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「祈り convergence」 (Inori)
“Prayer”
Sorry for the wait, everybody! Divine is not coming back for the finale, so I guess you get my coverage again!
Well, after 22 weeks, Guilty Crown finally ends. And in true GC fashion, the finale mixes stunning visuals and a great OST with some questionable plot.
Nothing much happens plot-wise in this episode – it’s just wrapping up loose ends and bringing about events that were predicted several episodes back. Shuu and Gai have their battle; and it is every bit the visual treat I thought it’d be. As it was confirmed last episode though, Gai was never a true antagonist – he wanted to save Mana, who would never be ‘free’ from Da’ath’s goals unless she fulfills her role as ‘Eve’ and brings about the Apocalypse. He was also counting on Shuu coming to stop them, and it’s touching he would go so far for her; not to mention his utter trust in Shuu was surprisingly bromantic. It seems Mana realized his efforts in the end, too, so for Gai it’s not a loss at all.
Shuu and Inori however, are a different story.
I thought Inori would be resurrected somehow, and she was… for about five minutes before the producers killed her off again, presumably saving Shuu. It’s somewhat of a confusing moment, and I wasn’t even sure it was Inori that stumbled out of the dark after the scene with Gai, Shuu and Mana. It seemed to be, although how she became blind is a mystery. It doesn’t detract from the moment though, as Shuu was fully prepared to die with her, having made the resolve to become the new ‘Savior’. It was probably one of the best moments in the episode, bolstered by the music in the background. The following scene with Shuu and Inori – where she hands him the cat’s cradle as goodbye – is also another touching moment.
The epilogue, while nice, doesn’t really reveal much. The important characters all get their necessary screen time, and I enjoyed how they were all meeting to celebrate Hare’s birthday. It might seem random, but I certainly appreciated the characters gathering in her memory. The scene certainly closes the chapter on these characters’ lives on a happier note and it’s probably my favorite moment of the episode.
However, like I said, the finale really brought forth GC‘s strengths and weaknesses: head-scratching developments, unanswered plot points, questionable scenes, what have you. Some of the ‘highlights’ of the episode would have to be Mana’s impromptu dance sequence as she brings hell upon the world. Lovely animation and great music. But… it was just so odd. Unless that was the joke? I suppose if the producers’ goal was to illustrate Mana as a sadistic psychopath – prancing around as everybody dies – then I suppose the scene was warranted. It’s just… you can never be too sure what the Guilty Crown producers were thinking; it’s just better to take these scenes as they come, wonder about it for a moment, and promptly move onto the next head-scratching development.
In this case, that development would be Keido.
He kills himself whilst declaring neither he nor Kurosu was the ‘victor’. Just like that, all the tension between a brother/sister conflict evaporated. It really makes one question his role in the show: what was it exactly? He was an ‘antagonist’, but was he really? Keido was certainly built up to be one in the first half of the show, and even a bit of the second half when he became ‘President of Japan’. During the second half of Guilty Crown though, the importance of his character just diminished; as Da’ath’s puppet, Keido is just around to be a convenient source of military forces for Gai and Yuu. And with such an anti-climactic death, what was the point? But again. I assume this was GC‘s way of tying up loose ends, and for the sake of clean endings, I’ll take what I can get.
Now, the last (but certainly not the least) baffling thing I want to address: why was Shuu blind? For that matter, why was Inori? I could get behind everything the show was doing until that point. The music, the visuals, the action, etc, etc. I loved it. I enjoyed it. To be honest, Inori’s blindness, as sudden and unexplained as it was, didn’t bother me as much as Shuu’s did in the epilogue. Not only did the producers fail to explain how he was alive, they gave him mysterious handicaps for no apparent reason. The missing arm makes sense because without his Void, Shuu wouldn’t have a right arm. But his sight? Why would he lose that?
Ultimately, I suppose Guilty Crown‘s finale achieved what it set out to do: tie up loose ends. People that needed to die, died; the necessary characters all appeared in the epilogue (although what happened to the rest of the cast is up for debate), and the show ended with the two people that began it all: Shuu and Inori. The road it took to get there was certainly rocky, but Guilty Crown did get there. It even had some nice moments, so all in all, I can’t complain too much.
- Full-length images: 00.5, 01, 03, 04, 04.5, 06, 06.5, 08, 08.5, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13.5, 14, 15.5, 17, 18, 19, 19.5, 20, 22, 23, 27, 28, 31, 31.5, 34, 35, 36, 37.5, 39, 40, 42, 42.5, 44, 46, 50
Epilogue:
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End Card
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Final Impressions:
Bashing Guilty Crown is like kicking an abandoned puppy; I’d feel bad doing it, so I’ll try not to. I’m not gonna lie – this is not a good show, to put it mildly. At the same time though, I have to admit that some of the disappointment I felt stems from the expectations I had of it even before it started airing. So the poor puppy probably never had a chance to start with.
Guilty Crown premiered to high expectations, and why not? With the staff of Death Note and Code Geass at work, along with character designs by redjuice and theme song performances by supercell, this show had the best of the best in terms of its pedigree; the Ferrari of the Fall 2011 season, if you’d like. Not only did the show dig its grave by setting the bar too high even before it started, I wonder if it didn’t shoot itself in the foot by bringing on such well-known figures from two very different (but nevertheless successful) shows onboard. Death Note had a tight, serious plot that relied on wits and twists. Code Geass was stylish, dramatic and well, fabulous. And watching the show, you can definitely see influences from both shows. Unfortunately, this is where most of the tonal chaos comes from. You can’t take the fast-paced life-or-death battle of wits from Death Note and try to mix it with the outrageous teenage fare that is Code Geass. It’s why those school-themed episodes seemed so out of place, why some of the scenes induced so much hair loss and why Guilty Crown just never seemed to find its groove. Separately, I’m sure the staff of Death Note and Code Geass are all very capable people that can produce hits. I’m just not sure they work together.
Character design is also something I wondered about. They’re pretty. But if you’ve ever looked at redjuice’s illustrations and compared to the official art of the anime, you’ll notice the discrepancy very quickly. It’s kind of like CLAMP, or even the shoujo manga artist Tanemura Arina: the art looks stunning… when it’s not animated. That’s probably a very poor way to phrase it, actually. It’s not that the animation art looks bad, per se, but just too different from the original designs. The three artists I mentioned have a very distinct style that’s pretty hard to carry over onto a fully animated project. Anyone who’s seen CLAMP’s art knows how annoyingly detailed it is – all that jewelry and flowing strands of hair. Redjuice, while not as complicated as CLAMP, still has a fairly detailed and the way they color their works just contrasts too much with the style Production I.G. had going for the animation. Even though for the most part, the animation was fluid, I’ve never been able to shake off the feeling Production I.G. was digging their grave even further by having redjuice as the character designer.
And let’s not forget the biggest wasted potential: supercell. I mentioned this before, and I will again, because that’s how much it bothers me. I’m well aware Guilty Crown is not Macross. But when you hire a famous band, and you market the main female character as a songstress, I expect you to do more than recycle two songs over and over again. Euterpe and Departures aren’t bad songs, but am I supposed to believe EGOIST only has two songs? How are they even famous? Are they one-hit wonders? Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by Macross, but what I got just wasn’t what I wanted. Chelly is an admirable vocalist, so I’ve no idea why the producers didn’t make more use of her; I can only assume the budget got allocated to other endeavors, whatever they might have been.
Eh, all in all though, Guilty Crown did entertain. Unintentionally and certainly not in the way the producers meant to probably, but I have to say that every episode provided some form of entertainment. While I certainly wasn’t happy with its run, I just can’t bring myself to completely hate on Guilty Crown. If I had started watching without any prior expectations, my opinion of the show might even have been different; I try not to raise expectations before a show starts, but with such pretty character designs and the promise of supercell, it was too tempting. So uh, sorry Guilty Crown, for crippling you even before the race started.
In conclusion: would I recommend Guilty Crown? It’s a difficult question. Unless someone had copious amounts of patience and just wanted to look at something pretty for ~20 minutes (oh hey, that’s me!), probably not. But really, Guilty Crown did have its moments, and from a show that probably dug its own grave, that’s much more than I could ever ask for.
And with that… BakaMochi, out!
Special thanks to Divine for letting me finish the coverage, to verdant for helping with this episode’s screencaps and to Moomba for the End Card. Thank you all! 😀
Well actually, Inori isn’t killed. Her soul “unites” with Shu’s after he comes back from the Utopia world. Remember when Inori was walking up to Shu while turning into crystals and she couldn’t see? Inori became (blind for some reason…) and while they were both turning into crystals, she gives Shu the red rubber band (which is her soul) and they “unite”. That explains why Shu is blind in the epilogue.
Pretty sure her being blind is no reason for him also being blind.
Also I’ve played Cat’s Cradle a lot in the past and there is no physical way for it to go from that position to that butterfly shape.
420 deus ex machina all day every day.
Yeah, I don’t get why Shu goes blind as well. It doesn’t really make much sense why Inori was even blind in the first place. But I just thought Shu becoming blind was because Inori was blind and the rubber band she gives Shu is the same as the red string that Shu cuts in Segai (which was his soul I’m pretty sure), and then her soul joined with Shu’s. It was partly also because of the song during the scene 😀
And yeah…. the rubber band changing into that weird position was pretty stupid… it just looked cool, that was it.
How do you people not know what Cat’s cradle is? it’s not a rubber band; it’s yarn.
I have to say though, the coolest thing about the whole show was those crystal retinas Mana had. Those where cool as phuck.
Oh a close second is loli psychotic Mana’s blood lip stick, that was also really hot.
Haha. Relax man. Sorry sorry. I’ll refer to it as yarn next time…. What I actually really liked how they animated Ayase’s boobs when there’s the explosion. Boobs > Flat chest. THAT, was amazing XD
And then there was what happened to Arisa. I laughed at how she was confused that her void disappeared and then got shot.
GC Logic.
You do not question GC Logic, you simply accept it as an infallible fact.
Anyway, see you all in Season 2, because you know it will happen. You can not question the GC Logic.
When ever I watch anything I always have rainy mood playing in the back ground.
http://www.rainymood.com/
Hey great theory there Rassennotomo.
Shu is blind because he took Inori soul and thus unite with her. That is sweet and would complete the meaning of the first line in the OP1 of GC.
So everythinjg that makes me whole, Ima kimi ni sasageyou.
Yeah… by that same theory He’d be a giant crystal.
Thanks man. I was just trying to think of a possible way for Inori to not be completely killed off 😀 And yeah, I guess the first line of OP1 was actually epic foreshadowing…. 0.o
Also Seven, I think my interpretation of Guilty Crown is better than your suggestion of Shu becoming autistic………
well see it’s like apples and retards, you can’t compare them.
while my interpretation is making fun of the show
your “interpretation” is hugs butterflies and kisses. See what I’m saying?
Naaaaah…… I just think you’re just a douche with nothing better to do…….
Well I’m sitting in my engineering ethics class listening to my teacher ramble on about peoples’ feelings, So yeah I have nothing better to do.
Does not mean I’m wrong though.
I have to disagree about the soul uniting Rassennotomo. Reason for this is because Inori was crystallizing and parts of her were falling on the ground. The reasons she could not see was because she was dying. Reasons why you see her and him hugging at the end was because he is reminiscing the past. He puts the earpiece to hear a song he heard during the early events of GC. So questions go back then why is Shu blind? in GC fashion they don’t explain much. He was deep inside that place before it was demolished an accident perhaps?
Okay, here’s my theory. Not so much theory, as romanticizing about it.
Obviously Inori was blind because she was dying… She was literally falling to peices. Shuu’s blindness even looking into his eyes doesn’t look damaged… I think (for lack of a better explaination) it’s kind of in his head. The last thing he saw was a blind Inori and that was his final connection to her.
That and it lets him imagine seeing her all the time without being too extra crazy… he’s blind after all.
Ok here is my theory on how Shu became blind.
Once upon a time Shu was fapping and he accidentally got some in his eye, now because Shu had two void genomes in his body his semen became a super awesome magic blinding liquid.
The end. This is obviously the only logical explanation.
According to the show´s onw logic it was a beautiful ending for both Shu and Inori, they together for all eternity as one. This was one of my favorite shows, yes I know is has lot of flaws, a roller coaster plot and some serious issues with character development, but still was a pure for a good six months ride. See you guys for season 2 or the movie, you all know is happening.
P.S.: The new Guilty Crown game will be bonded with a 17 minutes OVA which will tell an entirely parallel story, so there is still fun for a while with this series.
Yeah that’s all well and good, but my explanation is much more realistic and practical.
can someone explain why shu needed a cane and why a hearing aid to see hallucinations of Inori?
Cane thing: he’s blind. Though how he can feel stuff with that cane, I’ll just attribute to GC technology ~_~…for all we know, that’s a portable endlave (though this episode suggests a connection between endlaves and void genome/apocalypse virus, so with the virus totally gone, that shouldn’t be possible…)
Hearing aid: that’s a bluetooth earphone. Shu was listening to Inor’s music while reminiscing about his experiences with Inori, ending with him having a vision of seeing her smile.
Are we sure he just does not have brain damage? he did not really say anything and he looks pretty autistic here https://randomc.net/image/Guilty%20Crown/Guilty%20Crown%20-%2022%20-%20Large%2046.jpg
While I’d like to say all Shu’s experiences had culminated in him getting brain-damage (reminds me, I need to visit a GP/therapist~), no. That shot was just showing a blind Shu ‘looking’ at his friends.
Realistically (lol; applying to realism to anime, what more to GC?), autism doesn’t look like that, I’m afraid.
Sure it could look like that. Autism is a spectrum disorder and his could just be low end.
Autism is a spectrum disorder scored by a checklist written by psychologists that are possibly under the influence of big pharmaceutical companies that fund their research. My personal feelings against psychologists aside, by defining it as a ‘spectrum’, I could say everyone is autistic on some level ~_~;;
While I do believe there are ‘true’ cases of autism, I still have mixed feelings about classifying the ‘lower-end of the spectrum’.
…the hell am I defending this? o_0
Ok… Not only is what you said WAY opinionated it’s also wrong. I don’t think you know what spectrum means. But I’m not going to argue a real topic on an anime blog; kay thanks lol.
I’m not denying my statement is opinionated, but is it automatically wrong by being opinionated? Or could I actually be pointing out a fact? Ever wondered how amphetamine really came to be so popular? Medical texts are more accurate than wikipedia :/
And, a spectrum is a range, last time I checked, going everywhere between ‘no’ and ‘yes’~
But agreed, let’s drop this. We’ll probably end up agreeing to disagree, anyways.
IMO GC overall is a good anime, though i really cant say it that loud that it was one of the best, iI guess people just expected too much from this series, thats just how I think it goes..
GC is a good anime. It does have more often than wanted rage-worthy, head-desking, face-palming moments, but in the end it still is entertaining, and the few good moments it does have coupled with its OST and animation keeps it afloat.
And I’m not being sarcastic with that statement.
On a side-note, I didn’t realize its pedigree was that amazing o_0
Mochi, were the screenwriters the same? I was initially into this mostly because of the production quality and
friggin’Supercell, coupled with Divine’s recommendation. Is this why people kept comparing GC to CG?Yeah.. It was a good anime.. Its just that somehow, I think the writers could have make it even better..
They’re not technically the same, since Yoshino was the assistant writer during CG and Okouchi was the main one. In GC they each assumed the opposite role, so there was changeover in that respect.
I watched for similar reasons as you did, but I also knew going in that Death Note/Code Geass staff were involved. I think story composition was done by CG’s staff while the directing was done by DN’s staff?
Well, now this is quite an ironic twist…
Back when CGR2 started airing, a friend of mine who watches anime casually asked me for recommendations, and I told him to watch CG since I felt it was better than DN. Of course, him being the DN worshipper (and I do mean worshipper) said it wasn’t and he even dropped the first season of CG when he was half-way through it saying it sucked. Long-story short, we ended up arguing as we compared the two series before realizing that, bar the protagonist’s methods/personality, the themes were different so it wasn’t really fair to contest, and then we ended up speculating what would happen if the brains behind DN and CG collaborated….
…
…and now GC was born…
…
Whelp, guess I now know what to recommend him next time he asks~ Wonder how much he’ll rage if I describe this as “better than DN and CG combined!” XDDDDD
It’s not good if the only enjoyment you get out of it is the unintended hilarity.
Good anime are not all flash and no substance.
This is the farthest thing from good it could possibly be.
Lesson? Don’t listen to hype. If anything, always listen to that voice in your head instead.
Did your mom tell you that while giving you the “everybody is special” speech?
Nope. It’s a lesson learned after some years of being a fan.
Oh ok, Everything is fine then
OK BTW: The next incoming show with the biggest hype I’ve been hearing is from Eureka7:Astral Ocean. Please do your research to avoid another RC shootout like this one.
Huh? you think ES:AO has a lot of hype? Not really, everyone knows it’s written by some nobody. It’s not going to be even close to the original. Pretty sure the show with the most hype is the new Code Geass, even though I think that’s going to suck to. It also is not wrient by the original writers. They are both basically worthless fan fiction.
I have to say, hype had very little to do with the rage by the end of this show.
The writing just misused pretty much all of the characters. There’s simply no way to deny that almost all of them were violated and used to make the plot work instead of staying on a specific train of thought and consistent characterization.
Moondoggie, it’s like you’re saying people should go into this show expecting it to be bad and poorly written.
I mean, do HONESTLY HONESTLY think that if this show had no expectations whatsoever, people would have liked it or even loved it?
I really want to know if you actually think that, even though all of these characters were mistreated for pointless reasons, were given pointless subplots attached them, and thrown away and not given conclusions to the most simple of things introduced to their development.
@Da5id
I meant people should stop making stupidly high expectations and rage when they fail. Come on, really? I like GC and I see no problem in it, and I didn’t expect anything of it from the start. The only time I heard news about GC before it started was when Divine used it as a banner.
Everything else everyone is complaining is goddamn personal taste and expectations. It’s an original and they expected it to be god-like without prior encounter like animes adapted from manga or LN? That’s just screaming “idiocy”. You know nothing about the plot. Then when it airs they will scream when it isn’t what they think it is?
I LOL’Z at everyone who always expect high things over the unknown.
And don’t get me started at people who expected this to be good just because it’s from NoitaminA. Using a TV timeslot as basis for how good a show is? *Facepalm*
Unless you have prior encounter with the plot through another medium(like manga and LN), removing all your expectations right from the start is the best way to start an anime. It’ll blow you away more easily when you did, not to mention that you won’t get disappointed to the point of hating it if it isn’t t your liking. Try it.
And yes, Da5id. Yes is my answer to your second question. Your complain that this show has a pathetic plot is personal taste and there are people who don’t find it pathetic at all.
So again, research! If the anime has a manga or LN adaptation, mangaupdates.com(for manga) or Baka-Tsuki(for LN) is the place to go. Take time and absorb the material, make your expectation, then watch it. Otherwise, expecting something with no basis will usually end up as fail, not in part of the show, but on you.
You people chose to build dreams on it and then chose to be disappointed, that’s all.
You can’t choose to be disappointed. It’s a reactionary emotion.
Then what about shows that have no existing material, had high expectations and are actually met with a majority of praise? Samurai Champloo was hyped up simply for being directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, and it covered all of the bases in terms of pleasing fans. Code Geass (at least the first season) had Clamp’s characer designs and the mecha designs to get people riled up, and it turned out fine (even becoming a major influence for this show’s plot). More recently, Hanasaku Iroha was anticipated as P.A. Work’s 10th anniversary series and first two cour series. It ended as people expected and was enjoyed greatly by most. Was it wrong for viewers to expect great things out of these series, even though they got exactly what they asked for? Or was it simply the quality of the shows themselves that made them well liked?
If Guilty Crown didn’t want to be hyped, it shouldn’t have hyped itself up so much. I.G put out more advertising for the show to get more attention and expectations on it. They set all of this up to happen themselves. You simply can’t blame people for expecting gold when it’s been shoved in your face for months as “a cutting-edge TV show” or “a more widely-accepted title” or “wanting to create the next generation of anime with this show”. These are direct quotes from the producers Kōji Yamamoto and Ryo Ohyama and Production I.G’s George Wada.
If I watch Battlefield Earth (one of the worst Sci-Fi films of all time), and think about how super advanced space aliens that have taken over earth centuries ago are looking for gold, but didn’t find Fort Nox for hundreds of years and are taken down by a few fighter jets that somehow weren’t destroyed, I could call that a clue as to that the aliens weren’t very smart even though the story set them up that way, but it doesn’t make the overall quality of the film any better.
But you’re right about saying the story’s just crappy overall is personal opinion. So tell me, besides turning “plot holes” into “clues”, what did you like about this series as a whole? I won’t deconstruct what you say. I am simply curious as to what the appeal of this show is beyond the soundtrack and animation.
And that voice in my head told me that GC failed on so many levels. I barely had expectations for this show, but it’s just not right to say that it’s all the hype that’s at fault here. Because god forbid that it’s so wrong to ask for something to actually turn out good right?
I agree that people shouldn’t hype themselves and then suddenly rage about it when the show fails to meet their expectations. It’s just immature and juvenile. I get ya there.
But when the show itself has OBVIOUS problems where it becomes kinda hard to deny said problems, then saying that it did no wrong is just deceiving yourself.
@Da5id
I like the story. Wimpy kid gets caught in something bigger than himself. Although I expected him to turn into an anti-hero but didn’t go as it thought it would I still enjoyed it. The fight scenes, the fast flow. Not much of a ShuXInori fan though.
@ronri
But when the show itself has OBVIOUS problems where it becomes kinda hard to deny said problems, then saying that it did no wrong is just deceiving yourself.
Which problems are there? I still don’t see it? They didn’t explain why Inori’s void is a sword? The origins of Daath(even though it was explained…)? In Evangelion did they ever explain how the F.A.R. designed Adam in detail? Of course not. Some minor details that can really just be forgotten are blown up by you guys.
Pacing? What problems are there in the pace? Too fast? Too slow?
ShuXInori too unbelievable? The guy is a kid with a crush on his idol, provoked by Gai to take the genome and save her when she got caught by GHQ. It totally an immature kid’s first encounter.
How Yuu/Daath came into the scene isn’t a problem. In every show we get to see some bad guys popping in or out of it. So what’s the problem with this one?
Fair enough. The action was pretty good, I will admit.
So, what did you think of those examples I gave of shows that were hyped up and met expectations?
As for the problems…it’s like you haven’t read anything about what people are saying about what this show did.
Every person’s void in GC is meant to be a major part of their character. If they don’t explain why it is they way it is, it means they never elaborated on a major point of her personality or motives. It’s okay for some people like a character that never shows up again after a couple episodes, but Inori’s the main heroine. Literally over half the show revolves around her actions and choices. THEY DIDN’T EXPLORE THE CHARACTER, PERSONALITY OR MOTIVES OF THE MAIN HEROINE.
AND YES, IT WAS TOO FAST. As I’ve said numerous times, this plot is meant for a 50 Episode Series, not 22. Most of the episodes looked like they were meant to be two episodes that got squished together. The whole of Shu becoming a dictator was too fast (TWO EPISODES) because there was little to no time to understand his logic for doing it, let alone sympathize with it. He wants to come off as an ass to get people to follow him, but he somehow didn’t understand people would want to kill him because of it?
Immature kid’s first love is never believable. Especially when all of their bonding occurs off screen and is told to us instead of actually portrayed AND their whole relationship is what determines the fate of humanity. If the love of a couple of teenagers determined whether or not I became part of a giant alien collective, I better be damn sure they’re meant for each other. For ShuXInori, it’s got the realism of Edward and Bella.
