"Guilty Crown" Series Talkback

[Divinenega]

Licensed by Funimation:
http://www.funimation.com/guilty-crown

Well that was very...interesting.

I;m liking the production values for this, and the music is pretty awesome. Not sure what to say about the story yet since this episode just really seemed to be about filling the quota of giving the main character his sword and powers.

Speaking of him, the one thing that kind of irked me about this was how he was willing to chase after the pink haired chick when he didn;t even have a two minute conversation with her. I know the plot has to move forward and all but they could have made it a little bit more believable.

Overall it;s a off to a pretty decent start and it's definelty one of the better episode ones of the season. I;ll definently be sticking around for this one, given who;s on staff.

[GingaDaiuchuu]

My most anticipated show this season, and so far it's everything I hoped for. I'm really glad that FUNimation got this. It's obviously not a given for a noitaminA series anymore, but they did it this time, and it seems that every noitaminA show that gets simulcast (everything since FUNimation first started simulcasting them except for Ano Hana, which happens to be my favorite noitaminA show since the block started) gets the full one-hour-after-broadcast treatment, which is great in general since that block is almost always a source of at least one of the best shows each season, and specifically greatly appreciated here. Brilliant direction from Tetsuro Araki, as always. Death Note was more epic than I could have ever expected from the already brilliantly written and illustrated manga, and High School of the Dead had to stay to its source of being about zombies and boobs, but considering that, it was an incredibly fun series to watch. Now he gets his own original project to work with, and so far it looks like those weren't flukes and that he doesn't need to rely on source material. Not that I'm expecting this to be better than Death Note, but I could easily see it being a fantastic series to watch all the way through. I only knew Supercell from their Hatsune Miku songs, but this proved that they definitely don't need her to make great music. I've never heard of redjuice, but the character designs are definitely beautiful. Aniplex definitely got together some of the most popular forces to anime fandom to make this as good as they could, and so far it seems to have worked out wonderfully. Hopefully it only gets better. As much as I loved this first episode, there's always the potential for it to be a very disappointing series overall. For now, I'm going to keep my optimism up, but as always, I'll keep in mind that it could be crushed. After all, as much fun as it was and as great as the production values clearly are, they haven't really explained any of the story, there's a lot of generic stuff (executed well), and the plot seemed a little rushed in order to give us a taste of all the good stuff they put in there.

[Funkatron]

Seems almost like a weird mix of Code Geass and Sacred Seven, but, you know, good. Obviously a lot of stuff is left out and I hope they do a good jo of filling in some blanks next episode. Pretty awesome

[Zipp_Rezzeppa]

Seems almost like a weird mix of Code Geass and Sacred Seven,

Exactly what I was thinking. Problem is.... I don't think I'm crazy about that.

I didn't dislike ep #1, I'm just not sure I really liked it all that much either. Ep #2 will go a long way in determining whether I stick with it or not.

[TheGunheart]

Speaking of him, the one thing that kind of irked me about this was how he was willing to chase after the pink haired chick when he didn;t even have a two minute conversation with her. I know the plot has to move forward and all but they could have made it a little bit more believable.

I thought that was rather obvious from the first scene: she's the lead vocalist for his favorite band. He may not know her personality, but she is his favorite celebrity, and he feels guilt about backing down when she was taken away.

Not bad thus far, overall. Not the strongest introduction, but I can see where it'll get better.

[HG Revolution]

Saw the first two episodes at Comic Con. The only thing holding it back from being a really good show is the main female character, mainly that she lacks any real character. I like fanservice, but what about characters like Motoko who could be ridiculously sexy while still having strength and some depth? Knowing the producers want this to be another Ghost in the Shell-style hit, they better get their act together on that. Wish I could have made it to the discussion session about the series where I could have made my criticisms known.

[Rynnec]

Ghost in the Shell? Most message boards I'm on are comparing this more to Code Geass than anything.

I may checkout this show out of curiousity if it really is like CG, not sure if I'll actually follow it though.

[macattack]

Regardless of whether you plan on following the series or not, watch episode 2 for the OP. Holy crap.

I'm seeing a lot of Code Geass-ish stuff going on though, something I'm not sure I care for. It gives me the feeling of "Code Geass with less wacky characters and less executive meddling". The problem nobody in the cast stands out for me yet beyond their character designs.

Inori is character design of the season though.

[Baseball]

I thought it was pretty bad. The characters are super generic. The fanservice is forced. The villains are cardboard cutouts. The women exist to be objectified. Not tuning in.

[Lelouch]

Hmmm.

