Anything Code Geass Can Do, I Can Do Worse - Guilty Crown Review

I consider myself the type of person that can see the good in most things. I've watched plenty of movies that I have been told are terrible that I have found some enjoyment in. I would hardly classify any of them as cinematic classics but I can see what the movie is trying to accomplish and at the end I feel a little disappointed but entertained nonetheless. For example, I saw Green Lantern and yes, it sucked. However, I thought that Ryan Reynolds actually portrayed the character of Hal Jordan well. The problem was that the writers botched the script so poorly that he got dragged down with the ship. So when it came time to watch Guilty Crown I thought that I could see the good in a series that is literally the definition of Love It or Hate It. Never have I been so wrong in my lifetime. You know, I should have seen this coming. I should have listened to all the people that said "Don't watch Guilty Crown! You could be doing so many other, better things with your life! Why????" Perhaps I'm a glutton for punishment or maybe I finally wanted to see what it was like to watch a bad anime? All jokes aside, Guilty Crown is an incredibly frustrating series. It's one that wants so bad to be a combination of Code Geass, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Revolutionary Girl Utena that it copies directly from the pages of said works.

The story takes place in Japan during the year 2039. The country is in ruins, recovering from "Lost Christmas", an incident that happened ten years in the past and infected a large number of the Japanese population. With the country in such ruin, an organization known as the GHQ has taken control of the country to govern and control the spread of the Apocalypse Virus. Our protagonist, Lelouch Lamperouge...err...I mean Shu Ohma is just a normal high school student who tries his best to make it through each day with little attention. However, one day when he gets home from school he meets a mysterious girl named C.C...I mean Inori who will change his life forever. Essentially, Shu accidentally winds up right in the middle of a fight between the GHQ and the rebel Funeral Parlor group who are trying to take back control of Japan. During this initial encounter with Inori, Shu ends up being granted the "power of the king" (seriously...this is getting way too familiar), the Void Genome which allows him to pull weapons out of people known as Voids. (Voids are given a bit more explanation but they're essentially that)  So Shu ends up siding with the Funeral Parlor (dumb name), aiding them in their fight to remove the oppressive GHQ from power (yes, the guys who are keeping the deadly virus in check). No, I haven't described the premise of Code Geass, this is actually the plot of Guilty Crown. The story then grows and expands, getting extremely dark at some points and theres plot twists galore. The plot is actually, what I have the biggest issue with. Yes, it's a complete ripoff on Code Geass and yes I understand that the way Shu pulls out Voids looks exactly like this from another legendary series. However, my main gripes aren't so much with the fact that they copied from these shows but more that fact that it did such a crappy job of it. Guilty Crown loves to be cryptic, asking questions that it can't answer, making Ass-Pull moves everywhere and calling them plot twists, leaving holes in the plot like swiss cheese, and making everyone's character development as deep as your local kiddie pool. The plot loves to throw in plot twists everywhere, trying so hard to make itself the next anime, like Code Geass or Steins;Gate, that makes your jaw drop each episode and give it a 5/5 because you felt attached to the characters and the sheer shock you got from each episode makes you love it even more. However, those shows actually were able to pull such things off because they had coherent plots and the plot twists actually made sense in context and genuinely surprised you at times. In Guilty Crown you can see them from a mile away. It's one thing to not be an original anime, there are plenty of works that are rather generic and don't do anything groundbreaking but succeed in the fact that they do those things well. Guilty Crown fails at replicating the shows that it's trying to copy. Why watch Guilty Crown when it's essentially a crappy version of Code Geass?

Boy meets strange girl, strange girl gives him powers, powers cause him to be involved in a terrorist group trying to liberate Japan from an oppressive government? Never seen that before...

The next thing that Guilty Crown tries to be is the new Evangelion or Revolutionary Girl Utena. It will go through episodes, leaving the viewers with questions. Obviously, we wait, expecting that the show will reward our patience by eventually answering the questions. Instead, Guilty Crown will leave these answers until very late or not answer them at all. Extremely important points related to the plot won't be answered even when the show is in the middle of an incredibly important scene. It really robs the viewer of their understanding of what was going on. This leads to the show throwing tons of information in your face at once (most of it still doesn't even make sense). It wasn't unusual for me to throw my hands in the air and yell "what the hell is going on?" or "this scene would actually be interesting and compelling if someone would just answer one simple, stupid question." Sometimes it feels like the show is just saying to you "this is happening because...stuff." Don't even get me started on how the plot will solve many of Shu's issues with extremely plot convenient things. The final episode of the show was an abomination considering how much buildup there was leading up to it. Part of me wonders if there was some missed potential with Guilty Crown that could have been achieved if the show was better written. Utena and Evangelion succeeded in being cryptic and mysterious because you felt that you learned something new every episode that would contribute to your main understanding of the plot. Guilty Crown actually does have some really cool concepts that could have made a really awesome series if they had been done properly. However, it's way too busy trying to be Code Geass when it should have been embracing the things that made it different (as few as they seem).