They set Daath up as the ones ultimately behind everything in the show’s conflicts and then never explored it. They give some enigmatic details about what they represent but never as much as is warranted and then just let the only person related to them, Yuu, get away free with no consequences. The F.A.R. are never mentioned in Evangelion because exploring that would take too much focus off the main story, which was the conflict of humans with the Angel’s themselves. Yuu was literally controlling the events of GC from the very beginning to get to Fourth Apocalypse, so killing him and destroying Daath last would have been the proper way to resolve all of GC’s conflicts. There was no scene in NGE of, say, an agent of the F.A.R. saying that he is a rep from a shadow government that controls the world, or one of them in the lab with Gendo and Fuyustuki, telling them to make the EVAs to cause Third Impact because this wasn’t what they were meant for. They plant the seeds of life, that’s it. The rest is up to the populations themselves. Daath wanted specifically to control everything to go in a specific line, so they were the final antagonists. They ended the story of GC without explaining the final antagonists.
@Da5id
And that about sums up most of them.
@Moondoggie
As said before, many others (and when I mean “others”, I don’t mean the idiotic b!tchy ones) have already outlined the problems that this show had from the moment it started turning people’s heads (and I mean that in the jarringly-not-so-good kind of way). If there’s one glaring problem I can point out, it’s the inconsistent direction of the overall show. This includes pacing (the jumpy story-telling), setup and foreshadowing of so-called “twists” (erratic portrayal of events which tend lose their effect and impact due to lack of focus), character motives/development (everyone has already taken a stab at this) etc.
I don’t hate GC nor do I truly dislike it, but it’s not like I’d hold a grudge because it wronged me. Now I’m not sure if everything really just flew past your head or if you’re choosing to ignore them just to make your experience with it more bearable (fair enough), but if you REALLY can’t find anything remotely wrong with it, then there’s obviously nothing else for me to say to convince you otherwise now is there?
@ronri
I think that my main fear with this show is that aspiring producers and directors will see it and actually use that as a model for future projects that put all the effort into visuals and audio and none on the plot or characters. But I suppose only time will tell.
Until then, GC is actually pretty necessary tool; it’s a good example how NOT to write a story, which is why it falls into the “So Bad It’s Good” designation. And those are always a good time, as long as you know what you’re getting.
Agreed, not to mention the mindless masses that might start to think that this is what a good show SHOULD be like.
Nice final episode i hope there will be a new or a ova.
Hahahahahahahahaha
hahahAhAHaHaHAHAHAHA
One thing to keep in mind: GC’s series composition was done by two people that developed Seikon no Qwaser. While SnQ is not an awful show, it isn’t all that great either. And then you have SnQ II, which is indeed awful. But that franchise had something going for it that GC didn’t have. A thematic structure. A young man comes to realize he can rely on others, and in turn gains a new family. It’s not overarching, it’s simple. No theme needs be complex.
What was GC’s theme? There seemed to be several trying to compete with one another, and none of them have much development. That is why it failed. The rest is just symptoms.
Actually, only Yoshino developed SnQ.
This doesn’t damage my opinion in the slightest.
A poorly paced, written and unsatisfying ending to a poorly paced and written show? How shocking.
Its funny how I keep wishing Inori would die and when it happened I felt nothing. That in essence is what Inori is: a whole lot of nothing. She’s such a terrible void(pun intended) of a character that any attempt to emotionally invest to her leaves a complete blank. Even the sad music or Shu grieving adds absoultely nothing. And speaking of Shu I think its stupid to let him live. It would actually lead to a little bit of depth to his story if he died saving the world but we get some contrived way to keep him alive, crippled and longing for Inori. It find it to be a more cruel fate for him. It also really feels jarring when we have a scene of Ayase screaming Shu’s name and then cut to a timeskip where Shu is alive and celebrating with friends.
The antagonists were a waste. Mana just dances a bit then dies (again). Gai’s motivations were really stupid. Then he spent more time talking than actually fighting and then died with Mana(again). Keido just dies (again). Seriously, they just recycled episode 11. What was the point of doing this plot again? The only thing different was Daryl and only because they tried to cram a mecha battle in this cluster****.
And speaking of Daryl that random dude’s line is officaly the dumbest line I’ve ever heard: “Deep down you were a nice guy Daryl!”. NO HE WASN’T! He killed innocent people, murdered his own father and has shown no repentance or any redeeming qualities. What’s even worse is that all the awful moments with Tsugumi basically amount to nothing.
“What’s even worse is that all the awful moments with Tsugumi basically amount to nothing.”
This …..I’m like “……………” what the faq happen to those darly save tsugumi… and tsugumi was “that voice .>
Seriously with you on Daryl. When glasses guy whose name I don’t even know said he was a nice guy I literally yelled at the screen “No! No he wasn’t!” And then we never see Daryl again, so they can’t even back it up with an ending scene of him saving orphaned kittens from a fire or anything.
I should have dropped this like sack of potatoes but up to 13 episodes in I was hoping it would better and by that point. I just kept watching to see this through but really…. WOULD NOT RECOMMEND. Sure it’s s stunning piece of visual and soundtrack work but it’s so rotten on the inside.
I was hopping to maybe see it end on a high note at least but the still pull the stupid elements in. Daryl go all crazy again and getting his ass saved by someone that think he’s human down inside… really even Daryl would disagree with you there.
I’m glad it’s over because it was a frustration series to watch…. you wasted the production teams talent as well Production I.G. SHAME ON YOU.
Goodbye GC. It was fun while it lasted.
Looking forward to the game and LN, I hope they’re translated…
what the? did I say something bad?
No mention about ‘Daryl the Butcher’ actually being a ‘nice guy’? XD And, I agree with your statement about the anti-climactic brother/sister standoff. Couldn’t Haruka just pull the trigger and end him on the spot? She sat by as she allowed Gai to lop Shu’s arm off ‘for the greater good’; why couldn’t she shoot her ‘evil’ brother?
The blindness thing also came out of the left field, and I laughed at Gai’s attempt at martyrdom as well as his words when their battle started- “You will never understand!”. Lelouch, he is not, and in the end, Shu actually did understand Gai’s wangst when he decided to speak ~_~a
As far Da’ath not ‘letting go of Mana until she fulfilled her role’, wasn’t Yuu Da’ath? ~_~… and if not, just kill all the Da’ath supporters. They love natural selection, right? They’re fanatical about the concept, right?
Kudos to those that predicted Mana would start dancing a ballet to the symphony of the apocalypse. I now feel foolish for convincing myself that ‘no, GC’s writers won’t go down that route, right? Those clothes are just for show…right?’.
Though despite everything, I feel that final scene did make up for all the facepalming moments.
Your statement summed my thoughts up nicely 🙂
Reading your post though reminded me of the manga ending of Code Geass. While I haven’t read the manga, Show Spoiler ▼
Inori’s actions just reminded me of it.
Continuing from a conversation here, I finally identified the song playing when Shu was about to sacrifice himself while cycling through my playlist. For anyone interested, it’s “Release My Soul feat. Aimee Blackschleger”. Euterpe has nothing on this!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t regret watching this show because of Sawano Hiroyuki’s amazing soundtrack.
Though not exactly Sawano Hiroyuki’s work, after listening to the Tsumibito track from Supercell’s ‘My Dearest’ Single, I just realized the song could actually be interpreted as what Shu was feeling when Inori died.
Kinda happy they went with Departures instead for the epilogue; Tsumibito’s just too depressing…
Mana dancing as the world all goes to hell I took as more of “Soundtrack Dissonance” kind of moment (check it out on TVTropes.org).
This final episode was decent (used very loosely here) for what it is, but it still puzzles me. I won’t lie in saying that I felt like it was Mana’s moments that saved a lot of it for me. Not bad, not great, I guess the best we get out it is that at least the ending didn’t bomb the show.
I guess that’s it for GC. I shall miss it for love/hate relationship it brought to its viewers.
It end like a boss big tragic change this time Inori die Shuu is blind like Inori before she die. Nice end with song and how they hug each other Mana X Gai and Shuu X Inori I would rather want Shuu to join her not left alone like that. Caracther design is good I somehow manage to like this show in the End . Probably too Short 26 ep is fine too. But scenario cut it all. Still wait for OVA like a boss. And I’m not gonna lie I love Clamp charmed characters more. Bakemonogatari is the Winner this season with Mirai nikki . I haven’t see senhime and pirate yet.
Bakemonogatari, eh?
Really. The handicaps. What. The. Heck
If the technology’s so advanced that such a good artificial arm can be made, why didn’t Ayase have legs, and they could have thrown in artificial eyes as well.
Also, the little details like Shu absorbing everyone’s cancer as well as their voids and survived – so, assuming that Shu couldn’t have returned the voids to every single person on the planet (erm, he had to be close to return the voids right? or else he could have just returned the voids right before he thought he was gonna die, and not having to worry about himself dying). And, the king’s mark returning to his void arm. Heh, Shu sounds really overpowered with those. Not to mention Shu becoming blind for nothing? That really sounds like 2nd season material for me, and as much as I’d hate such a wrecked series to go on, it’d be pretty stupid if there’s not gonna be one. I mean, again, so…much…potential…(with Shu’s recent developments, and Production I.G’s budgets)
Anyway, that was just my trying to make sense of a series that’s notorious for making no sense whatsoever. Well, at least the eye candy was good, and Inori made some nice wallpapers.
I’d imagine Ayase wouldn’t be able to use the artificial legs because her nerves didn’t work or something. Assuming she could just use some technology to get the nerve signals to artificial legs, would you be happy just cutting off your legs because they are useless?
Endlave technology…
Anyone else found it funny when Mana woke up she only greeted “Triton”, but immediately jumped at Shu. Anyway I feel Shu would’ve been better off choosing Mana over Inori.
And why the hell is he blind?! Seriously GC, you kept disappointing me until the end.
At least Shibungi killing Kenji made me laugh and are Ayase and Tsugumi alive and well.
Oh, and not forget. Seriously? Funnels?!
First calling that thing “Gespenst” and then Funnels?
Mana could have been better than even Yuno, with more screen time imo.
And yea, with that advanced technology, having a blind person holding the oh-so-antique cane is a put-off. Shu was holding his cane with his artificial arm, which means the arm’s touch-sensitive and felt natural enough to at least rivaling real arms. Also, were those baby robots, or do they just come in different sizes so that people can watch cute-looking robots playing family?
I doubt anyone can be better than or equal to Yuno. But Mana could have been the next best thing.
I don’t know Kaede is up there to.
But there is no question that Mana has the coolest eyes in anime to date, Like really.
Crystal retinas, Just can’t beat that.
Dun really like the ending.. it’s not bad
But I guess they really doesn’t give their all(staff) on making the ending a *big bang*
A very nice ending, Production I.G. Thanks for making Guilty Crown a wonderful series, although it kept me and everyone else trolled for weeks. XD
Lost Christmas will be having an OVA soon. Can’t wait for that.
Oh! It will be having an OVA?
Sweet!
This Episode was the best every it left me in *Tears* I loved how it worked out and how Shu never forgot Inori.
And I loved how Gai ended up saving Mana in the end.
And I loved it~!
I hope it has a next SC or movie even OVA.
I think Inori was blind due to the apocalypse cancer(side effect?). Then when inori passed the cat’s cradle to Shuu, i think shuu ’embodies’ inori – the red thread is like the threads they use as a person’s life/soul so i supposed the cat’s cradle is her soul? So shuu would be with her always as now they are sort of together?
A thought struck me; I guess P.I.G. needed to end the series this way because everyone- well, most everyone- wants Shu to end up with Inori, and with the revelation that Inori is Mana’s clone, that would be technically incest, which is a bullet fans would use to further break the rage meter of this show!
I said that like four episodes ago. Shu is doing his sister, Not really that big of a deal. It’s been done countless times before in japan media.
Yeah, but with all the backlash GC’s garnered during its run, the staff probably decided they couldn’t afford another one XD
I personally wanted him to end up with Mana, but I knew it was never going to happen. I guess Inori; her clone is second best because she is still technically his sister.
This episode was…a decent way to wrap it up.
Hope there’s no season two.
On another note, Mana’s dance scene was gorgeous.
As the biggest Inori fan, all I can say is that this episode made me sad.
GC couples list
Shu x Inori
Gui x Mana
Tsugumi x Ayase
Tsukishima x Oogumo
Daryl x Guy that pushed him in the elevator
Souta x Shu
Shuichiro x Haruka
Hare x Helicopter
Kusama x Fodder character ‘H’
Did I miss anyone important?
The main couple; Gai x Shu/Shu x Gai
No way, Shu only had bro hard-on for Souta. Did you miss episode 20?
Your “Final Impressions” section was very well written and I think you did a good job of identifying and analyzing the flaws of the show while throwing it a bone(see what I did there?) by saying its “pretty”. Your transitions, analogies, and organization were also good and I think you made a very good point with your songstress argument, don’t worry, you aren’t being spoiled.
As for my opinion of the show, I thought it was pretty obvious that it was going to end up like this after the first two episodes, all the signs were there.
GC Staff: SIIIIR! EP 21 Writer is out cold from the after party!
GC Producer: WHAAAT?!!! we have 4 hours to submit the last script for the last episode! You call the writer from FMA and tell him to write the final episode for us!
GC Staff: Got it sir, FMA writer it is.
GC Producer: *Yes, yeeees, this will work, FMA Brotherhood was a hit and it was great, this will be its salvation!!* BANZAI!!!
*EP 22 airs, GC Producer watches it*
GC Producer: (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
GC Producer: What is this!?!? Auto-mail on Shuu? Jiggle here and jiggle there? FMA Brotherhood writer could do better than this!!!
GC Staff: Oh sir I thought you said ‘FMA’ writer not FMA Brotherhood writer. And I suggested the fanservice to increase our merchandise sales! Great idea! right sir?
GC Producer: (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Anyways this comic aside, it has been a really good ride with you all. Definitely more downs rather than ups but still we persevered. I’ll see you all on the next attraction!
Someone…please…meme/comic this!
-dies laughing-
Hey, I tried.
You are a legend XD Awesome!
One thing I’ll miss about GC are your skits XDDDDDD
Appreciate that thought! Thank you!
On a random note, I completely don’t know who the producer is until I’ve looked it up today. Ends up being Fukunaga, Gen producing both Guilty Crown and the FMA franchise. Mind blown!!
The most epic thing every time I make a comment in every Guilty Crown episode are your skits XD It makes me laugh despite the episode being serious/sad/whatever =))
I’ll definitely miss that. I suggest you should make skits for the upcoming Accel World. XD
Dude, I have a friend who can do small sketch comments and hates this show and I am pleading with her to make comics out of the ones you made. Maybe you could do ones for the Episodes you didn’t do ones for!
Oh man that’s gonna be a lot, I think I started at EP 16. Currently I’m overwhelmed by my projects so we’ll see. But maybe you could make use of what’s there! :O and thanks!
The last two episodes were actually quite good considering the filler before. This ending just throws that setup away…
-Inori and Mana have the exact same Void, doesn’t that kind of defeat the notion of Inori being her own person?
-After praising their soundtrack last episode because of Inori’s singing, they freaking pull out some male opera for Mana’s great apocalypse scene!? WTF!
-Ayase…’s boobs jiggle. giggity…
-Haruka shoots Shuuichirou off screen.
-Kenji turns rabid and gets shot too.
-Gai gets cut with a flesh wound at a non-fatal area, but Mana automatically dies. I assume her Void was broken, but they didn’t really show that too well. And of course Gai gets his ‘just as planned’ moment.
-Arisa’s Void gets collected. Shot for lulz (I lol’ed). Survives.
-Daryl is defeated off screen after we see some funnels/fangs/dragoons fly out of the Gundam machine. He also gets a little Shinji Hikari/Misato elevator moment from that random moral grunt. Never see him again.
-All the cancer is absorbed and miraculously disappears through some violation of the law of conservation of mass. Then again, Voids are physics breaking concepts. Could have at least shot into space or something.
-Funnel, the robot rice cooker part-time segway, is the only one that gets the Happy End.
-Shu…I actually don’t have anything to complain about for Shu.
It just feels like production was cut short. Some scenes cut away too fast. Some developments happened too fast. Seemed like a rushed tie together ending. They even had time for the OP.
Oh i loved that image from 4chan saying “Final verdict on GC – Mass Effect 3 of anime”
I didn’t expected this but I guess thats that.
Thx Bakamochi for finishing this for us.
P.S. – I see duplicate image in the intro . see here
^ ditto. I was going to tell you in IRC but you’re probably sleeping =(
Yup. Sleeping XD Not a good idea to post stuff when your brain is half-dead, I guess, haha. Sorry about that guys!
But uh, it looks like it’s fixed, so I’ll have to go thank the person who did that later XP
I never catch you online! Maybe later… =)
Anyone else waiting for an GC ova where Shuu claps his hands and brings forth a mighty sword arm?
lol id want to see that
Fucking Awesome End.
But I’ll stick with it’s 7/10 score. If anything at least Shu gets the peace he deserves in the end. It doesn’t deserve the hype it had at the start, but it isn’t as bad as people claimed it to be. If anything, if you can figure “plot holes” by yourself using clues dropped by the story, then it’s a very good anime.
But if you’re the type who thinks that anime must explain you everything and have to spoon-feed you every episode, this really ain’t for you.
Mawaru-Penguindrum is my favorite anime to date, So I’m all for the “don’t spoon feed retards story” approach, But in this case there is nothing to spoon. It’s just not there. Past the very simple symbolism and pretty colors there is just a bland plot.
Now, now Seven. We don’t call people who like to be spoon-fed “retards”, we call them “lazy”.
And anyway, some of the clues are everywhere…
I think not.There’s a difference from subtlety and totally not being there.
You could most says most shows spoonfed us abit too much sometimes.
But again,you then realise this is a show,a visual and audio media.
If your audience did not understand the story, they did not understand it.If they dont like it, they did’nt.Simple.
And to be honest,does it really matter that people dont pick up hidden meanings or symbolisms ,concpracy guessing,etc?
I feel this strict “requirement” to enjoy such kinds of shows is just far too much sometimes.
What’s the point of making something so obscure,people cant understand you? I say that’s just half assing the entire thing.
It’s just this simple.Ether you showed it or you did’nt.
(And that’s why we object to this show’s style.)
But again, i admit you guys gotta be right,but……..(continued)
As previously discussed long ago here,the show was’nt for us.
So why are “fake fans” even here? There lies the problem.Or rather,the problem is somewhat executive sided.(As always with such stories).
1.Hype.
Isn’t it just funny how always these kinds of stories try to attract audiences beyond what it is catering for?
“We are stressing action and plot here.”
That’s a big lie.They were trying to do some great philsophical symbolic moral instead of telling an actual STORY to entertain the audience.
(I ve seen a self help book tell a better actual story that could standalone entertain,but yet still teach a moral.Or rather,just go to any of Aesop’s Fables kind of stories for children.)
Such a story overfocused so much on trying to depict it’s morals/ideals,and FAILED.It just does not mesh together well.
A story should mesh well enough with it’s moral intended to teach, and yet still standalone be entertaining.
2. Some of us just want to enjoy the ride and tag along.
This being a case of the wrong guys in the wrong place,but when you come down to it,it’s just………”Hey this look like a cool show to watch,lets watch it.”
Sure,we might find it repulsive later on,but like Da5id said, not everything is so bad that it is nigh unwatchable.
Relating back to the point in my earlier post,lets just put it like this.
We are watching the same show,but not for the same reasons with the same idealogy.
Take me for example.
Having seen this form of storytelling so many times,which i cant,(and now won’t,because ive tried)
ever understand nor ever seen what ideals/morals in subtlety the story is trying to put forth.
Ive tried,but i can’t do what i can’t do.(Or rather, what i won’t naturally do.)My ideals simply dictate that i should be relaxed with entertainment,not stressing out looking for nitpick details.
The thought just never even came to my mind.After all,why bother?
It’s ether they explain it later or they don’t.
Also,more than half the time, the so called “mystery/plot hole” isnt actually worth sorting out.
(Because that’s not important to my impressions of the story overall.I’m more interested in how things develop later on in future installments.)
Besides, remember we are enjoying a visual and audio media here.
I’m supposed to be getting impressed with the actual PRESENTATION itself.
Not,some sublimal hidden moral.I did not come here for a lecture.
make it 8/10 for the “Funel Family” happy end.
Can we agree on 7.5/10 instead? I’d give it an 8 if Shu had killed most of the traitors. But Shu remained Mr. Goody Two-Shoes and that was a bit sad.
*goody two Shu’s*
I didn’t expect that… >.>
No, these were actual plot holes. Why is Inori’s Void a sword? What is Daath and why does it want the world to end? What happened to all of the characters from the finale that they didn’t show?
This isn’t about being spoon fed. This is about answering questions they were supposed to answer.
1) Inori’s Void is a sword because Inori is actually possessed by Mana the psychotic yandere. Sort of like why Yahiro’s Void are a pair of shears because he was willing to cut ties with everyone if it meant achieving his objective, Mana was willing to kill everyone- and I do mean everyone- for the sake of her love. A running subplot throughout the series is if ‘Inori’ is really Inori and not Mana, ending with Shu being the only one that believes Inori is her own self.
Why the Voids remained the same as the owners changed is the more glaring plot hole but was ignored for the sake of the progression, since then this series would probably stretch to about 50ish episodes just so they can properly develop a side-character to betray Shu.
2) Da’ath is a fanatical ‘super secret’ organization hellbent on pushing the human species to the ‘next step’ of evolution by forcing a sudden and violent natural selection. They weren’t trying to kill the entire world; just most of it. Think 90’s Magneto with a dash of Nazi. While their motives sound cliche and stupid, fact is evolution happens because a select number of a species makes that ‘jump’ in order to survive a life-threatening stimulus, and then procreate within themselves.
That Da’ath suddenly appeared out of nowhere- as if just to fill the obligatory ‘evil organization’ role- without prior foreshadowing- is jarring, but the fact that Yuu was present during Kurosu/Haruka/Shuichiro’s time and manipulated events from there shows how sneaky they really are. Was it a good idea to reveal that so late in the series without any prior warning? Nope; that’s awful storytelling. Is it a plot hole? Nope.
The true plot hole is how Yuu didn’t seem to age beyond his what, teenager/pre-pubescent appearance? Because if you argue that it’s because of the ‘Void Genome’, Kurosu didn’t unlock the secrets of the Virus until Lost Christmas happened, and Yuu made contact with Mana when Shu was still in gestation. Time lag anyone? What I’m getting at with this point is if Yuu got the Void Genome when the meteor first struck, then he could’ve just forced himself on Mana as Adam.
3) Do those characters even matter at this point? Let’s compare this question with Code Geass’s epilogue. What happened to Gino? Rakshata? Lloyd? Cecile? Nina? We see them happy in pictures, sure, but what are they doing now? Instead, CG’s epilogue focused more on the cast that actually mattered in the series; Kallen, Ougi, Suzaku, Nunally, Jeremiah, CC, and to an annoying extent because they didn’t give a definitive answer, Lelouch.
The rest of the GC cast could be killed off for all I care; this show was really about Shu, Inori, and Gai anyways since unlike CG, they didn’t bother developing the side-characters, though you can argue that Yahiro, Ayase, and Tsugumi do have their important roles to play in the plot. Most of them were there just for the sake of having someone to push the plot along (ie, Arisa’s sudden betrayal and Daryl’s obligatory psycho-general role).
What GC suffered was horrible storytelling starting with a character whose personality is generally disliked. Let’s face it; nobody likes a whiny character, even if his heart is in the right place. Heck, I hated Shin Asuka because he kept whining and bitching about how hard his life was when in reality he had friends that looked out for him and he wasn’t the only one to lose his family during the war. If anything, Shu has more right to whine, but because he’s such a goody two-shoes instead of being outright badass makes him unlikeable.
What GC did have is an amazing production quality that manages to tip the show into a bearable/good light. Could it have been better? Most definitely.
“Inori’s Void is a sword because Inori is actually possessed by Mana the psychotic yandere.”
