Review for Guilty Crown: Series 1 Part 1

Introduction

I actually do have the gall to begin this review with another Kazé whinge, even though this is a title released by Manga Entertainment, licensed from Aniplex, and localised by Funimation. It hasn’t passed through the French distributor’s hands. But, you may have noticed of late that Kazé back catalogue releases are somewhat scarce in UK retail outlets. All of a sudden, the Tiger & Bunny discs are drying up, the Persona 4 gauges in Amazon are registering zero, The Black Lagoon series Blu-rays are becoming an endangered species, and the Code Geass Blu-rays are diminishing. Code Geass is a good series, an epic and multi-stranded narrative that grips the attention from beginning to end. You’ll be kicking yourself on missing out on that title, and quite rightly so. But help is at hand, as while we wait for more stock to arrive from across the Channel, Manga Entertainment are bringing us the Guilty Crown series, a show that bears more than a passing resemblance to Code Geass. The important question then is, does it do enough that is different from that show to make it worth buying both?

Having a meteorite crash into a country would be bad enough, but the disaster that befell Japan brought with it the Apocalypse Virus, a disease that wrought such havoc that the country became unable to govern itself. That was ten years ago, when the GHQ arrived from outside of the country to run its affairs. This is no benevolent UN organisation though, it’s an occupation force with far-reaching powers to find and eradicate all sources of the Apocalypse Virus no matter where they may appear. It’s not a coincidence that the Apocalypse Virus tends to appear where dissenting groups and those wishing to return power to Japanese hands congregate. This is the Japan that Shu Ouma lives in, although he’s not too invested in the political destiny of his homeland. Far from it, he’s a socially awkward and introverted teen who has trust issues, and difficulties connecting with his classmates. The one positive he does have in his life is that he’s a fan of Inori, an Internet pop-star. But he wishes that he could engage with the world, could actually make a difference.


His life changes the day that he actually meets her, although it’s not the kind of situation where you ask for an autograph. Inori is a member of the terrorist group Funeral Parlour, and she’s just stolen the Void Genom from GHQ. Injured, and fleeing from GHQ forces, she asks Shu to get it to Gai, the leader of Funeral Parlour. Circumstances lead it to activate instead, and suddenly Shu has special powers awakened from his DNA. The Void Genom allows him to access the Voids in other people, the true nature of their hearts, and these are made manifest in the form of weapons that he can wield. The Void that he pulls from Inori manifests as a powerful blade. It’s a power that wasn’t meant for him, but he’s got it regardless, and Gai needs that power to free Japan from the yoke of the GHQ. It’s time for Shu to engage with the world, to make a difference, but he quickly finds that it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be.

The first eleven episodes of Guilty Crown are presented across two Blu-rays from Manga Entertainment, along with some extra features.

Disc 1
1. Genesis
2. Survival of the Fittest
3. Void Sampling
4. Flux
5. A Preparation
6. Leukocytes
7. Temptation

Disc 2
8. Courtship Behaviour
9. Prey
10. Retraction
11. Resonance

Picture

Guilty Crown gets a 1.78:1 widescreen transfer at the 1080p resolution. It’s a pretty fair transfer, with the animation coming across with clarity and smoothness. The colour rendition is as rich as you would expect from Blu-ray, and there is only a minimum of banding during scene fade-ins and outs. What strikes me is that the show never seems to make use of the full resolution of HD, appearing soft, and lacking in the pin sharp pop of other HD anime titles. The contrast becomes most apparent during the credit sequences, where the text is suddenly pin-sharp, and for the eye-catch image. Even shows up-scaled from lower resolutions such as Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood look more impressive on Blu-ray. That said, this is still a step up from DVD visually speaking.

It’s a shame, as Guilty Crown is a beautifully animated show, with impressive, memorable character designs, and a rich and well thought out world design, depicting a near future that is bright and shiny, yet recognisably in ‘our’ world. The action scenes are brilliantly rendered, and the 3D CG elements and 2D animation meshes seamlessly. The mecha designs too are impressive and stylish, making this a show with a very pleasing visual aesthetic.

The images used in this review are sourced from the PR and aren’t necessarily representative of the final retail release.

Sound

You have the options of Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround English and 2.0 Stereo Japanese, and this is one of those titles where the English subtitles are locked to the Japanese audio, and the signs track is locked to the English track. I went with the Japanese audio as always, and the stereo does enough to convey the action, especially when prologicked up. The cast is suited well to their characters, but the real spark of this show comes in its music, which goes above and beyond the usual action anime soundtrack. This is in part to one of its main characters being a pop star, but generally the music to the show, both songs and incidental really does stand out. I gave the dub a try, and it felt like an identikit Funimation dub, with character archetypes getting the same voices over again. The surround does give the action a boost though. The subtitles were accurately timed and free of typographical error.

Extras

The discs get an animated menu screen with which they present their content.

Disc 1 has the audio commentaries. Episode 2 has Alexis Tipton (Inori), Austin Tindle (Shu), and Micah Solusod (Gai) offer a bit of Funimation frivolousness, a light chatty observational track, which is replete with spoilers.

