Guilty Crown #22 — Bad End

March 22nd, 2012

 

Man, why must you do things wrong to the very end?

Impressions:

What?! Shu lives!? He’s supposed to have the good graces to die off in the end. Not live on with a robot arm. And get cake at that. You did not deserve cake, Shu, although it is amusing that it’s years later and he’s still moping in the park by himself listening to his dead girlfriend. *ahem* That’s all epilogue though. Let’s cover the more interesting parts of the show first. Like how Tsugumi was fighting off the bomber in a hacking battle by wiggling her butt and… I am not even exaggerating here… jerking off the console while his attacks thrust against her face. Then a third wheel shows up and empties his gun all over the grinning bomber’s face. Suck on that sexual imagery, Aquarion.

Meanwhile, Jenova Manna has awakened, been rejected by Shu, and begun dancing the Ballet of Doom while opera plays, infecting the world’s life force and turning everybody into crystals. Shu manages to defeat Sephiroth Gai thanks to Inori’s magical intervention, which transfers Gai, Shu, and Mana into the Crystal Dimension where the bad guys disappear. Then Inori wanders out, covered in crystalies, so he sucks all the crystalies of the world into them… except that as I mentioned before, he survives it because apparently Inori has the power to suck them all into her instead and then explodes in sparklies. Hilariously, part of the crystalies being absorbed means all the voids disappear, so the betraying whore gets shot up as the dramatic triumpha fancy-pants music plays. Just in case you thought that someone might not get their just deserts. This show is the best comedy.

Okay, so most of that probably was about what I expected from the show’s ending besides… you know… the handjobs and death ballet. I probably should’ve expected that though. Inori’s death/Shu’s survival was really the only vaguely surprising (important) thing here as it tooled along to its expected ending. As with most of this season, the action was okay, but pales in comparison to anything it did in the first half and overshadowed by the nonsense anyway.

Final thoughts at the bottom.

 

Final Thoughts:

Honestly, what’s there left to say that everybody doesn’t already know? That makes me want to buck the trend and say mostly backhanded positive things about it. If nothing else, this show has done a wonderful job uniting people from all walks of life in mocking it. Besides that, never let it be say that it wasn’t at least fairly technically well-made. The first half far outshined the second though, particularly for slick action. I think they may have realized that it wasn’t the super awesome megahit they were going for and scaled the effort they were putting into it back… a lot. Even at its worst though, the music was good and aside from a few hilarious awful moments of art that more added to the experience than took away from it, the art and animation were solid. It’s also a great example of how doing things is always better than not doing things… SHANA. It also did a very good job of everything being constantly in action and moving. There was rarely a dull episode. Take any of them singly, and you might mistake it for a good show.

All this is admiring the trees while trying desperately to ignore that the forest is full of toxic waste and the topiary has been cut into the shape of a giant dong. If the overall writing had been solid, this would have been a great show. Even saying that the writing is terrible is probably an understatement. Things happen, then are forgotten an episode later. Characters do things for completely incomprehensible reasons, not to mention seem to gain and lose magical powers based on the tides. Shu is of course, particular note, never crawling out of his self-loathing hole (although the existence of Black Rock Shooter set a new bar for sheer unrestrained teenage angst that unwittingly elevated Shu a notce or two) while they continued stacking more and more nonsense onto him from amnesia to being the preordained savior of the world from space chicken pox. All the technical production in the world isn’t going to do you much good when your characters and writing are simply incomprehensible, and unlike many shows, it’s not just some major plot point or deus ex machina where things fall apart, it’s pervasive through the entire thing.

So no, it is not a good show, but it would be the perfect kind of show to get some friends together, make yourself a gallon of Navy Grog, and then spend the whole thing getting drunk and making fun of it. There are far far worse sins a show can commit (and frequently do) than being nonsensical. Production’s good, characters and writing do not make an iota of sense from one episode to the next. Perfect for an alcohol addled mind to enjoy.

Posted in Guilty Crown | 20 Comments »

20 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Anonymous says:

    Even though it was cliche as fuck, the music fit the episode so well.

  • Anon says:

    The betraying whore survived, though.

  • sterling01 says:

    So why was Shu blind at the end?

  • CTT says:

    Never before has an anime ending made me feel so pissed off. I was rooting for Daryl. The only things worse than Daryl not ending up with Tsugumi (rendering all ship tease meaningless), is the implied ship tease between Ayase and Yahiro ( I hate you, Yahiro), and Shu’s blindness (why?). Maybe Shu’s blindness is a side effect of him being left alone in a COLLAPSING BUILDING! Why didn’t Inori just let him die with her? It would have been so much better than leaving him to live blind, missing an arm, and single.

    • Keith Kurogane says:

      This! Someone finally voiced my opinion!