I think I’m missing something, because that make absolutely no sense at all, Lol does ” psychotic yandere” = sword in your mind? her being possessed is not a reason for her void being a sword. Your Yahiro explanation actually gave a reason. You pretty much just said
“Inori has a banana because seven times eleven is seventy seven.” one has no relevance over the other.
But Inori’s personality is vastly different than Mana’s. Voids are based on personalities, aren’t they? So her’s should have been different to fit her personality that WASN’T destructive. Though that’s implying that she HAD a personality in the first place…
As for the rest of that, yeah you’re probably right. Here’s hoping the VN turns out better.
^That comment was directed at Beedle, btw.
@Seven: let’s look at some of the more popular yanderes…
Gasai Yuno is willing to kill everyone and herself if it means her honey is happy
Fuyou Kaede as a mild case, since all she really did was push down Asa-sempai(<3)
School Days….
Nina Einstein and her nukes
Ouma Mana, as of now…
…Which one of these psychos didn't try to hurt people for the sake of their love?
@David: That's the thing and an ongoing question Inori keeps asking herself; is there really an 'Inori', since she's technically Mana reincarnated? Shu certainly believes Inori's her own person (and convinces her so). Everyone else in the know sees Cocytus, the sleeping Mana, proven even further because her Void is a sword.
BUT THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SWORDS. Lol what connection are you trying to make, you just keep spouting random information out that has nothing to do with anything. Like I don’t even think you rad what I said, if you did you would not have said something like that, or you have absolutely zero reading comprehension
So…Inori’s void was the same as Mana’s because she WASN’T her own person?
@Seven: Why were swords made in the first place? To kill people (I can romanticize it as ‘killing for beliefs’ a la crusade/other medieval wars, but that still doesn’t detract from the ‘killing’ bit). What do these yanderes do? They kill people in the extreme case and leave bruises in the mildest. Where is Ouma Mana in this spectrum?
@David: Yup. All evidence points to Inori not being her own person (and it’s part of her character’s turmoil). Shu doesn’t believe so, though. In a more realistic setting, it’s the ‘do clones have a soul?’ argument all over again.
wow….. just wow, I find it harder and harder to try and be civil with you. By that logic her void could have been any medieval weapon, or almost any weapon at all for that matter.
Before we were talking about spectrum DISORDERS, not what a spectrum is. You just made yourself look so dumb, what’s the point of posting on the internet if you don’t take the time to make sure you are right before you talk?
@seven: You think you’re struggling to remain civil…? Ah screw it, it’s too late at night to stay patient so let’s stoop down to your level for the lulz.
seven, dear seven, I shall finally break objectivity with you 🙂
If you re-read your posts, undergo a cranial-rectal extraction, and finally stop hanging off arguments which have as much integrity as a twig like a retarded monkey (scratch that, the monkeys in my lab are actually smarter ~_~), you’d realize one glaring thing: you were never civil in the first place. All your posts have thinly veiled insults with nothing to support your arguments.
Yes, Inori’s Void could be any weapon much like how Yahiro’s Void doesn’t have to be a pair of shears but can be a knife/cutter, Gai’s Void doesn’t have to be a gun but could be boxing gloves, etc. Going down this argument goes absolutely nowhere since it devolves into pointless semantics. It’s more of the symbolism of the weapon than the actual appearance. Yahiro’s shears represented his willingness to cut ties, Inori’s sword was actually Mana’s and her willingness to kill everyone out of spite. If Inori really was her own person, then her Void would probably be a microphone or tape recorder or whatever to compliment her singing, or a friggin’ glue stick because of how she stuck around Shu.
Seven, do you know what a spectrum is? Obviously, I wasn’t talking about spectrum disorders now. In case your clearly brilliant reading comprehension and critical thinking skills missed it, I was talking about the yandere spectrum I just laid out. In other words, using the term ‘spectrum’ in another sentence while still retaining its meaning.
…What are you, seven? Oh wait, you are. I remember making that same argument as a child ~_~a
Alright, since you’re obviously the smarter one between us two, enlighten me, based on the established facts of GC, why you think Inori’s Void shouldn’t be a sword, and what her Void should really be and why. I’ve already laid out my interpretation why it’s a sword based on the series so let’s hear your side of the argument.
I do hope all other engineers aren’t as retarded as you :/
Man… even trying to act smart you sound like an idiot. I was plenty civil I could have been a lot meaner. I know your despite for pretty much anything to insult me with other than “you’re mean” but every point I make has facts to back it. I don’t have to prove it, it proves it self; lol.
I have to say, your whole argument cracks me up. It’s really funny. You are arguing that symbolism is not based on a symbol, I bet you don’t even realize you are doing it. That’s all I’m going to say about that thought because it’s to stupid to dignify with a real response.
And never anywhere did I say I think her void should be anything other than a sword, there is no real reason for what it is. You just needed something more to say to try and look smart, good effort, people always try to talk more to make them selves look intelligent. It’s pretty easy to spot when you keep no consistent points and you scatter shot topics to try and cover a lot.
What clues did it drop? What was answered? Please tell me that, because I got none of that from this episode. I really want to know what you think was answered or resolved here?
The conflict of the show sure isn’t resolved because Daath is still around. Yuu didn’t die, so the organization is still together and will probably plan this again. So really, none of this changed anything. It all amounted to Shu going to blind and Keido killing himself (FOR NO REASON AT ALL).
But if you’re seeing something I’m not, I would love to hear it.
If you are looking for good answers there aren’t any. The simple ones are Keido killed himself out of regret, Yuu may not have died but there are no longer any voids, same deal with Daath, With no voids they can’t do anything.
They flat out said why they wanted to end the world, think NGE/Code Gayass. They wanted to make everyone ‘evolve’ to one big collective conscious.
As for Inori’s void…. I guess you could brake it down to the very bare basics, swords are the most basic symbol for conquest/destruction, So because Mana/Inori are the ‘hosts’ oh the original virus they are the ones doing the conquering/destruction.
Like I said, they are not good reasons, but can you expect good reasons from a bad show?
There’s bound to be more of the virus out there somewhere, and it’s never stated Daath needed that specifically for their “evolution” plan. Besides, evolution differs from Sci-Fi, and they never pinned down what they meant by that here. Amongst other things…
Why didn’t the writers try harder for this to make sense? Or why didn’t they try at all? They had the visual and audio edge of the show down to a T. I mean I LOVED the visuals to death. I left the OST on replay for WEEKS.
But how can they put so much effort into those two components and completely throw out all conventional forms of storytelling? This show’s development is the greater tragedy of the whole thing.
Are you serious bro? What do you think the point of the montage was that showed shots from all over the world? There is no more void left in the ‘real’ world. It’s also pretty obvious that they NEED the virus to make the ‘evolution’ happen. how else would they turn everyone into crystals.
I’m not exactly sure what you’re looking for, you know the show was never very good. I can’t imagine you expected to get clear answers after everything this show has tried to pull off.
Mass Effect 3 ending and a couple of shots of vodka, makes this ending bearable for me. Guess I’ll just wait for some proper answers into my huge list of questions, maybe they should release a DLC.. Err I mean OVA.
Trolling aside Guilty Crown is a wasted potential, it’s just so sad that huge amount of time and resources is wasted creating this show. This show will just go straight to my recycle bin, never rewatch, never recommend, and forever will be forgotten.
i feel ya bro. ME3 ending>>GC ending>>BRS ending
Well at least Shu is alive not like Shep…….. oh wait I want him DEAD!!
Guilty Crown list of endings:
Ending 1 (ep 12): Gai’s dying.
Ending 2 (ballet ending) (ep 22): Gai’s dying… again, “together” with our main heroine.
The heck with these endings? BRS ending is much more satisfying despite only have 8 episodes.
Overall score for Guilty Crown: 7/10 for great animation, soundtrack, character design, Ayase cute moments, Inori’s outfit, Inori’s outfit, and Inori’s outfit.
Oh, one more thing, no sequel please. The rumor alone makes me shivering.
Nope, no sequels.
Game? Yes, a VN is coming out soon.
Why did Daryl got the second chance and Inori doesn’t? T_T
~wrong thread~
i dont get it you all just complain it realy pisses me off if you dont like dont watch it and dont leave bad coments behind. believe it or not there are people who liked the series and i am one of those and this aplies to most people here(about complaining) if you dislike it dont watch it for the sake of completing it its just stupid!!!!!
I hear commas are cool.
@Bakemono: Before you post that comment, read other comments in this post. There are many comments that badmouthing this show with more crude and clever than me. At least I stated some of Guilty Crown good points. You said that you like GC, then why don’t you post comment that gives us a new light about this show, instead of replying to my post?
There are two ideas on the blindness. The cradle inori passed to shu was her remaining life force. To bring him back she gave hers and since she was blind his vision couldn’t be brought back. The other is the fused soul concept. Either way it was a great anime with a horrible/wonderful ending.
I would prefer the soul concept though… I can’t accept Inori is dead or vanished..
Hey this is ending not so bad, colorful, touching end, and happy. Except for the fact that Inori is blind for some reason and manage to infect Shu as well via soul unification. Well doesn’t matter, it was good. Shu didn’t die like I always wanted, despite many death flag for him before the finale.
Remind you of Gurren Lagann, no? Or GC is not worth compared to TTGL?
Naah.. In term of story telling, TTGL is much better. GC just have too much hole in their story, but manage to wrap things up quite nicely in the end with their epic ending. Thats what I thought.
Not a bad ending I guess, and I guess no Ayase end huh, seeing that Shu still loves Inori even after few year passes. but I really wanted Shu to either die together with Inori or both of them lived. It just sad that they had to be separated… I mean if both of them died together it’s seems more happier.
Although you have to be totally prepared to get surprised(mostly in disappointing way) when you watch GC, it was still very surprising we actually had a sort of Shu X Ayase end. Well, yeah, you would say “No! It was all Shu X Inori!” and I don’t think you are wrong. But probably it’s also Shu X Ayase at the same time. Here is why.
A few Japanese I know confirmed that Ayase’s last line in the ending sequence means “Everyone except me hasn’t seen him(Shu) for a long time”.
So, while apparently Shu still loves Inori and relishes songs and memories of her very much, you can safely assume that Ayase has been his closest friend for years all the way after the Armageddon.
I have no idea if it’s love or not, but as an Ayase fan, it was very nice to see her happy face in the end.
Nice catch. Though I would interpret it as “Ayase looking out for Shu once in a while”.
Still… This is a nice chance AYASE! No Inori! GO FOR IT! XD
As a supporter of ShuxAyase, I revisited the ending scene in an attempt to confirm this XD
Far as I my limited moonspeak can tell, Ayase says “minna wa hisashiburini yo ne?” to Shu.
‘Minna’ = ‘everyone’, ‘hisashiburini’ = ‘haven’t seen after a long time’, ‘yo ne?’ = ‘right?’ so… “Everyone hasn’t seen you(Shu) in a while, right?” or “You(Shu) haven’t seen everyone in a while, right?”, both statements, while not outright saying, do imply an “unlike me” on Ayase’s part, otherwise she would have used “Watashi-tachi”…I think.
Still, it would sort-of make sense, I guess, that Ayase (and Tsugumi by extension) would be the one to look after Shu
because of Haruka’s track-record of neglect.Echoing Moondoggie; nice catch!
I will ship my ‘disabled’ pair!!
I’m sure the sex is great…
@Annyms: You should play Katawa Shoujo :):):)~
Well I guess they d at least wrap things up which was more than I’d started to expect from Guilty Crown. And while there are some weird things I think these last 3 episodes weren’t bad at all and might have been a good ending for and anime that progressed differently. Especially since this Shu was actually pretty good in character and appearance but the the first Shu’s progression to this was pretty ridiculous. I honestly would have liked it even better if Shu also died with Inori instead of becoming like this and the rest of the team was thinking about the dead including him.
PS: Arisa was actually killed yay (also before that bullets were cracking the shield that stood AA-Missiles really?) Daryl was somehow saved but they didn’t do anything to push him with Tsugumi in the epilogue so double yay.
?
Is there any confirmation that Arisa died? I see her eyes are still opened after the collapse.
She still has the bullet wound and wasn’t seen in the epilogue so I’ll just hope that she did. While I know that the sudden character change and betrayal was the writer’s fault, I think it’s better if she just dies considering that she killed her own grandfather and Gai who she seemed to be fixating really hard on in order to keep her sanity is dead.
22 episodes is a quick end, I expected 24. The plot wasn’t all too bad just the emotion buildup didn’t work and kept breaking at points where things were just weird (glances at Mana and Keido /shoots quick looks at Daryl, Kenji, guy who pushed Daryl into lift)
I like how the OP had many scenes in the ending but had many misleading points, especially the Inori waking up and it was Gai pulling the sword out of Mana instead of Shuu pulling it from Inori. I see a possibility of Inori actually waking up in the flower field but she just hasn’t met Shuu again yet/that’s her coming to meet him at Christmas in the last scene. Or if her body really died and she gave her soul to Shuu, that’s not a bad thing (not the first time I see a pink haired girl sacrificing herself for her lover to live, though in Inori’s case I’m hardly even sad just Oh.)
Funell family = ♥
I’m disappointed in GC but I still like it/enjoyed it. The OST/chara designs/setting is still awesome even if the story execution wasn’t.
Lost Christmas .. anime=will watch/game:buy?=no. play?=maybe, if I can get my hands on it.
Review was a nice read.
On paper it seemed this was to be the one of the great series of all time. Instead the production values dropped, and it didn’t as a story decide what it wanted to be. It was as if everyone involved wanted a say and no one reined them in until the money was almost gone. All I feel from this series is coulda, woulda, shoulda.. -been Great!
Souta lived, this show is a disappointment…
True story
@bakamochi: front page picture error.
After watching every episode I can say that the thing I liked most about this show was the first OP. That’s about it. It was a train wreck in many ways and had many, many chances to redeem itself but somehow seemed to keep tripping over itself.
I agree with the person that said leaving Shu behind was kind of cruel. I’m not against bittersweet endings but it just didn’t work for me. She ‘dies’ as Mana is revived, then she returns, then she ‘dies’ again for Shu. I believe either both of them should have lived or both of them should have died. It just left me feeling like it was an empty ending.
At least I get to clear another 7GB from my hard drive. Who am I kidding, I’ll keep it until I start running out of space.
Despite all of the money and pedigree put into this project it failed. It’s just a shame, there was no reason for this series to have so many story problems as it did. I was waiting for the epic “Be All – End All” tie this mess together ending and this is what I got. 22 weeks is a long time to watch a train wreck and wait for something, anything, to come out of it alive. I guess the joke is on me….
I loved this show but I’m not too pleased with the bittersweet ending, I would have liked to see Shu and Inori happily holding hands in that epilogue rather than just make it clear Shu’s pretty much heartbroken and flowing with disabilities.
My guess as to why he is blind and deaf, it’s probably what happens if you turn too far into a crystal, blunt explanation but that’s all I got, we never really saw what a 99% crystal person coming back from the verge of death was like but I guess shu shows it.
The UN just weren’t taking prisoners now were they, but I guess that could answer as to what happened to the characters to side with Gai, I’m guessing they were either executed or will just never see the light of day again.
Wtf is this shit, this final is bullshit, if you’re gonna die, die with Inori. PPFFF!!!
Well that was…meh. I wish this show had ended at the halfway point — the first half was flawed but I think it was ultimately much better than the second half, and the mid-point finale was light years better than the actual finale. Gai’s first death made me feel sad, his second death made me feel nothing because I didn’t care about second-half Gai and his poorly explained motives. I think Shuu would have sacrficed himself for Inori instead of the other way around, not so much because I dislike Shuu but because I at least feel *something* towards him. His sacrifice would have at least given me an emotion, whereas I was resoundingly indifferent to Inori’s because she was just such a cypher all series long.
Daryl’s ‘redemption,’ if you could call it that, is seriously the most half-assed redemption attempt I’ve ever seen. He starts the series with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, they start hinting at him liking Tsugumi like that will make him not an asshole, then nothing ever comes of it and he gets stuffed in an elevator by random grunt who says he’s really a good guy (even though the audience has seen no evidence of this) and then…nada. Never seen again. What was the point of his character arc? Did he even really *have* a character arc?
Also, I think this whole thing could’ve been solved if they’d just had Shibungi snipe all the bad guys since, judging from his randomly appearing at the good guy headquarters a few eps ago and then finding Kenji in this ep, he clearly has awesome teleportation powers that he’s been hiding all this time.
Almost forgot, but I agree with you 100% on the wasted potential of the music. I actually really loved Euterpe and My Dearest in particular, and I figured at least if I didn’t llove the show there’d be more great songs…and then they just kept re-using the same ones over and over. Way to waste one of the show’s strongest assets.
Here’s how Shu became blind.
1st: Gai uses Mana’s void
2nd: Shu killed Gai, destroying Mana’s void (destroying voids will kill its owner as it is their very heart)
3rd: Mana lost her grip, and on the verge of death, got shrouded with the crystals (similar to Hare), part of its side effect was that she became blind.
4th: Inori’s consciousness came back, but since Mana used Inori’s body, Inori became blind thus explaining why she couldn’t see Shu.
5th: Shu absorbed the cancer saying, “Let’s go together” since Inori will die from the cancer and he’ll be absorbing the world’s cancer so he’ll die too.
6th: [OPINION] I believe that it was Inori who eventually took on all the pain and died, allowing Shu to live.
7th: Then we see Inori giving her soul (red string) to Shu
8th: Because she gave her soul, and that she was blind, it infected Shu, thus making him blind too; explaining the ending.
Character Designs (Art): Great! <– What really got me to watch this. Good job Redjuice(Supercell)!
Music (Soundtrack):: Great! <– Again, good job Supercell!
Plot (Story setting): Good. <– Overall I really can't say it's that bad. There's a very good story hiding here somewhere.. I blame the crap that happened to…
Plot Development (Storyteller): Sucked so bad! <– ep 1 & 2 was a great start. ep 3 was forgivable. ep 4 starts the WTF-is-this moments and very inconsistent character behaviors that dragged along up to this point.
Was it satisfactory? Hmmm… Do I have a choice? Ayase’s alive.. so I’ll settle for that!
If they were to redo and rewrite this, I’ll probably watch it again with hopes that they fixed it. But right now, epic fail on the execution/storytelling.
Production I.G should apologize to Supercell! Seriously.
Well this is why Production IG folded into another new company with Zexcks I think.
Excellent overview of the series and its conclusion. I thank you for holding out throughout the rollercoaster of… “quality…” that was this show. It was fun at times, it was maddening at times, I may have watched so that I could just mock it later, but your level of analysis makes that feel kind of out of place.
So thank you.
Hope you find yourself an excellent show next season!
All other opinions aside, my main thought on GC was that it seems like they wrote it for two seasons, and were then told to cut it in half. There were so many obvious things left out that there is no way the writers simply missed these. They are professional writers, after all. If whats missing is so obvious, then there is most likely a reason for it not being there.
Slut is alive?
damn i hate the ending
Lol Arisa died. You see her get gunned down in a split second.
Nope she survived.
https://randomc.net/image/Guilty%20Crown/Guilty%20Crown%20-%2022%20-%20Large%2042.jpg
Awww crap, didn’t see that. Only got to watch the livestream at keyhole last night, laggy so I must’ve missed that. Thanks for the correction
“Bashing Guilty Crown is like kicking an abandoned puppy” More like
“Bashing Guilty Crown is like beating an ugly hooker” No one will really care if you do it.
Wow, basically alot of people here are just disappointed with the last ep.
Well I really can’t say no. That last episode just like click in a second and it’s all finished as if nothing happened. That’s what I’m really disappointed about. Every characters are like being flashed back and fort then shu then some talk then shu(again) then with inori then its the end. lol. When credits was being shown I immediately check the run time then said “that was it?”
😀
uh lol what i can say
was one of the animes i liked even though had so many lot flaws
but the ending was so rushed
they could had made to have 24 the least
and yes what happen in the end with the rest of the cast
i wanted to know what happened with daryl which was my favorite character(crazy kid but lol i liked him)
did he got smashed in the elevator while all the building collapsed, did he ended up more disturbed or choose to live a normal life?
why shy blind >:O
in rest what can i saw was ok
D:
I would have died putting those full image caps by myself in just one day.
Haha, it wasn’t too bad… I guess if I’d waited a bit instead of being too impatient the process would’ve been a whole lot easier 😛
I am too lazy to type so many words so I would lk to make it short:
Soundtrack dissonance are cool.
So the point of fourth impact is so tht Shu can rewind time to kill Mana and Gai!? I need to re watch this again.
Glasses officer has a terrible judge of character….. (Ok maybe I just don’t like him)
Is Arisa DEAD?
Overall, don’t think too much about it. At least we got a nice ending instead of Gainax Ending. Hopefully the next season would be as interesting as winter 2012 (in a good way)
This last episode gives me some mixed feelings…
While the plot holes are glaring and convenient plot devices are used, the beautiful visuals and music kinda takes my mind off it.
Ah well, what’s over is over…
What do u get when u take out the plot development in one episode? GC at its best!
2/10
It was not even funny
it’s common knowledge
you type with “u”s
The show was a great waste of potencial. Not that I didn’t like it, actually I liked the ost and the Inori itself. But as just Bakamochi said, maybe we’re waiting for something bigger.
You know the emotional feeling when you finished watching a “good” movie or anime, like you feel as if your day dreaming and feeling nostalgic? well after watching this last episode of GC, I just didn’t feel anything…
Watching the last episode feels so… awkward… and after watching it, I found myself go “wtf? derp”
Plot holes everywhere, failed characterization, repetitiveness…
Though, I’m pretty sure the quality of animation, art, OST saved GC from becoming one of the worst original animated series ever.
The graphics and music are the only ones that made this (for me) great since they destroyed a good ending for the lovers -_-
The thing that just bugged me was we were initally led to believe GHQ were the bad guys doing what they thought was right, kinda like the Britannian Army from Code Geass but then they just shifted it and we saw less and less of the people clearly established as the baddies and then we just got to “Well now we have unmanned vehicles and laser cannons so we don’t need you” and then we just didn’t see GHQ again until later and worse they then show up towards the end as UN soldiers as the good guys, without any sort of adjustments at all in terms of design, they just appeared the same as they did throughout the series.
It’s hard to take it serious that the soldiers we saw executing mothers because they could should suddenly show up as people we’re meant to be cheering for, they didn’t even get a morallity shift, there was no “My God what have we done” moment towards Japan, they just voted a new resolution and said here’s what we’re doing and come on, you’re telling me that Gai could even bluff the superweapon, who put it up there again? surely they would have some way to destroy it rather than doing kamakazi into Japan and losing what must ammount to Three aircraft carriers, isn’t that why we have missiles?
I did not like the final ending -_-
I was kind of expecting 2 things to happen while I was watching the Final episode.
1st
The 2 of them got covered in crystals then they’ll die together.
2nd
The 2 of them got covered in crystals, while miraculously shu lives then after a few years inori comes back MIRACULOUSLY (Don’t argue with me with this).
However, they gave a rather bad ending leaving a few things hanging and still puzzling. I do expect something GOOD when they make a season 2 -_-
Awesome production value, crappy script. Not much more needs to be said about this show I think.
I was on the floor laughing at how bad the ending was. I knew that it’d suck after enduring the shitty writing throughout the entire series, but this took bad writing to a whole new level.
just curious. what was the point of saying that? you said nothing constructive, new, relevant, or funny. Don’t get me wrong, the ending sucked, I agree. You just look like a retard saying that. Come up with something clever to say at the very least.
Spin off series: Daryl as the new Iron Man
Careful; Shu might be called to step up as the new Daredevil.
good, now that shuu has friends, season 2 should instead star Daryl and follow the apocalyptic ramifications of his attempts to deal with his emotional issues
I GET IT! Shuu’s blindness is representative of the producers’ lack of vision when creating the show. It’s their way of bowing out and saying “WE EFFED UP”!
