Nothing like basically calling out a character as being all moe.
What They Say:
In the near future, a meteorite carrying a foreign virus crashes in Japan, leading to a devastating nation-wide infection and total anarchy. Several years later, Shu—a teen with a special ability awakened by the Apocalypse Virus—meets a strange girl who incites him to join the struggle against a government organization’s robotic forces and a secret society whose goal remains shrouded in mystery.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After the series went surprisingly big with its sixth episode, Guilty Crown slows things down to a more personal level this time around. Shu is back in school and there’s some concerns about what happened to him that was public knowledge, but most are just fascinated and interested in the fact that he was in GHQ and likely interrogated. It’s a novelty factor at the moment, and some of the faculty worry about him transitioning back into a normal life, but everything seems to hvae gone back to normal without any real concerns. Almost a little too easy which some may say, but still.
Shu’s home life is just as quirky as before as well as we get his mother back in the picture, who continues to wear precious little and has some choice comments made about Inori. It’s cute how they dance around it, but you can practically hear her call Inori out for being a very moe character. There’s definitely a good bond between mother and son that’s explored here a little bit, but you can understand why it bothers some people because of how she parades around in lingerie and has an affectionate and hands on personality when it comes to Shu. It’s like her sense of boundaries is just completely off. But there’s a certain charm to it as well.
What makes the episode really fun to watch is when it shifts into mission mode as Gai calls him in to deal with a mission in which both his mother and Arisa are at the same party, though not with each other. Showing up there to do what needs to be done gets a whole lot more problematic because of their presence. The mission itself is pretty negligible but I rather liked how Arisa got caught up in things and ended up all defensive over it in the end as she’s easy to tweak and prod in order to get a reaction, especially from someone like Gai. It adds an interesting potential new wrinkle to things to be sure.
In Summary:
Light on action and overall plot, Guilty Crown takes an episode to just settle down a bit and relax, which is good. The show has been moving pretty hard and fast since the get go and the previous episode felt like what an ending run of episodes should be like. The focus on Arisa was pretty nice as well, but I’ll admit that I’m just a sucker for Shu’s mother and what she brings to the table, even though I probably shouldn’t be. There are some decent little moments to be had here when it comes to the cast as a whole, but it doesn’t feel like a significant episode, though some things may arise from it. As a relaxing piece, it definitely gives us a bit of an epilogue that’s needed from recent events.
Grade: B
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Streamed By: Nico Nico
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.