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Old 2013-10-14, 22:40   Link #3421
bastek66
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shu Ouma View Post
No not really Shu did not lose the meaning of life actually he found the meaning of life[...]
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Old 2013-10-15, 18:25   Link #3422
Shu Ouma
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?????????????????
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We need a Guilty Crown Season 2 with Shu And Inori Happy Ending.
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Old 2014-01-12, 21:31   Link #3423
Preciize
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Still waiting for a second season *fingers crossed*
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Old 2014-05-16, 13:43   Link #3424
I am Gundam 10
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We must have a season 2 with a Shu and Inori Happy Ending!
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Dying in Vain is as same as living in vain
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Old 2014-05-24, 09:28   Link #3425
Guilt626
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Shu deserves it, the price for wearing the crown
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Old 2014-05-27, 04:53   Link #3426
GreyZone
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I wish someone would explain the logic of the whole betrayal after escaping the warzone thing... Sure they may have been angry for what a "cold-hearted dictator" Shu has been, but it felt like the series wanted to force the viewer to think Shu shouldn't have done what he did, i.e. it was promoting either the death of all Students of that school (because seriously... no one else would have managed to organize that escape), or some Deus Ex Machina that would have saved them all, even if Shu didn't do what he had to do.

That was actually the worst "serious moment" in anime history for me. Escpacially since even Shu himself blamed himself for being evil, disregarding completely that he was almost being killed brutally by ungrateful fools.
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Old 2015-07-20, 23:39   Link #3427
I Was Just Drifting
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I know this is not the review section, but...

Guilty Crown is the worst second half a series could ever experience, which is a dang shame because its first half is a promising corker of a science-fiction adventure. It's the empowerment fantasy that Kurogane No Linebarrel actually isn't; an utter and asinine disgrace of an alleged blockbuster. My favorite warning sign comes after you've read Shion Mizuki's seven-volume manga adaptation; if you search around for the eighth volume, you realize there isn't one. The manga actually stops right where you should, too, after Gai dies for the first time! Thank you Mizuki, for the happy ending. That Production I.G.'s misbegotten 2011-2012 production pins its plot on a cancerous disease is all-too appropriate to its fate; instead of playing to the strengths of its convictions, Guilty Crown succumbs to motions devised by other, superior series from the sci-fi genre, but, never committing to any one of them for long, develops tumors of incoherence and is ultimately quarantined to the recess of our memories. It thinks it's a lot of things; John Carpenter's The Thing is what you call a lot of things...that work.

To call the rules of Guilty Crown science fiction, you must first betray science, and then fiction. The virus that turns Tokyo into a demilitarized zone is so illogical and contrived in its design, the series finds its cheapest and most obvious excuse by stating its origins from outer space. The major disaster that sets the story into motion, the Lost Christmas, is apparently the cause of an infected girl who blows up Japan in a hissy fit. I didn't know viral infections could do that to you; I'm sure drugs could. Also, the infected citizenry form crystals in their skin, but there are moments when the virus can be overcome, and the crystals just vanish and human skin is restored in an instant, without scars or discoloration or any symptom science says ought to happen (I know viral infections and drugs should do that to you). So we have a disease here that's magical and unimaginative, an oxymoron. Meanwhile, the hoo-hahs behind this self-important garbage unashamedly talk down to the audience when Inori reveals that Shu's ability to extract Voids (essences incarnated as devices/weapons, from swords to scissors) can only affect people who are below 18 years of age. What the hell, scientifically, at 18 years, suddenly restrains the presence of Voids? Your right to drink? Your right to marry? Your right to have sex? The age limit probably functions as an unsubtle social parable, but unsubtle about what? The helplessness that comes with being an adult? The wonders of being a child? I must be wrong asking about the child part; in the show's execrable lack of wonder, Shu only deploys Voids from teenagers, not out of some moral train of thought, but because the story doesn't consider anyone else. The problem not only is that Guilty Crown bears no respect for science, it can't strike a chord with its fiction. What missed opportunities you realize, that Shu can't extract from villains like the ice-cold Dr. Kido or The Joker wannabe Segai (whose fetish for photographing his victims on his smartphone actually does ring of social parable) to see or grasp what darkness, what Voids he could wield from them. Also, the Bible plays into all of this, because Evangelion.

Guilty Crown's stupidity rears its ugliest head after Gai dies (he later resurrects and gets the silver hair of Sephiroth; no, don't remind me of Advent Children!), as it tries to provide moralistic insight with neither the heart nor the balls to spread the message. It grazes at bitter airs of isolationism and nationalism (more hostile than Majikoi's ludicrous cyborg girls on the hunt for Japan's Prime Minister) when the talking heads of the U.N. agree, via insta-poll, to launch a nuclear missile into Tokyo, never mind discussing the horrors that two atomic bombs (the obvious parallel to Crown's Lost Christmas) still inflict Japan to this day. Of course, nothing sounds more nationalistic than demonizing the GHQ organization that holds sovereignty over the Japanese government, right? But consider when Shu and his friends fight off ragtag bandits who appear out of nowhere to rat-tat-tat their dissent that the local high school is shatting away money on a happy little festival. Because this show lacks any insight into the human condition, Shu, Ayase and Inori resolve the bandits' grievances by killing them; to make matters worse, Ayase, she who rides on a wheelchair, debuts her Void-powered rocket legs to assert how the handicapped girl of the gang is superior to a batch of violent protestors. Oh, please. It reeks of Gonzo's employment of non-descript peasants as cheap narrative tools suggesting a world tyrannized by the rich, while the middle-class protagonists live together in dainty white houses, eat pretty dishes of food, and get poolhouse episodes wearing itsy-bitsy bikinis. Don't go around espousing Japan as the poor little victim of the “Us Vs. Them” universe if its heroes have no problem turning their less fortunate countrymen into balls of flame.