So deep…
Ooooooooo, SIZZLE!
I’m guessing Arisa survived and ended up in the red light district afterwards…
Inori being blind makes sense…
Half her head was crystal and she was literally falling apart and dying.
Shu being blind? That makes no sense at all really…
Arisa just love getting penetrated by foreign objects
ridiculous how you guys dropped AGE to keep blogging this piece of garbage show.
/golfclap
Uhh LOL What? No they didn’t.
If they did, then it just shows how tsundere people are to this show….
The last Gundam AGE post was on March 7th and two episodes have aired since then. Someone still might do a double post, though. Since I’m not watching any of these two, I’m partly indifferent as to what happens to AGE. But it was certainly fun to read about GC. Actually I might watch it myself someday to se everything that I read about. 😀
Regarding Keido:
Keido lost because he wanted to have phylogeny with Mana (ep12). He failed doing this, got killed by Da’ath, and became his puppet.
Kurosu ‘lost’ because Keido thought that Kurosu tried to protect his daughter and humanity from destruction, but the Apocalypse was coming anyway… so Kurosu also lost. Keido thought wrong, of course, as humanity was saved.
This show should have ended 11 episodes ago. it would have been better. I also feel like the ending would have been less tragic if shu had died with inori…
So…. that was an a very interesting…. or rather unusual ending. Antagonist thrown in the back corner, Daath, the main antagonist group or rather Yuu… just ended up sitting in the background. In fact, I was expecting the damn kid to come back out of nowhere only to get finish off officially since I don’t even know if he just disappeared out of existence or just teleport somewhere else in episode 21. It’s almost like… what weak antagonist groups we have… the only real enemy was Mana or I guess natural selection itself as she was saved metaphorically in the end.
Likewise, I figured that Gai wasn’t being a total douche for no reason. Though they could have seriously just left him dead, and have Yuu taking that role of evil antagonist and staying as evil antagonist rather then Gai coming out as… oh yeah I was sacrificing myself by making you guys all come out and fight at the very end. It’s not like they didn’t need the extra push already in the first place. Honestly, Gai could have made an appearance as a voice of guidance and encouragement, entering in the final scene, as thank you for officially saving Mana and explain the whole outcome to Shu. The back story, well Keido could have revealed that… in order to attempt to confuse the protagonist and would have equally been a great twist and act like this was my plan from the beginning. The TL: DR version of all of this, is Gai did not need to come back to live again, he should have stayed like Roy from Macross and Kamina, and I’m sure the story would have turned out a bit better, without so many things going on.
Secondly with this episode, REALLY KEIDO, you’re going to pull that Tale of Graces F, YOU LEAVE ME WITH NO CHOICE, BUT TO KILL MYSELF crap. That was the best way to tie that loose end. If you didn’t bring Gai back to live, you could have done a so much better job fleshing him out as a antagonist. Now, all I can think of is how pathetic he was til the very end with a petty master plan. Regardless, I guess it’s one way to cut off loose ends.
Lastly, though I’m sure we all like… HOW THE HELL DID SHU SURVIVE A COLLAPSING BUILDING… it’s nice to see him still alive. The whole blind thing, I’m assuming Shu and Inori soul are now one. Though, I would have hoped instead that Shu was to become Inori eye into the world instead rather then being blind. It’s a sweet touch to things though, as it literal states that Inori is still living on inside Shu and he’s able to talk to her through the help of Inori’s last songs. Guess Shu won’t be forever alone.
Lastly, the heck happen to that Daryl and Tsugumi pairing… it was like thrown out of the window… in fact this encounter should have happen episodes before the finale. Where he’s emotionally weak only for Tsugumi to help him. I guess that’s what happen when you have too many subplots and things to cover.
That being said, Guilty Crown somewhat ended on a good note, other then we have no idea when the hell Daath will come back again. It was rough, and honestly, the plot and writing could have used a lot of work. It’s like the writers of the script and the main writers lack inspiration on certain things, but hey, this episode manage to tie it all down together, even if we disagree with some of the methods they use… until we somehow enter Season 2 with Daath coming back again.
Final notes and Impression over all
First of all, I would like to note that there were too little songs being used by the Egoist. I I count on my head… I can only think of one if not two songs that happen the whole time. Budgeting issues? Perhaps. Next thing is I was expecting this show to have more more metaphorical themes and value to it to begin with, especially after episode 12, and boy look where we ended up. If people read my previous comments, I was expecting a whole different turn with the story. Where Shu would follow a similar role to Simon in Gurren Langann, but become more of a mature leader, who still himself, led by Gai as the voice against Daath (Yu) and Keido, and the ultimate enemy, the virus. Betrayal would happen, but his friends and other people who he secretly helped out would remember his kindness and join his side. Ending with Keido having a amazing plan to try to take control of the virus itself and attempting to use Daath only for it to fail (which would have include Gai and how he was manipulating everything in the background), and Yuu being the final boss taking the role of King with Mana and finally ending with a dream with Gai explaining the turn of events and saying thank you. Of course that didn’t happen at all, though that being said, Guilty Crown had it’s moments with me. Even if there were times where I was like… WHAT THE HELL, and of course required a lot of patience, I’m glad I manage to stick to it to the very end. Furthermore, it sends out a weird theme of just be yourself as Gai’s parting words, which make sense, as trying to be someone else in episode 14 – ____ almost got him killed. The theme songs of true friends will support you to the very end no matter what mistakes you make is very apparent other then when everyone threw him out to die that one episode only to ask to be forgiven making and likewise, Shu throwing everyone out other then Inori. Overall, the whole idea of natural selection, Apocalypse, and biology added more value to don’t let other people decide what you are, or even your genes, only you can decide who you are yourself. Your soul will change accordingly (aka noted by voids).
That being said, Guilty Crown did some things nicely, the selection of background music was great, though there overall story board needed work, it had some great foundations such as Gai death, Keido taking over Japan and as one of the antagonist, though a random character at first, the establishment of Yuu (Daath) was another good foundation, Hare or rather I should say ___ meaningful character death changing the character in some shape or form, and lastly setting up Shu as a leader or at least the guy you can always count on. Character though not the best, had their own moments of glory. Hopefully, Guilty Crown will be a stepping stone to make an even better show next time. It’s one of those shows that is a diamond that hasn’t been cut, purified, etc, and it’d be enjoyable to some people. Hopefully, the producers and writers will manage to bring out a 20 carat diamond of awesomeness next run.
I don’t like the ending. No ShuXInori >.<
I really tried to give Guilty Crown a chance, they had all the right ideas and tools and even amazing music, but this ending did not do the series justice in my opinion. Hopefully the writers make a show from the faults of this because the idea of coids was fantastic but the execution just wasn’t there.
Well, animators did their job to make this the most discussed show of the season. But i am not sure how are they going to make any profits in the DVD/Blu-ray sales with all the disappointment.
While the people who should have died did die, I still think we’re left with some stragglers.
I saw Inori dying a mile away, considering how much they pushed her the entire show.
But what the bloody hell was that Daryl scene?!?! What was the point of it if they weren’t going to show us what happened to him in the epilogue? The time wasted with that scene would’ve been better spent on anything else, really.
The producers not letting Shu die with Inori came off hilariously sadistic. They must’ve thought they were making it more emotional by separating them, but all I saw was the writers not giving Shu what he wants.
Meanwhile, Souta. Really? There is no justice in GC world.
aaaaargghhhh where is the spring 2012 preview????!!!!!!
cmon RC don’t destroy your reputation as the go-to anime site atm (and my hopes T___T) 🙁
You know, writers in RandomC don’t live just to give us some anime posts. They have their own lives. Can’t you wait for a couple of days? They have said that Spring Preview will be posted at the end of the week. Just read all comments in this post to kill time and Spring Preview will be posted before you know it.
WORST (high budgeted) SHOW EVER in past 10 years. What a train wreck!!!
Random thoughts/Ideas about this show. (Looking at it as it stands)
– Ed episode gave me a feeling reminiscent of fighting a final boss in an epic jrpg game.
– The hilarity of Inori’s “use me” scene from episode one, and realizing that it became an ongoing theme throughout the series.
– Thank God Tsugumi did not die.
– Yahiro’s growth was probably one of the best in the show.
– Segai (is almost on par with Lemon from Ano in terms of being troll of the year.
– I thought I’d never see a personification of a literal tool in a show, until Arisa came along.
– Daryl’s character was interesting, wish it had been more developed.
– Although it is painfully blatant that the Story was poorly written;
a) This show still gave us one of the better action than any other show this season.
b) The Production is definitely within the top 3 this season,(depending on your tastes of course)
c) The character designs and weapon ideas still are still nice to look at
d) The idea was fantastic, but the pacing and the delivery was grrr
e) The show still gave me goosebumps, and definitely kept me on my chair.
f) This show had some moments that definitely memorable, like the scene where Shu escapes jail, the death of Hare, Ayase’s moment of flight.
g) The DIVERSE characters that it had.
h) Still don’t understand how people can hate this show SO MUCH, but love K-On.
All in all, although it did disappoint me on some occasions, I was still satisfied with this show, think of it as an RPG that has the best Battle System, soundtrack and Production of scenery and characters, but the story, although it was a good idea, was poorly delivered. STAR OCEAN 4? Still an enjoyable experience.
Anyways thanks for the post and the for your patience with the many trollers of this show.
Wise words to those who were responsible for the storyboard.
GG.
NT.
So the trainwreck is finished. Let’s be honest, it may be pretty, and the music is awesome, but this was a lousy show. It could have been something. But terrible writing just ruined it.
And it really left a lot of questions. What the hell is Daath? How exactly did they instigate an apocalypse with meteors? How is Yuu immortal. The show’s entire premise is never sufficiently explained. Perhaps they could have tackled this if they had explored the backstory before the 20th episode.
And then you have the characters. At least Gai and Shu got a little backstory (hey, it only took 20 episodes). But why about the rest? Why is Ayase in a wheel chair? How did she meet Gai? What about Tsugumi? And then there’s Yuu.
This show might have actually been good with decent writing. But instead it’s a waste.
I think what “killed” this anime is the fact that voids were WAY too strong which led to a verry short fight that cant develop a real intensing life and death moments.
Another thing that really bothered me was how GC always brought up useless subplots that didnt have any meaning(like tsugomi X daryl) and how it looked like they were just tired of making the anime and just closed almost every chance to a 2nd season with an unstatisfying ways.
All in all i liked the anime but the expectations i had after the first 5 episodes were never realized by GC staff,in the end this anime has so much wasted potential.
I just realized that the speculation of every commenter on this show had better plot progression than the show itself but then to get broadsided by the next episode only to try and figure out what will happen next episode
This leaves me wanting for a more concrete resolution but at the same time relieved that the damn thing ended!
Shu didn’t fight much at all and talked a lot. didn’t he “resolved” himself three episodes prior that he will do this? why is he STILL hesitating he almost lost if not for Inori since he was sulking again, in the MIDDLE of a fight for that matter! and he suddenly scores a killing blow that was more allowed than anything
Mana didn’t have any presence at all beyond bringing the world to an end and had more personality in the childhood flashbacks than shown now (she could have been made into a inanimate object to end the world and i wouldn’t notice the difference), there was no sibling interaction, no real words were exchanged beyond the predictable “she’s was a monster/she’s is not a monster” crap, you could hardly believe they were related. (mana took a “monster’s” body, wouldn’t that make you a MONSTER too?)
A huge cast of characters are missing from the epilogue nothing more was explained on what happened to them
The series functioned on the beautiful animation, entrancing music and the director tried handle it better (doubt it) but failed, there for too many plot points not resolved and left open. The organization that want this to happen, Shu being blind for example but then I think this is the director’s attempt to emphasize the “music/sound” (Rahxephon and Macross comes to mind) theme the show tried to center around (people’s sense of hearing are enhanced when they lose their sense of sight) and it feels downright cheap
People new to anime will love this for the visual and music anesthetic but other viewers who have been watching serious shows before this will feel this is as wasted potential (and will be the butt of a lot of jokes) and I for one watched a LOT of anime over the years (Toonami startled airing in 1997 fist introduced me to anime) and compared to other shows GC have to contend with with like Mirai Nikki, Black Rock Shooter and Another along with the recently finished Nisemonogatari makes this a glaring weakpoint to talk about for years to come
The last show that I had watched that felt this bad was Dragonaut: The Resonance and Blood C
That have to count for something…
right?
All I know is that they need to make a post GC VN game and have Shu date Ayase and call it Katawa Shoujo 2.
Only Ayase route, huh? Not bad, not bad.
Katawa Shounen to Katawa Shoujo.
Hmmmm, well it would be passe if both Shu in Inori would die, I would have preferred it that way. I am wondering though if a season two would come out, featuring the character Scrooge. I really want a movie to come out and show a sequel.
I hate how Hare died which mean the final couple ending would almost definitely be Shu x Inori.
But not even Inori survives. ¬_¬
This Series might very well have a 2nd season. It was said in recent interviews with Yamamoto that he and the others want to do more 2 season series’ with this show and newer ones. It was also said in the OtakuUSA April 2012 magazine that this series is written for 2 seasons. So I’ll be expecting a season 2. (Hopefully getting more into Daath and other things) We still don’t know what became of Daryll, Arisa, and more of the characters. This series definitely had it’s ups and downs. Some believe it was a Great Legendary Series. Others thought it was trash. GC brings out mixed feelings in everyone. Personally I really enjoyed watching this series. GC was actually very clear to me and not as confusing as others would put it. I understood nearly everything they put in it. Even Shuu’s blindness near the end.
One thing I don’t like is the amount Shuu has suffered.
He lost his parents
He lost his sister(sending him into a traumatized state causing him to be unsociable)
He got into something he wanted no part of
He was being used and betrayed all over the place by Gai and Inori
He had to kill Jun when he wanted to save him and bring him and his brother together
He had to kill Gai whom he was just becoming good friends with again
He had to take control of an entire school when his personality wouldn’t let him take charge
He loses Hare..his closest friend who actually thought he can be a kind king
He goes into a state of seriousness and becomes a tyrant king
People begin resenting him for this
Yahiro again walks all over him and for “HIS” actions making Shuu the bad one (This was partially Shuu’s own fault for continuing to listen to Yahiro)
He is lied to by Namba and is revolted against Even after saving most of their lives. (If he didn’t do this nearly all of them would’ve been killed….yet they revolt against him)
Gai returns and cuts Shuu’s arm off leaving him with a broken spirit
He finally Mans up and decides to fight for what’s right..and ends up taking on Souta’s virus
He ends up taking more of the virus
He finally reaches Inori…but by then it’s too late
He beats Gai a second time
He sees Inori….Blind…Crippled…Crystalized (This was almost heart breaking to watch btw)
He is ready to die with Inori but Inori decides Shuu must live on and Shuu takes her “Soul” to be with her forever in spirit
He becomes blind the minute the crystal breaks
Inori takes all the void powers with her. Including Shuu’s void
About 2-4 years later (Just throwing numbers out there) Shuu is blind….Has an automail arm….and he still has Inori in his mind to this day even to the point of still listening to her music
Shu may be living in peace but the “blind” thing was just over doing it. It had a bitter taste in my mouth. Shuu made mistakes but he didn’t deserve a fate of living without his arm and his sight. It’s too much.
Overall this anime was quite good in my opinion as I’m looking forward to a season 2 with a little less hype then the PV in the fall season. GC had a good run but a bittersweet end. Actually leaving room for an OVA or even a season 2. Other won’t agree but This ending had me in tears. The music, animation and the scene alone just had me thinking even to this point.
The points I give this anime are:
Opening 1: 8/10
Opening 2: 10/10 (Opening 2 had a nice change and was very decent with it’s foreshadowing of events. Kept it at a nice pace to prevent spoilers. But just enough to give you a sneak peek of the future)
Ending 1: 9/10
Ending 2: 1/10 (I really hated the ending. It didn’t feel right to me..)
Story: 6/10 (GC had a wonderful story…but the execution was trash. If they put more time into thinking and actually hired better writers this series could’ve very well surpassed Code Geass)
Music: 10/10 (The music in GC was great. It even had me jumping about copying Shuu at one point o.o)
Animation: 9/10 (The animation was awesome. Had lots of flashy and elegant styles. Main reason I stuck with GC as long as I did, but If they didn’t focus so much on animation and focused more on the story this series would’ve been a hit)
Characters: 3/10 (The character development was rushed and way too slow at many times. Shuu is a great example. From Badass to Pussy in one episode)
Romance: 5/10 (The romance in GC was pretty retarded. Shuu nor Inori really ever communicated as much to actually have a love interest in eachother. It just sorta happened. Personally I was more of a fan of ShuuXAyase for a number of reasons.
1: She actually guided Shuu. Gave him courage. Made him think there was something that actually made him “unique”.
2: Shuu gave Ayase the ability to soar to higher skies than Gai ever did. Shuu gave her the ability to spread her wings.
3: Ayase was one of the 2 who was against the revolt on Shuu.
4: Ayase begins to really grow onto Shuu. She doesn’t want him to get hurt, She doesn’t want him to die or use the power of his void anymore.
5: Ayase sees Shuu’s growth more than anyone right there next to Inori.
6: Shuu tells Ayase she is “perfect” and she blushes hard XD
7: Ayase claims she did not “give” Shuu her void. So he can’t die until he gives it back. When Ayase said this it sounded like a confession. A “void” is person’s heart in a shape. When Ayase said that it sounded as if she was saying Shuu stole her heart so he can’t die until he returns the feeling.
In that regard Shuu and Ayase has has far more development as a team while Shuu and Inori just happened outta no where. When did Inori’s feelings for Shuu begin ?? Shuu just kind’ve saw “love at first sight”
Ending: 7/10 (The ending as I said was bittersweet. Like others I never wanted Shu nor Inori to die. But Inori’s farewell was eye watering at the least. And Shuu’s blindness just had my sympathize with him. I mean he had to be about 19 and still suffering so much even in peaceful of times. But overall it was a good epilogue and it was nice to have a reminder and celebration for Hare :D)
Overall %: Id have to give GC a 7/10. (There were things that made Guilty Crown awesome. And things that nearly made me kill myself from it’s shear stupidity. But season 1 had awesome things about it. Including 2 great openings. Great mix of fanservice and plot (Ep 8) A person that someone may relate to. (Shuu’s personality can relate to those who try but just can’t aim to be sociable) And a great power that made me jealous of being Shuu xD)
WHAT? My migraine is acting up again hearing the news.
I…have mixed feelings about this, but maybe the interviews meant ‘two cour’ instead of ‘two seasons’? I actually like the epilogue, and I can’t really care much about characters that weren’t developed.
On the other hand, if they did remake GC but this time with better progression/direction and stretching the series to, say 26 episodes so we have 80 more minutes on the side-characters and why they are actually relevant, then maybe…
@Beedle I don’t think that’s the case. The OtakuUSA April 2012 was released and people have ordered it just about January I believe. When the second cour was already underway. Also it was already said a time before the anime began it was gonna run for “2 cours” But the magazine had a article dedicated to GC and from what I hear all over the place from myanimelist.net and crunchyroll forums which looks like the interview was posted it said “It’s been planned for two seasons as of this writing” on both sites and more.
@VoidHack:
ah, gotcha. And I’m assuming GC’s sales have also treated the producers well…
My mixed feelings are still mixed, but if a season 2 does come to pass, chances are I’d still check it out. Still though, I can’t see how they’d continue GC, and loathe as I am to admit, I’d rather Shu still remain the main protagonist instead of some random nobody (GS to GSD, anyone?). Like it or not, Shu’s character and turmoil is what GC has revolved around, turning him into one of the show’s defining characteristics for better or for worse.
But like I said, I like this epilogue. Though bittersweet, it still ends in a somewhat happy note for Shu, if only because he finally found inner peace.
And really, if a season 2 does come to pass and they’ll bring back the remnants of Da’ath, we’ll be seeing the Whore of Babylon again ~_~…
Season 2? Well people our ride has come early, line up now to crazy town. Count me in, again.
“Step right up for the next train
wreck, Guilty Crown R2: Brotherhood Note“?BEST ANIME OF THE DECADE!!!!
The funny thing is that I remember the discussions over at the Animesuki forums when CG:R2 aired, and how people were calling the story a mess. Thinking back on it, CG:R2’s story was not even close to the mess GC’s story was. I guess to those who were saying that CG’s writing staff couldn’t do worse back then…YOU WERE WRONG lol
They should bring out a special OVA where Shuu now has a happy life with a family. What would be the point for Inori push Shuu away so he can live. It certainly wasn’t for him to live alone for the rest of his life. This ending gives a feeling this is the case but also gives a feeling Ayase is watching over him. Maybe a somewhat funny OVA where Haruka (Shuu’s mom) talks Shuu into getting married to the daughter-in-law of her choice (Ayase) because she doesn’t want to be old when she has grandchildren.
I hated this show, and the epilogue made me lol so hard.
Considering he’s blind, and he’s staring at the sun setting.
Oh man, some tremendous fail happened in this.
Still, it looked and sounded pretty!
WTf….
Half of the reason I enjoyed GC is because of the comments here. You heartless, cold people you! You monsters! *wink*
“Deep down you were a nice guy”= He was in love with Daryl lol
The only highlight for me was when lieutenant saved Daryl. It’s upthere with when Dan died.
Dan also appears in the end-card, unlike Souta. Funny how a random side-character like him gets some love, but to be fair: despite Dan’s zaniness, he was quite epic XD
Do I even need to say anything?
Like half the people that posted “I lol’d; this bad” did not need to say anything, so why not.
i was really hoping for shuu to die… even if it were to be too obvious… if he actually died it wouldve made my day. but as everyone said… when inori died I felt absolutely nothing… and when shuu heard the music… i still felt nothing. All i felt was… that’s too bad and literally shrugged it off. I feel that the whole series couldve had so much potential if they only focused on one aspect instead of trying to cram a whole lotta crap in there. They needed to simplify it more imo.
And the songs… was it just me or was EGOIST better than supercell’s official singer?
you got to be kidding me, Hare and now Inori. Two of my favourite characters in this anime dies. If Shu died along with Inori it would have been a good ending but no Inori is the only one that dies at the end making it so sad.
I don’t think it was that bad actually, I enjoyed it fairly much. Besides, if anyone argues that it sucked, they can do it all they want, my opinion isn’t going to change. 🙂
This thing about Shu being blind… stuff happens through the years 😀
Never thought that much about Shu’s past, I mean, he had a hard time back there (waaay back the beggining of the show) and only had hardships ahead of him… poor guy.
It’s funny to think that the show came down when the main plot came up. Just after all the Funeral Parlour characters had their share in the cake, and the Void, Mana and Daath (?) began to dominate the screen, the show began to rapidly decline. So, long story short, the development of the characters was great, but the plot S****, and I tell this with grief, because I’d love to see this show work well…
P.S.: The WORST GOOD END EVER!
Fuck this shit. All I wanted was to see Inori live, or for Inori/Shu to live/die together. I’m mad.
“Bashing Guilty crown is like kicking a abandoned puppy”
More like Bashing Guilty crown is like beating up a salesman who decieves his customers into buying broken products.
I actually really liked this show for a big part of its run , its kind of sad that when all was said and done I would also end disappointed. Even if she was my fourth favorite character, it seemed that when Hare died a lot of what I liked of this show started to disappear. Well at least I will always love both the music and Inori.
On the other hand now that this show is finished I hope supercell will use Chelly more and not forget about her.
People wondering what happened to Daryl and Haruka in the prologue? I’ll tell you. They went right to ****ing jail. They’re both war criminals. Shu’s mom killed hundreds, if not thousands with her ghost units.
No one asked or cares.
But what’s up with this 200 comment cap per page, cool stuff.
More organized, Now all we need is comment editing.
I would REALLY love comment editing. It’s too bad all the regular staff are busy, so maybe with these new reviewers they’ll look into it.
