Guilty Crown Ep4 - And how you are supposed to watch this show

BELIEVE IN ME THAT BELIEVES IN YOU!!!... I wish

I told myself that I'll stop complaining about Guilty Crown, but the latest episode seems to be testing my resolve. There are so many thing I want to rant about, like, you know:

1. How did Shuu recognize Kido Kenji?
2. How did Gai, the most wanted man now, slipped past the security?
3. Shuu took THREE SECONDS to charge his new grav gun. It is shown that the mech had his arm raised and is 0.5 seconds from turning Shuu into meat poop. Wtf?
4. Inori can fly now?
5. Water in 0G can be stepped on?
6. If Shuu has the kind of agility that allows him to jump on the mech's arm the EXACT moment it struck, why is he still such a pussy? He could probably dominate the NFL, NBA, and UFC, at the SAME TIME.
7. All the mech got them surrounded, only to ask them to surrender? Come on, you guys are totally killing each other the past few minutes.
8. Why is he so dumb that he practically busted Gai's cover the moment he saw him?
9. How did Inori suddenly falls head over heels in love with him?

Ok, ok. GC is a product of bad writing, I think everyone know this by now. I wanted to stop complaining about the show not because I was tired of repeating the same thing that I or anyone else has said on the blogosphere, but maybe, just maybe, it's because GC is a victim of unjustified reception. GC is NOT a victim of unjustified expectations; the writing is astonishingly inept even for the lowest standards, has brought absolutely nothing new to the industry, and the greedy blend of tropes makes it a complete sellout.

And what do I mean by unjustified reception? Well, things like clichés... formulaic developments... stereotypical characters...  overused plots... these are actually problems that only exists for anime veterans or people who are very familiar with anime, and has no doubt seen them being used many times. We get bored of seeing the same thing happening in a different story, and marked down the anime for failing to reinvent itself. Things like harem settings, teenage angst, a young boy finding a special power out of pure chance, chance to make a difference... are stuff that we hate to see get endlessly recycled, but remember, these are setups that are proven and have sold well, and for many people that is the main draw that got them into anime in the first place.

So, Guilty Crown is a huge blend of everything cliché, and that means the show has little value for us, people who has seen tons of titles. But if they are all proven clichés, and coupled with top-level production quality and huge amounts of moé and fan-service, what does the show means to anime newcomers?

Guilty Crown is probably the perfect anime.

Ugh. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but that's what I'm trying to say; if we could firstly let go of all expectations and approach the series without any form of comparison with other titles in market, and give a fresh look on everything that we've already found too familiar with the anime medium, then maybe... we might have struck gold.

Just maybe. I know I'll have a hard time trying.