Guilty Crown

I am the way into the city of woe

I am the way to a forsaken people

I am the way into eternal sorrow

Sacred justice moved my architect

I was raised here by divine omnipotence

Primordial love and ultimate intellect

Only those elements time cannot wear

were made before me, and beyond time I stand

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

- Dante's Inferno, Canto III

Status

Anime: complete. (22 episodes subbed.)

Thoughts

Upon watching the first episode, my immediate reaction was to conclude that Guilty Crown must be some cheap knockoff of Code Geass - a little more watching and my description of it would have been "Code Geass' plot meets Neon Genesis Evangelion's characters".

Now having finished it, I do recognize it as its own story, somewhat, though I will still call it a poor man's version of Code Geass. It has many of the same details, both superficial and not, but the primary thing that Code Geass has over it is the characterization. Shu and Inori, expies of Shinji and Rei of Evangelion, respectively, are pretty annoying and shallow characters; while they do develop some later, some of the secondary cast is far more interesting - Yahiro, Ayase, and Daryl are the examples that come to mind immediately.

Don't get me wrong - Guilty Crown is still a very decent anime, and I quite enjoyed watching it; I just don't find anything spectacular or especially noteworthy about it...well, except the music. The soundtrack is quite possibly the best I've ever heard in anime.