It’s ridiculous how hard GC tried to redeem Daryl while demonizing Arisa. Kill your father and innocent people in the streets? Cool. Sleep with another guy? OVER THE LINE.
Lol, you posted your comment off someone else’s that had nothing to do with what you said so you could have it higher on the page. sad.
@seven
;D
Modern sensibilities are kinda barmy that way.
To be honest, I think the writers wanted a character that was devilish and reckless, allowing the audience to feel sympathy for. I mean, look at what Daryl goes through and does in the story. The real problem with this character is that, he had more potential in character development than Shu. Therefore, there was no way the authors ca expand his character in the story, because then he would be the main lead, rather than Shu.
I agree, perhaps if I knew nothing about the staff behind it, my view would be different, but I doubt it would have changed much. BUT, it was a fun ride that looked and sounded (can’t stop listening to the OST) great. 8/10 from me.
Here’s my final impressions of Guilty Crown:
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And in the end, some will still be willing to say that this is best series of 2012 >_>
If Shuu seen the ending before hand he would do the same as this guy.
Speaking of which, would you say Shu chose the Control Ending or the Synthesis Ending? I saw all blue so I’m going with Control.
Also has anyone mentioned the mascot robot having babies? Does this show have to make less sense even in it’s final moments?
Also also:
Shu = Shepard
Gai/Yuu = Star Child
It’s like it’s some sort of writing conspiracy.
^So true about the baby robots.
The thing that makes me most sad is…There are actually people out there who thought GC was the best series ever.
Seriously, I rewatched the first episode, and it was awesome. The second one too. But God!
So much wasted potential :'(
PD: I found Shuu’d epilogue laughable: the scene where he plugs in some headphones to remember his times with Inori (a rather pathetic-miserable act too). Normally, this is the part where we relive those touching moments the characters had, how they developed their relationship, etc etc.
But it basically showed us when they first met, some action scenes, and skipped to the very end with the two having a chat in the school XD Because they had no f*ing development as a couple.
I would actually recommend this series to a lot of people: how to fuck up
a goodan incredible premise.Nice points this episode had though:
-Daryl’s friend sarificing to let him get away. That was a touching moment.
-I think I saw more Tsugumi fan service that what she had in the entire series, with all those ‘hacking’ scenes.
-Inori in her original dress. If only they had kept her in that suit more episodes, and with that sweet smile too :'( …
I don’t know. I mean, I really wanted to enjoy this show. I really did.
But…it was just a huge waste of money for I.G . I really hope that this does not become the new standard for the anime industry. It’d be just like what happened with Call of Duty MW.
😛 You sure make gaming references often!
Yeah, I also really wanted to dig GC. I cannot express good enough how awesome I think the first episode set everything up. Even if cliché, I wouldn’t change a thing about it.
“Who are you?!”
“I am power. The Guilty Crown formed between people’s hearts.”
Gah! Those lines were it for me.
Too bad not even the phrase “Guilty Crown” was almost never mentioned again…
I don’t know if saying ‘it was a waste of money’ is correct though, given how everybody claims it was a huge success un Japan…
Believe me, I watched again before this one. It showed me all the ways this show could have gone BUT DIDN’T. In that regard, it was actually more painful to watch than anything, because you knew the show could never live up to how it set itself up.
The way I see it.
– After 22 episodes, Shu becomes a blind old man.
– Inori/Mana and Gai are in their own world for all eternity.
– We know nothing of the fate of some of the supporting characters, like Haruka and Daryl.
– Plot holes, plot holes, plot holes.
Did anyone else laugh when Arisa’s “Coward’s Shield” broke down and she ended up getting shot?
I think that summed up GC for me, heh.
I laughed!
I yelled in annoyance when her cancer was cured, I cheered when the shield broke and she got shot and then I was disspointed when she escaped alive. I’m going to console myself thinking she ended up dying due to blood loss.
It was pretty funny, but after episodes 17 and 18, I’m not even sure what to laugh at anymore… lol
@Click: BRAVO! You pretty much summed up all my thoughts about this show, no not just the final impressions of the show’s last episode, but for the entire series. Really my expectations were similar to Code Geass for like the first 6 episodes, and after that, I watched Amagami SS Plus and man that show was INFINITELY BETTER! Have you guys seen the end of Haruka’s arc? If Junichi replaced Shu, I think this show would be sooooo much better, if Araragi replaced Shu then this series would become a masterpiece! Really apart from all the plotholes and everything, I still think that a decent main lead character would have saved this show.
Damn! my favorite anime ended. I’m in RAGE MODE right now because Inori and Shu didn’t kiss in the end. Inori died and Shu become blind and forever alone. I want more! I want season2 or OVA.
If that’s the only thing you’re in RAGE MODE about, you have great patience than I.
you know… He’s clearly being sarcastic
It’s hard to tell sometimes…
Did you even read the name he was posting under? That’s kind of a hint.
Eh. Maybe that was what he really found disappointing.
Eh Maybe, whatever it doesn’t matter. I’ve been checking out supercell songs and oh my god….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4O8YI9-nNk
I talk a lot of smack, but I love girly trance techno music.
Int´s only a matter of time before we see more, this series was a big hit in the Land of the Rising Sun so there is no way the creators are to miss the chance to squeeze more of this.
I think the same feeling of 20 minutes of 22 episodes of “why did I watch this?” will kick in after it ends still even if you don’t have high expectations or any at all. Mine weren’t that high because I had them set on other shows, but I was like you BakaMochii, just watching cause of “Oooo~! Shiny”.
I wouldn’t recommend this show to anyone though, even for the shiny.
I wanted to see a screenshot of the Gai before he turned all white-haired and bad. Oh well.
I don’t know if Mana is saved, but her reincarnations are put to a stop. Did they have to bring on the apocalypse when Da’ath is dead (he didn’t reappear so I am assuming that)?
Shu didn’t save Inori, but Inori saved Shu twice (1st was giving Shu a better weapon to fight with, and 2nd was at the end from him crystallizing). Ironic when Gai told Shu to save her.
I guess now Ayase has a chance with Shu now that Inori is gone? But then Shu still loves Inori, which makes him a good protagonist in that way.
I was thinking there will be 24 episodes; 12 episodes in the 1st season and 10 for the 2nd one. I wouldn’t mind if there was an OVA or something, but I know it wouldn’t have anything do with the plot. The robot family was very cute in the epilogue.
damn am I late to the party…
Still, BakaMoochi got most of my thoughts (all but the frustrated parts)
why? cause GC looked to be done for the viewers who would be over-analyzing almost every episode/OP/ED/insert every week, not for the action junkies – with everything laid open flat that you’d realize something was amiss in 10 seconds instead of 20 minutes after the show (gundam comes to mind), yet it didn’t get that point across properly (they tried, too hard as well).
the things that I’d bash on:
– why does Mana’s apocalypse attempt also affect the endlave control systems as well as the comms? When it’s supposed to be void only? (post-typing – hacking wars…sigh)
– why did Inori’s song afterwards affected the hacking war as well?
looking back on what I have guessed…
from ep 21:
from ep 20:
guess I wasn’t wrong for the most part, though the death flags’ all trolls, sigh.
Oh, and I was spot on for the main trio too…not. But given how Shu’s void operates, I was not as surprised to see Shu absorbing all the voids and the virus out of everyone. Inori’s sacrifice was indeed surprising, not from the fact that she might do it because she want Shu to live, but the “how”. Show Spoiler ▼
another thing: Da’ath controling the “governor”. I wish I had realized it from ep. 20 (or even ep 10-12).
Overall, this show is simply made to be over-analyzed like a few other shows in the recent years.
My thoughts was that the apocalypse was to create the world where void is everything but it still questions me why the dog wasn’t affected.
ops, forgot about that.
but the nature of that virus was rather clear, to judge the humanity. Which meant skipping animals like dogs and goats…
*sigh* I stuck with the show, hoping that even through all the twists and turn, good and bad. I hoped for an ending that would make salvage everything and episode 21 seemed like that’s what was going to happen with the steps they took in that episode seemed like they could pull it off. Sadly they didn’t quite do that. With the final episode as mentioned by others above I’m left with unanswered questions and an ending that wasn’t really fulfilling.
its been quite a long while since ive visited RC again. im a bit saddened we didnt see Divine post one last time but bakamochi pretty much summed all of it for me and everyone else about the series.
the show gets the award of “spectacular trainwreck of the year”.
Divine should put in “The Best of 2012” the “trainwreck of the year” section. lol
I think it’s already there sitting comfortably on its number one position.
Well, they managed to keep a consistent pacing all the way to the end. Pretty with a bit of wtf were they thinking.
when I see someone saying that the Guilty Crown end was epic and this anime was the best ever seen in his life … I think this person needs to see more anime series… the ending was disappointing…. the only good thing = soundtrack.
Sound Track AND Art.
agreed, it did look pretty ^_^
As far as I got from the vagueness about Inori’s + Shuu’s sight;
Was that Inori’s was caused by the crystallisation/Mana.
Shuu’s was because Inori gave her life to him, somehow passing on her blindness to Shuu.
Well, thats how I like to think about it anyway. (something that symbolises their bond when he was magically saved by Inori or hinting that Inori saved him, staying in his heart).
Oh yeah, is it just me or was the person who saved Daryl was just plain awesome! especially when the build up of his character wasn’t focused on yet pretty solid and good. Nice twist that Daryl got saved but also not unbelievable or introducing massive plot holes everywhere(no GC style development)
Good soundtrack, yes…..good story……=/
It had me scratching my head way too many times than an anime should, lol.
To me this anime seemed like it was a bit rushed and the plot was lacking. The last few episodes almost felt like the producers were literally making the plot up as it went. Honestly to the people who want a season two I say that they should atleast remake season 1 so that the plot could be explained better and changed if necessary before they make a season two. This anime had the potential from the start to be a good anime but it stumbled downhill during the last few episodes. The anime itself was decent so I cant complain TOO much but yes the art and music was good but the plot and the way it was conveyed was lacking. Overall I would rate this anime at a 7/10.
P,S I was disappointed at how the producers chose to end this anime, I was really expecting for it to do well.
this was a story about blending a rainbow of potential to churn out crap.
even if we watched this show with no expectation i think it would be barely passable…
completely agree that the art was gorgeous only in still shots. music was the only reason i kept watching this show and even then the lack of EGOIST songs was disappointing.
made me so sad to see such wasted potential =(
I think that Inori became blind with a very convenient reason—her body is dying. Well, you see, in many Japanese anime/game/manga/movie/TV drama/novel, when someone is dying dramatically, that someone often say something like “…where are you? It’s so dark I can’t see anything…please come closer…”. So that’s it; dying=>you can’t see anything (what a great medical theory lol). I’m pretty sure that you can make several pages list with the name of characters who died after saying this dramatic I-can’t-see-you phrase…
As for why Shuu is blinded…I have no idea neither. Maybe he got seriously injured?
like you, i think shu became blind cause he got injured…
it was shown that the building collapsed. then he injured his eyes?
Guilty Crown’s ending immediately reminded me of how effed up Final Fantasy XIII-2’s ending was. They somewhat shared the same sentiments in-terms as to how they ended it. After watching the ending, I just had to shout…
” Give me a new DLC ending! “
And FREE DLC. We already bought the game.
Er…wait, no we didn’t…but we still deserve a better game. And show.
Brace Yourself, hate comments are coming.
You should probably check the previous comments.
Same old same old.
random but can i just say, i LOVE how gai & mana are standing on keido in the end card!!!! ~_~
I can appreciate that now. Way isn’t there more halos in it considering the only angle should be hare otherwise.
Guilty Crown.
It was… something.
Soooo much potential….
Everybody is just too upset because we had very high expectation of this show, actually it wasn’t bad at all, but the ending is just too…
If I recall, the show should have been 24 episodes, not 22 as it was.
I hope that in bluray they remake this ep.
My expectations were for it to answer at least some of the questions it set up, like the fates of characters that contributed to the final battle. I think I may be to blinded by my rage right now, so that’s probably what’s clouding my judgement, but I still don’t see how this episode concluded or solved anything.
It’s never mentioned if:
1. GHQ or Funeral Parlor are disbanded or any changes to the Japanese government (KIND OF IMPORTANT)
2. If Daath is still in the shadows trying to plan another Fourth (or Fifth) Apocalypse or who they are or why they wanted one in the first place. (Evolution has many different definitions throughout sci-fi, so they need to pin that down here)
3. Whether anyone other than Shu, Kanon, Yahiro, Souta, Ayase or Tsugumi lived or did anything else with their lives.
4. Why Inori’s void is a sword
And many many more.
So if any of these were covered during the episode or series and I didn’t see it, please enlighten me.
right now?
That’s right.
Inori’s void is a sword because she sees herself only as a weapon to be used by others.
Well, that what I thought until Gai pulled Mana’s void which turns out to be a sword as well. That proves my idea wrong.
Mana was using Inori’s body then, and voids may be actually unique to bodies.
4. why Inori’s void is a sword?
i guess it’s because she was created to become mana’s vessel, the cause of the apocalypse.
and also because she’s a void monster…
If you are looking for good answers there aren’t any. The simple ones are Keido killed himself out of regret, Yuu may not have died but there are no longer any voids, same deal with Daath, With no voids they can’t do anything.
They flat out said why they wanted to end the world, think NGE/Code Gayass. They wanted to make everyone ‘evolve’ to one big collective conscious.
As for Inori’s void…. I guess you could brake it down to the very bare basics, swords are the most basic symbol for conquest/destruction, So because Mana/Inori are the ‘hosts’ oh the original virus they are the ones doing the conquering/destruction.
Like I said, they are not good reasons, but can you expect good reasons from a bad show?
Guilty Crown…I think I’m actually sad it ended. Now where am I supposed to get my weekly dose of stupidity and bad writing? This anime is the very incarnation of ‘so bad it’s good’. This is coming from someone who wasn’t hyped about this show at all (my attention was focused on stuff like Fate/Zero last autumn). I didnt have any high expectations, I just wanted some fun action show. Instead the whole show derailed and turned into a big sticky mess. Pity, looking at the guys behind it.
Going over the ending, I’m kind of pissed. Everybody I disliked all lived, dammit. Freaking Shu even got likened to freaking Jesus (whahahahahahah) but lived (pussy). Arisa lived to annoy us some other day, Daryl’s subplot with Tsugumi went absolutely nowhere (don’t know whether to facepalm or be glad) and was spared as well (he’s a good guy, really! He just had daddy issues! I mean that mother he brutally murdered in front of her infant son probably deserved it anyway!) and none of Shoe’s friends died. Only the villains kicked the bucket (in mostly anticlimactic ways, btw, why the hell was Kenji with the baddies anyways? What was his role in the whole plot? Whatever) and from the good guys, only Inori kicked the bucket. Oh no. I am so sad. I mean, she had such a rich personality and her relationship with Shuu was so well developed! And look, the robots had babies! Guess Shoe picked the synthesis ending or something.
Okay, to give the show some credit, Gai’s sendoff was decent, the action was flashy, it at least wrapped some things up making it better than a certain game’s ending, and Shoe was crippled for life and ends up FOREVER ALONE. That, and at least they honored Segai in the ending card. Good night sweet prince, may you cackle maniacally among the angels or something.
Would I recommend GC to anyone? Let me think…NO! It sucks! Maybe for someone who was really into trainwrecks, but they won’t get me to watch it again, as fun as the ride was, once was enough, thank you. Goodbye Shoe, forever, and don’t ever let me catch you in my anime again, you little twat!
Took me a while to muster the courage to watch this final episode.
As for this final episode, I’d give it a 5/10. Yeah, that’s pretty harsh. Given how good episodes 18~21 were(with the exception of that flashback episode), I was expecting more. Instead, the ending feels as rushed as ever.
1. Ayase and Daryl’s fight scene was… wait, was there even a fight scene? For all I know, Daryl didn’t even moved from where he was standing. His arms just extended or something. Come on, for a final episode, the producers could have done a better mech fight scene!
2. Mana. What the heck was that dance for?
3. Gai’s battle with Shu. Did I count it wrong or did they clash swords only once? Like Ayase’s fight, this battle was kind of anti-climatic. Gai was defeated in a few minutes with a single slash that didn’t even look deep. I was expecting more of an epic fight between the two people with the power of the kings. Heck, Shu and Yuu’s fight was even more epic than this final boss battle!
4. They just kill off Daryl and Tsugumi’s “relationship” just like that. Not that I’m shipping them. And oh, how the heck did Daryl become a good guy inside?
5. The music! A guy singing an opera for an epic scene? Oh come on, you have Supercell for that!
6. Loose ends. The story was not finished off properly. Come on producers, a minute and a half to show the epilogue is not enough.
Why did Inori become blind?
How did Shu survive a collapsing building when nobody came back for him… and he’s blind.
What happened to the world during that time skip?
What happened to the other members of Funeral Parlor? How about Haruka?
What about Daath?
7. Arisa and Souta should have died.
My final thoughts:
I enjoyed the series both in good ways and bad ways. I’m still disappointed on how the producers handled such a big project and how they failed to deliver. When I first saw GC’s trailer, I was telling myself how this is gonna be epic. Supercell and redjuice are great enough reasons to look forward to it. Then I heard how staff from other famous works like Code Geass are going to work on it as well, I told myself that this is gonna be the greatest anime of the century. The hype was on and everybody was looking forward to GC as well. Then GC started its first episode and the rest is history.
While the character designs are done very well, the characters themselves failed to deliver. Of all the characters here, Ayase is the only one that is really liked by everybody. Everybody has mixed opinions on the other characters. While I hated Shu and Inori myself, I learned to like them at around episode 18. Sure, they are still annoying but I really liked how Inori stayed by Shu’s side despite everything that has happened and all I hoped for was for the two of them to have a happy ending. And oh, they should have took advantage of having Supercell by their side. EGOIST is a very wasted plot device.
I’m happy and I find it as an accomplishment that I was able to finish this series until the very end. It was a long and and bumpy ride but I endjoyed it nevertheless.
P.S.
As always, I still hope the writers never land a big job like this. They don’t deserve it.
i’ll try to answer your questions…
2. to make the show more crappy :p
4. i think daryl became nice because of tsugumi… hint:he didn’t shoot when the funeral parlor members were handed over to the antibodies in episode 14 and he protected tsugumi in episode 18
why did inori become blind?
someone commented about it saying that it’s because her body is dying, and i agree…
how did shu survive?
maybe people went to check if there are any survivors in the building? and i also think maybe inori protected him…
Here’s me hoping Divine would drop by and give his 2cents about this. Would love to hear our ‘nakama’ who’ve also suffered with us.
Shu and Inori probably went blind because the crystals actually messed up their eyes, ours eyes are mostly jelly-like, and with the crystals solidifying the jelly, they would, of course, be blind.
what just happened?
This show sucks.
I’ve spent so much time ranting about this show, I’m not even going to bother elaborating anymore.
ghh. And now we know why there is hardly ever a show in noitamina beyond 11 eps.
It feels like they told the same story twice. … And the second time through, they thought up some convoluted BS just as bad as the .hack//R:2 Era with GU, Ovan, and all his crap. … *sigh.* I think you’ve said it best in how “Death Note” and “Code Geass” are amazing separately, but mashed together like this. It Failed, hard, SO hard. I’m not even keeping this in my collection it was so bad.
Ghk, Tempted to sell off my “My Dearest” CD at Fanime Swap Meet ghk, just. Do not want anything to do with this series. Such high hopes, utterly utterly Utterly unmet.
*adds GC to the pile of Things I’ll eventually re-write myself (.hack//GU’s been on the list for a long time ;P.)*
the thing that kept me going till the end was redjuice….
The ending itself wasn’t bad per se, but it definitely didn’t improve my impression of GC. The last couple of episodes were admittedly decent, but the reason they failed to deliver is because of the terrible job the first 3/4 of the show did at developing the story/ characters.
I believe characterization is one of the most important aspects. GC did a poor job at developing them consistently, making it extremely difficult to feel attached to the series.
GC had a lot of potential, and I’m rather disappointed that the theme of a “Guilty Crown” was not fully explored. If it was, then Shu’s attempt at taking on the world’s void genome, and Inori’s subsequent sacrifice for Shu would have made a much larger impact.
Overall, I’m disappointed at the wasted potential GC had. It’ll become one of those things that don’t leave a lasting impression on me, as well as being something I definitely will not ever rewatch.
Seriously i lost my expectations for this show back around ep 6. I stalled and then just dropped it. Glad i did.
Not nearly as big of a trainwreck of a ending as I was expecting so I guess thats something. GC I will miss you, what show could we possibly watch to fill the emptiness of having you to hate every week?
Dropped it at around episode 18-19. Pretty late to drop a show, but it just sucks so bad that I couldn’t handle it anymore.
You should have kept watching until episode 21. Those were the best moments of the show(except that flashback episode).
sigh.
… Why is Shu blind? Why did the robot become anthropomorphic and have a wife and babies? Why didn’t Gai just say that shit in the beginning before he sliced Shu’s hand off? Why? Why? Why?!
Whatever. Honestly, we all know this show should have been great. But I agree with you BakaMochi. Death Note plus Code Geass does not equal greatness. No matter how awesome those shows turned out, singularly. It’s just all very pathetic. Thank god it’s over. Gai’s explanation of why he went along with everything is pretty much my explanation for watching until the end. “I had to let her play out her role as Eve…” Yo, I have to watch Guilty Crown play out to the end so I could truly be free and bury the broken pieces of my hope… Lmao.
That being said… Who’s ready for the next season of anime shows? *prays* Please don’t let there be another stupid dud like this one that makes us all hope and then stabs us with ridiculous amounts of purple crystals.
Well, the only thing we know is that Inori’s blindness was passed on to Shu as she passed her soul to him. As to how Funnel got a wife, nobody knows.
Well, when I get my Cintiq I’ll probably be doing Guilty Crown fan arts, not because I loved the anime but because I love redjuice’s works as much as I love Supercell.
We might as well acknowledge what Guilty Crown got right while we’re crucifying it.
HAHAHAHA BECAUSE IT HAS A UNNECESSARILY FREQUENT AMOUNT OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES IN IT
I’d like to know what these biblical references are, coz I honestly didn’t find any…
1st opening mentions “crown of thorns”
1st episode is called Genesis. 17th is called Exodus.
Gai carries a cross all through Eps 1-12
Yuu wants Shu and Mana to be the new Adam and Eve and holds out an Apple to Shu in Episode 21
Shu basically “carries everyone’s sins” after Episode 19
Looks like you didn’t look that hard.
Oh yeah, and how could I forget LOST FRIGGIN CHRIST-MAS
And why does it matter again?
They asked where the references were, that’s why.
Also it’s kind of lazy for a story to rely on bible refs when they have almost no place.
No I was only referring to why you’re so offended by bible references.
Who said I was offended? I’m fine with them as long as they have significance and fit, but in this story they just seemed like they were forced into it in order to make the story seem edgy and epic for no reason.
Sorry wrong choice of words. But yeah you seem bothered by it.
Right, I’m bothered because they were used as yet another example of this show’s tendency to choose style over substance. In this case it’s 90% style, 10% substance.
I agree with you Da5id. The bible references were just lazy plot devices that they decided to use. I just can’t seem to find the significance of using the bible, it doesn’t really fit well with the story.
Next season will be amazing for Fate/Zero’s second half alone. My body is ready, ufotable!
That’s what’s so sad about this show. It could have actually been good. It had everything. Great visuals, awesome music, cool concepts. But the writing was just so terrible. The plot, what I could make of it, wasn’t even that bad. It was just so terribly executed. Poor characterization, terrible pacing, plot holes, forgotten plot points, and a story that is never sufficiently explained.
What makes Guilty Crown so bad is that it could have been so good.