Obviously I think differently.

There hasn't been too much fanservice, so it is hard to judge the show on the regard just yet. And we barely know the villains, so it is hard to make a call on them too. Hated Darryl though, that guy is awful.

Being a huge Code Geass is probably one of the many reasons I am enjoying the show thus far. Guilty Crown isn't the most original, but in this day and age what is? As long as it can explore these concepts in an interesting and entertaining way, I don't mind. Being unoriginal is only lame when things are bland (or a complete rip-off).

[GingaDaiuchuu]

So this episode had a lot of generic tropes, but I'm still enjoying the series. Obviously all the production values remain extremely strong, so there's always that to like. And I really love the music. It adds its own unique flavor to situations that seem to lack any originality. I especially feel this way when the vocal insert songs are played. They're in the background, but they're much more prevalent than most background music. This results in a really nice balance of what's happening and how the music complements it. Also, the Void thing reminds me of some Final Fantasy XIII designs visually. Other than that, some pretty generic stuff in this episode, but it does end on a good cliffhanger to leave you wondering what will happen next.

[Lelouch]

Yeah, this episode wasn't the greatest. I think the vocals and BGM definitely add fun spin to everything. Like the boob-grab scene. It was rather cringe-worthy, but I loved the music while he was mentally preparing himself.

[Dilla]

Okay, so this is 17 episodes in and I'm curious if anyone here is still following it. I am, and I'm compelled to say. . . it's alright. This is the anime version of a Hollywood summer blockbuster in many ways, the cliches at times just piled up at one point and the interaction between Shu and the Funeral Parlor was frustating, in which almost caused me to drop around episode 8 or so. I hated Funeral Parlor for the most part, and Gai (someone who the writers tried to hard to make cool) in particular, so I was happy when

Spoiler:

Gai died and Funeral Parlor was forced apart forcing to stand up and lead.

Recently though, I feel the writers have done everything in it's power to create dramatic, high tension moments any chance they can get. I would say that they've succeded somewhat, but does come off as trying too hard.

Shu is one of the biggest Butt Monkey main protagonist I've seen recently (and this is pretty common in anime). No matter what the guy does, he is kicked in the jewels and knocked to the dirt. That came to a head this last episode and he can't be any worse.

All in all, the show has kept me entertained. The animation remains nicely detailed and while it has plenty of 'LOLWUT'/facepalm moments and nothing near 'groundbreaking' series that the director claimed it would be, when Funimation releases this for DVD, I'll probably buy assuming it ends how I want it to end or at least something satisfying.

6.5-7/10 so far.

Oh, and the parallels to Code Geass remain very strong.

[GingaDaiuchuu]

Okay, so it was just Mana taking over Inori, and she only stabbed Arisa's hand. Meanwhile, Shu just becomes more and more tyrannical, even to the point where all the other scumbags think he's going too far. He finally realizes he should probably cut that out and actually does a great feat of heroism to save everyone. And then they finally turn on him. And Neo-Gai shows up and cuts off his hand with the king's power. Which means he has it now apparently. Wow. I really don't know where this is going now. Oh, and the UN are about to destroy Japan. Damn.

[airfighter]

Oh, and the parallels to Code Geass remain very strong.

Too bad it doesn't have any of the aspects that I actually liked, however, which makes those parallels little more than ultimately pointless bits of trivia. It's certainly a case of trying too hard, as you've already mentioned, but I believe they're clearly missing the mark. It's like they took all the wrong lessons from R2 to heart and ignored the rest.

I can't even claim to be entertained by Guilty Crown. Rather than going into the boring specifics though, I'll just post a link to this article and its comments section.

[GingaDaiuchuu]

Too bad it doesn't have any of the aspects that I actually liked, however, which makes those parallels little more than ultimately pointless bits of trivia. It's certainly a case of trying too hard, as you've already mentioned, but I believe they're clearly missing the mark. It's like they took all the wrong lessons from R2 to heart and ignored the rest.

I feel the same way. Here's what I posted about it elsewhere:

This show has a long way to go before it can entertain me as much as Code Geass R2. I'm still just finding its ridiculousness more and more obnoxious. At least you could tell with Code Geass they reveled in their camp and played it just right, not to mention having far more interesting characters to watch, all focused around a lead character so charismatic and convicting in his silliness that you can't help but smile and wait to see what fascinatingly random development they think up next.

Guilty Crown is silly as all hell, but still takes itself way too damn seriously. Obviously I'm still enjoying it enough to keep following it, though, and I am interested to see where they go from here.