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Guilty Crown
Anime Review
Guilty Crown looks fabulous. There's a whole range of new animation, art, coloring techniques, and it's gorgeously designed with some exciting futuristic technology, there's simply no lack of production value, so you do need to wonder why oh why they didn't lavish this much *love* onto the script and characters.
Don't get me wrong; it's exciting to watch, there's a ton of action, and trust us, it's pretty to look at. But I keep thinking I've seen this anime before. There are some new twists, of course, but it does follow a familiar pattern.
The story starts off introducing us to Shu Ouma, a High School Student. While working to edit a film he's working on, he happens upon a wounded girl, Inori Yuzuriha (a pop idol singer he just happens to be infatuated with). It turns out she's been trying to deliver a vial to "Gai", who is the leader of a terrorist group working against the current government. However, this terrorist group is a resistance movement, because the government is oppressive. What we haven't been told yet is that the government (called GHQ), has been tasked with eradicating a terrible virus sweeping the country and they are willing to use any means necessary, including the cold-blooded execution of anyone they deem infected.
 So Shu attempts to deliver the vial to Gai, as Inori is arrested. No sooner do the two meet than they are attacked by GHQ, and Shu, attempting to rescue Inori is shot at — which shatters the vial. This releases something called the Void Genome, which then bonds with his DNA, giving him the "Power of the Kings", which is the ability to pull weapons from other people's "voids" which is that's person's psyche, brought into reality as a weapon. It reminds me of Fooley Cooley where the girl pulls a weapon from the boy's head — but this being somewhat "fan-servicey" Shu pulls a weapon from Inori's chest.
Now armed with supernatural sword, Shu is basically an unstoppable wave of destruction, and tears apart the GHQ mecha and troops, making him the most valuable person of the resistance movement (called Funeral Parlor). Yes, Gai was supposed to receive this weapon, but oops, now we're stuck with the reluctant hero who doesn't want to even be a part of the movement, he was only here because of the girl.
 Starting to sound familiar? But wait, the girl moves in with him by the next episode! Admittedly, they are keeping the fanservice to a minimum, but seriously, whenever Shu pulls anything from a "void" in a male, it's via the head, but the girls get a void pull from right between the breasts. Hey, you were warned.
Although the series starts off badly, it does get better, either that, or I just came to accept it. However, the overall series does suffer from a change in scriptwriters about midway through which lead us to some head-scratches as in "huh, how'd that happen?"
Still, it's an action series, and there's plenty of action and as we've said, it's really, really pretty, seriously good looking for a TV series. Certainly worth watching but I'm not predicting it will generate a large fan-base as there's already a lot of haters out there in blog-land. However, we give the series a thumbs-up because it is what it is — an action series, and it does that well.
Funimation's box set comes with a DVD/Blueray combo disk and two little Roman Album type artwork books, which are really cool extras.
Reviewed by Brian Cirulnick, October 2013
Below: Scenes from Guilty Crown.
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Below: Promotional illustrations for Guilty Crown.
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