Man I’m so disappointed at the end there… but I have to give compliment to the staff and cast for putting up a great Anime, well not that great but 6.5/10 to me… Still the ending still very confusing… a lot of plot hole there…
The main problem is that Inori was blind, because I believe Shu’s blindness stems from that. His void has the power to remove the weight of something, and can even “cure” the apocalypse virus, so there is a possibility that he can also inherit Inori’s blindness by removing her “weight,” and therefore by taking the blindness upon himself similar to how he took on Souta, and many other’s apocalypse virus, he became blind. But in the end, even though it kind of makes sense now, I think Shu should have just died with Inori, or they should have just lived… something just felt very wrong with the ending…
P.S. Souta did not deserve to be in the epilogue, he’s a douche. Daryl should have been there with Tsugumi instead… just saying…
GG NO RE!
Release My Soul was so beautiful, I love the sequence with Shu regaining his vision with Inori floating there.
Marathon the whole thing this week, entertaining thing at best.
I was surprise at the vast amount of non characters, people showing up randomly with little influence on the story or no relevant developement.
Kenji is the best example, making me surprise each time he appeared because I manage to forget he ever existed the second he left the screen, Arisa who served no purpose beyond putting the revolution against Shu, and the list goes on.
We are also treated to a whole lot of unsympathetic characters, Shu the protagonist spend the first half being a shitty wuss, then he turns into a asshole and near the end finally become an okay guy. Inori is a void of emotion (yeah she loves Shhhyu, who didn’t see that coming with those OPs?), it is just impossible for the viewer to connect with this thing/robot/plant, even worse is her relationship with Shu, wich got no developement but putting them close to each other without real emotional bonding moment (the robot heroine from Big O did so much better in all aspects, although she is a… robot), oh and she went Witchblade out of the blue for 30s. Gai died, came back to life, and his head was filled with nonsense, “I’ll become bad for the sake of the dead girl who doesn’t love me”.
There were still some nice characters, Hare -a girl who’s all love, too bad for her-, Rowan -though on enemy side and a side character he was one of the few great guy till the end-, Segai -psychopathic greatness-, Ayase -strong disable girl, curiously the only one which got real emotional development with Shu through the serie-, Tsugumi -cheerful nekomimi-…
Great visuals, good music, nice setting, crappy heroes, poor story.
Agree 100%.
So, watching it marathon barely made a change about final impressions on this show, huh? Oh well, I guess Prodution I.G. is in “epic-fail” mode this time.
Kinda like how Yahtzee did his review on Mass Effect 3. “The ending was ok… probably because I was drunk.”
One thing I find great with this story is its concept of “redemption”. Many characters who normally (as in most stories) deserve to live, dies (ie. Hare) while those who deserves to die lives (ie. Souta). Some characters who have committed evil were redeemed through death, others were redeemed through living.
This is Guilty Crown’s way of portraying its idea of “redemption” and in a way, I find that it offers a fresh look to this concept. While those redeemed through death finds peace, those who were forced to live have to live while bearing the guilt of their actions through the rest of their lives, however long it will be. It can be argued that this is a heavier punishment, to keep on living with the memories of the sins that you have committed and the loved ones you have failed. But they do have to live with it. It is their “redemption”, their Guilty Crown.
I would argue that good people dying and nasty assholes getting to live is a bad thing, but to each their own i guess. Makes about as much sense as anything else in this damn show.
Well like real life they didn’t really discriminate with who gets to live and who gets to die. Plenty of people both good and bad died and lived.
But Souta didn’t feel guilty at all…See how he’s all smiley and fine when he’s celebrating Hare’s birthday a few years later?
To Another Gal, Shu was smiling in the same scene, wasn’t he? Does that mean that he no longer felt guilty over what has transpired? And what about Ayase and Tsugumi, you might argue that they have nothing to feel guilty for, but I think they do. No matter how you put it, it doesn’t change the fact that in their course of liberating Japan, they have killed plenty of people, directly and indirectly. They have watched friends died. All of those memories add up to their burden of living. For those who have died, their end ended their suffering. But for those left behind, they carry not only the their own burdens but the memory of those who have left them behind. And thus, I argue why Guilty Crown’s concept of “redemption”, redemption through living while bearing their memories of guilt and regret, offers a fresh perspective to this concept (of redemption).
Additionally, smiles aren’t really something you show as an indicator of personal happiness. It is, after all, an exterior posture. It doesn’t explain anything about the depth of a person’s mind. Someone can carry impossible levels of responsibility, creaking underneath that burden, but still smiles to his family and loved ones. What he thinks whenever he’s alone, is something that only he knows, while we can only guess.
Everything after that is really left to our value systems, whether we see these points or not. Now, I notice that most of the people reading and commenting on this forum are not Asians, so that can probably explain why we don’t see eye to eye in this. Nothing about race here, but upbringing. Those who were brought up to be more individualistic than communal will probably find it hard to understand the concept of carrying on the will and memories of the dead, since you would find it difficult to picture a community of people as one body, rather than as a collection of individuals.
Redemption my ass. Try applying that to Souta, Yahiro, Daryl, Kenji, Yuu…and pretty much everyone who didn’t do anything to redeem the actions they took. Kenji was already a killer before the show started, and Daryl who spent the entire series killing innovent civilians and never showed any sort of remorse or compassion. Bastard should’ve died right there.
wel… what can they do about it?
kenji is dead, souta and daryl can’t turn back time or revive the dead…
there’s nothing they can do… the only thing they can do is move on and leave the past
“I notice that most of the people reading and commenting on this forum are not Asians, so that can probably explain why we don’t see eye to eye in this.”
I’m Asian. Your point is?
Well my idea of redemption through living will be like Himura Kenshin in Samurai X. I don’t see that in any of the characters, let alone Arisa and Daryl. Shu deserves being happy and smiley after all those bad, traumatic things happening at him and if he still feels guilty after he loses Inori I feel like slapping him over and over again. I wouldn’t have a problem with Souta if they showed he still feels sad that he directly caused Hare’s death even for a second.
Gah, in the end to me the epilogue showed how Shu’s supposedly friends that stick together with him through the adventures(when actually all of them betrayed Shu at one point except Ayase)celebrating a birthday of a girl that died because of one of them. The idea was hilarious to me that I actually laughed during the epilogue.
I mentioned upbringing, didn’t I? Were you brought up with Confucian value systems? To put the interests of your community before yourself? To see yourself as part of your community rather than as an individual in a collection of individuals? If not, then you were not brought up under Asian cultural influence.
Remember that because of Globalization, we can no longer define cultural upbringing along racial lines (thus my disclaimer “nothing about race here”). So, not all Asians are raised under a communal value system and not all Westerners are brought up under an individualistic value system. However, it doesn’t change the fact that a Confucian-based value system is an Asian value system (originating from and being prevalent in Asia). And like all value systems, it will affect one’s worldview and what he considers to be important considerably.
So, while you might racially be categorized as an Asian, you might not culturally be, due to an upbringing under a different value system. Not that it is a problem, since different value systems (and hence different worldviews) have their merits and demerits.
Japan, for one, definitely have a Confucian-based value system, as can be seen from its response to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake & tsunami. So, I for one, do not find it surprising why this anime is very popular in Japan. The ideas presented here reflect their worldview, after all.
As for Arisa and Daryll, I believe I have mentioned that what a person thinks (when he is alone) is something that only he would know, while we can only guess. Only you know the depth of your own mind, after all. Part of your dissatisfaction can be attributed to the writers’ decision not to include the 2 characters in the epilogue. As for me, I have no problem being left with the question of what happened to those 2 since we can guess the likely situation.
Arisa lost her virginity to Nanba (hardly the dude of her dreams), she lost her grandfather (whom she killed with her own hands), her idol Gai and probably, for the crime of being Gai’s accomplice, we can guess that she has lost the support of her family and is serving time as well (she’s on the losing side, right?). I have little doubt that she is carrying a heavy burden of regret and the memory of the multitude of mistakes that she has committed.
As for Daryll, we know that he was troubled by his “gentleness”, which is why he seeks to kill Tsugumi in the last episode, believing her to be cause of it. It is essentially a crisis of identity, which was solved in the end when that green beret dude (can’t remember his name) saved Daryll while sacrificing his own life. This effectively puts the burden of that person’s death on Daryll’s conscience. I believe that he would doubtless begin to reflect from then on, on his internal struggle for an identity. The fact that he has killed his own father (and his father’s girlfriend) and numerous others will definitely weigh down on him from that moment on.
Essentially, every character in this story that still lives, lives with the Guilty Crown on their conscience. Their past actions, their mistakes and the loved ones that were lost by their own hands or otherwise. Which is why I argue, that death is probably much more merciful compared to such an existence. Of course, this is partly my own bias since I don’t believe in an afterlife. But this story is likely constructed along those lines as well (Shu didn’t pray for Inori, he remembers her through her songs, keeping her alive in his memory).
Look, I’m an Asian that for the rest of my 21 years have been brought up in a South East Asian country. You can’t generalize the Confucian system as the only Asian cultural upbringing because Confucian is a Chinese culture, not Asian. Last time I check only China and arguably Japan has them. India doesn’t have them, Indonesia doesn’t have them either. Doesn’t make them less Asian. Unless you’re saying all Asians are Chinese or something.
But no, the only character who truly takes the path of redemption was only Shu. And of course I don’t know what is in the characters’ minds because that’s the writers’ jobs to portray it to me. Arisa for all I know just take up the Kuhoin family, married that Hong Kong guy and lives happily ever after without regret. Realistically Daryl will be charged with international crimes because he did enjoy killing mothers in front of their children. And I really don’t buy all those supposedly good guy cause for all I know it’s just a reason to not kill Daryl off because he’s popular with fujoshi crowd. He even blamed his father’s death on Gai.
And GC only relatively sold 10,000 copies which compared to the big budget isn’t a great success. Persona 4 who everyone said has crappier animation than GC sold 4 times more than that. And the Japanese fans have the same reaction as the majority here.
*Sigh. I’d prefer not to be dragged into a discussion of history and politics, since it is outside the scope of this forum. Maybe a little should be okay. You can check some of the papers below to start with:
https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/html/1885/41912/values.html
https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/41891
http://english.people.com.cn/200612/01/eng20061201_327303.html
Confucian-based value system, Asian value system, whatever people may call, it is the same. Despite variations over national borders, there are plenty of similarities. It is not surprising, considering the huge cross-border exchanges between countries in Asia, particularly the two ancient giants, China and India.
Buddhism, for example, was founded in India but became popular in China and exported from there to the rest of East and Southeast Asia. Hinduism also spread from India across the islands of Southeast Asia, becoming the basis for some of the region’s greatest civilizations, the Majapahit, Srivijaya, Siamese and Khmer dynasties. The same thing goes with the value system, being developed and incubated throughout South, East and Southeast Asia.
While we may not call it Confucian value system, it is in essence the same. The fact that cultures in these regions uphold traditions that stress community, filial piety, respect for elders and harmony between the state and people is something that should not be discounted.
In Indonesia, for example, with its recent history of viewing China as the external “Other” (and arguably its own Chinese community as the internal “Other”), it would be doubtful that they would call their communal traditions as a Confucian-based value system (politically illogical). Nevertheless, the prevalence of terms such as “gotong-royong” (helping one another), “kerja bakti” (communal work)and the stress towards filial piety (with statements such as that “Paradise lies at the sole of the mother’s feet”) and loyalty to family is something it shares with Confucian-based value systems adopted in China, South Korea, Japan and elsewhere in Southeast Asia and India (yes, Indians share many of these communal values as well, they’re part of the origin for much of it too).
So, that’s the ancient history of it. Going back to the present time, plenty of things have changed. As I’ve mentioned before, Globalization meant that we can no longer define cultural upbringing along national or regional line. However, it doesn’t change the fact that the value systems identified as “Asian” or Confucian-based, originated in Asia, is incubated in Asia and is prevalent in Asia. There is something that you need to understand about cultures to understand why this is so, cultures are not static. Culture is ever changing, because it is after all, the sum of a people’s collective experience.
One analogy I can offer is the ricecake and cake (yes, as in the Western cake). I have eaten ricecakes for the last 8 days, but today, I’m eating cake. Now, I might be getting a taste for this new food and will probably continue to eat them cakes even tomorrow, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve eaten ricecakes over the last eight days. Similarly, countries in Asia are changing culturally due to Western influence. A few countries in Asia adopted Western values wholesale, but most merely integrate them into the existing framework. The development of Neo-Confucianism in Japan is a good example, which was born out of the country’s exposure to Western ideas birthed during the Enlightenment in Europe, it is essentially an infusion of humanistic ideas (ie. universal rights of man) into the existing framework of Confucian-based value system.
The same move towards integrating Western values into pre-existing Asian value systems can be seen in other countries across Asia. South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand make good early case studies, being some of the first to adopt such infusion, after Japan (And becoming the Asian Tiger economies). India and China, as well as Indonesia is making a move towards the same, especially over the last 20 years. I believe you can research the rest if you are still unsatisfied with my explanation that this Asian region (East, South and Southeast Asia) share a Confucian-based value system (or however else you might call it). But if it stress community, filial piety, loyalty to the group and harmony with authority, it can be called Confucian-based (Confucius being the most famous dude to advocate this).
If you weren’t brought up in this way, then its either one of two things. Your family doesn’t bring you up with the value system, or your country is making an attempt at wholesale adoption of a different value system (presumably Western-based). Not that there’s anything wrong with that, since as I’ve mentioned, each value system have their merits and demerits. Just that, it explains the reason why we cannot see eye to eye on the idea of bearing the memories of the dead as “redemption”.
A discussion of cultural anthropology aside, Guilty Crown didn’t sell badly. Yes, 10,000 BD/DVD might not seem much, but this puts it squarely in the top 5. Additionally, I believe that figure was for Autumn 2011 (Q4 FY2011) and only the first volume sales. It is doubtless that current sales would have exceeded that figure.
Sorry, just a small addition. Since you said that Japanese fans share similar reactions to this show as you do (hate?), how do you explain Shu and Inori dominating the number 1 spot for the Top 10 male and female (respectively) rankings in the Newtype character polls for this season? I mean, beating the likes of Araragi, GAR-Raider, Gintoki, Lelouch and Kyon (for Shu). And Saber, Senjougahara and Akemi Homura (for Inori). I can’t understand how an unpopular show can get their MCs into the top ranking for Newtype character polls (which always comes from the most popular shows).
http://sunnie.neetsauce.com/?p=951
Well, after everything said and done, all the hype, frustrations, and facepalm, I’m one of the people that is willing to say that this series is a fairly good show. It has a lot of misses but there are also some good hits. So all in all I gave it 7/10.
You too huh? 7/10…?
So that’s that.
Man, it’s over? But half the entertainment from this blog is to come into Guilty Crown comments section and read how suck it is.
>=(
Does anyone in here actually -like- this show?
I love Show Spoiler ▼
I did, actually. It’s really pointless to think about things they’re never going to tell you. Or things that didn’t happen. Sure, it could’ve been better. It could’ve been either 12, 13 or 50 episodes. But it wasn’t. Why not enjoy it for what it has instead of wanting more and piling hate? Graphics. Some plot. Seiyuu. Supercell. Inori dying instead of Lelouch, I mean, Shu.
It does make me feel sad, though, that Souta didn’t die. It probably has something to do with that whole “friendship” thing(Suzaku had an actual objective besides his own death, unlike someone only concerned about their own life..wait what, is that it? No? Damn references), or that his Void was actually rather useful when pushing into enemy base(s)(nothing worse than having to stop to blast or cut open a nice barricade of metal. Could have been used as a gag if they failed though).
This wasn’t really bad. After some time, Yumekui Merry wasn’t bad. Just that when things we don’t understand and/or really want to understand remain unexplained, we don’t like it. Like that trombone. Like whether it was really necessary to waste so much time and talent to promote gender equality(female counterpart of Lelouch, right? Am I doing it wrong?).
Of course, I waste lots of energy thinking back to it when I’m watching Madoka and Ran say goodbye. And when listening to Muginami’s letter. And before I sleep. And while typing this thing. But I know I’m going to get over it, to realize a year later that..Souta still should’ve died. I mean, that I already knew Supercell was great. I mean…..
Never mind.
Good plot, bad plot, screwed up plot, still plot. But above all..I love anime. Don’t we all? No? Well, most of us do..or should..or did(hope this show didn’t have THAT much of an effect).
I do*.
I still do. Really.
So its finally over huh. Oh how I’ll miss reading all the trolling, rants, complaining about plotholes and the likes every episode this show generated.
I beg to disagree, there must be no second season for this Guilty Crown.
A remake is what it needs. They should remake almost everything, the character personalities, the plot, too many to say. Episode 1 and 2 is fine, then they should remake episodes 3 onward.
It really has too much potential, and I’d love to see Guilty Crown(the remake) rise to the top and redeem its place as one of the most epic animes that it should have been. With such a strong cast, all they need to do is replace the writers and we’re back to the path of epicness.
The current plot deserves no second season, it’s too much of a train wreck. When they have finished the remake and do great, then it does.
Lol, sorry dude I posted on the wrong thread 🙁
I thought GC was great for being able to deliver it’s message of how a heavy a guilty crown is.but seriously i think the last second-thought-plot kinda weakens the message.i think the crystal poked shu in his eyes.jokes aside i’m actually hoping for a 2nd season since it’s obviously a cliffhanger ending with daath and all.but then with the voids all gone,it’s not like they can continue the story either.by the way am i the only that hoped shu would stop clinging to inori after her death and moved on to ayase?(flit asuno anyone?)
No I wish he killed himself. Nah I just wish he died instead, not because I’m a Shuu hater, but I would have preferred him going with Inori like he had intended before she saved his ass. It was a nice image seeing the crystal enveloping and bonding the two together.
And now I just think it’s depressing. Blind, longing for a girl who no longer exists.
Second season? I don’t think it’s necessary. I would welcome however welcome a remake or a prequel/side story adaption though 🙂
!f they did something like fma brotherhood,retelling the same story but lengthen to a 50 episode or something,this show wouldve been much better.if they were to remake it into a movie which removes the school life and add inori x shuu interaction/development,it would be much better.due to the bit of disappointment,i really hope that they create a remake or sort by next season,coz as said by everyone,too much potential wasted.i’d recommend this anime to people tho coz at least it looks and sounds good
I beg to disagree, there must be no second season for this Guilty Crown.
A remake is what it needs. They should remake almost everything, the character personalities, the plot, too many to say. Episode 1 and 2 is fine, then they should remake episodes 3 onward.
It really has too much potential, and I’d love to see Guilty Crown(the remake) rise to the top and redeem its place as one of the most epic animes that it should have been. With such a strong cast, all they need to do is replace the writers and we’re back to the path of epicness.
The current plot deserves no second season, it’s too much of a train wreck. When they have finished the remake and do great, then it does.
It’s impressive that this show managed to keep me watching to the bitter end. While I would unhesitatingly describe this series as utter trash, I did find myself enjoying the βios and Euterpe so there’s at least something to positive to take away from this series.
On another note, I just marathoned through all 26 episodes of Seirei no Moribito. Now that was a good series. If only Production IG could have invested in making sequels off the novels rather than churn out this forgettable collection of tropes.
With Da’ath still alive. I think a movie may come into play. Probably a different main character and we might even see Shu giving up his king’s power (if he still has it).
Guilty Crown was actually good. Everything was there to make it a big hit. The only problem is that they didn’t deliver it right.
About the hype, seems that everyone was so hyped bringing the show down that they continuously watch every episode till the end just to find it’s flaws. Normally, watching anime is a form of entertainment. Not something to make you all depressed because they couldn’t meet your expectations. Nagging about something that you can’t do anything about is actually pointless.
The last episode didn’t produce any emotion for me. The delivery was a mess. But what the heck, I still enjoyed the show overall.
i’d say the hype (and yes i was guilty of it as well) was partly due to supercell, redjuice and other big names involved in the production crew….
now they’ve animated huke’s, redjuice’s, T2’s works…. wonder if any one would get tomose shunkasu and misaki kurehito….
I’m guessing that because inori sacrificed herself to save Shu’s life (passing of cat’s cradle over to shu), Shu inherited her blindness along which was probably due to his void.
And by going along the above guess, Inori was probably blinded by the cancer somehow since i believe shu’s void can only absorb the cancer.
Well, I was happy with a lot of things in this episode, but as you said, unaddressed loose ends also gave me things to hate.
I loved:
* Gai and Mana’s ending, and the explanation of his Batman Gambit.
* Shu gaining the resolve to die if it meant 1) he could save the world from the Apocalypse Virus and 2) be together with Inori in death.
* Rowan saving Daryl at the expense of the former’s own life, proclaiming the Endlave pilot to have, “been a good kid” all along. The play of surprised, confused, touched. and then saddened expressions on Daryl’s face was amazing.
* Tsugumi and Kenji’s epic hacker face-off (even the way the latter was taken out in the end. Gives a whole new meaning to, “Go out with a smile.”)
I
Damn rolling blackouts. Now I have to attach a “Part two” to my post. Ugh. Sorry, everyone.
Okay, so…
Things that vexed me:
* No explanation for Soichiro’s death
* No explanation for Shu’s blindness
* No explanation for Funell’s robot family
* No recap for the fates of Funeral Parlor’s surviving members, or Daryl, or Haruka Ouma. This last one bothers me the most. Did the producers just expect us to get swept up in the, “awww. They’re honoring Hare!” scene and, like, FORGET THE OTHER CHARACTERS THAT ARE STILL ALIVE?!
As much as I loved the first two episodes, elements of the show thereafter, and a smattering of the characters, I just can’t recommend GC to anyone unless they, like myself, is mostly in it for the art and voice acting.
Great job with your blogging methods, Bakamochi! Keep up the great work! (Okay, computer: NOW I’m done lol)
biggest FACEPALM EVAR.
and here I was betting on some sensible pic finale,
**** THIS SHOW ARG!
DUDE i didn’t even know shuu was blind in the epilogue orz
utter disappoint.
and wow, most full-length caps ever
and DarylxTsugumi? ._.
I think you mean Tsugumi x Ayase
The thing that disappointed me the most with GC was that it had so much potential, but got really bogged down by crappy writing and characters.
But now that that’s over with, we can move onto the VN which looks much, much better.
The art style, the characters, even the mechs. Everything just looks better. And knowing it’s Nitroplus, I’m going to assume the plot is going to be much better too. I’m already sold on the new protagonist.
Shoe: “I’m just an average kid that no one understands.”
Scrooge: *Kills everyone – with his bare hands*
Guilty Crown have not yet ended as there is other routes to follow if they want to become the first group to do so. Alternate ending would make it more appealing to watch. I can see this as a so-so ending.
Damn you Rowan, why didn’t you saved yourself too, I know Daryl is a good person who was acting like a bad guy and he deserves a second chance but Rowan was a good person from the beginning and then he just let the U.N kill him off. Every time something was going on you were able to see how difficuly it was for Rowan to give orders. To bad Arisa didn’t die and Shibungi would be a really good new leader if they ever bring back Funeral Parlor, which is not needed.
Can someone please tell me where it was ever implied that “Daryl is a good person who was acting like a bad guy”?
David…. Not to be mean, but you’re pretty slow. This was not even something that needed to be implied, the guy who pushed him in the elevator straight out said “you’re a good guy” to him. I might be paraphrasing but you get the point.
Well, not to be mean, but what you’re saying makes no sense. What point was there in Rowan saying that to Daryl when there’s literally no reason to believe Daryl has ever been good?
what point was there in Inori’s soul being a string and cat’s cradle?
what was the point of re naming Gui triton before he even had a chance to answer if he lost his memory or not?
What’s the point in Tsugumi’s void being a magic wand?
I said it before, you are expecting to much out of this show. You are not going to get clear cut answers,
Also they are obviously trying to make him look like a good guy, if not there would have been no point to all those times when they showed him getting up set over his dad abandoning him. What I said makes sense….. I’m trying to word this with out being mean lol, it’s hard. You also missed that all voids/virus are gone and other blatant things like that.
