Anime Review: Guilty Crown
- Very Average Joe
- 3 minutes ago
- 4 min read
English Title: Guilty Crown
Japanese Title: ギルティクラウン
Director(s): Araki Tetsuro
Screenwriter(s): Yoshino Hiroyuki
Studio: Production I.G
Released: 2011–2012
Series Runtime: 22 episodes, ~23m each.
Starring: Kayano Ai, Kaji Yuuki, Nakamura Yuuichi, Hanazawa Kana
It is almost 15 years since the release of Guilty Crown. To my knowledge, the reaction was/is mixed; some love it, some hate it. It certainly has its strengths but it has its weaknesses too, so it is worth a review after all these years.
Set in near-future Japan, the country has been in effect under UN authority, specifically GHQ, since the outbreak of the Apocalypse Virus ten years earlier. Basically, the world does not trust Japan to handle a problem of such scale and so the UN has to do it.
GHQ has far-reaching powers and its troops, dubbed “Antibodies”, do not hesitate to exercise them. They can declare people infected without testing and then have them executed immediately.
The series opens with a young lady named Inori, who is a somewhat popular singer, infiltrating a secure facility and stealing a biological sample. Somehow, she can do that with a barely-there costume but the audience is meant to just go with it.
High school student Ouma Shu then comes across Inori whilst she is hiding from the authorities. She gets detained but the sample falls to Shu with instructions to deliver it to a man named Gai. He does so, finding out that Gai is the leader of the resistance group called Funeral Parlor.
Somehow, Inori is later released and in a fight between Funeral Parlor and GHQ, Shu gets exposed to the sample. The sample is a “Void Genome” and enables him to literally reach into an individual’s heart and pull out their idea or what they are in physical form referred to as a “Void”. For example, Inori’s Void is a sword. So, Shu is in effect the “socially inept nobody who becomes the superhero” trope. Gai describes him as having the “power of the king”.
Gai offers Shu to join Funeral Parlor which he eventually does and the plot follows their struggles against GHQ.
The sci-fi premise is interesting enough even if it is the overused virus outbreak. The sci-fi can come across as excessively fantastical, presumably in an attempt to be different. Again, either one accepts it or not.
Shu is initially reluctant to join the cause and even after changing his mind has reservations. That is realistic although he seems a little too clueless at times. Whether he is green and clueless or [Potential Spoiler] he’s lost it, he acts like a little bit of a brat and that sometimes makes him difficult to sympathize with.
To be fair, Shu’s character flaws are consistent to the theme of power and responsibility, even if the exploration of said theme is crude.
As for other characters, Inori is too much of the love interest who is the “capable and cool/deadpan chick”. One can obviously see there is supposed to be something more to her character but this is unclear for too long. Even when her origin is explained, it is not done clearly enough.
Ultimately, the plotting is somewhat clumsy. There is signposting and exposition, it’s not as if these are absent. The elements used are all too common, which is fine in itself, but key events occur too conveniently. A few examples are mentioned below.
The main characters have past connections and whilst the story makes more sense to have them, their revelations are presented as more dramatic than it needs to be. It is not just Inori.
There is, of course, a conspiracy as certain parties want the power of the Void Genome. That is plausible and the story needs it, but things escalate because the series needs to at such and such a point, whether it is some power that gets released, or some ability is discovered, or that GHQ locks down an area in a certain way just to create tension.
Related to the above, although the political elements are signposted, they are not elaborated on until after key events. Even if the series is not meant to be a political thriller, more of the intrigue needs to be shown before said key events. Instead, it merely relies on the “sinister weirdo” military guy as the villain directly going after Funeral Parlor to hint or express it.
Visually, it is not bad as expected from Production I.G. The designs of characters, mecha and the environment are generic but they generally look good enough. There is decent use of CG with traditional rendering. It looks sleek with a little grain and film glow fitting to the genre.
The action is generally not bad, but it is not great in some sequences when the action happens too fast. For a work that tries to be “big and dramatic”, it would be better to slow down the action.
The soundtrack by Sawano Hiroyuki is masterful as expected with his usual striking blend of orchestral themes with rock-pop. There is some variation; for example, the ending theme “Ninelie” by Aimer and chelly (from EGOIST) is more spaced-out to fit the darker and melancholic tone of the work.
Whilst it is appreciated that the score is not too loud in the mix to avoid abusing it, it could be louder—if anyone’s score deserves to be loud, then it would be the likes of Sawano’s. One wishes he got to write two more pieces/themes as that would give the work more body.
On balance, the series is not bad. It is a series that I want to like more; the characters are nothing special, which is fine, but for what is arguably a plot-driven work, the plotting needs to be more refined.
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