Episode 4 is the one about the process. Monica Rial (Tsugumi), Emily Neves (Ayase), and John Swasey (Segai) talk about the voice acting, in between advertising Texas.

Disc 2 has more than you would expect when it comes to extras.

It’s here that you’ll find the next episode previews; they aren’t after the episodes on the disc, although I only made use of the preview to episode 12. There are 11 in total of course, and run to just shy of 6 minutes.

Guilty Crown 4-Panel Theatre offer 7½ minutes of SD gag animation to compliment the drama of the series. These are brief little skits that play off scenes from the show and play it for laughs. This is presented in 1080i 60Hz

Into the Void: The Creative Vision corners the show’s producers at the New York Comicon 2011 for an interview about the show. This lasts 10 minutes, and is in Japanese and subtitled.

You get the two textless openings, from the first episode, and the main opening for the series.

You get the 1st textless closing on this disc; it’s wholly a screw-up on the part of Madman Entertainment who localised it to Region B, and a minor disappointment with this release. Each episode has a unique ending, which tells a little story reflecting the events of the story in its 90 second credit scroll, and by all rights there should be 11 textless endings on this disc. There are 11 textless endings on the Region A Funimation release, but not on this Region B disc.

Finally there are the Promotional Videos and the TV spots, about 5 minutes worth.

Conclusion

If you’ve bought Code Geass, you might want to think twice about Guilty Crown. The similarities between the two are unmistakeable, and as I was watching Guilty Crown, I couldn’t help comparing it to the older series, and unfavourably so at that. I kept getting the impression that Guilty Crown desperately wants to be Code Geass, and there came a point where I was checking off the similarities on a mental checklist. That’s no way to appreciate a story, and I doubt I got the full measure of enjoyment available from this show. On the other hand, if you’ve never even heard of Code Geass, then by all means invest in Guilty Crown, as you’ll get a really entertaining future action sci-fi, with an intriguing premise, interesting characters, great animation and great music too.

You have the future Japan occupied by a foreign power, who treat the indigenous population as second class citizens (cue scene of indiscriminate slaughter to cement audience loyalties). You have a protagonist awaken to strange new powers when he encounters an oddball girl. Said powers work in conjunction with others. You have a girl in a wheelchair. You have the protagonist get involved with a resistance movement against the occupiers, you have battle done in this future world with giant robots on roller skates (Endlaves piloted by telepresence instead of physically), and you have the protagonist trying to keep his new secret life as a freedom fighter separate from his school life, lying to his friends to do so. It would be a short drinking game if you were doing the Code Geass homage as a trigger for a shot, as you’d be unconscious through inebriation by the end of the second episode.


It becomes a question of what is different, and it’s here that there is another slight disappointment. The protagonist of Code Geass, Lelouch was a delightful, Machiavellian manipulator, a genuine antihero if ever there was one. Shu Ouma on the other hand is the tired anime archetype of the wimpy, unmotivated teen male, dropped into the middle of the action against his will. In the interview in the extra features, the producers cite Evangelion as an inspiration for this show, and it comes as no surprise when Shu goes all out Shinji at one point in the story. It’s as if Lelouch has been split in two for this story, with Shu as the schoolboy with the special powers, and Gai as the Machiavellian rebel leader. He’s actually the most interesting of the characters, as he is coldly manipulative on the surface, but he’s a man who has his insecurities and lack of confidence in private. But generally the characters in this show conform to the usual anime archetypes, the bad guys are moustache twirlingly evil, the girls hit the usual moe, peppy, oddball, and tsundere stereotypes, there’s the over affectionate and teenage looking mother, and there’s even room for a swimsuit episode.

Another issue with Guilty Crown is its length. It has a lot of story to tell, but it’s limited by a shorter run of episodes, and character development is something that falls by the wayside. It feels quite piecemeal episode to episode, jumping from rebel mission to rebel mission, and never really quite letting the story sink in. It also leaves more than a few plot holes, and I kept wondering why, knowing that Shu possesses the Void Genom, do GHQ allow him to go to high school every day like a normal kid, along with known terrorist Inori?


Having whinged all that, Guilty Crown is fun. The episodes are action packed, the characters may be anime archetypes, but that doesn’t stop them from being engaging and likeable, the animation is top-notch, and the music really helps draw the viewer into the show. What’s more is that the story makes the show compulsive. You want to know more about Shu’s power, the Void Genom, and the Voids that he can access in people, drawing on their inner heart to create bizarre weapons. It becomes clear in moments of flashback, and hints dropped in the story that Shu is not some random high school kid, he has a veiled past, one that he shares with Inori and Gai. There are truths yet to be revealed about his family, about the Lost Christmas event when the meteorite hit, and the Apocalypse Virus spread. The show also leaves us a tantalising cliff-hanger, with what looks like a coup d’état at the head of GHQ, and the advent of another Void Genom user.

Guilty Crown feels like Code Geass’ skanky cousin. It’s dumbed down, flashy, and lacks the narrative chops of its more successful relative. But you probably can’t get hold of Code Geass about now, and in a situation like that, going with the skanky cousin is a good idea.