New Anime Series! Guilty Crown episode 1!

X____X That was my face all day at work today. So much anger from customers. Apparently yesterday didn’t go too well and they had to complain today. Or just be upset in general because reading is hard. But I started to lose my mind when people were ordering with TWO people using the phone arguing with themselves. Like what is this folks?

But I tried to remember happy faces. HAPPY FACES. My birthday is soon and my overworked husband is going to take me on a nice weekend trip. And Nendoroid Madoka is on the way. And The Thing is out today folks. Go see it NOW….and keep spoilers to yourself. This movie will be awesome. It has to be at this point as my friend and I are so crazy about it and we have yet to see it.

Actually…I love my friend. If it weren’t for her I would be Harajuku Lovers-less and would have no one to share my love of movies with. My husband is a good sport but he doesn’t understand why it is fun to love bad things. Except Blood-C. I love to hate that show.

Um indeed. XD Enjoy the crazy.

Well now that I am done rambling and making no sense because I decided to eat the rest of the ice cream to “clean out” the freezer it is anime time! I seem to have a rather large viewing list this season. Coming up dead last is Guilty Crown. Spoilers for…a rather tame episode?

Things are probably interesting when the dude in charge of an organization is not allowed to know something.

Episode Summary: A young man named Shu is outside watching a music video on his phone. The young girl Inori sings a song about wanting people to get along and it is generally touching. But while Shu watches this video Inori is running (or using some sort of powers) to escape some place. She has stolen something and is being pursued. She gets injured along the way and eventually is blown off a bridge despite an ally in a mecha coming to protect her. Shu travels to school the next day where his friend informs him of the terrorist attack the night before. Shu muses to himself about the increased military presence. At school his friends question whether or not he got his video done for them yet or not. He says he is working on it. Later Shu admits to having a hard time making friends and basically has fake friends. Shu goes on to describe the government as fake too. 10 years ago an outbreak of some kind broke out leaving the country on the brink of destruction. Other countries came to help but now Japan is pretending they have it under control when in reality they don’t.

Inori needs to learn how to run away.

Putting that aside Shu goes to his secret hideout in the NO Zone to work on his video. Only an injured Inori is there. Shocked that a famous singer is there he offers the girl some noms. She in turns offers to play a string game with him. She says he might be the one or some nonsense. She does not get to explain herself when the authorities come and detain her. Shu throws himself on the ground and acts like he knows nothing. He feels like a loser about the situation. The little robot thing that is holding the item Inori stole goes up to Shu and basically tells him to deliver the item to a certain location. Shu decides that is what Inori would want him to do and takes the robot to a dangerous part of town. It turns out that is where Inori is, being all tortured and such. When she doesn’t talk the dude in charge decides to destroy the entire neighborhood. After some difficulties Shu manages to get the robot to the man in charge (Gai). Because Gai can explain anything crazy occurs. Shu again ends up with the robot thing and tries to avoiding be shot down. Along the way he rerescues Inori but the stolen item thing is shattered…into his body. A mark appears on his body and he gets all glowly. He then decides to take a sword out of Inori and kick some butt. Also there are more mechas. THE END!

Okay so I said this episode was tame but we have a half-naked girl running around and explosions. That should be automatic ACTION time right?

Maybe when I said tame I really should have said it lacked in information. Visually it was a good episode to watch. Things were flowing well and I wish I could watch this in a crisp format. Not sure how possible that is going to be with this series already being licensed? That was fast. Gotta make sure I watch the episodes as soon as possible in case it gets pulled.

I think Saya has the market on fake friends. Just saying.

Part of this episode revolves around Shu. He seems to be living a normal teenage life. Going to school, not hanging out with friends, the norm right? Because every single hero in all animes ever (slight exaggeration there) has to be or consider themselves to be a social outcast. When really I think Shu’s (and many other heroes/heroines) feelings are quite typical of every single teenager ever. Only some teenagers are better at hiding their insecurities. But if Shu wasn’t WOE IS ME and feeling left out in society he would not have enough reason to do what he is going to do later.

I might be over exaggerated just a bit here. And I am not even bitter on the matter so I am not sure where that came from. Just maybe it would be nice to see someone who is well adjusted in school and isn’t all outcast like to take the lead. It would be interesting to see how he balances the new “truth” verses the old world he was okay with.

The Rage virus yes?

But Shu’s school life is far from perfect. Or should I say his reality. 10 years ago some kind of disease hit Japan and left the country quite devastated. Shu did not go into great details about the disease. Which makes sense as he was young at the time. And it seems this disease does not cause zombies as later in the episode people who were accused of being Level 4 Cooties were walking and functional. That could be a cover up though and maybe there are zombies. Pray for zombies.

Like terrorism and junk...for real.

Shu also shows us a dark side to his reality. There is an ever present military…entity lurking. Well not lurking as they are out and center. No as behind the scenes as they (they being the evil people) like in No. 6. Of course as the show progresses we will really learn how EVIL they are and why our heroes have to stop them. It is nice that they acknowledge the other countries helped them out initially. I wonder if the show of force is to prove to the other countries they are capable of taking care of themselves. Which obviously they aren’t but that is what you do when you can’t do something, you pretend.

I found the opening scene really pretty. Just plain pretty.

Much of what was shown about Shu had to do with videos. His friends want him to make a video and that is how he finds Inori, she is in his video making secret place. But also we are introduced to Inori via video.

At least she is not wearing water bottles on her head. But she did kiss a skull dude...

It is hard to separate real Inori from video Inori. Video Inori looked naked half the time. Not sure if I would make a music video with just feathers. Yay feathers. But I thought the video was nice and the song was captivating. It was easy to see why Shu would feel connected to Inori with just meeting her.

Inori didn’t come off as much of a fighter in this episode. She does have some sort of powers but it looks like she is more of a sneaker than a fighter. Like I am going to break into this place but if I get caught someone better protect me. And I like that. Not everyone can be amazing at everything.

Someone is very hard on themselves....

I also like that Shu had a “wimp” attack when Inori was kidnapped. He just met the girl and she is acting all strange and the authorities have guns in his face. I would be on the ground too. Is that being a coward? I don’t know. Shu had no idea what was going on so it wasn’t like he wasn’t standing up for a principal, the whole not being true to yourself crap. I think his reaction was honest.

Err yes. Yes indeed.

The rest of the episode was a bit confusing. The Authority in town questioned Inori about the item she stole. The item is not explained because hey this is episode 1 and we need reasons to keep watching. When Inori doesn’t give up the information they decide to destroy an entire section of the city. Inori’s people take to the street and start fighting back. Chaos time!

Yay for obtaining new and random powers.

The synopsis online made it sound like Shu had an ability before the show started. But it really is a result of the item Inori stole exploding all over Shu. Whatever the case may be it was not explained what it was or why it bonded with Shu. Only now he can pull weapons out of people. And if your name is Inori that means your boobie area. Yay for swords.

By the power of Greyskull!!!!!!

And that is where the episode ends. Looking around the internets there is a big cast involved. I get to learn lots and lots of names. Not much was given to us in this episode but there are cute girls, machines run by cute girls, and apparently a band that has cute girls in it. But this show has the potential to be interesting and not so fan servicey so I shall tune in next week. Until then PEACE OUT.