Warning this review may contain spoilers. First impressions when I got into the show I went into it with low hopes of this being good. Cause oh boy was a right to do so because no one could prepare me for the train wreck that is guilty crown but it was a fun train wreck. Story 3/10 It has been ten years sense the apocalypse virus first made contact with the people of Japan and during the chaos of the first outbreak the u.n sent an GHQ to help the people of Japan in there hour of need and contained the outbreak at great cost. But sadly during their ten years of service the GHQ have become tyrannical and are even oppressing the very people they were supposed to protect. but not all is lost Because a king will rise and free the people of Japan and restore peace and freedom. Are story beginning main character Shu a bland high school student who is bored and whats some exacting to happen. Be careful what you wish for Shu because you might get it So one day while he chilling he comes across an injured girl named inori and while he is talking to her she gives shu this vial and requests him to deliver it to someone named gai. After there little chat she is taken away very by the GHQ and shu goes to deliver this vial. He finds out that this guy named gai in the leader of a rebel group named funeral parlour who main mission is the kick the GHQ out of the country and return Japan independence. So during their little chat funeral parlour base becomes under Attack and gai tells shu to get the vial out of there because he doesnt really have the Choice to say no at this point. So during the battle Shu manages to save inori and while there getting chased the vial gets shot and then shu gets a super power called the power of kings Which gives him the ability to pull weapons and items called voids. Using this ability he manages to help keep the GHQ at bay during the Attack and now weather he wants to or not he has become the secret weapon of funeral parlour in their fight against the GHQ. So the story for Guilty crown is pretty much the text book example of a cookie cutter/ jack of all trades plot. Because takes a lot of elements from quite a few different shows. Like for example code geass blue gender and soul taker are the Main ones I can see here. Because Japan has been invaded by an evil organization there is some sort virus going around that killing people there a power out there can people call the power of kings and last and not lest there an Adam and Eve sub plot about human evolution for something like that. Now you are probably thinking that I have a problem with this kind of cookie cutter/jack of all trades storyline and I do have a kind of problem with it but for now lets just talk about how the story plays out. just word to the wise I am pretty much going to spoil most of the major plot points because if I dont youre going understand the mind set I have while going into this review. So the first half of the story can be summed up as training terrorist missions and school life bullshit. And to be perfectly honest these where the most boring episodes I have ever had to sit through in my life. I dont have a problem with the training and the missions because they were engaging and they got the point across of why this terrorist organization is fighting this evil organization because the end game of this organization was slightly interesting to say the least. but the school life shit is boring and predictable to say the least. So after these missions and school life bullshit. So we find out that inori is a clone of the main character Older sister mana who was pretty much patient zero of this virus and apparently plans to marry shu to kill all humanity and birth a new race for something like that and there a few people in this other group that are trying to achieve that. The second half Is after this huge explosion takes place the entire city is fucked up and cut off from the rest of the world. Main character becomes the leader of this pseudo society that been formed my high school kids and members of the rebel group which is running ok under the leadership of the main character and the people who give him advice. This is probably the better part of the story. Because main character isnt being as passive as he used to be as he is now put into the leader role instead of being the passive follower that takes orders. But after a few certain events he becomes a tyrannical king of a dictator ship and I am Like holy shit this is cool its is a lot more interesting than the missions and the school life bullshit. But like most dictatorships the end in a very bad way with shu being overthrown and just before they kill him. Gai Comes out of Where takes his powers and is now working for the people that he was originally trying to fight against. Shu ends up escaping and becomes a depressed emo while gai is continuing his evil plan. After shu step mom steels the last magic vail with super powers to give it someone which can defeat gai and evil organization. shu pretty much gets his powers back and they end it with a huge boss fight with every going back to normal. Except now main character is blind and has a robot arm. The One and only positive I am going to say is the fact that this show had quite a lot of promise to it Despite its cookie cutter/ jack of all trades storyline and at face its written alight. But that where my povtives end because I have quite a few things to say about this show. But I quick side note before I continue. when I think about Guilty crown story line is almost like a role reversal of code geass. Its Like a what if situation of what would happen if Suzaku was the main character instead of lelouch Because shu reminds me a lot of Suzaku from code geass and gai is like lelouch Except the more water downs version of them. But back to the negatives. I think My main problem is shows like this cant seem to keep a consistent tone going and guilty crown is especially guilty of this no pun intended. But the tone of this show pretty much changes every episode from war drama to romcom to ecchi to slice of nothing really happens and then to shock factor at the drop of a hat Its comes off as very disjointed. one example there is one episode where they are at the beach doing pretty much slice of nothing really happens with some fanservice stuff going down and then halfway through the episode it becomes an espionage mission with them trying to get into one of the bad guys bases at the same time. So while this happy go lucky shit going down there are explosions and people dying left and right blood and body parts flying everywhere and then in a second we are back to swim suits and school bullshit. Another major thing that really bothered be with guilty crown is the fact that for the most part the story line is very forced. And you guys who are reading this review are probably saying what story isnt somewhat forced in some way and for the most part you would be right. But the main problem is the fact that the main character was pretty much forced against his will to join this rebellion that he didnt want to join or have any involvement with in the first place He just wanted something exacting to happen. He was passive doing whatever this rebel group was telling him to do and pretty much going with the flow of things. Which isnt a