also that rare something as a whole about the show that works (good or bad, you decide), because it can draw you back week after week to find out what ludicrous thing is going to happen next. In (somewhat) conclusion, Guilty Crown is hit or miss. If you like your anime deep and cerebral, stay away. But for the rest of us, it’s exactly the big over-the-top spectacle one needs once in a while. Try it out.
Anime Dark and Edgy, but messy
Guilty Crown has two priorities: to make the audience sad, and to make Shu Ouma miserable. How the story intends to reach those goals, however, is sorely lacking in elegance. There are too many things happening in the plot. We have a Japanese rebellion, needlessly cruel military, supernatural powers, a bizarre, do-anything virus from outer space, the struggles of teenagehood, and Adam and Eve references are even thrown in. Guilty Crown is juggling too much at once and it just turns out being a mess. Events spring up and advancements in story occur so quickly and randomly that the only way to possibly keep the audience up to date is to sloppily spout exposition and have the characters say "it's as I feared" as if that justifies whatever new direction the story shoots into.
Characters are also extremely two-dimensional, and any "developments" they have typically feel undeserved. Inori seems to jump from indifferent, to madly in love with Shu without visually showing the progress of their relationship. Gai can be ruthless one second, and caring the next, but we are never shown any consequences for having this side of him. Basically, every character behaves how they need to behave depending on the episode or situation. Shu is an ordinary boy with no hint of anything special one episode, to having supernatural powers, to suddenly, coincidentally being the cause of the entire plot. It's all so fabricated. The only character who has a coherent character arc is Daryl, and he isn't even given a proper conclusion. *Ayase also gets decent development in the second half.
Beautiful animations and an admittedly unique and interesting concept for the void powers cannot save this anime from a complete wreck in the story department. I don't think the writers could decide what they wanted Guilty Crown to be. It at first seemed like your typical anime about a boy overcoming social-awkwardness by finding his brave side, but then it spirals into alien/religious/hyper science/powers-that-be territory and it never straightens itself out. And the hastily thrown together epilogue does nothing to put into place just what happened over the past 22 episodes.