Jul 24, 2012
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“Why do people fight, hurting one another?”
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As of recent years, among all the overrated anime, Guilty Crown may perhaps
be one of the most over-hyped series yet.
After the “Lost Christmas” virus outbreak, Japan had been under control of
GHQ, a military force backed by the United Nations which helped Japan in
maintaining the virus outbreak. The main story focuses on Ouma Shu, a
high-school student who got dragged into a war between the “Undertakers”, a
group of terrorists, who are fighting against the government. Shu has a strange
ability called the “Powers of Kings”, where he can extract tools or weapons
from the hearts of other people, which are more commonly known as “voids”.
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| Inori |
Guilty Crown may sounds interesting at first, but their storytelling
dampens on the overall potential of the show. The anime’s main problem
story-wise can be easily summed as unoriginal and unorganized. The anime is
filled with numerous cliches and the plot is one big jumbling mess. The writing
is really bad, as if the creators are just doing whatever they want with the
plot as the show went on. This problem is present until to the very end,
resulting in awkward and unnatural plot twists, due to silly reasons or logic
behind some character’s actions.
Because of bad writing, I had been watching the whole show at face value,
even when there were drama, tears and even death, I watch all of them with a
poker face. I can’t feel anything, due to aforementioned issues. Of cause, this
is still somewhat okay, but even the characters are horrible.
The whole shows focuses on Ouma Shu, a seemingly bland male lead at first
who only desires an ordinary life. While his character development to a more
matured and decisive lead would had been better with a more flowed pacing, the
creators messed it up. Latter part of the series, he looks like a complete
imitation of Lelouch from Code Geass, a very bad imitation at that. I would had
pitied and sympathize his role, but again, with the unstable pacing, I just
watch him running about with a poker face once more.
The other characters are no better, Inori, for one, is incredibly dull and
serves nothing more but just a plot device. Arugo at one point mentioned that
Inori had been reduced to nothing more but Shu’s servant, or something along
those lines, and he’s completely right. Gai, on the other hand, “plays” leader
at one point, and “plays” the bad guys in the latter part of the show, again,
with a pretty illogical and dumb reason which the creators probably just came
up with as soon as they arrive at that particular scene. The rest of the
supporting cast doesn’t even look that appealing too, or perhaps Tsugumi’s
waving her ass around while hacking may be the saving grace as characters go
by.. wait, whut? I almost got blinded and was about to judge Guilty Crown in a
biased manner, whew.
The true saving grace for Guilty Crown, may be the sights and sounds. The
visuals are nothing of cause, compared to the likes of Nisemonogatari or Black
Rock Shooter, but on it’s own, it is already a sight to see, literally. The
backgrounds are astonishingly detailed, and gives a post-apocalypse atmosphere,
which the show is obviously going for. Animations are damn smooth too, which
results in great action sequences.
The music is nice, though some English tracks can be heard from time to
time, not to say they are bad, but they doesn’t quite match with Guilty Crown.
The openings and ending tracks are amazing though, and both Koede and Chelly,
who sang most of the opening/ending tracks, are awesome singers. Of cause, any
songs which are involved by supercell one way or the other will never
disappoint for sure.
Guilty Crown had a huge marketing budget, and was given a 22-episodes
timeslot. They had more then enough episodes to create a more organized
storyline. As of now though, Guilty Crown’s plot and characters are just a huge
blatant rip-off from other popular titles, creating an anime far more cliche
one had never thought of. That is actually okay, if Guilty Crown had a decent
execution, even a typical plot element can be great, but Guilty Crown falls
short at it’s way of presenting it’s storylines.
Overall, Guilty Crown is disappointing, and it’s best not to expect too
much from this show, despite the hype over it. I heard Nitroplus is going to
adapt a Guilty Crown spin-off visual novel, well, here’s hoping Nitroplus will
do the anime some good, some way or the other…
