Guilty Crown – 17

Ever wonder why Guilty Crown feels so random all the time?  Things seem to happen rather haphazardly, like the story is comprised entirely of separate and disjointed ideas.  There is a general absence of explanations or logic behind each event and it feels like they were strung together with little care to transitioning between each.  And while many of the ideas are fine on their own, they don’t necessarily match well with each other, especially when you try to connect recent episodes with more distant ones.  What remains is a disorganized story that is confused on its direction.  What could have caused such a calamity to happen?

What Guilty Crown suffers from the most is that there are too many ideas going on without a clear connection or purpose behind everything.  It’s just so busy all the time.  It feels like every episode someone new is given the opportunity to tell the story the way they want but only after being situated where the last episode left off.  If they already had their own plans or disapproved of what happened recently, then they’d ignore the previous events and take the story in the direction they always wanted.  And if their idea needed more than an episode or two to fully develop or explain, well it was too bad because the next episode would be left to someone else and it would go in there direction leaving that episode feeling incomplete and even out-of-place.  Add in the fact that this is an original anime series with no defined source material to draw from, too, and it’s a bit more understandable to see where some of this chaos is coming from.  Not that I’m saying this is what’s happening, only that it feels this way.

The prescription for dealing with this current status would be for there to be some authority and control over this anime to ensure proper storytelling.  I can’t imagine that this is the story that was originally planned for this anime, going from a fanservicy/action anime about a terrorist group trying to liberate Japan to an army of teenagers equipped with fantasy weapons and dealing with discrimination and prejudice.  Most of the episodes from the first half of Guilty Crown are so far removed from these recent episodes that it feels like this is a completely different anime.  Like that one episode where they rescued that terrorist from the prison or when Gai survived a military satellite’s laser without as much as anything?  If it weren’t for the few episodes that bridged the autumn and winter seasons, I’d be convinced I was watching a totally different anime.

What needs to happen next is there needs to be an established story arc that will remain consistent until the end.  With the current developments in this episode, it looks like it might be heading down this path, too.  This would benefit the series immensely by having a defined and straightforward story that would advance the story out of this rut and toward a conclusion.  It would actually be telling a story rather than a series of events.  Bonus points, too, if the anime could actually go back and explain everything that’s happened so far although I’d rather the anime not waste time on that if it took away from the story of the final arc.  Some authority from above, quality check, and consistency from the staff would do wonders toward accomplishing this goal.  Is it possible that Guilty Crown can rid itself of this curse and finish strongly like many anime are able to do?  Sure, it’s possible.  But is it going to happen?  That, unfortunately, remains to be seen.

Near the beginning of the series, I wanted Gai to be evil.  Now, given the recent developments at the end of this episode, it looks like my desire for Gai to be an antagonist are coming true and he’s assuming the position of villain.  Maybe not main villain but at least something that will pit him against Shu.  And yes, even him in his cloned or brainwashed state is fine for me.  What I hope happens with new evil Gai is that he goes against the will of the GHQ and those who revived him as he pursues his own goals, mainly that of reviving Mana in Inori and battling Shu for this to happen.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the anime takes a different approach to his character, though, seeing as there is quite a bit yet to be explained about the Apocalypse Virus, Lost Christmas, the GHQ, and what Keido, Daath, and Haruka are doing.  Still, I’d be shocked to see new Gai not do something related to Mana and Inori and, if that’s the case, then he will be opposed against Shu for what should be an interesting conflict.