Guilty Crown Episodes 12-13 Review13

Episodes 12 and 13 of Guilty Crown mark the shows end and new beginning respectively. As far as mid-season finales go, episode 12 was easily the best episode to date, a crowning achievement if not for the dubious quality of all that came before it. Episode 13 in contrast was as flawed as it was good, with both character development and nonsensical plotlines abound.

Episode 12:

In episode 12 the truth of Shu’s past and consequently Gai’s is revealed. We learn about Mana, Shu’s older sister who after becoming infected with the apocalypse virus gradually loses her sanity. Unfortunately we never find out the circumstances around her becoming the first infected individual, or how both Shu and Gai managed to avoid contracting the virus. The loss of her sanity causes her to grievously injure Gai and lose control of the power the virus has given her, causing Lost Christmas. The trauma of the latter being so great for Shu that he repressed all memories regarding Mana and Gai and his personality changed to the timid shell of a man we have become accustomed too.

We learn that Inori was created to interface with Mana, though unfortunately once again nothing else is revealed, despite the mind-boggling amount of questions that raises. Shuichiro plans to marry Inori to control Mana and bring about the events of Lost Christmas once more, to transform the human race into ‘something else’ (he wasn’t very specific).

However before he can complete his plan, Gai and Ayase burst in and a fierce battle erupts. Shu levels up with the handy new power of being able to pull out people’s voids and give them to their owner to use. Gai’s void is a gun that causes other people’s voids to manifest; it’s also a machine gun for some reason. How Gai knows Shu had this new power is never explained, which is unsurprising as I still wait to learn how Gai can see people’s voids in the first place.

Ayase’s endlave is quickly taken out and Gai is incapacitated by Mana. Gai’s last order is for Shu to stab through him to kill Mana. ‘I’m a dead man either way.’ Claims Gai even though we know that there is a healing void not too far away. Shu could really just sidestep Gai and stab through one of the many openings, or even the crystals themselves considering his sword can cut through practically anything.  However following Gai’s orders to the letter Shu stabs through Gai to kill Mana and saves the day. Considering Shu’s day so far, let’s just chalk it up to a poor decision in the heat of the moment.

With Mana dead Shuichiro’s plan fails and Daath kills him, or at least that’s what it looks like. The facility collapses and Shu and Inori escape with Gai’s magic coat.

Overall despite the relatively few criticisms I’ve made (among a few others I haven’t), the episode was surprisingly good. It was well paced, full of exposition yet with a hefty dose of action complimented by a great soundtrack. Ultimately it was as much a satisfying end as it could be.

Episode 13:

Episode 13 begins 2 weeks after the events of episode 12. The city is in quarantine, the phone lines are down and television and radio are silent. Riots are breaking out in parts of the city as supplies become scarce and the masses become scared and angry.

The students with nowhere else to go have flocked to the school, an impromptu refugee camp run by the student council, which now includes all the plot relevant characters. The success of the student council so far however, is largely due to the fact Kuhouin is having her grandfather airlift supplies to them.  Whilst the circumstances detailed at the beginning of the episode make you expect something akin to say; a city hit by a natural disaster. The school is surprisingly normal, jarringly so as no one seems the least bit concerned about current events, remaining optimistic about the government coming to save them. The same government that for the past 12 episodes has been hunting and killing off infected citizens without so much as a second thought.

Meanwhile the student council, which has so far very impressively and successfully coordinated the logistics of feeding and housing an entire school full of students for the last two weeks, now wonders what to do about the low student morale. They agree on holding a culture festival and in theory this is a good idea, an effective way to provide the boost in morale they all need. However the characters seem so disconnected from the state of the city around them that they don’t realise how much of terrible idea this really is. When there are riots breaking out all over the city due to a lack of supplies, when there are panicked, angry, starving citizens in the streets… I’d suggest the last thing you might want to do is appear to have so much food you can waste it on lavish events.

Elsewhere Chief Segai, now demoted and biding his time but in no way out of the game ponders his next moves. Out of boredom he gives a few discontented men called the Warmhearted Men Gang an endlave and a humvee, just so he can enjoy the show. The gang attacks in the middle of the festival and Shu quickly wheels Ayase away. The two argue as Ayase feels completely useless in their current predicament and then we get to see Ayase’s void for the first time.

I’d like to criticise Ayase for having the most convenient void yet, but to be perfectly honest this is the first void I’ve seen that actually makes any sense. As a person Ayase could be defined by her disability, for example how Shu treats her when they first meet. However Ayase has defined herself as a person who refuses to be held back by her disability, someone who despite being bound to a wheelchair has no problem beating you up or piloting an endlave into battle. And so her void, the hover skates actually feel like something that is a natural extension of the character, a void shaped by who she decides to be and what she does rather than anything merely superficial.

It’s worth noting at this point that the bad guys in this episode aren’t really all that bad. These men have seen the rioting and the starvation afflicting the rest of the population and so naturally they aren’t too pleased to see all the happy go lucky students squandering all their food on a culture festival in the middle of crisis.

They attack with no clear agenda but to cause some commotion and remind the students that they really need to wake up and realise what kind of situation they’re in. They never attempt to shoot anyone and certainly have no intention of killing anyone, even when they have Ayase dead to rights. However the endlave naturally perceives Ayase as a threat, attacks and is quickly killed by Shu.

The moral ambiguity raised by the scene, where neither side are truly the bad guys or heroes is unfortunately ignored in favour of the simplistic entertainment value Guilty Crown seeks to provide. I wouldn’t expect Guilty Crown to get serious but when the bad guys’ motivations are so weak that they almost seem akin to Robin Hood like figures, you can’t help but wonder if the writer’s don’t know what they’re doing or simply don’t care.

The only real plot to occur in the episode happens right at the end where Shuichiro, apparently not dead and in fact new president of Japan declares the city beyond saving. A giant wall is raised and everyone sealed in for the next 10 years to ensure the virus dies out.

Overall the episode was really about Ayase, how she and Shu are coping with the loss of Gai and the temporary dissolution of Funeral Parlour. Ayase was naturally extremely angry at herself and by extension everyone around her because she couldn’t save Gai. She feels that if she had been allowed to continue fighting she might have been able to prevent his death, even if that meant giving her own life.  It was about Ayase getting past her own guilt and moving on, arguably stronger for it.

Episode 12 as far as Guilty Crown episodes go was a few flaws short of a masterpiece but episode 13 however largely regressed back into the traditional Guilty Crown formula. It was not without its highlights, the character development of both Shu and Ayase was more than welcome and I look forward to seeing more of it.

Now we are at the crossroads where Guilty Crown will either get its head in the game and give us a great second half, or simply regress back into the sloppy writing of the first half of the series. I’m going to remain optimistic, I really want to see this show live up to its potential and I’m not ready to count it out yet.