It’s time to hit the beach and that means bikinis and male jealousy and desire.
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)
As busy as the show was in its first half of its run, I can’t fault it for trying to play up a little bit of the down time. The setup is amusing enough as Shu ends up going on a trip to Oshima, but it’s at the urging of Gai in order to bring along a few friends whose power that they need for a mission. While it’s being played up as a family vacation home that Shu used to go to when he was a child, it’s actually just a cover for things as Gai’s connections arranged it so they could operate easily enough. The energy of the kids is rather infectious, especially with Tamadate, as he’s just there to totally enjoying the locale and all it has to offer. With the way the show has been dark before, spending time just having fun is rather welcome, even if it’s just a cover. And it also gives us Inori in a swimsuit moment which has some absolutely wonderful music associated with it.
The fun and sun portion is very nicely done as it gives itself over to the fanservice with a really strong visual look that makes me smile. But there’s some good character stuff too as we get a bit with Shu that deals with his dad a bit, which Gai isn’t exactly taking advantage of, but is talking about it in a way and timing that nudges Shu more towards the mission. It’s rather interesting the approach that Shu himself uses when he tries to bring Tamadate into things, as even Gai has the view that the best way to do it is to show Tamadate that he can have an adventure like this and just live for it. But things go strangely weird when Tamadate gets close to Inori, somewhat innocently in fact, and it just turns into a teenage mess.
The infiltration mission itself here doesn’t take up a huge amount of time, really just being used in the last few minutes of the episode, but like we’ve seen from the past it has a decent sense of pacing and tension about it as the team gets into it, all while nudging and teasing Shu about his near-confession to Inori. What we get for the mission is interesting, but with the way it’s essentially shoehorned into the end, it doesn’t matter. The defining end minutes of the episode itself don’t even revolve around it but rather the mild confrontation between Tamadate and Shu over Inori in the way that young men never really act. It’s not done badly sa they basically state their positions in an adversarial and then friendly way, giving it all a great atmosphere, but it essentially makes it clear that the whole episode was about this aspect rather than the mission.
In Summary:
While the episode is kind of light on big picture material here, it is one that had a lot of fun as it dealt with the fanservice side early on as the kids arrived at the resort and spent some time playing. But it also dealt with teenage drama as well over the way that the guys are interested in Inori, which unfortunately means they ignore the other two girls that came along that certainly look cute, attractive and interesting as well. But such is the way of anime and Guilty Crown is no exception. There’s definitely plenty to like here, but it’s also an episode that feels a bit more like a side story than the main feature.
Grade: B
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Streamed By: FUNimation
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.
