[Solace]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

1. In action-packed sci-fi shows I tend to not be very picky over "defying the rules of physics", and a fair bit of the criticism I've seen wrote about Guilty Crown is of this sort. For me, this is a much smaller issue than, say, horrifically botched characterization. So there's certain types of "ass pulls" that bother me more than other types. For example, "Void convenience" is something I'm much more willing to roll with than a character doing a sudden 180 in their personality without much justification given for it.

Agreed about not being picky over physics when compared to characterization. However I do expect rules established in the setting to be followed. Any change to the rules should make sense in the context of that setting.

2. Characterization-wise, I honestly never had a big problem with Shu or most of the main cast. Well, I do concede that some of the characters left much to be desired in the first half, but most of these issues have been resolved in the 2nd half, imo. While I can understand some viewers thinking "that's not good enough", it worked reasonably well for me in this show.

Fair enough. We happen to disagree on this, but that's fine.

3. Guilty Crown is a show that's been actively hated on, particularly on a lot of the anime blogs I frequent, and much moreso than any anime show that I've been more critical of than this one. So I think that GC's flaws are already getting loads of attention, so why should I spend a lot of time just repeating other people? If anything, I think that Guilty Crown's real standout strengths have been drowned out in the criticisms of some viewers, and I just think that's a crying shame. The reason why is...

I think it is hated on because it was over hyped. Just look at some of the silly hate other popular shows generate (regardless of deserving it or not). "I don't like it because it's popular" tends to be heard more than laid out criticism that tries to avoid being flamebait.

4. Anime is a visual medium, and also one in which audio is important. While how well an anime is written is important, it's not the only thing that's important. If an anime looks and sounds better than 95% or more of all the other anime out there (and that's honestly how I feel about Guilty Crown), then I think that's something that deserves a lot of credit. And this isn't something I'm being generous just with Guilty Crown over. I also showed Hanasaku Iroha a lot of slack for much the same reason. If an anime truly looks and/or sounds great to me then that makes it a lot easier for me to forgive somewhat sloppy writing. Maybe that's wrong of me, but that is honestly the effect that extremely good-looking/good-sounding anime tends to have on me. Some (if not all) of the shows that I was more critical of than I was of Guilty Crown were ones that didn't have GC-caliber visuals/audio, so they didn't earn that slack from me the same way GC did.

Eye candy is great, and GC looks great. I don't think I've ever criticized the AV quality of the show. However I am expressing my disappointment that those values aren't reflected in the directing, writing, editing, etc. I have plenty of great titles I can fire up for eye/ear candy, but the list shrinks considerably when it comes to also having an excellent story to go with it.

I can respect this viewpoint. If I'm reading you right, I think that you see Guilty Crown much the same way that I saw Angel Beats!

In other words, as a show that was so incredibly ambitious in throwing together a veritable potpourri of popular anime elements that it just wasn't able to execute them all well in the time allotted, leaving some sense of dissatisfaction.

Yup, exactly. And I liked Angel Beats. It certainly deserved all the harsh criticism it got, even though it had powerful scenes. I think the two that stick out most in my mind at the moment is "My Song", and the flashback in the subway. However the story itself was a mess, hindered by a massive cast and too many unanswered questions in the end.

But I personally have less of an issue with a two cour show trying to pull this off than I do with an one cour show attempting it. I think GC had enough time to achieve its ambitious aims, so I wouldn't want it to be less ambitious. I think that the overall balance probably could have been better (maybe one less episode of high-school hijinks and one more episode of carefully handling the post-Hare/pre-Gai's return stretch).

I have more of an issue when a two cour show tries to pull this off. 20-ish episodes should be more than enough to tell a story. That's not to let one cours off the hook, of course, but if you've been given the room to breath with that big cast and expansive setting, it should still be important to use every episode to its full potential, just like you'd expect of a one cour. Even if the episode can be considered "throw away" compared to the main plot, it should flesh out the characters and/or the setting, breadcrumb into the main plot, and assist in cleaning up loose end questions so the final episodes aren't crammed with a rushed exposition.

More often than not, I liked these.

It's ok to like the ingredients and not the soup.

By "mad scientists", I assume you mean Keido and Segai? Because if so, I felt that both of them did a good job of hiding their "mad" sides from their superiors.