I know you probably don’t care for a serious answer but, I think it was in the Tsugumi arcs. Where at some point it did look like he might have a change of heart in becoming a comrade to the good guys. That didn’t happen though so Rowan just left him with the message that deep down he believed he was a good guy encouraging him to change for the better if he did survive.
Also Seven is being sarcastic…
Sarcastic about what?
Your first post. I thought you were answering sarcastically as in Rowan said he was a good guy and therefore he must be good.
But yeah I agree with your second post. There were heaps of times where they tried to make Daryl out to be a pitiful kid who we were meant to sympathize with after then events of episode 2. You may not buy it, but it was shown pretty obviously.
Yeah, too bad it’s the last episode, so it doesn’t matter if he was good deep down or not, because he never did anything make that quality worth caring about. A bullet to the head would have given him more character development and closure than that scene did.
No, I was serious. we are talking about how the show is trying really hard to make him look like a good guy. David was saying it was implied while I was saying it was blatantly obvious.
I know it was obvious they were trying to, I’m just pointing out how they failed at making it believable.
I was surprised!!! High School DXD’s plot is more intelligent than GC.
I may be preaching alone here but I for one enjoyed it. Sure the plot holes could blow out an 18 wheeler and there were some moments that just made some hidden A.D.D kick in but it was a journey I still had a fun time watching. Sometimes you have to accept things for what they are.
If were were trying to rate anime based off of how much sense it made I don’t see Tengenn Toppa Gurren Lagann as being up there. Regardless of that though I still love TTGL and is way up there with Evangelion and FLCL (Not to say that’s it. GTO, DRRR, etc etc)
Honestly I’m sad it ended as I wanted to see more on Inori but oh well.
2 things I want to add.
First about the blindness. I don’t think he’s blind, least not in both eyes. He wouldn’t be able to walk around with only a walking stick. Most likely he has tunnel vision in one or both of his eyes. Though I figure it’s probably pretty severe. My guess it has to do with the A-Virus he transferred to his body. Remember how it was affecting the right side of his face? My guess is that it got pretty bad and had some perma damage to the nerve system.
Honestly I have no idea.
Another thing I wanted to point out that I’m slightly unsatisfied with. Why did Inori not get any acknowledgement from everyone. I understand it’s Hare birthday but why don’t they say anything about Inori. I mean she is the reason Shuu is still there right? I understand that Shuu has bigger feelings for Inori and will be forever the one to think of her every waking moment but really?
I wish I coulda been there frantically waving to Shuu going “I STILL REMEMBER INORI TOO!!!”
Truthfully, I thought the series was entertaining, the premise was awesome, the graphics, the music. But I also agree the story was full of holes and the last episodes felt like it was being rushed, trying to tie things up somewhat – like putting a grenade back together with duct tape
That being said I would really love it if this was remade into a movie/ova with better writers. Like the old Escaflowne movie that was better than the original TV series (not that the TV series was bad or anything)- A good retelling if you will.
PS I’m just happy it didn’t end like the sopranos or the first Eva ending where everything was Shuu’s dream or something.
Finish Watching Guilty Crown? Check!
Now to wait for the Nitroplus version of Guilty Crown with Scrooge.
Well, obviously you guys don’t really watch and pay attention all that well. The reason why Inori became blind was because Mana (when she took over Inori’s body) had crystals in her eyes in this one seen, which meant that the virus was affecting the eyesight. Now, when Shu defeated Mana, the crystals got destroyed and it rendered Inori (who got her body back remember?) blind. And when Shu accepted the cats cradle from Inori (which was obviously her soul, duh) he inherited her blindness. Not really that hard to comprehend.
But why make him blind at all? Why not just kill him off?
Ok so… you either really suck at being sarcastic or are really dumb. Mana’s eye’s being crystals has nothing to do with anything, although I personally think they are cool as fuck. If Mana could use those crystals eyes to see please explain why Inori; using the same body can’t? you can’t lol. It was just the show trying to look cool(same reason Inori’s void is a big sword I’m guessing.)
I can accept the Mana-Inori eye-virus bit I guess, but the part about Shu being blind was most likely done by P.I.G. in an attempt to make Shu more pitiable/tragic; he suffered and lost the most out of everyone in the series.
My own theory about Inori’s blindness is because she’s dying. I’m not 100% sure how accurate this is now with current medical research but I remember reading in a really old neuroscience textbook (think it was published in the 1970s. Not sure, but you get the picture) that one of the first things to give way when the body starts failing (ergo dying) is your eyesight. When someone’s knocked unconscious, paramedics check their pupillary reflex; lack of this can be attributed to brain stem damage, brain damage, or even death.
How this gets transferred onto Shu though…~_~a I feel the producers just want to portray him in an even more tragic light. Either that, or it is a psychosomatic thing. “The trauma of losing Inori” and all that romantic weirdness.
I think the arm of Shu is still his void but it is covered with metal. He can return the void back to Inori but this will remove the memories of Inori fro his mind.
like a code geass,one of the main characters would die T^T…
and choose king too XD
After re-watching the last ep for the eye candy, I finally realized what the “experiment” on Daryl was about. So, I guess his mech’s “shield” is his void (from 2nd ep?), hence “Void Genome Emulator” (ugh…I’m so slow, I know…)
So, they sure dumped a lot of new & irrelevant stuffs into the last 2 eps…Either the writers are really stupid (which isn’t totally unreasonable), or they’ve fully planned this to have 2 seasons
Haters aside, having a 2nd season with Shu fighting people equipped with those void emulators might be cool
I just want to see Arisa get raped by a mecha.
Why rape when you can just kill her.
Sadist: coz killing would make it too easy for her. Leaving her with more mental trauma seems more fitting
Seriously though, a lot of characters (Souta, Daryl, maybe even Yahiro) deserved grave punishments. And here we had this typical ending where the protagonist (except in Daryl’s case) shouldered all of their sins in their place…ah…what a shame.
Oops. This has been discussed all the time. Stopping now.
It was average, not bad, but not good either.
Scarface, Dan, Ayase, Daryl, and Tsuguimi were the only good characters in this show, IMO.
I was listening to the OST,
and this phrase came up quite a few times in quite a few songs-
“I release my soul, so you feel my song”
sort of explains the ending
I’ll be looking forward to Guilty Crow: The Phantom Edit edition by some fan. There must be a good show hidden there somewhere when you cut all the nonsense out.
Hmmmmm, it’d actually be pretty interesting if someone could pull that off….
Well the special that covered the first eleven episodes seemed good because they cut out all of the crap, so maybe someone can just do that with the last 11. Sort of like how they turned the first 14 and the last 13 episodes of Gurren Lagann into movies.
Now that I think about it, that thing Shu did with all the voids at the end looked a hell of a lot like a GIGA VOID BREAKER.
I really felt like Guilty Crown had a ton of potential, but it really didn’t do anything with it in the end. My biggest problem was the writing, not just for the overall plot but for the character development as well. As has already been noted, the overarching plot felt off. It’s like the writers knew the endpoint that they wanted to get to, but they half-assed transitioning from point A to point B. This does not lend well to a good viewing experience, and it just feels disjointed. I always had a decent idea of what was going on, but nothing really seemed connected. It also didn’t help that every once in a while, the writers would throw in a new plot device from right field to get the plot moving (e.g., how voids work).
Now, for the character development, the best I can sum it up is that it was wildly inconsistent. Constantly, characters in the show act completely contrary to how the writers characterized them. It’s frustrating when the writers set up character one way, and then suddenly in the next episode, they act completely different. Let me say that this is very different from proper character development. Good character development is based on the progression of the character based on personal experience and interactions throughout the series. However, for many of the characters, the writers throw out the progression and it makes some characters pull a 180-degree turn later on. It has to be much more organic, and in this show, it seemed forced and jarring. If you want great character development, take a look at Ano Natsu de Matteru. In half the time, this series has done an excellent job in creating believable, compelling characters.
I had high hopes for the show, especially with the first couple of episodes, but in the end, Guilty Crown remained superficial. On the surface, it seems stunning and great, but when you take a minute to think and delve a little bit deeper, it becomes apparent that it’s only skin-deep and the flaws start to show up. As much as I am criticizing the show, don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed the show. However, I can’t help but feel that this show could have been so much more. For me, Guilty Crown was fun, but ultimately forgettable.
Yeah now that I know the Death Note and Code Geass crews worked on it I can understand why I was disappointed. Death Note was amazing in both characters and story telling while Code Geass was amazing visually and story wise but all the characters except C2 could go jump off a freaking cliff and I wouldn’t care. The two styles don’t mesh well at all and just caused everything to be rushed and holey. A good series but could do with either just Code Geass or just Death Note working on the plot.
@Da5id
I’ll answer this bit by bit, ok?
About the anime you mentioned:
Samurai Champloo didn’t made an impact with me. Granted the fight scenes were good but the music and plot is meh. Stopped at episode 5. Code Geass is a bit wishy-washy for me in terms of artstyle. But the plot is OK. Hanasaku Iroha is rather plain IMO.
Every person’s void in GC is meant to be a major part of their character.
When did you made that assessment. It’s not BTW. You did see that they used the void plot on the students so they can act as Shu, and later, Gai’s mooks.
If they don’t explain why it is they way it is, it means they never elaborated on a major point of her personality or motives. It’s okay for some people like a character that never shows up again after a couple episodes, but Inori’s the main heroine. Literally over half the show revolves around her actions and choices. THEY DIDN’T EXPLORE THE CHARACTER, PERSONALITY OR MOTIVES OF THE MAIN HEROINE.
That’s because Inori is not even human. Remember? She’s supposed to be Mana’s other body, Inori is Mana. The character dev’t is not for Inori, but for Mana.
AND YES, IT WAS TOO FAST. As I’ve said numerous times, this plot is meant for a 50 Episode Series, not 22. Most of the episodes looked like they were meant to be two episodes that got squished together. The whole of Shu becoming a dictator was too fast (TWO EPISODES) because there was little to no time to understand his logic for doing it, let alone sympathize with it. He wants to come off as an ass to get people to follow him, but he somehow didn’t understand people would want to kill him because of it?
He came off as a dictator because he needed to be. They’re all dying, and everyone agreed Shu’s the leader. In a desperate situation everyone would quickly agree to anything if it ensures survival. Thus he wouldn’t really get it when they started to complain when it was they who agreed for him to be the leader in the first place, and thus why I hate the traitors.
Immature kid’s first love is never believable. Especially when all of their bonding occurs off screen and is told to us instead of actually portrayed AND their whole relationship is what determines the fate of humanity. If the love of a couple of teenagers determined whether or not I became part of a giant alien collective, I better be damn sure they’re meant for each other. For ShuXInori, it’s got the realism of Edward and Bella.
What’s unbelievable about it? ShuXInori is still ShuXMana after all. I believe all the emotions Inori has is Mana’s. And I warrant Shu can feel Mana’s vibes with Inori, especially when he’s sad and has no one to turn to for comfort and assurance that what he does will work.
And their relationship determining the fate of the world comes of as a “Woobie Destroyer of Worlds” trope. We all know how most of them turned out.
They set Daath up as the ones ultimately behind everything in the show’s conflicts and then never explored it. They give some enigmatic details about what they represent but never as much as is warranted and then just let the only person related to them, Yuu, get away free with no consequences. The F.A.R. are never mentioned in Evangelion because exploring that would take too much focus off the main story, which was the conflict of humans with the Angel’s themselves. Yuu was literally controlling the events of GC from the very beginning to get to Fourth Apocalypse, so killing him and destroying Daath last would have been the proper way to resolve all of GC’s conflicts. There was no scene in NGE of, say, an agent of the F.A.R. saying that he is a rep from a shadow government that controls the world, or one of them in the lab with Gendo and Fuyustuki, telling them to make the EVAs to cause Third Impact because this wasn’t what they were meant for. They plant the seeds of life, that’s it. The rest is up to the populations themselves. Daath wanted specifically to control everything to go in a specific line, so they were the final antagonists. They ended the story of GC without explaining the final antagonists.
And explaining Daath’s whole purpose would just be as offtopic as FAR explaining how they designed Adam. Who knows if Daath’s only method to destroy the world is this?
Okay, but all of those shows were hyped up a whole bunch and met expectations. Not as hyped up by their own staff as saying “this is the next generation of anime” like Guilty Crown was (again, that’s a direct quote from Production I.G), but they were still hyped. This proves that hype only has an impact on people’s impression for the first few episodes. After that, all of the show’s faults are on its own head. If it lives up to expectations, it’s an overall good experience from the majority. If it didn’t, it turns out like this show.
Turning kids with voids into mooks is a huge waste of what voids were initially set up as: Their PERSONALITY AND PSYCHE. Each void is supposed to be a manifestation of the character as a whole, and should hint at what kind of person they are. This isn’t Bleach Superpower Lottery trope where you just get a random void and go fight with it. There’s no lottery involved because it’s based around the person. Yahiro’s into slasher films, so his is shears. Ayase is fixated on her disability, so prosthetics, Tsugumi hates being alone and loves fantasy, so hers is a magic wand that makes copies of people. Neither Inori or Mana have had anything relating to swords in their past for them to associate with. Then again, neither Mana nor Inori get that much backstory as to why they are the way they are, so there’s just a huge flaw in explaining either of them at all. Mana is crazy all the time, Inori is stoic all the time. The fact that they never elaborated on that when both of them are the driving forces behind the whole plot is incredibly lazy.
Hyped? Not really. All I saw of HanaIro is one web page and the usual season chart.
But it is Superpower Lottery: everyone has a defined void based on their feelings right? So what happens when two people have the same feelings? Duplicate voids would be the answer.
And Shu is just the key to it. It really doesn’t revolve around him as Genome users can let Void owners use their own void. Seeing this done in a huge fashion like it’s being “mass-produced” is really to be expected. It’s just that the main and supporting characters are the ones given more focus and definition, than the mooks.
It was certainly hyped less than GC, that’s for sure. If you were writing a story, would you say a show is the “next generation” of it’s medium, would you do that without 100% certainty that you could pull it off?
The voids would only be the same if two people identified the same emotion with the same object, which isn’t impossible, but it is unlikely, thus why all voids look different in the show. If they wanted to mass produce voids like a common weapon (not one that represents a persons soul and kills them if it’s destroyed), they should have just made it less personal to each individual character. Again, it’s a concept that wasted and didn’t follow the path it was supposed to logically follow.
I feel like Guilty Crown was too rushed. If it was a 50 episode anime, it probably would’ve been super amazing. The random twists and random flashbacks threw me off numerous times, they were never explained. I still like this series, although I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone unless they really just want to watch it …
50 episodes with the same writers who did this? I’ll pass 🙂
50 episodes with new and decent writers? I’ll gladly be fanboy.
Mana didn’t develop AT ALL. She was crazy, crazy, crazy and loved Shu because the virus told her to. Her relationship with Shu had about three scenes in a flashback and Shu turns down most of her advances. There’s no scene of them being a family or loving each other, there’s just moments when Mana wants to get in his prepubescent pants because she’s being controlled by an alien lifeform. Inori not being human gives no excuse as to why she can’t be her own independent character. Hell, the latter part of Ep 18 was about her breaking away from that, even though it amounted to nothing.
Shu never needed to be a dictator, he just needed to be a competent leader, which was what Gai wanted him to be in the first place. This show is always forcing characters to switch to opposite extremes of good and evil on the fly to make it seem traumatic when really they just catapulted all of that character’s development across the room instead of just letting it get there on its own. Arisa starts as semi-competent but then turns into a crazy slut the moment things get too hard. Souta is carefree and outgoing then turns into a sniveling mess. THIS IS HOW PEOPLE GOT IN TWO EPISODES, 15-17. This story didn’t make anyone stronger, it just beat them down until they either wanted to kill themselves (Shu from 19 till the end) or harm everyone around them (Arisa from 17 till the end). A character should be able to reach a path of growth and understanding of who they are on their own. Their surroundings cannot possibly have this much effect. What this tells me is that all of the characters in this show are incredibly weak willed and aren’t anywhere near as fully formed as the story wants to think.
Again, ShuXMana makes even less sense than ShuXInori because Shu and Mana are never shown ever having a bond or connection. Mana shows Shu a cliffside in a flashback. We’re supposed to believe that they’re incredibly close because of that one two second scene? Is that’s all that’s needed? Don’t they need a scene where Mana is playing a game with Shu or eating dinner like a family or something that shows that they actually have fun with each other, other than Mana wanting to plow Shu for the sake of starting over mankind?
Woobie Destroyer of Worlds…I’m not sure even fits here. Mana’s being controlled by the virus and has no will of her own at this point. Shu wants to stop her because he wants Inori, not Mana, which makes no sense because he barely knows Inori at all. Inori wants nothing to do with it because…she wants be her own person? That’s not explained either. Again, there’s no progression as to why any of these motives make sense. It’s just set up that way from the get go and we’re just supposed to buy it.
Daath’s whole purpose is the whole point anything in this show took place. They led Keido as a puppet and made all of the plans, so they are responsible are everything that happened. Adam’s role in NGE was simply about referring to the 2nd Impact. The show makes it clear that Kaworu was the only Angel that had any idea what it was doing. F.A.R. doesn’t even keep track of the stuff that happens on other planets which is why they’re never brought up. Daath is made up of humans, and are responsible for everything, so they are a story thread that cannot be left hanging. Either that or just pull it and Yuu out of the story entirely.
@Moondoggie
Mana did develop. They did present who she is. Shu didn’t turned her down, he just got freaked out. But he did care. Otherwise, he won’t even be in that church during Lost Christmas.
Like Gai? Shu shoudln’t even be like Gai. And Gai has different circumstances than Shu, why expect Shu to be like him? Shu is Shu and Gai is Gai. And Hare just died…
We’re supposed to believe that they’re incredibly close because of that one two second scene, with the stressed info that they are family, brother and sister. Is that’s all that’s needed? Yes.
Don’t they need a scene where Mana is playing a game with Shu or eating dinner like a family or something that shows that they actually have fun with each other, other than Mana wanting to plow Shu for the sake of starting over mankind?
So the image where Gai, Mana and Shu are together with Haruka isn’t enough? The flashbacks at the season 1 end?
Shu wants to stop her because he wants Inori. True, because he likes her. Dulcinea Effect. One that create permanent bonds. Inori wants nothing to do with it because she wants be her own person, yes. Do you need more explanation than that? Imagine being told you are a clone and is to be used as a new body for a dead guy? Anyone will be terrified of that.
Daath’s whole purpose is the whole point anything in this show took place. But remember that Daath is a huge organization. With powerful backup they can just chuck the project and do another, leaving no trace. It’s like the Sears(or Searrs, whatever is usually used) Foundation in Mai Hime. There are earlier examples of evil corps disappearing after a defeat in some anime, I bet you can think of some too.
How did she develop? How is she any different from when she was introduced in Episode 12?
Episode 12: Crazy and attached to Shu
Episode 20: Crazy and attached to Shu EVEN WHILE HE’S IN THE WOMB
Episode 22: Crazy and attached to Shu But now she’s going to destroy the world.
Despite sharing genetic code, Inori and Mana are vastly different characters, even if they are both one-note, so you can’t say that when one develops the other does too. That’s simply not how it works.
You need to SHOW a bond between two important characters with SCENES of them interacting, not show us one single picture and a ton of info that’s read off a list. The only things the flashbacks showed was how Mana was crazy from the virus controlling her mind. There’s never any point where she does anything kind or compassionate or sister like. She did save Gai’s life, but then ties him up, gives him a faulty gun and uses his blood as lipstick. She shows Shu a cliff she likes, then the rest is her trying to get in his pants. Then she blows up and kills tons of people. PERFECT SISTER RIGHT THERE, RIGHT?
And Shu having different circumstances doesn’t make his huge shift in character any less unwarranted. Besides, that was another example of the show just beating Shu down rather than building him up. The majority of plot events only make Shu suffer rather than give him a platform to develop on. Sure, it raises the sympathy on him a little, but he never recovers or takes it in. He just lets it happen and gets worse and worse. It’s like he was specifically designed to be stagnant or never become a better or more compelling person. At least Shinji learned that life is about taking pain and happiness Shu only had a boner for Inori, and that’s all that drove him.
Why is the main relationship that determines the fate of the human race and set in modern day based around the Dulcinea Effect? If it were the medieval or feudal era, that’d be believable, but here, it makes the main character seem incredibly desperate.
Inori shouldn’t have waited 18 Episodes to make clear she wanted to be her own person. Again, if this show had 50 episodes, that would be a good-ish place to have her reveal this fear, but that that close to the finale. By the halfway point, we should know all we need to know about a characters backstory. I don’t think we ever learned anything about Inori that wasn’t told to us by her or a different character. We need flashback scenes of her, not just getting her backstory barely mentioned and handwaved off where it’s convenient. We see one frame of Gai getting her from a tube…but that leaves so many more questions than answers.
Mai Hime is hardly a good example. Besides, the foundation is the antagonist for about 5 episodes. Then Alyssa dies and they blip out of existence. The Obsidian Prince was the main mastermind, so that’s why he was the final antagonist. Daath is the mastermind here, so the story should have ended with their defeat. We’re not even sure if GHQ’s let go of Japan. Who’s running Japan in GC now?
I actually think that Mana got sufficient development for what the plot demanded, so I’m with Moondoggie on this one. She got what she needed, and that’s that. Sometimes you don’t really need to fully flesh out the character to get the point of their existence. Classic example are Julia and Vicious from the legendary Cowboy Bebop. Did they get a whole lot of development? Nope not really, yet what was shown was enough for us to sufficiently understand the general idea of the situation and how Spike felt about it and that was what’s important.
She wasn’t crazy-crazy before she confessed to Shu. And you don’t need to show the bond as in show it blatantly. We all understood she’s his sister, infected and made insane by the virus. Should there be anymore detail than that? No. And there is no need for her to be a perfect sister as well. Necessary interaction is necessary. Anymore unnecessary details is just a waste of time and irrelevant to the plot.
Remember that the show’s aim at the start is to beat-down Shu. And, excuse me, but Dulcinea Effects takes place even in modern settings. And please don’t compare Shu to another kid with daddy issues. No one in Shu’s family is out to destroy the world.
The need to know of a character’s backstory is hardly relevant to the plot at hand unless it is brought up or becomes necessary. Example is Inori’s origins until it is brought up in episode 14. This is why we aren’t told of Kurosu’s story until Shu received the diary.
Knowing everything in the middle of the series will only ruin the plot twists.
And Mai-Hime is a good example. And Alyssa survived. She even became the spin-off’s protagonist’s ancestor(still a rumor…). If you watched the anime, or have read the manga, the Searrs Foundation became more relevant only in their Arcs, much like how Daath’s/Yuu’s relations with the whole plot only became relevant when he appeared.
@ronri
But…Vicious and Julia weren’t the center of all of the events happening in Cowboy Bebop. They only touched on the Guild stuff in a few episodes, and even then, they at least were consistent with how they were set up. Vicious was a bastard who betrayed Spike and Julia was a the women who got caught in the crossfire (literally). That’s how they were described, and that’s how they acted. Mana is Gai’s long term goal in the first half and the what all the villains are focusing on in the second. Gai and Shu say that she was a good person, but almost nothing seen in her flashbacks indicate that, and then she comes back and she’s still crazy.
@Moondoggie
That’s all? To beat him down? That’s not how proper character development goes. Where does the lesson learning come in? Where does the growth occur? What has Shu learned about himself by the end of this journey?
If Shu were a guy with more confidence from the start, the Dulcinea Effect wouldn’t make him look as creepy as he does when he’s lusting after Inori for no reason in the first few episodes. It’s not endearing, it’s not something I want to root for, it’s just misplaced. But I’ve been pessimistic about this show before, so that’s all opinion.
Oh, I can think of one person in his family that was out to destroy the world. Her name sounds like something used in Magic: The Gathering.
