A Crown for the Guilty One. Literally.
Hi, people. It's me again. Nice to meet you. With me preparing for another round of special post for two other anime, it is time to finally talk about the anime that I have watched a long time ago. Time to talk about Guilty Crown!
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| This pic...nice, right? |
Well, Guilty Crown is quite well-known to many people or rather, it is infamous for a certain story twist involving the main character and his school mates. Anyway, I'm not gonna spoil it here but continue the talk in the next page (more like after the page break).
WARNING:-
SPOILER ALERT!!! If you haven't watched it and plan to watch it without anyone being the spoiler, please DON'T CONTINUE READING!!!
P.S. If you want to be spoiled, well, go ahead and read it. You HAD been warned. Don't blame me for being spoiled if you INSIST on continuing to read this post.
Introduction
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| The anime... |
The anime, Guilty Crown (in Japanese, ギルティクラウン) is an original animation that is quite controversial. Not everybody like this anime. For me, I quite like the anime although the plot twist is kinda odd and is the point of the controversy. Anyway, back to the introduction.
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| This is the light novel cover... |
It is produced by Production I.G and aired on Fuji TV back in 2011. There are two manga adaptations and a light novel adaptation. The two manga was published by ASCII Media Works and Square Enix ASCII Media Works respectively in 2011 and 2012. As for the light novel, it was published by Nitroplus in April 2012. The light novel is entitled Guilty Crown: Princess of Deadpool.
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| Game cover? I'm too sure because the OVA and game are bundled together. |
Oh, one more thing, there is also a spin-off visual novel named Guilty Crown: Lost Christmas, which was also developed by Nitroplus. This game came bundled with a 15-minute original video animation (OVA) named Guilty Crown: Lost Christmas. Yes, they are of the same name. Obviously! The OVA is actually not that significant, to be honest. I will talk about the OVA a little later in the post.
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| OVA cover? I'm not sure about this for the same reason. |
Plot
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| The Tokyo night lights... |
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| Shu 1st meeting Inori in person... |
The story starts with a lone high school student, Ouma Shu. Like everybody, Shu lives a normal and peaceful life, with his classmates. One day, he encountered a wounded girl named Yuzuriha Inori, the vocalist of a popular internet group Egoist in his film club's workshop. Not long after, the GHQ Anti Bodies storm the workshop and arrest her for involvement with Funeral Parlor, which they consider a terrorist group.
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| A coward... |
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| The map...that will change Shu's life |
After seeing her being caught, Shu became afraid and decide to return to his peaceful life. BUT, BUT, BUT...the robot that Inori brought (and is left there when she was caught) shows Shu a map. He somehow follows the coordinates of Inori's robot that is being shown. Why did he go there? Perhaps curious. Anyway, the coordinate that robot showed is the location of the leader of the Funeral Parlor, Tsutsugami Gai. He asks him to safeguard a vial that contains the Void Genome. What is it for? Wait, be patient.
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| Gai and Shu... |
The vial shatters as Shu go and rescue Inori from the attack of the GHQ's Endlave mechs. Well, I believe that he has a great interest or even had a crush on Inori from their first meeting. Anyway, just my thoughts there, back to the story. Anyway, as vial shatters, the content grants him superpower. The content is actually a powerful genetic weapon derived from the Apocalypse Virus that grants Shu the "Power of the King", which allows him to extract Voids. What is the Void? It is a weapon that is formed because of the people's psyche that is given a physical form.
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| Shu's new power. |
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| Shu...with the burning Endlaves. |
With that superpower, Shu extracts Inori's Void and destroys the attacking Endlaves. He then joined the Funeral Parlor very reluctantly. Anyway, he was convinced to join the group willingly after a series of incidents. Shu and the members of the Funeral Parlor had multiple successful operations until a certain operation, which became the turning point of the story where Gai dies and Shu's memories in the Lost Christmas came back to him.
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| That fight...that becomes the turning point of the story... |
After that incident, multiple things happened like GHQ decided to kill everybody in Roppongi to cleanse the place, Shu turned to the dark side and Shu's close friend, Menjou Hare died. The whole madness came to an end when all the schoolmate decided to revolt and Gai chops off the hand that bears the Genome superpower. Inori was then captured by the ancient organization, Da'ath and subsequently is used to revive Mana to fulfil their plan to evolve the human race and start the Lost Christmas incident all over the world. After a difficult fight, Shu stopped the incident and everything is back where it should be. Anyway, the story ends in a bittersweet note as Inori sacrifices herself to save him when Shu decided to eradicate the Apocalypse Virus by absorbing everybody's Void.
