#the rest is just so cruel and egoistic and bland

[witchwhaat]

jung haein does his pouty face with big sad eyes and my heart breaks

[fictionstuff]

Guilty Crown ギルティクラウン

Plot: Japan, 2039. Ten years after the outbreak of the "Apocalypse Virus," an event solemnly regarded as "Lost Christmas," the once proud nation has fallen under the rule of the GHQ, an independent military force dedicated to restoring order. Funeral Parlor, a guerilla group led by the infamous Gai Tsutsugami, act as freedom fighters, offering the only resistance to GHQ's cruel despotism. Inori Yuzuriha, a key member of Funeral Parlor, runs into the weak and unsociable Shuu Ouma during a crucial operation, which results in him obtaining the "Power of Kings"—an ability which allows the wielder to draw out the manifestations of an individual's personality, or "voids." Now an unwilling participant in the struggle against GHQ, Shuu must learn to control his newfound power if he is to help take back Japan once and for all. Guilty Crown follows the action-packed story of a young high school student who is dragged into a war, possessing an ability that will help him uncover the secrets of the GHQ, Funeral Parlor, and Lost Christmas. However, he will soon learn that the truth comes at a far greater price than he could have ever imagined. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Episodes: 22

Main Characters:

Yuzuriha Inori

Ouma Shuu

Tsutsugami Gai

Points: 6.75/10

I actually tried watching Guilty Crown in the past 2 times, but always quite somewhere in the middle. In 2020 however I surely had the time to try again, since my friend once again did recommend it. In addition it was available on netflix and known my binge watch nature, I'd be through in a day or two and so I watched Guilty Crown once again with rather mixed feelings.

I indeed truly love Sawano Hiroyuki's music, so this part of the anime passed with flying colours. In hindsight however I wasn't truly sure what I just watched and what Guilty Crown wanted to achieve. I certainly wouldn't mind playing the prequel, the premise and story (as well as MC of the prequel) do seem exciting. The anime however is a different chapter. It did feel kind of bland since the characters barely develop much and seemingly go from one crisis to a bigger one which isn't necessarily bad, but this MC, Shu, is not someone I got used to. It was more of a bearing with him, although he did certainly undergo interesting developments as a character. He isn't even entirely bad as a character, but throughout the story he makes numerous questionable decisions which do make me question, if he learned anything in the previous events.

It is a rather confusing concept and story which revolve around an outbreak of an apocalypse virus which killed many many persons in Japan which has lost its independence and the government consists of an organisation named GHQ. Not much of that story is shown however, relatively quickly we're thrown into some sort of war between the resistance force and the new government. The narrative is quite often disjointed and hardly makes the character very sympathetic; the logic behind some events or happenings is lost in nirvana and the anime certainly doesn't explain much. A viewpoint of what led to this (even if the prequel is available as a visual novel) it would have helped Guilty Crown to make its plot understandable. A viewpoint of the rest of the world would have added quite a bit of good content as well.

Despite that Guilty Crown wasn't bad, don't get me wrong. It has many good points worth mentioning and if these seem appealing, then by any means, watch it.

It shows how a bunch of students get together and work together and develop a force that is to be reckoned with. They even create some sort of sub society with a school hierarchy which shows quite naturally how we humans are; greedy and egoistic and most the time much can be forecasted and yet it probably won't be stopped. Yet it's much of a hero story we all know with some sort of pseudo harem going on, which is mildly said rather distracting. However it can't be said, that the characters didn't develop throughout the events. They just may not have grown into the people you expected them to become when you started watching Guilty Crown. Now if that is good or bad, I can't say. There is a whole lot of hate going on, mentioning plot holes, unoriginal story lines , annoying characters or an unbearable love line, but it honestly didn't struck me as that bad. I've seen animes do much worse which didn't receive as much hate or baseless criticism. Romance certainly isn't the strong point of Guilty Crown, that much I can say and Shu overall appears to be overpowering any sense of logic, but his story in itself or his development from a weakling to a tragic hero wasn't bad to witness. As the anime focuses on him for 80% of the show I can understand people who dislike it or simply dislike Shu. Not everyone will like him, obviously.

Even Inori, the female lead, develops quite a bit although I never truly understood her. For Guilty Crown it's truly a matter of if you enjoy these characters or not and if you don't, then the anime certainly won't receive your positive points.

My favourite character is Gai and it's incredibly sad that he serves more of a plot device to spur Shu on instead of truly developing a young brave man as a villain/leader. Nonetheless I did like his character and enjoyed the short trip. The concept of pulling weapons aka voids out of humans is truly interesting and they could have expanded on this phenomenon but much was left to dust.

Now if you don't search for faults left and right within every anime frame, then you might even enjoy Guilty Crown. I certainly did even if it left me unsatisfied. I wouldn't mind picking up the prequel, but I am not much of a fan of visual novels. The animations however were truly great, the character design was interesting and there are many great background artworks! If you like something nice to look at, then Guilty Crown won't disappoint.