It’s necessary for Inori, because she’s a main character. She’s the center of events of the story. When we have no reason for why she is or is not doing what or why she is where she is, we lose reason to care. There were numerous opportunities to explain how she was made, what she is exactly, how she joined FP (or for that matter how FP got started, or how Gai got involved in it) which are all things they could have covered if they didn’t try to crunch a 50 episode plot into less than half of that length. They could have had time to focus on individual members of FP, like Ayase or Tsugumi or Argo, etc. Why’re they there, what’s in it for them…you know, basic backstory that determines whether or not we care about this person or not. Without that, they’re just a bunch of random 2-D people doing random missions and we have no reason to feel bad when they die or good when they succeed because we don’t know them. Episode 20 was actually a poor choice to put the backstory because it was right before THE END OF THE STORY. Was there really no better place to find out more about Shu’s dad than at the end?
And 14? Inori’s past isn’t even mentioned in 14.
Who says you even need plot twists? If you know everything before the end, then you know exactly what’s on the line and all of the emotional tension is right there with you. Example: FMA Brotherhood. We learn about Hohenheim’s past in a random flashback so that when we get to the final battle, we know their history and which person has what grudge or wants revenge over what. Shoving all of the past till the end means that the audience can’t get used to these massive revelations before everything’s already over, which is another thing this story got wrong.
Alyssa survived as a glowing ball of light that was a Deus Ex Machina (another bad plot device) in the final episode and brought everyone back from the grave. The spin-off is an AU anyway, so that’s moot. Either way, it’s not the same thing. Searrs made the Orphans, Alyssa LOST HER PHYSICAL FORM AND CHILD, then they disappear without a trace because they were the Disk One Bosses. GHQ were the enemies throughout the entire series, and in that entire time, up until the very end of the last episode, they were being controlled from the inside by Daath. GHQ is likely gone, but Daath still remains. Daath was the enemy all along, and the whole driving force for everything. They never stopped being relevant or being the Group Behind The Group, which leaves them as a giant plot thread dangling in the air even after all of the carnage and destruction. They needed focus and exploration and got nearly none other than saying they’re older than the Zionists and they want the virus to win. Why do they want the virus to win? WE’LL NEVER KNOW.
@Da5id
I always saw Mana’s development as sufficient enough, especially considering how she was portrayed more as an destructive “entity”, like a natural force. I’m not saying she got the best development of course, but I’m pretty sure the assumption was there that she was a decent person until the virus turned her all whack so I didn’t see any more need for them to fully flesh out her character. It’s just one of those things that I thought was a given and it served as the setup for more development for the other characters (namely the main three; Shu, Inori and Gai). Personally I think the little development she got should’ve been complimented by Inori in some way (not sure if this makes sense to you, I’ll try my best at explaining). As in, because Mana seems more of a background figure (especially in the first half), then the emphasis should’ve shifted towards developing Inori’s character on top of that. I think the main issue is that when they brought back Mana and Gai, it put them in the spotlight once again, while Inori herself seemingly got pushed back until she called again to wrap it all up for Shu (hence the awkwardness of her ending and past “closeness” to Shu).
You know what? I think the writers just didn’t know what the hell kind of story they wanted to tell by the end of it, so they just rolled with what sounded good in their heads at the time.
*scratches chin, thinking*
Yeah, I can see that. Like an unholy terror that was sealed away years ago but is on it’s way back? Yeah, that’s actually a far better description of her character. Reminds me of Sozin’s Comet in Avatar or Lord Voldemort in the first four Harry Potter books. My problem is that they made it seem like she was just misunderstood when it was pretty clear she was the devil incarnate.
And I’m pretty sure you’re right about that. I’ve certainly fallen victim to that when making stories. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
@Da5id
You missed how I posted “at the start…” There is no such thing as proper character development or the length for it. The method to build a character will always depend on what is only necessary. And not all shows needs lessons, or that the MC needs to learn something. To your comfort, you could say that Shu is tougher than when the whole thing started.
Mana isn’t out to destroy the world. She got upset and accidentally destroyed it.
It’s not necessary for Inori, because the story revolves only on her as a clone for Mana, not for any other reason. The other members of FP don’t need it too because they aren’t even the focus of the show.
Inori is Mana. Any development for Mana = dev’t for Inori.
We give off plot twist to further the plot as it is demanded.
Actually there had been proof that Otome is actually a far away sequel to Hime, namely Miyu’s system and Arika’s glowing hair.
And Daath is the Group behind GHQ. But like I said, there is no more need to tell more than needed because like any Evil Corp. they have enough power to just stop support for GHQ. Anymore than that is actually going farther away from the immediate crisis that is GHQ, Gai and Mana.
Tell me one damn serious show that did not require the main character to grow and learn something about himself and the world around him. The only way you could possibly say Shu has gotten tougher is by saying things have gotten SO goddamn awful for him (family and friends dying and betraying him every step of the way, the only person who mattered to him being torn out of his hands multiple times in multiple situations, losing his arm and sight) that he’s essentially gone numb. I could say he was tougher if he actually overcame it and decided to do something with his life, but the epilogue is way too short to say. If anything, it implies that he’s just completely broken now, and would rather sit and listen to music from the past than do anything progressive or productive.
Gendo didn’t want to destroy the world either, he just wanted his wife back. So by these standards, they’re in the same boat.
If Inori’s only the focus of the story because of Mana, then why couldn’t they have just made Mana the main heroine? Why develop any of the FP members or make them stand out at all if they weren’t going to cover there reasons for being in the story? Why not just make nameless generic soldiers? (merchandising doesn’t count)
I still don’t understand what you mean like that. Mana didn’t learn anything or change from what Inori went through because Inori’s memories were erased before Mana took over her body.
Plot twists every episode is not demanded, it’s lazy. Where’s the chance for the audience to catch their breath? What’s wrong with just letting a plot continue at a steady tone and pace before chucking the next wrench into it?
Either way, Hime and Otome still have as much relevance to each other as an AU story. That is to say, not much.
So Daath just cuts off a tail and remains as an organization, which means the Big Bad’s are still alive and able to do evil stuff? Then the conflict isn’t over and the story’s incomplete. It’s not like these people are impossible to find either. Arisa may not know about them, but the last shot with her is with a ton of guys from Daath, and I can’t imagine THEY got away without some interrogation. Kurachi and Okina Kuhouin knew enough about them to know they’ve infiltrated “every organization you can think of” (direct quote from Okina). They must have had some leads, they have direct members in custody, and they have the resources to find them and at least scatter them. WHY would they pass up the opportunity to put away the guys responsible for everything bad that’s happened in the past 10 years? Remember, they were also responsible for the Lost Christmas incident. You think the UN is just going to let that go?
NONONONONO this is just all sorts of wrong. >_<
You're telling me it's not necessary for Inori to develop because Mana provided "her" development? I would believe you if they actually made it clear that Inori is like a "reborn" Mana, but as you've said, more than anything she's a clone. A blank slate.
If they wanted to say the Inori is Mana, then as Da5id said, Mana should've been the main character, with the Inori persona acting as a blank starting point, but that obviously wasn't the case here. If they were going for the notion of "Mana = Inori", they should've emphasized that by linking their memories/personality in some way as the series progressed, which they didn't. In the end Inori is just left there to give closure to Shu.
Like I said, Inori's development should've been established and shown as deviating from Mana's character as at least it would show that she's a different person altogether (thus allowing her to grow as a character and assume her own identity). If the point of her character was that she had this inner conflict as a clone, they should've addressed that actually gave her some proper development. If the intention was that she was like Mana all along, then they should've linked them together, not separating them as if they're two completely different people with one acting as a host for another.
I agree with Bakamochi’s thoughts on Guilty Crown, his comments made me laugh really hard. Though I have to say I didn’t see any of the previews before the subgroup sub them. Watching the first espiode, I thought this was going to be a really, if not, extremely good anime. after the second espiode I was very disappointed. Shuu’s character is…. argg…I just dislike so much about him, just as much if not more then the Gundam Seed Destiny’s main character Shinn. Both annoying little $h!4’s. While visually the series was beautiful, and the action secenes good, the writers seriously dug the grave for this anime. I loved the music when I first heard it, but only 4 songs? bakamochi was right, I too have probably been spoiled by Macross for wanting more. While the anime could have been Sooo much better, I pretty much just watched it for the visuals after espiode 10, and even then that took me over a month to get over the feeling of vommiting when I thought of how much I couldn’t stand Shuu’s character.
So you’re saying your expectations for the show being good came from watching the first episode, not from hearing about how the show itself was anticipated?
i felt that the crux of this anime was feeling. Together with the art and the soundtrack, it created an atmosphere that was digestible yet difficult; warm yet cold. i don’t fully understand some of the elements such as shu’s blindness at the end, and the lack of reason for certain things, but i do believe this anime pulled off a sense of orderly chaos.
certain characters die for very little impact and at times you cannot see quite where the show is headed.
however, i think that is the brilliance of Guilty Crown. It has that realistic element to it (putting crazy crystalising virus’ and voids and the like aside) which i gave the tick of approval towards, and it had characters you can bond with. Lets not also forget an amazing score and beautiful art.
So anybody else come to the conclusion this was sorta a f*cked up version of kingdom hearts? Shu=Sora Gai=Riku hahaha
Nah. Just you.
It’s a fucked up version of every anime ever told. Except of being so fucked up that it’s compelling and thought provoking, it’s just really fucked up.
I was kind of disappointed with the ending to be honest. Yeah, I could be just a bit angry because they failed so gloriously in the romance department. I mean, I at least kinda sorta hoped for real kiss between Inori and Shu, since you know the first time he was like in a coma so it doesn’t count. I have to stop thinking about it or I’ll just end up getting angry and this show isn’t really worth it, though at least these past 22 weeks have been entertaining.
The funny thing about this show is, I’m not so mad that it turned out this way, I’m more mad that this whole thing was basically just wasted potential. Rather than a sequel, I want to see this show remade with the right writers at the helm. Heck even a movie, that way if it was still bad it’d only be about two hours of torture instead of twelve. Oh well, the romantic in me is glad it’s finally over, my heart won’t have to suffer anymore. Back to Aquarion! yay!!!
I can’t bring myself to add to the bashing of this show. It feels like being part of crowd that’s taking turns beating a puppy with a stick and now the bloody stick’s being held out to me. It’s very ugly and deserves it, but still it bothers me a bit. Though I will help myself to it’s OST. Not that bad.
I was full of questions until they manage to answer some with the flashback and stuff.
The blindness, is it some punishment (from Daath? for stopping natural selection? :P)?
One of the questions I still have is: what is Yu/Daath?
God? Will of natural selection/human race? Alien?
So the supposed next step of evolution is crystal being of memories in a world of crystals?
Or are the Daath a crystal alien race looking to spread to Earth?
Felt as if Daath thought its time for evolution and made the meteorite then throw it down 😛
What will the Lost Christmas game bring in?
Just a loosely tied side-story thats set before the anime?
I wonder if Scrooge is one of the Adam experiments?
Thinking as I looked at the Lost Christmas game site…
Maybe Scrooge is an Adam experiment or Apocalypse experiment who escaped with a proto Void Genome?
(Or he is a proto Void Genome experiment?)
And Carol is a prototype Inori?
Are the 3 ‘Ghosts’ Daath assassins?
Wonder what is that ‘certain experimental facility/lab’?
If they are playing with Christmas, wheres Santa? 😛
Lost Christmas Demo Translated, if anyone’s interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alYh-HTK61o
Carol’s got an…interesting outfit. Scrooge is just a feral beast right now, so hopefully they expand on that. My guess is that the Ghosts (Past, Present, and Yet To Come) are part of Daath and that Carol’s a proto-nori (like iron2000 guessed). I just hope it gives us some of the answers the anime was supposed to but didn’t.
I’m likely not going to order it, just wait for the spoilers or some footage to come out on youtube.
Hm…Reapers…”Your choice is meaningless”…this remind anyone of anything?
I was thinking if there were more meteorites then there would be more Eves but it seems like theres only one.
Scrooge has red eyes, reminds me of Mana, makes me think of super-Inori.
Scrooge and Present seem to let off genomic response that trigger the Apolcalypse Virus, like an Eve.
The giant endlave, is it a Gespenst prototype?
What if Past is its pilot?
”Your choice is meaningless”
So it says its a story of the past so the sequence is set in stone, therefore there won’t be different consequences and endings?
One sequence and one ending?
A story book, not a game book?
I hope this game clears up what is Daath exactly and the origins of the meteorite.
I’m wary to have hope about anything related to this show anymore, honestly.
But nonetheless, I’ll be waiting for the release (which also happens to be my birthday, by the way).
Overall I agree with Bakamochi and thought this analysis of Guilty Crown was done well and besides the clearly mentioned opinions was explained in an unbiased manner.
I’m a pretty optimistic person and will say this anime had such a great story line fusing so many different types of plots together (school, hero development, tragedy, insanity, romance, etc.) It makes sense coming from the creators of the Death Note and Code Geass. Reminded me of a Elfin Lied, Code Geass, Naruto mix. We had the psycho girl situation and tragedy similar to Elfin Lied, Code Geass’ mastermind strategies and “save the world” mentality, and also the Naruto character development of a boy who is a loser and tries to be loved, to a hero that is mature, strong, and developed who leads others to peace. I’m sure there were many other similar basic model story lines that could have been drawn from other animes.
Supercell was amazing and yes wish they created more songs. The graphics were also nicely done which impressed me beyond end especially the action battle scenes but also the character design. Shu’s character was what really impressed me as they brought a pushover boy archetype to a true born hero. His character development really was what hit my heart and I could agree with Inori that he was loved for being “a true human.” I personally like his quality of “bearing the pain” of others just like Lelouch did in Code Geass in the end “dying for the world.” (Zero Requiem) Shows true selflessness and heroism.
Unfortunately, the last episode 22 (ending) is what turned all my love for this anime downhill as yes it seemed rushed, lacked development, and just dropped most of the climax between Inori and Shu. Wasn’t the worst ending but what basically disappointed me was it had a mediocre ending for an excellent anime. I still think this anime was one of my favorites especially as just the whole package impressed me. Just the ending was a little disappointing though I cannot complain as the ending wasn’t a total loss.
Least there are characters alive, supposedly there should be peace, and Shu and Inori’s love is still eternal. I just wished they either both died eternally or lived with eternal love. Also I thought Code Geass did a better job at showing that there was finally true peace within the world unless that was not part of the “ideal ending” for Guilty Crown. I just feel a little under content for the ending wise but overall I still believe this anime Guilty Crown was great and if not for the ending, could have had true potential of becoming one of the best animes of all time.
Ofcorse I had my expections as my two favourite animes are, death note and Code Geass.
So I started watching and after a few episodes I tought this is the new code geass, sadly I didn’t really liked the first part, I mean it was epic and looked great, but the story was vague and Shuu was a sad little crying boy, I did not like it all that much. Altough it was decent. Then the second half came, and everything became darker. People getting sacrificed, Shuu becoming a evil bastard. I loved it, gave me that death note vibe. Then as it went to the end the story became vague again, still interresting tough.
Well to get to the point. The final episode was awesome, I loved the fights the confrontations and more. The plot wasn’t as I hoped for but it was worth the ride of 22 episodes, I’ve seen far worst animes and I can say that this one was exciting. Altough I did not quiet get everything and there are some major holes, like why Inori is blind, and I read that someone said that Shuu was blind in the end as well. I tought his stick was just for walking as he hurt his leg or something.. Ah well that doesn’t really matter, perhaps the creators can make a OVA explaining what happend with the war criminals etc. ALtough the story had it’s gaps it was truely a awesome ride, and a ride I would like to take again. I don’t know what everyone is complaining about, the anime was not the best anime ever, and could be better. But it was a awesome expierence! I mean I’d rewatch it, and I honostly believe that this anime will be better the second time, maybe that way I won’t miss information I missed now. Therefor I give this anime another shot.
And this anime itself gets a 7.5/10 from me.
My Friday feels so empty, I miss dropping Guilty Crown. ( ¯3¯)
There’s always the visual novel! You can drop it whenever a new part comes out Youtube!
I started watching this series with no expectations and still walked away feeling disappointed. I guess that the first episode itself raised the bar before everything quickly fell apart.
The sad thing is that the story was actually pretty good, animation was beautiful, music made me love Supercell all that more and Ayase gets my vote for one of the best female characters for the season (and one of the best voice work from Kana Hanazawa thus far). The execution of the story leaves much to be desired and the plot holes is bigger than the dent of the boot of my car (which is pretty damn big). If parts of the story was rearranged this series would have been much, much better.
And dare I say it, this series might have actually benefited by being a few episodes longer. This would have allowed them to fit in more scenes to flesh out the story more, show more flashbacks, show progression of characters rather than sudden leaps and bounds etc. Even the epilogue felt too short.
Overall, I’ll give the series 6/10.
I’m not sure, but I’ll try at this. Remember when Inori gave Shu the cat’s cradle, it’s in the shape/color of the “cord” of life. You know, the cord that in which is cut off with one of the void, you die. So, if she was blind before she gave him the void (though honestly, I still don’t agree with her going blind)and then Shu took her “life line”, then he’d be blind as well. That’s just my theory though. Still, WHY DID SHE HAVE TO DIE???!!! ;_;
Very Disappointed in the ending. Just couldn’t wrap my head around the gaping holes. I know a lot of authors want to leave blanks for you to fill in yourself, with your ideas and beliefs but this was ridiculous. There where just too many unanswered questions to even begin filling them in with ideas. I have to agree with many of you Shu should of died with Inori. That would of been a better ending by far. Or maybe the two of them taking on each others injuries/faults (blindness/Missing hand) and living with the consequences aka blind in one eye each or something along those lines.
for some reason i think that shu isn’t blind…
it wasnt that bad i just sat down and starting watching and enjoyed it. o and a side note i think shu went blind cuz he could have used his void to take the blindness away from inori
They probably should have just ended off from first season. But its also good that they continued because I can see more inoreen! marketing at its best I cant wait until they release her 1/8 figure ;D
damn.. there’s no kissing scene… and.. i want inori and shu to have a happy ending 🙁 but didn’t happen, i hope there’s season 2.. this anime was more like of MIRAI NIKKI 🙂
Inori probably went blind because of the cancer infecting her and in the end Shu’s void was the reason he went blind. As Gai said, Shus void gathers everything, peoples strengths, weaknesses, light, dark but is not limited to just that, it can also absorb peoples defects such as the cancer that he took from Souta and the Soldier who was dying. Before anybody says how did he get rid of the cancer, it was eliminated through Inori’s sacrifice. Hope this mere speculation makes sense enough to clear things up for some people xD
“The epilogue, while nice, doesn’t really reveal much. The important characters all get their necessary screen time, and I enjoyed how they were all meeting to celebrate Hare’s birthday. It might seem random, but I certainly appreciated the characters gathering in her memory. The scene certainly closes the chapter on these characters’ lives on a happier note and it’s probably my favorite moment of the episode.
However, like I said, the finale really brought forth GC‘s strengths and weaknesses: head-scratching developments, unanswered plot points, questionable scenes, what have you. Some of the ‘highlights’ of the episode would have to be Mana’s impromptu dance sequence as she brings hell upon the world. Lovely animation and great music. But… it was just so odd. Unless that was the joke? I suppose if the producers’ goal was to illustrate Mana as a sadistic psychopath – prancing around as everybody dies – then I suppose the scene was warranted. It’s just… you can never be too sure what the Guilty Crown producers were thinking; it’s just better to take these scenes as they come, wonder about it for a moment, and promptly move onto the next head-scratching development.”
THIS is the reason why i’m taking this anime seriously. I mean really, it really makes NO sense to me whatsoever!!
this wanted me to punch a hole in the wall why did inori have do die while the guy lived why isnt he depressed god this anime is fd up
Character design is also something I wondered about. They’re pretty. But if you’ve ever looked at redjuice’s illustrations and compared to the official art of the anime, you’ll notice the discrepancy very quickly. It’s kind of like CLAMP, or even the shoujo manga artist Tanemura Arina: the art looks stunning… when it’s not animated. That’s probably a very poor way to phrase it, actually. It’s not that the animation art looks bad, per se, but just too different from the original designs. The three artists I mentioned have a very distinct style that’s pretty hard to carry over onto a fully animated project. Anyone who’s seen CLAMP’s art knows how annoyingly detailed it is – all that jewelry and flowing strands of hair. Redjuice, while not as complicated as CLAMP, still has a fairly detailed and the way they color their works just contrasts too much with the style Production I.G. had going for the animation. Even though for the most part, the animation was fluid, I’ve never been able to shake off the feeling Production I.G. was digging their grave even further by having redjuice as the character designe
Yeah, I agree the character design and the animation difference like hell and heaven, but why CLAM and some sh*tty Shoujo artist? Their art sucks, and you ARE F*CKING COMPARING THEM!
redjuice designs are all good, the anime art is 8/10 in the voting in japan (don’t remember the link) then what the hell are you COMPARING ABOUT? It’s pointless. Inori always in my heart <3
AND THE F*CKING MYSTERY is for GUilty CRown Lost Christmas the Graphic Novel to Answer
*UCK YOU THE WRITER!
I’m not much of an anime fan but as I was scrolling through hulu and found this show and watched the first episode I thought it was just a bad ass show from the start I watched it all day for 2 days to finish it because it was just that good I loved the whole show and thought it was rushed a little to much and there should have been a few more episode but what really pissed me off at the end is how Shu lost his sight and Inori died and Shu was just left alone with her memory they need to make a second season where she somehow comes back of remake the damn season and make this shit right!
Well my take on Shu ending up being blind is:
1. Because Inori was blind (for unknown reasons XD) when she approached Shu and when they crystalized together, when Inori gave the cats cradle string to Shu, she was basically giving her soul to him. Therefore, it might not be far stretch to say that at that moment, Inori and Shu merged as one person.
2. Another reason might be that Shu’s blindness represents the sacrifice that he made for the sake of the world. The king’s power, as described in the beginning of the series, is said to work only when the wielder makes contact with someone AND looks directly into their EYES. Now had Shu been able to see after all of this, he would have still been able to use the king’s power, which would mean that there is still a weapon of mass destruction still existing. Because he has lost his vision, he has technically given up the king’s power in turn for being the savior of the world.
3. The finally most logically explanation would be that the writers just felt like putting this in for no apparent reason so that we might pity Shu XD.
The show was a lot better without the high expectations that everyone was putting on it. The animation was obviously great and the music was superb! However to truly understand the story you have to have insight on the biblical story of Adam and Eve; along with some creative open-mindedness. With that said, the story was paced in order for you realize humanity in the shoes of Shu, and per the creator’s tone; slowly paced the plot in order to fall in place with the story of Adam and Eve. My opinion is that the blind effect that both Shu and Inori refers to the “blindedness” that was imbued onto the original Adam and Eve before they took the Fruit from the tree. Hence why that creepy kid that represented that evil organization [Daath, i think] was flaunting it at Shu during their fight. This explains why in the end, when Shu accepts Inori and not Mana; she becomes Eve before the taking of the apple. When she give her life for him they essentially become one person. Also, it is important to note that the diamond shaped string that Inori gives to Shu is also called the Cat’s Eye. Recognizing the role the Cat’s Cradle plays in representing the Nativity, “faith is blind”. In this case faith in their love for each other is why Shu is able to see Inori at the end.
… well that was all my opinion. I feel like Guilty Crown deserves a little bit more credit. By no means do I think that the anime is perfect, plot-wise I do agree they should of explained the symbols and motifs better. However annoying it was to find out the extending meaning it was worth it to do so, it made me fall in love with the story and the characters.
who wants second season of guilty crown
HI there! Inori was alive, but what I thought was that Inori and Shu are one person now… since Inori was blind… after Shu survived the falling of debree (which i find impossible) He attended the birthday party blind… so that means Inori is alive within shu :))))
skapepi….