Guilty Crown feels very typical with the usual protagonist, light romance, expose, and mecha battles. The main superpower of the story, King’s Power or Guilty Crown, is introduced in such a haste that it’s hard to grasp anything about it.

Mind-blowing music

Music is excellent. Far above the level of any other anime of this type and time. Seriously. The insert song Euterpe by EGOIST (shown as Inori’s song) is mind blowing. I’m still recovering from the blown state of my mind. Then the music of the Apocalypse virus spreading on the Lost Christmas, it’s so mysterious that it gives you the spook.

Besides inserts the soundtrack of the anime is equally heart-warming and suits the plot. For example, the transition from an intimate friendship scene to a mecha battle scene is complemented well by the soundtrack.

Plot review

It almost becomes a classy drama when you feel like both sides of the story are equally correct. What I mean is that in the initial episodes, you would think both sides of the anime could be believed to be good. But that soon changes, obviously. It’s not an intense story to have such a dramatic plot. For example, read the Tokyo Ghoul manga and you’ll know what I mean by a dramatic plot with both sides believably good.

Okay so I’m not very good at spotting plotholes but this one was just too much. Everything’s futuristic but security cameras are old-fashioned. They have to move to cover the entire area and that lets Funeral Parlor sneak up. Seriously? Any modern security camera has a wide angle view.

Story is not very clear. The screenplay looks confusing. Sometimes you won’t know some tricks and witty twists of the story until they’re fully exposed, which is a bummer. Due to this weak screenplay, the story loses a lot of its charisma.

But clarity aside, the drama is pretty good. As the story nears its end you can finally see how well scripted the whole story was. It becomes fast-paced, interesting, and a bit technical. The drama is very captivating.

Shonen affinity

Be ready for the usual tremendous increase of energy in the protagonist at times of loss or sorrow. Be ready for the usual “changing” of the protagonist into something else because of some loss or sorrow. Be ready for the usual side-characters-trying-to-get-the-protagonist-back-on-the-righteous-path-melodrama, a path he took because of some loss or sorrow. Oh you guessed that one loss and sorrow.

In fact, be ready for anything you’d expect in a mecha shonen. Romance, betrayal, loss, vengeance, superpower bursts, friends, and another thing that’s very, very important but will be a spoiler. Damn it.

Final words

That said, Guilty Crown might look like a boring anime. But it’s surprisingly not. Good to have some quality time. For me, well I almost dropped the anime twice even when I wasn’t watching anything else but both the times I picked back up it was pretty interesting to do so. I almost missed the anime.

And then Inori is super seductive, no questions asked. Her voice, her dressing sense, her looks, her lips, her eyes, her figure … She’ll literally stab your chest as if it was gaseous, grab your goddamn heart, and literally steal it.

Post episode 16, things become truly electrifying and intense. Add some mind-blowing mecha action in that.

With the side arcs, one thing I figured out that the creators have tried to add a feeling of Death Note. Those moments when the arch cool rival type finally sees the power in action (L seeing Death Note in action), another cool rival type (Yu) is made to look like Near. There are more similarities.

Another thing, almost everyone in the anime looks like a badass cool rival type at one point or the other – even the protagonist. This is “Cool Rival Types Crown” for you.