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| Blooming wildflower |
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| I beg you, please tell me, |
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| Why do people fight and hurt each other? |
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| Guilty Crown |
The plot focuses on events ten years after a huge biological hazard occurred in Japan in December 24 of 2029(hey by then I would be 38...not much of a happy b-day for me...) which lead to the Japanese government to ask for the help of the United Nations who sent some sort..of...err..company..governmental aid?? Really I don't know what this GHQ is supposed to be, but for some reason the UN sent this guys to help contain the hazard and they by means I can't understand took control of the whole country.
This one was actually harder for me to criticize and no it wasn't because I liked it or anything, rather it was hard because as I researched and analyzed. The most tragic truth was discovered, Guilty Crown has serious flaws that were obvious for most people.
Yet, as I read and read the endless reviews about it being really bad and just having good art, animation and music, but everything else sucked...I realized that I too had overlooked one important thing about this series, and that was..."potential"
Like always I want to remind you that this is entirely my humble opinion and it's perfectly fine if you disagree with me.
Plot
Guilty Crown plot might not be the most logical and needed several corrections.
But let's look at it step by step, first of all lets take a look at the setting.
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| Quasi, I really like that term |
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| So a Virus was set free on Japan..of all countries?...and just stayed in Japan... |
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| Hey so do we here in Guatemala~ |
So some sort of virus spread in the Japanese country(it didn't go anywhere or at least it was only unstoppable in Japan) and because the Japanese government was unable to contain it, it was forced to call for the assistance of the United Nations.
They sent this GHQ...thing(still not sure what are they supposed to be), this organization was capable of containing the virus and for the sake of it, using any means necessary. After 10 years they still control a big portion of the country and they have the authority to kill or do as they please with the Japanese citizens.
While not completely impossible it is very unreasonable for an organization to have complete control over the lives of the citizens and that even if the havoc was that big to need pacifiers, there are no reasons for them to stay there after 10 years.
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| Was that even necessary? |
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| I would say this is police brutality..but they are not even the police |
Development
As for the development well..on the very first episode we get to know a bit about our dear protagonist, but unlike so many other protagonist , this one..did one thing that impressed me.
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| Must..keep..sight...on...her...eyes... |
Shu, the protagonist, did something that kinda impressed me. He did something that is not commonly seen in anime, less in anime of this type.
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| I know you did pal, I know you did. |
He did the most realistic thing, he was afraid, uncertain, he was scared, he showed true human emotions. Wen we are faced with this type of questions, is it really so easy to say "Heck yeah let me be the hero, fight bad guys and risk my life fighting stuff I'm really not sure I can deal with!"
Even when someone is being robbed, can we really go and help...is it really so simple to jump into action and fight armed guys without any proper training nor weapons ourselves?
But then I saw real development when Shu over there, armed himself with courage and scared as he was..he tried.
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| That's a pretty nice expression you got there Shu~ |
Sadly that kind of development is pretty erratic in this series, sometimes it's good...others it's just..weird and random.
Background Story
On this section, this series does so poorly that I don't even want to start, a huge problem is that the information they gave us on the GHQ and the event 10 years ago, is not enough to make us believe or immerse us in this world. Even tho they do manage to make the "bad guys" really hate-able the whole situation is never really explained.
The GHQ controls Japan somehow and the rest of the world, even if they spend a considerable amount of money helping containing the virus, doesn't seem to care much about it now does it?
Nor the fact that there seems to be a terrorist group striving to take down the quasi-organization that is supposedly in charge of ensuring safety in Japan.
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| "Hey did you hear, there was a terrorist attack on Japan" "Nah I was busy looking at this new meme of Anime girls getting pregnant" |
Script
While the lyrics of the songs are pretty deep and sometimes the characters does say interesting an meaningful lines...most of the time they seem to be quite silent.
Neither the protagonist nor the mandatory love interest seems to speak more than a few lines.
Oh but there is a lot of this:
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| [Insert funny starting caption here] |
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| [Insert funny ending caption here] |
Art
This is one thing this Anime did pretty well, the art is superb!
All the visuals are pretty high level and high quality. Why is it that high quality art Anime has such poor plot...
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| Visually appealing "plot" ✔ |
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| Weird looking character in costume ✔ |
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| Nicely done censorship ✔ |
If they had taken the same time to write and make a plot just as good as the visuals on this series, this might have turned from a tragic story into an classic of Anime.
When I take a look at this Anime, it might not be hate itself what I feel, maybe a mix of both sadness and frustration. What could have been a really interesting story about oppression, fighting against the status quo and trying to change the world despise being completely weak.
Instead we got...this:
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| Mandatory "plot" device ✔ |
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| Fan service ✔ |
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| Attempt of making the protagonist look like an innocent guy ✔ |
The visuals and soundtrack of this Anime are really impressive, there were also some concepts that could have work if they just took the time to make something good instead of making something just to appeal the fans.
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| A pretty nice and remotely controlled mecha |
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| Pilots don't need to be inside of it to pilot it, good idea! |
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| Vehicles capable of switching from urban mode to a humanoid form to battle is also nice. |
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| Looks just like the real thing~ |
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| And...it stills missed..miserably..to a target that was practically in front of it.. |
By the way the whole idea of making the pilot control this things remotely is to avoid them getting killed, but when you do this:
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| The robots fight... |
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| And somehow the pilot feels all the pain the machine does??? |
Why is the purpose of having them pilot this things remotely if they will still get hurt and killed?
Also who was the genius that thought it was a good idea to let the pilots feel the pain the machines does?? Its made from metal and it's a combat robot..it doesn't feel pain!!
As for the mandatory super power, it wasn't that bad at first, I mean sure it was a bit weird.
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| Nice tattoo! |
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| That...escalated quickly.. |
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| Funny enough, I have already seen this in another anime. |
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| "Ooooh, shiny" |
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| a completely ridiculous sword, but it's pretty right? |
But "plot" aside it was quite interesting and had a lot of potential if they would have avoided doing this:
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| Who said this thing didn't have fan service for girls~ |
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| Is still a nice looking camera? |
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| Shu that's obviously a fridge |
The main reason why I dislike this anime so much, is because they took something with a lot of potential, good ideas and concepts...and just filled the blanks with a mediocre plot and erratic writing.
It's no surprise this Anime didn't started as a Manga, it wouldn't have lasted more than a few months before it would have been canceled.
So that concludes my critique of Guilty Crown the little anime that thought it could, but just couldn't.
Don't forget to leave your thought and opinions on our comment section down below, this is Kyou wishing you all a nice day and lastly have my Evaluation Table!
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| I totally didn't forget the table...again... |
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