Ask John: Why is Guilty Crown so Heavily Criticized?

Question:
In a recent column, Guilty Crown was listed as being a universally recognized “bad” anime. I was mystified, because long before I read this, I had watched Guilty Crown and thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn’t understand everything that went on, but I didn’t understand everything that went on in some Cowboy Bebop episodes, and those are considered classic. In fact, I found Guilty Crown a real “page turner” — I was tearing through episodes because I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. So please tell me why Guilty Crown is considered bad.

Answer:
I’ve encountered a lot of harsh criticism of the 2011 Guilty Crown television series. Here’s just a very brief sampling of the copious criticism available for the series:

“Guilty Crown is a bit of an odd duck as it attempts to blend several disparate themes, but doesn’t quite manage to finish the job. The plot has clearly been influenced by several popular franchises – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the execution is where the writers have let themselves down. The narrative is often disjointed, and many events in the storyline appear to have no logic behind them other than to put Shu through an emotional wringer… Shu has no personality whatsoever… Guilty Crown is one of those anime that can only truly be enjoyed if you have never watched any of the titles that it takes its inspirations from.”

“It’s hard not to see Guilty Crown as something of a Code Geass rip-off when they’re similar to the extent the main character receives ‘the power of the king'” from a mysterious female, before involving himself in a Japanese rebellion against foreigners discriminating against the Japanese. There are even robots on roller-skates in it!”

“If you’re the kind of person that’s not bothered by a lot of plotholes, then this show is perfect for you.”

“While Guilty Crown does continue to entertain and spark lots of discussion in some form, it’s almost as if the writers have very little regard for how they go about it. They’re throwing out a lot of sudden plot twists that come completely out of left field and feel like obvious attempts to win audiences over with sheer shock value.”

“I still follow Guilty Crown, and intellectually accept that it is a waste of time”

“Who agree with me that code geass is far better than this anime? and much easier to understand and soo cool.”

“We’ve all made it through 18 episodes of hating it, might as well just love it for the last few episodes for the sake of it. Hate me for starting to like it, I don’t care. But I won’t deny that GC is a trainwreck.”

“Loose ends and character changes crop up so frequently that they either seem hopelessly unresolved or hastily precipitated… What’s worse is the anime’s reliance on tricks to further expedite the time-limited process. GC attempts to hasten development by resorting to numerous pre-established cliches throughout its buildup, …doing away with time-consuming subtlety in favor of quick cinematic cuts and character changes in order to convey both development and pivotal drama within the same scene, often falling short on both counts.”

“It’s crazy how bad a rep this show gets in comparison…but it deserves every bit of it.”

“Unaccustomed to managing such a massive wad of cash they fouled up making Guilty Crown ‘tongue in cheek’ bad and simply made it a straight up ‘palm face’ bad series.”

In 2011 and early 2012, some of my public comments on the show included, “The sheer artistic beauty of it all overshadow the small weakness,” “For every one thing the series does exceptionally well, it does one or more other things to leave me confused or frustrated,” and “While this is a flawed, uneven show, I have tremendous respect for its amazing creativity and production values.” In effect, while I didn’t jump on the harshly critical bandwagon that steamrolled the show, I did have to admit that it had some weaknesses. However, the intense and prolific criticism that primarily revolves around the show’s narrative construction has long felt exaggerated and over-inflated to me. In the modern era in which original anime productions are rare, I think that Guilty Crown deserves credit for attempting to be a unique, interesting and original story that doesn’t rely on copious nudity, moé or tsundere tropes, or simplistic, lowest-common-denominator plot settings like school clubs or the daily lives of teen friends. The show may be criticized for failing to comprehensively connect its disparate plot elements that include governmental censorship, teen alienation, noir-ish political intrigue, supernatural action, Lord of the Flies-esque relationship dynamics, and institutionalized genocidal “cleansing,” but the very fact that the show was ambitious enough to even address so many heady topics within a single show is commendable. I find it a bit frustrating that anime fans complain about contemporary anime being too redundant, unoriginal, and brainless, yet when an original show comes along that does incorporate many intellectual concepts, the show is criticized for being too ambitious for its own good. Furthermore, the art design and animation quality, to say nothing of the staggering originality of the visual creativity at play in many of the show’s setpiece action scenes, are undeniably outstanding. Guilty Crown is an amazingly visually rendered show. Certainly, screenwriter Hiroyuki Yoshino can be criticized for inadequately pulling together his vision of the show into a completely unified, organic whole, but dismissing the whole production as worthless garbage is a gross overreaction.