    • Styxrai says:

      Oh how right you are,the least Shu could have gotten was a little mercy from Ayase and “hook-up” with her,it is more or less obvious she liked him throughout the final episodes of the series,oh well,you cant say the music was bad,even if the script was thought up by the janitors working there

  • kaon says:

    nooooooooooo T.T

  • Annoyed Viewer says:

    I have to say, if nothing else, at least this show gave us some awesome music. It seems wasted on such a poorly written show. What’s really sad is that the story, at least, what little I could understand of it, might have actually been interesting if told right. I still have no idea who or what Yuu is / was, or what Daath is. The whole apocalypse virus is barely explained. So yeah, what a waste.

  • Ehhh says:

    Series was mediocre. After the first few episodes I realized that it wouldn’t go anywhere but against my better judgement, I stuck with it. I agree the the characters are poorly written and Shu is like some kind of cry baby through pretty much the entire thing. There is nothing more annoying then seeing the main character act like a little bitch. That is all.

  • eternia says:

    Shuu should have died together with his darling~
    I have to vote on that.
    Stupid author.

    At least we got a treat of Tsugumi’s wriggling butts, lol.

  • Kefit says:

    I was honestly getting kind of bored of this series. I thought it had used all of its tricks. But as soon as I saw the flower again in this episode I knew I was in for a good ride, and I didn’t stop laughing until the episode was over.

    Good good times.

    Also Daryl, best character ever, should win the いい子 competition from Panyo Panyo Digi Charat for all eternity.

  • Halsted says:

    FFS, i gave it ONE last chance for this show to redeem itself, and it drops a big number 2 on my face….I agree with you on most points, except for the fact that this never should have been done…if anything, this is the one series that should be REmade and rewritten. Like in its entirety. Otherwise, the beautiful character designs, concepts and music have all gone to waste, and everytime I hear supercell’s OST, i’m reminded of the horrific shit experience this show was. The concept of voids and psychoimmunology behind the show wasn’t horrendous…however, the godawful pacing and out-of-leftfield- moments ruined it. Even character development can be forgiven if they had accelerated within the first 5 episodes instead wallowing in filth for 15 episodes. Now I realize that a complete remake is unfeasible and likely won’t be ventured, but for me, this will be perhaps the most underwhelming, disappointing series ever to grace my monitor. Given that they did many things impeccably that would warrant epic status, it was such a shock to see all that go to waste because they couldn’t string together a fucking coherent, logical storyline. END RANT.

  • The Phantom says:

    I wanted a “everybody dies” ending, but guess that was too much to ask. It wont even surprise me if they make a OVA where magical Gai and Magical Mana magically resurrect AGAIN.

    The only thing about this is that its finally over.

  • Takebou says:

    *sigh*
    I blame the lack of coherence and a tsukommi in the writer’s room.

    It really seems like the writers had fun with guilty crown, but if you just put it on paper.

    It wouldn’t even be just a mediocre show.

    It’d be horrible fiction.

  • Haba says:

    The writers of this show really, really hated mr. Shoe. A blind emo virgin cripple to the bitter end, eh.

    I guess it would’ve been too much to ask for one (1) decent fight scene at the end.

    And what is with the fact that no-one seems to have the balls to actually kill any of the bad guys. Must be a Japanese thing. “I know you raped my wife, ate our children and landed the blame on me. But I forgive you, deep down you are a nice guy!”

  • Kosakai says:

    Man this show seem to piss off soo many people but i guess it would cause of how it ended i reckon if shu died along with Inori then it would have being a doable ending also the fuck Betrayal whore still lives? wtf seriously? wtf was they thinking this ending is properly the worst ending ever for me to say this is that after watching school days i though nothing could be worst but seeing how this ended they pretty much just raised a new bar for bad ending !

  • ark noir says:

    I’m shocked he got off with blind and stun status at the end. He could of used Remedy or the esuna materia. Aroduc you missed the Aeris/inori one.

  • sophie says:

    the ending sucked! so Inori’s dead magically and shu is sitting wishing she wasn’t dead and on top of that lets throw a party to commemorate that his other love interest is dead too!

  • Tsunoh says:

    Aroduc, I just thought I’d tell you that I consider that line of yours, ‘All this is admiring the trees while trying desperately to ignore that the forest is full of toxic waste and the topiary has been cut into the shape of a giant dong.’ to be the most graphic, hilarious and dead-on accurate statement to sum up Guilty Crown.

    I ‘watched’ this series through reviews and occasionally made time for particularly bad episodes, but like you I was rather impressed in the beginning and struggled to retain that hope. But then… suddenly, a plot hole!

  • Merkki says:

    But, I liked it. Even though the end was bad, especially the Tyrant episode.