Guilty Crown

By: Robert Murphy

In the not too distant year of 2039, Tokyo is under the control of the organization known as GHQ, which was the only company able to develop a cure for a disease that struck Japan known as the Apocalypse virus. Since then, GHQ has been much like a warden of the land; protecting its people from the possibility of future outbreak, but this is not as keen as it may seem. The story follows Shu Ouma, an average seventeen year old boy, who encounters a mysterious young girl, Inori Yuzuriha, which changes his life forever. Shu is bestowed with the King’s Power which allows him to pull “Voids” out of people in the form of various weapons or tools which he uses to aid the terrorist organization Funeral Parlor which he is now wrapped up in.

First off, I must say that from the animation stand point the show is extremely sleek and stellar, I haven’t enjoyed animation like it since I watched Sword Art Online. This is especially notable when you take a look at some of the action scenes that take place, mainly the battles Shu is apart off. When Shu pulls out a Void from someones body is quite a sight to see; especially once you see what he can do with it, and you truly understand why the power he’s obtained is called the King’s Power. The weapons he uses can range from a giant sword to a shield, and he can jump on spell like pedestals that form underneath him much like you’d see Dante do in a Devil May Cry game. Not only is the animation exceptional in the battles but its also impressive in regular shots, characters are well put together and just look great.

This, however, was the only main draw of the show, as I watched the story progress further and further I began to notice many similarities to one of my favorite animes, Code Geass. In fact, the only difference is that they take away Geass and replace it with the unique Void ability, oh, and how sub par it is in comparison to Code Geass, too. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, Japan is taken over by an outside power and their cruelty and oppression of the Japanese people inspires a young student to fight out against them with a power he’s gained from a mysterious girl. The similarities don’t stop there though; the ace pilot for the terrorists is a young girl, in a red jumpsuit that pilots a mech robot known as an Endlave. But the icing on the cake of similarties comes from a quote that the leader of Funeral Parlor receives from an elderly Japanese opposer to GHQ about the pure white snow of Japan being tarnished by the GHQ people, the concept of snow was a bit of controversy in Code Geass and the fact that it came up in Guilty Crown was a final red light to me.

But, you know this probably wouldn’t be such a big deal to me maybe if it weren’t for the fact the show is thoroughly awful. Guilty Crown’s story enters the world of ridiculous and over-dramatic for the sake of being over-dramatic and it just ruins any hope of it being saved. For starters, Shu is a hopeless Shonen character who constantly goes back and forth on his loyalties to Funeral Parlor where one minute he pledges allegiance, and the next he’s questioning every little thing they do. Then, there is our C.C. carbon copy Inori, who is a robot type character but one who doesn’t have the personality to pull it off and still be engaging like C.C. was. Moving on to the realm of ridiculous, at one point the horrible virus that ravage Tokyo not to long ago is reignited at one point and to stop it Inori literally sings and it stops the infection, really?!, singing to stop a virus plague killing everyone. Sure we’re in a world where someone can pull weapons out of people’s chest, but this was just ridiculous and I’m afraid it gets even worse from that episode on which is about half way through the show.

Guilty Crown did nothing but piggyback many of its ideas from Code Geass, and where this may have worked if it had an engaging cast or interesting new take, it just didn’t. Many of the new ideas the show tries to bring to the table are in the world of ridiculous and just down right dumb, especially when Ino sang to stop the outbreak of the Apocalypse virus. The show also tries its hand and fan service to make people watch a little more with characters like Tsugumi, a fourteen year old hacker in a skin tight suit who has her controls just out of reach so she jumps up and down or has buttons behind her she activates with her butt. So, in all honesty, Guilty Crown is just a mess, it’s like they copied one show and tried to throw ideas to replace things here and there, which I bet was disappointing for a lot of people who saw all the hype about this show.

Good:

- Animation is very sleek and solid

- Fights were entertaining in the midst of a bad show

Bad:

- Characters are all exceedingly poor

- The whole show reeks of copied ideas from Code Geass

- The show comes out with all the clichés and enters new ideas that were just ridiculous

Scully Rating: 3.0 out of 10