A cast with loads and loads of lame characters

Guilty Crown would love nothing more than for Shu to be Lelouch Lamperouge's successor. It tries so hard and it's actually kind of sad. Lelouch was a deep, complex character who you could sympathize with even when he had to compromise his morals and be an asshole. Guilty Crown tries to do the same thing with Shu, except he just comes off as a whiny, angsty, asshole. Shu's character will develop by leaps and bounds in one episode before reverting back to the same whiny kid in the next one. When a character has to make several morally compromising choices we should sympathize with them even when we don't agree with the choice. It's often a gut-wrenching choice but deep down we know that it's the only choice the character could have made and that it hurts them as well. Shu makes a choice, acts like an asshole and remains an asshole before whining like a schoolgirl about how nobody understands what he's doing. In the end, Shu isn't Lelouch but he's only a pale imitation like most of this show. Then there's the incredibly forgettable cast of characters that follow him that are walking stereotypes that walk around spewing cliches. Yes, there are episodes that focus on Shu's classmates that are suppose to let us find out more about their characters but these simply come off as stale. The show rushes into these situations way too fast and suddenly characters are interacting and growing before our eyes (quite poorly I may add) before their previous characterizations had been established. Later, the show makes every character do ridiculously out of character things because the plot needs to advance before reverting them back to exactly how they were before. Inori is probably my least favorite character because her character in general was just lazy. You might as well place a giant "generic love interest" above her head and call it done. Her whole romance with Shu feels forced considering how fast they move as a couple and the fact that Inori doesn't really do anything that important for Shu other than pulling out her Void. Shu claims that she's the only one who understands him and she's the most important person in his world. Yet at the same time, she never really seems to do anything that merits such a distinction. All she seems to do is sing at times that never really call for it because apparently her song has "magical powers" or some ass-pull explanation like that. These scenes are supposed to be really serious, emotional scenes but they instead come off as narmy and silly. I never really felt much of an urge to care for Inori or any of the characters. Even the leader of Funeral Parlor (still a dumb name), Gai, is an incredibly weak character. He's supposed to be the badass leader of a rebel army thats trying to take back Japan except that his motivations for doing so are incredibly unclear. After all, it's established that the GHQ is actually caring and providing aid for those who contracted the virus so wouldn't removing them do more harm than good? Every time Shu asks a member of Funeral Parlor why they follow Gai, they just get all offended and respond with varied versions of "you'd never understand" Maybe we would if someone would just tell us for once then I'd be able to sympathize with him. (Don't even get me started on the completely out of character ass-pull he pulls off in Episode 12)

Ok, so I've just ranted for several lines about what I found wrong about this anime. Despite the seething words I have written above there are actually some things that this show does well. From a strictly action point of view, the show succeeds greatly. The action is very visually pleasing and Shu's powers are really cool onscreen. It's when the show slows down and tries to be dramatic and character focused that the show struggles. Like I said before, I do rip on the plot of this show quite a bit but I do believe that the potential was there for this to be more than just a Code Geass clone. The first half of the series actually sets the show up for a really compelling ending. In fact, if the show was 12 episodes, instead of 22, and did a better job explaining things in the shorter span it could have actually done really well. However, it bogs itself down with poor writing and bland characters. I couldn't help but think that there was some missed potential here and I think that its where most of my frustration comes from. Guilty Crown seems to be content playing things to the chest and following cliches. It wants to be Code Geass or Evangelion but is too afraid to take the risks that those shows did. Overall, theres missed potential here and it's really a shame.

The action scenes are one redeeming quality of Guilty Crown

From an A/V perspective the show does a phenomenal job and this is where Guilty Crown recoups some points in my book. The soundtrack is clearly well thought out and definitely had a younger audience in mind. At times it sounded like a mix between Gurren Lagann and Code Geass (surprise!!). However, it succeeds in this area because the music does match the themes and tone of the show. This is one instance where I can forgive it for copying Code Geass because here it actually makes sense. The voice acting is hampered by the fact that the script is absolute garbage at times but the VA's do a good enough job with what they have. After all, it's not their fault that the writers wrote them bad material. Visually, the show is absolutely gorgeous and captures the moods and feelings of the show.

Overall, Guilty Crown is an incredibly frustrating series. I find it hard to recommend because there are so many shows out there that do what Guilty Crown does, only better. The show does give glimpses of it's potential and from time to time it can be really enjoyable. However, most of the time you spend watching it you'll find yourself face palming at how poorly it's written and how mismanaged the plot is. Like I said before, it's missing a few things that could make it an enjoyable watch but those few things are so vital that I can't give this show a passing grade. I'm glad that I've finished watching it and I hope that by reading this review I can spare you some disappointment.

My Score: 2/5