Right, but why does this trope need to be here? Couldn't they just be as "mad" as the organization itself? Why must scientists in sci-fi stories always have some kind of hidden agenda (good or bad)? Is it a bad thing to have scientists who aren't trying to be more evil than the evil organization? I don't mind the "conflicted scientist who bit off more than they could chew", but the "scientist who used the organization for his own more sinister end" is overplayed, imo. Especially when the whole thing feels like a plot device meant to add fuel to the "big bad" fire.

For example, in GC. They created the virus, turned a child into a monster, and after witnessing the carnage of that stupid decision, decided to clone her and try to bring her back....to destroy/evolve humanity? Ignoring all the theatrics (like the marriage ceremony), one has to wonder why they thought it was a good idea to infect a child with a dangerous virus and then not keep her under quarantine or at least constant surveillance, and then after witnessing what happened when it went out of control....decided to do it again, but on a bigger scale.

Note to evil organizations: screen the mental health of your scientists and keep them under watch at all times. Preferably with a gun to their head in case they decide to betray you.

I admit that some of these tropes are overplayed, but I nonetheless liked the spin that GC put on them.

Fair enough. I happen to feel otherwise.

Inori may have been a Rei clone personality-wise, but her appearance was so drastically different from most Rei-types that it caused her to feel a bit different to me. Her being an idol singer is another way in which she was different from most Rei-types, so if nothing else, this anime made an unusual combination of commonly used anime tropes.

I think the difference for me is that Rei is an empty vessel emotionally, but Inori is an empty vessel literally. Inori's entire existence has been to be the body that Mana returns in. They even go so far as to literally wipe her memories just for the blank slate. Tragic, sure, but I think I would have felt it more if Inori had developed more personality. The scene itself, sad and well crafted. I still felt no welling up of tears though.

I get that the Shu character type is tiresome to you, and it usually is for me too. I usually don't like the "starts a bit wimpy/whiny, very gradually improves, and then becomes genuinely cool, effective, and/or badass just in time for the final arc or two". But for whatever reason, Shu didn't bother me as much as most other examples of his character type do.

Shu isn't bad, but man his life is terrible. Some of it he brought on himself, but sheesh....it's like the story exists just to make this guy miserable. The character type itself is tiresome, but mainly because it is overdone. Shu may not be as bad compared to others, but it still doesn't make me like him much.

Perhaps it's because I felt that Guilty Crown was mostly about sheer spectacle in the first half, with characterization being more important in the 2nd half.

I would have preferred it the other way.

I have to bluntly disagree with you here. The grand scale of the GC narrative made it much more interesting, engaging, and simply fun to me. I love epic action-drama, and GC provided that in flying colors, imo. I would not want to change anything about it in this regard.

It's over the top to me. Scale doesn't need to mean that every action scene was directed by Michael Bay. Sometimes I feel like the scale in GC is just there to provide something for the overpowered voids to destroy. Again, just a difference of opinion. I would have preferred something that felt more dystopian police state than all out military assault.

And the mechs helped to give us some nice action scenes. Honestly, I really don't see why the mechs would be an issue at all. I mean, we're not even talking anything all that fancy here. It's not like perfectly humanoid Gundams walking around. The mechs of GC are more basic than that, and hence easier to square within a setting that's not in the far distant future.

I just don't like them. They don't feel right to me, in this story. It's personal taste, that's all.

But all of this supposed "clutter" is what enables the great action-drama of this show. If you took all that away, what would you use for action scenes? I wouldn't want Guilty Crown to be some sort of straightforward sci-fi horror, the end.

So I guess I just completely disagree with you here. Truthfully, I've never been a big fan of sci-fi/horror (or horror in general, really). I much prefer a good, epic action-drama like Guilty Crown.

I never said remove. I said it is clutter. Using the soup reference, GC is more like stew than soup. It has a lot of ingredients, they work to create a dish, but it is easy to pick out the pieces you don't like and eat the rest. I would have preferred more focus on the Voids and the virus, and less focus on all of the military hardware. I know this is different for others, and that's fine.

In regards to the horror element, I meant it more in that Mana would feel more like a threat if they had played up her creepy side. You get a few scenes (the flashback, Inori at the school, Mana's first return), but otherwise it feels more like Mana is just a weapon than the creepy little girl that caused Lost Christmas. For such an integral character, there is not much character development.

Yes, it would have been. One that I almost certainly would have found a lot less fun, and a lot less interesting.

Straight up sci-fi horror? I have no doubt you'd probably find it less fun/interesting. But sci-fi horror with large scale action? I think it could work.