Production I.G. at least hasn't skimped the budget on the animation; the action scenes can be glorious, just so long as the nonsense doesn't bleed through. The best and most lyrical set piece is when Shu extracts a bizarre gun from a juvenile inmate and sends himself and enemy guards drifting afloat in a corridor of bubbles, which proves helpful for Inori to dive right in so Shu can extract her blade Void and finish his enemies off. It's a great set piece because it actually takes its time to slow down before delightfully upping the tempo. But more often than not, the story just vetoes appropriate segue-ways for the action. Think how, before Shu marvelously sends lasers converging at a villain's vehicle, that his moments of hesitation allow innocent parents to be gunned down in front of their children. And consider when Shu squares off against another Void extractor named Daath, to the tune of Hiroyuki Sawano's bombastic soundtrack (bombastic, at least, when it doesn't cue hip-hop or ecstatic moans during instances of fanservice). So Shu and Daath go right and left, exchanging futuristic ninja stars and sword fights until...Daath absorbs this huge blast from Shu, nonchalantly tells Shu to go on ahead and pixelates back to his home planet, or his home computer. Uh...what? I know that Daath assumes other people can just finish the job, but for gosh sakes, can the other people extract Voids or vanish into thin air like he could? Beam him back up, Scotty!

Even through the toxic muck of Guilty Crown, one presence who would remain and survive is Yuuki Kaji. He's actually very convincing as Shu Ouma, capturing that boy's pathetic self-esteem and one-note fear. Unfortunately, Kaji is too convincing as a wimp, and his writers won't pull the trigger; Shu is such a void of testosterone for so long that we can't root for him; he engages his Void extraction more like an obligation, rather than a heat of the moment reaction. Robocop could extract a Void with more personality (“Thank you for your cooperation”). Kaji's co-star Ai Kayano (the next big seiyuu who certainly wasn't) fares worse, but then again her Inori is a dumb ripoff of Evangelion's Rei, so devoid of personality that she emerges unscathed by the mid-series rape metaphor Shu commits after suffering the worst day ever. A bad character from the start, Inori is supposedly this idol singer Shu ogles on his tablet, but she's also a member of the terrorist group Funeral Parlor. Why an idol by day would dress similarly as a terrorist by night without GHQ's awareness is beyond me, except to become the cynical bridge linking Shu to the group he must join forces with, or else the plot will stop moving. Also, to render the ogling stupefying, Inori happens to be a clone of Shu's sister, thereby bringing up the incestuous undertones because, well, er, those sell in Japan, er, right? Meanwhile, Yuuichi Nakamura, a magnet for bad anime with incestuous undertones, is a few notes above Kayano as the exposition with arms and legs, Gai. Gai's backstory with Shu is marginally less confusing than Inori's because we actually get to see what's happening to him, though we can't see why he'd have such a thing with Shu's deranged sister Mana, unless masochism is his favorite option (this psycho sister deal is handled with more pathos and nerve in Shuffle!: I can't frickin' believe I just wrote that). Gai is also armed with the sixth sense to know what kind of Void exists in each soul, but keeps such facts away from Shu so, you know, the story wouldn't end quicker that way and Gai could make a man out of Shu. I still think Donny Osmond made a better man out of Mulan.

The costars after the lead triumvirate deserve better shows. Kana Hanazawa, whose handicapped Ayase wins our hearts by politely refusing to be picked back into her wheelchair, makes the unfortunate case that she sounds so likeable, so versatile as a heroine, that the best way to utilize her is to build a harem series in which she voices every girl (Would it cost extra? Because Hanazawa is so worth it). Ayana Taketatsu's Tsugumi, a plucky little hacker with triangle-shaped headphones (owing to Taketatsu's typecasting as the anime industry's choice catgirl this decade), is one of three supporting characters who do her name proud. Speaking of Tsugumi, why waste poor Minako Kotobuki (she of K-On! fame) here as bespectacled cheerleader Kanon, the Ruri to Hare Menjou's OHNOdera? Aya Endou, strangely enough, gets the dubious honor as the series slattern Arisa; see, her character loves Gai so much she'll land with some flunkies to get his plan done and prove she is meant for him. I doubt these writers speak their material to themselves to make sure it doesn't sound so stupid.

And Yu Shimamura as Hare...oh, gah. Hare is that sweet soul you just can't accept is dead, because of how cruelly and conveniently the show veers Shu's attention away from her advances so he dooms himself to the pink-haired dead zone called Inori (who dooms herself to the dumbest ending in anime since the off-screen near-assassination of the Pope in Chrno Crusade). I find more character in Hare's bikini-clad cleavage than in any frame passing for Inori's animation, and Hare's quasi-embarrassed jacket opening scene remains one of the all-time greatest fanservice scenes, ever. Hare's death is also heartbreaking in another, unintentional manner; it's a ripoff too, of Scheris's death in Goro Taniguchi's brilliant S-Cry-Ed, thus reminding me of an apocalyptic sci-fi show older than Crown by a decade and wiser by a century, a series that hot-bloodedly runs with its superpower premise and never lets up. Guilty Crown is not the death of science fiction, just an exhibit of its arrested development.

The death of Hare, more importantly, reminds me of that weekend in February 2012 when another moment would air after that travesty. The character of Asia Argento in High School DxD has just succumbed to her Sacred Gear (essentially her Void) being extracted from her. The tearful hero Issei surprises us with a soliloquy questioning God's absence at such a crucial moment. We are surprised because Issei is also voiced by Yuuki Kaji. At least, through the underrated poetry known as the High School DxD trilogy, Kaji can find a story with heart, and most definitely a hero with balls.


4/10

Last edited by I Was Just Drifting; 2015-07-20 at 23:57.
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