Guilty Crown at a Glance

Meh.

Ok, take No. 6, Shakugan no Shana, X/1999, Code Geass, Kanon any harem featuring promises made as a children, Darker than Black, Hazuki from Tsukuyomi: Moonphase, and Saikano, toss them all in a blender. Blend for two minutes. Now, add a good animation budget. Aaaand there you have it, Guilty Crown.

I wasn’t expecting much going into Guilty Crown, based on the crappy female character designs (hehe, boobs!) and the dull-sounding premise. Yeah, fine, the animation looked stellar in the PV’s, but good animation does not a good show make; there are other component parts necessary… y’know, like interesting characters or an entertaining plot. Thus far, Guilty Crown lacks on both fronts.

Now, you may’ve noticed I said nothing about “good” shows needing to possess originality. They don’t. Maybe it’s the 84th time a story has been told about a phantom thief. Maybe its the first time a story’s being told about a magical girl whose gotten her powers from a pig. What matters most is the execution of the material; does it entertain me?

Guilty Crown doesn’t. Every time another trope popped up in the narrative, I felt like sighing. Female character allegedly on a dangerous mission, yet wearing impractical and revealing clothes? Check. Bland lead who is vaguely dissatisfied with who he is and is also poorly socialized? Check. Japan overrun by totalitarian forces? Check. Nekomimi? Check. Bland lead turns out to have awesome powers? Check. Bland lead possesses “mysterious” memories of lead girl? Check. Outgunned underdogs fighting a shadowy power tooth and nail? Check.

Snore. If you’re going to throttle me with tropes, at least make in interesting; don’t make it feel like you flipped through a database for things otaku like and then jammed in as many as you possibly could in the first episode.

Honestly, I was willing to give the first episode the benefit of the doubt, even though things had felt so very same-old, same-old up until the bad guys kick the lead girl in the head. Instead of her head flopping in the manner a body normally would in such circumstances, her head tilts back, giving us a better view of her boobs. Keepin’ it classy! Later on, she instructs the lead guy (already forgotten his name; my viewing ended eight minutes ago) to “use her”. Literally, the phrase is “[Lead guy’s name], please, use me.”

…

Really, Production I.G.? Really? Could you possibly get more wish-fulfillment-y?

Forget it. I don’t care how good the animation was. Unless it somehow pulls something magical and amazing out its ass next week, this shit is on the trash pile as far as I’m concerned. And, noitaminA? I am disappoint. Un-Go better be totally freaking fantastic, or you’re officially on notice.

EDIT: Totally forgot to mention this – watched this on Funimation’s website. It was okay; there were some commercial breaks during the episode, although unlike Hulu you could jump around in the episode without being forced to re-watch commercials. The stream was smooth, none of the stalling and sudden loss of picture like Crunchyroll’s streams have been giving its subscribers for the past six months (hi, I’m Day, and I’m an irritated subscriber of Crunchyroll).