Mind over matter: A review of Guilty Crown Part 2

Guilty Crown part 2 @ Amazon

Part two of Manga’s Guilty Crown means episodes 12 to 21 and it also counts as one of those second halves to a hard hitting anime where the audience has every right to say; “Oh? There’s a part two?”

For a review of part one pop over to The Power of Kings review published back in November. That dealt with schoolboy Shu picking up a great power and going to battle against the brutal QHC.

Part two deals with everyone dying. In some cases; more than once. Is that a spoiler? Not really, not if you’ve seen part one. Allow some science fantasy re-sets and you’ll be okay.

Once we calm down from the climax of part one – one that extends a twist in the tale into part two – Guilty Crown goes into a super powered Lord of the Flies mode. We’ve a bunch of kids with potential accessible to interesting weapons and powers but they’re stranded something that resembles post-apocalyptic Tokyo.

It would have been very easy for Guilty Crown to lose the plot entirely. I was expected all sorts of weirdness to happen in order to justify the episodes rolling in. I was wrong. I’m not saying there’s nothing weird but in plot terms it all makes horrible sense. This is complete story. What happens in Part Two makes sense even if very little of it is expected.

As you might expect a lot of the attention focuses on Shu. What next for the kid? Will he man up and stop being so annoying? What if he goes rather too far?

Pay attention to Guilty Crown and its commanding and compelling. Soak up the clever twists, admire the character evolution or emphasise with those in the drama and you’ve got yourself an incredible experience. The catch is this; if you allow your attention to drift off, if you ease up on your focus then Guilty Crown will get away from you. This is not an anime you want to be playing catch up on.

I whisked through the episodes of Guilty Crown. Once I got over my surprise – and, yeah, slight disappointment at the twisty plot bits that take up from part one to part two – I found myself enthralled with the whole new direction. I liked the survival aspect of the drama and once that began to ramp back up towards Lost Christmas (from part one) levels of power and drama I was able to follow it.

Even though I liked Guilty Crown this is an anime I’d only recommend to people I know are well into their science fantasy. To fully enjoy Guilty Crown you have to treat it with some respect. It reminds me of a good whisky or brandy. Just as you can’t casually swig back the drink and expect to see why connoisseurs recommend it nor can you expect to casually plonk down in front of Guilty Crown and see why it has such a cult following.

What’s the “too long; didn’t read”? – Guilty Crown is a great watch; if you devote enough attention to it.

My copy of Guilty Crown part 2was provided for review. Manga UK will release DVD (£24.99) and Blu-ray (£34.99) on April 28th, 2014.