A glimpse at the events of Lost Christmas highlights the intensity of that fateful day.
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 an episode that focused largely on fun, it’s not much of a surprise to see things turn the other way to something more serious. Guilty Crown has excelled at this side of the story from the start, something that has dominated the show in fact. The previous episode was the one that dealt mostly with silly fanservice but it also snuck some bigger bits into it as well with the cast of characters involved. After all that had happened in the first seven episodes, it made sense to slow things down a little and let the kids actually act and be teenagers for a bit. Well, as much as Shu can be at this point considering what he’s been through and is continued to be expected of him from the group.
This time around, Shu gets involved with someone who wants to get his sister out safely as she’s being sought after by the government because she’s one of the Cancerous types that’s out there. She’s in a rough spot where half her body has gone all crystal and she’s falling apart emotionally in trying to deal with it. Even worse though is her brother who solicited Shu’s help as he’s intent on doing what he can for her without realizing that everything he does puts Jun in an even worse place. Of course, Shu is the level headed one in all of this and he tries to salvage the situation as best as possible, but it doesn’t take long before things just get completely out of control.
A good chunk of the episode is given over to the action side, especially as Jun ends up transforming because of the Apocalypse Cancer and it gets pretty bizarre and intense. It’s amusing though that you have someone like Segai, who is running this operation to deal with the Cancer, watch her with such fascination as she goes completely violent. It’s a situation where things do turn more to Shu to do what he can, but seeing Segai go this route by just observing and then withdrawing to essentially let Shu handle it feels a little off. We do get some decent background material coming into all of this due to Jun though as we get a look at things prior to the Lost Christmas and Shu gains a new appreciation for what happened back during that event, and how it affected Jun and her brother. It’s a very good sequence that really highlights the intensity of the relationship the siblings share and why it was so born of fire and pain.
In Summary:
Guilty Crown shows a bit more of what’s going on in this world with events and we get a pretty clear and unfortunate look at what happened back on Lost Christmas. It takes some time to get there, which is the only down side, as much of the episode is wrapped up with Jun’s brother trying to help her and do something for her as she’s consumed by the Cancerous stage of the Apocalypse virus. You can understand his position, and what Shu thinks about it all, but it’s kind of half hearted in what it does. Jun comes across the best here though there’s something to be said for Segai in how he plays up his part with others earlier in the story with regards to the kinds of things that you have to do to get ahead. At this point, Guilty Crown still has a lot going for it but it lacks something cohesive to really bind it all together better than it has been.
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.