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| The death that changes everything... |
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| The Tyrant, Shu and Inori |
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| Now...trying to save the world... |
Oh, I've almost forgotten about the OVA altogether! Anyway, the OVA is about another guy named Scrooge who had escaped together with a girl named Carol. This OVA only shows part of the game's story. There is not much content to be discussed here as the full story is only in the game itself and this OVA serves as some sort of a promotion for the game itself.
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| It's from the OVA btw. |
I wanna write a brief story but this story's twist is so dramatic that I can't miss them out. Anyway, the story twist is in my opinion, necessary, just like Shakugan no Shana's plot twist. The story told the background story of the Apocalypse Virus, which I appreciate. It helps to understand the root of the whole incident with Da'ath. People may not like the story because of the odd plot twist. The plot of the story is described by Carl Kimlinger from Anime News Network as jumbled up and had the trend of weak characters and clichés. I'm not gonna use his words to do my judgement but only mine. Of course, no doubt that there is some influence on me. That's without a doubt. OK, after writing a post with a similar style to my old post (like the one about Trinity Seven), it is time to move on.
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| Normal student life...very hard to see in this anime. |
Anime Rating
Story (Rating: 8/10)
The story is basically the main character moving from normal student life into a life of resistance against GHQ (or tyrant or bad guy)...similar to what happen to Yuuji in Shakugan no Shana. Of course, similar to Shakugan no Shana, this story turns the story of Guilty Crown's plot upside down and also controversial. The flow and pacing of the story are quite messed up, to be honest. The story is not that easy to understand, similar to Shakugan no Shana season 3. Well, I'm not gonna rant about people dislike of Shakugan no Shana season 3's plot twist. No point. Anyway, moving on. Oh yeah, the OVA! There is not much content there as most of the story is in the game itself.
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| Ready for the test? |
Art and Animation (Rating: 8/10)
The arts and animation of the fights and weapon animations in the anime are well-portrayed. No bad or weird animation and art (Speaking of bad animation, it reminds me of...OK, I'm not gonna promote that lousy animation here). The look of character? I think that they are fine though although I dun have a favourite character. The animation and art of the OVA are good though.
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| The special moment...Shu and Jun |
Sound and Music (Rating: 8/10)
Good BGM. It helps the viewers to be immersed in the fights and scene in the anime. The two OP songs are REALLY GOOD. They are once my favourite jam (until another anisong comes along. LOL!). The ending songs? They are good songs but not my cup of tea, sadly. As for the insert songs, it's the same case as the ending songs.
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| From the OP... |
Characters (Rating: 8/10)
Character development? Well, the most prevalent and most obvious one is Shu's character. He had changed from a fearful, coward and indecisive boy into a man who decided to fight the new antagonist when the situation needs it. Although he failed to the very person he wants to save, he continues to remember in her singing and songs. Of course, the development of the anime's side characters is also quite prevalent like the character development of Inori, Gai and Ayase. As someone might say, the characters in this anime are quite a cliche but there is a reason why those characters are cliche, right? Not that I care too much about the fact that the characters in any anime are cliche, to be honest. Anyway, let's move on.
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| A rare lighthearted moment. |
Enjoyment (Rating: 9/10)
I did enjoy a lot when I first watched it. The fight is crisp and the development of character is quite good. The twist of the plot is quite mind-blowing but I think they are necessary to end the story. The bittersweet ending is really not something that I like a lot. Anyway, I might rewatch it again.
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| FIGHT!!!! |
Overall Rating: 8.2 (8)/10
Screenshots
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| The 'music'...Inori hates... |
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| This is the 'music' that I meant. |
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| Yuu comes to the stage... |
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| Shu's childhood memories... |
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| More of Shu's childhood memories... |
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| ...Sadly, it ends with a tragedy...the Lost Christmas. |
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| This time, Shu accepts it willingly... |
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| ...hero time? |
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| The diary that contains the truth...is here. |
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| A brief lighthearted reunion moment... |
PV/Trailer
Conclusion
Before I finish writing this post, you might have a question: "Why is the anime named Guilty Crown?" My explanation is that the word 'crown' is referring to the power that Shu obtained from the vial. Well, I'm only very sure of what the word 'Crown' is referring but not the word 'Guilty'. Most people (I found from
Quora) say that the word 'Guilty' refers to the taking out of people's Void. I agree with that. Well, for my own explanation, I think it also refers to using the Void to help the Funeral Parlor, his tyranny in his school during the 'lockdown' and many other things that happen around him. There are many people out there who talk about this so don't just my word for it. Anyway, it's time for me to go. Hope you enjoy this post. I like to see you browsing this blog once again. So...Goodbye and God bless you!
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| A nice view of Tokyo for you! |
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