good thing when your main character who I might add is going to be one of the major driving force in your story is this passive especially in this type of setting and story. Unlike for example code geass where the main character had a goal in mind and he was always a proactive force in the story and it was the world reacting to him as a character. Another problem I had is with guilty crown is the fact its was very random at times with is plot twists. the plots twists seem to pretty much come out of nowhere with no foreshadowing and no explanation of why these things are happening. Like for example gai being alive and becoming a bad guy like I understand he explained his reasons for why he did it but he could have just done that all by himself without getting the main character involved. Because if his goal is to free mana and end the virus he could have done that by himself because he had the same powers as the main protagonist at that point in time. The only thing they ever foreshadowed was the thing with the main character sister and that inori was related to that. The last nail in the coffin is the amount of logic this series brakes. Like one big example is that inori is a famous pop idol and the evil organization knows she has connected to the terrorist group. But when she transfers into shu school and start hanging around. there are no police thats comes to arrest her or no one wondering why an idol is hanging around their school. Its brakes logic especially because inori is needed for the evil organization plan yet they dont capture her when they could have done so easily. And that one example I can list probably 10 20 more examples that this show brakes logic and makes no sense and its not just main plot details or situations because thats is completely different ball game. Its the little things as well Like then they have that pseudo society they still had the Internet and phones still working. so why couldnt use those to tried to contact people from the outside while they were trapped. Because the reason why there walled off and cut from the world in the first place is because the local government at large thinks that everyone that lived there is dead and what left in that area is ground zero for another outbreak of the virus. So basically dont use your brain and the story will be fine. Characters3/10 the main character is pretty much a bland passive introvert who really doesnt do much and he stays that way in till the series reaches it second half. But up to that point he was bland as a character and in all honesty he bored me to tears while he was on screen. But then though certain events of the show at the half way point he basically becomes a dictator and starts his own kingdom which wasnt exactly the best thing for this character in my opinion because he way more edger than I thought he would be. But its better and more interesting to watch than person he was from ep one. So after his dictatorship ends like most dictatorships do. he goes through a stage of depression and realizes it time for him to man up and fix the problems that he has caused and this is where he comes this mainly badass and he is fun to watch at this point. But it already too late for me to care about him as a character because they wasted so much time of him generic as fuck and he only gets good when we get to the half way point but even his development comes off as a little rushed and unnatural. The side characters are pretty much very one note with nothing really to remember about them. They just feel like hollow shells as characters and even some characters will get re written on the fly just because. Like shu wifuu Inori . she kills people with no hesitation and then during some episodes she says she doesnt want to kill people yet in those same episodes she kills them anyway even if When killing them isnt exactly the only option as hand. There is some characters development but its is very poorly done with the show pretty much time skipping whenever a character is going through some development. Then we see some characters change into completely different people as they pretty much went through the development off screen. Now I dont hate the fact there was character development but problem that I had is pretty much the fact we never got to see their inner monologue and the transition of them slowly changing into a different person. Witch in turn made the character development Null and void for me because proper character development takes time and is more of a slow process from A to b. Another thing I want to address is that the character interactions feel very bland and almost random at times. Like most of the show they feel very bland and copy paste. But after the dictatorship and the people the main character was close to that betyed him after he Comes back as his manly badass self they just forgive him and their friends again. Even though he put them through 6 months of hell on earth and they even left shu to bleed out as gai took his powers. In fact I dont know why shu even cares about these people because some of those people have pretty much stabbed him in the back quite a few times and yet after all that shit there still good friends. even though he should go and tell them all to go fuck themselves and get better friends. Also the bad guys in this series suck and the only bad guy that remotely decent is gai when he comes the main villain. The rest of throw away fodder I couldnt care less about. There pretty much there to be hated. Art 8/10 The animation is pretty much on a god tier level of animation. It has some fantastic CG animation that doesnt clash with the 2D animation. It also has some fantastic actions scenes that will make you cry how well done they are. Great backgrounds that captures the epic size of this hitech city. This is a show you should watch in HD if you can. The character design is ok but I think the Mecha are generic and kind of boring. Except the main character step mother like holy shit 10/10 why isnt she in hentai Because she would be perfect. Sound 8/10 The op and ending songs are alright but nothing that really moved me. Has a pretty good ost that fits the tone for every scene the anime will have. Also the that ost piece bios sounds fucking amazing when they use it. The ost was composed by hiroyuki sawano who has also done the ost for kill la kill and attack on Titan. Sub and dub are good. But the like the dub better because the main character is voiced by the same person who did the voice for the main character Ayumu in is this a zombie. Enjoyment 6/10 Now despite this show pretty much being a train wreck of an anime I found myself very entertained with the few aspects the show did well at. I thought the whole void power was an interesting idea for a power. I also liked the ost and animation but that was pretty much it from what I liked about guilty crown. Overall. 4/10 If you are new to anime or looking for something just for entertainment then guilty crown can provide you to a T. because the animation is nice it has a good ost some good action. But the moment you look at this show criticality is the moment it falls apart because its story and characters are very poorly handled. If it was taken more seriously and they did some slight story and character edits this would have been a good anime.