Guilty Crown

Episodes: 22

Second Season?: Nope, It's finished.


Plot Summary: On Christmas Eve, 2029, the unidentified "Apocalypse Virus" spreads and plunges Japan into a state of emergency in a chaos known as the "Lost Christmas" incident. An international organization known as the GHQ intervenes with martial law and restores order to Japan at the cost of its independence.
Ten years later in 2039, Shu Ouma, a 17-year-old high school student who keeps to himself in school, meets Inori Yuzuriha, the lead singer for Egoist, while visiting one of his favorite places on his way home from school. Shu is a big fan of Inori, a singer who has taken the Internet world by storm. However, he also discovers the other side of her, which is that she is a member of "Funeral Parlour", a resistance group that aims to liberate Japan from the GHQ. Shu starts taking part in the actions of "Funeral Parlor" and the "king's mark" appears on his right hand after the Void Genome in his pocket was shot by a GHQ Endlave. This "mark" bestows on him the power to reach inside another person's body and extract and materialize a weapon from it. The anime tells the story of Shu's reluctant involvement with Funeral Parlour and the hardship involved in using his power, and how in time, he grows and becomes a person who finds a reason to fight and protect others.




My thoughts: This anime was one of my favourites from the end of 2011 into 2012 lineup, alongside some of the other greats like Mirai Nikki.
I'll keep my thoughts short due to lack of time while writing this but the story of Guilty Crown is highly engaging and pretty easy to follow although with enough complications that it won't leave you bored. If anything, I'd say the story is really well fleshed out and will leave you satisfied episode after episode (of course... some events and cliff hangers might leave you frustrated, but I mean this in the good sense where you want to go straight to the next episode).
As many of you know, one of the things I love about anime is seeing how well the characters develop, and Guilty Crown does have some amazing characters as well as character development. You can really see and feel how they all change from the events that happen throughout the story and how many bonds are created and/or destroyed. The protagonist might evoke mixed reactions at first, but as the series goes on, you usually find your place with him as he does in his own world.
The action is amazingly well done and put bluntly, Guilty Crown has plenty of moments of badass that make the series memorable.
The soundtrack is great and compliments the series well, and I do have to say I particularly enjoy the opening and ending themes.
The ending did give a feeling of closure, but at the same time, it left a void (no pun from the series, I swear) in my heart. I won't spoil what happens of course, but for those that watch it, you'll see why.
I do highly recommend this series and I am pretty confident

~

But yeah.
Anyone else watch this anime?
Any thoughts and things to add etc?

(Please remember to spoiler tag things if you're gonna talk about story elements, so as not to ruin things for people who may wish to watch it but haven't yet. Thanks. XD)