I started pondering about the meaning behind the series’ title, Guilty Crown.

Some of the lyrics:
This is My Guilty Crown
I’ll fight for what I believe
This is My Guilty Crown
I’ll fight with my friends to set my friends free

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This is strictly my own interpretation.

After listening to the OST, I suddenly thought of EP 13 and 14 in which Hare had said that Shu would have the ability to be “King”.

Before Gai’s death, he was the leader of the Undertakers and essentially, the “King” since he was the one who made the calls. For the sake of simplicity, Leader=King (keep this formula in mind). In ep 11 (I think) Gai had died. Shu feels “guilty” for being THE ONE to stab Gai. It really struck him when Ayase blamed herself for allowing Gai to die even though she was present; this makes Shu feel even more guilty because he was the one who actually did the deed. But it doesn’t end there.

Now, the student body is in chaos due to Loop 7 being sealed off and they aren’t satisfied with the way Arisa is leading them as the Student Body President. Arisa is a nice person but being nice and listening to what everyone has to say won’t save them when the government and terrorist groups attack them. If they want to survive, they’re going to need someone else. I commend her perseverance and for trying so hard but she’s not cut out to be a leader. You need someone who is strong and has experience of battle in the case that GHQ attacks the school and Shu is the one. He demonstrated his combat abilities to the entire school by defending again the surprise attack launched by the refugees. Later, during the incident with Ayase and Tsugumi accused of being part of the Undertakers/Funeral Parlor, he spoke out and then with ensuing events caused the student body to recognize Shu as the one will be able to lead them.

Then Shu becomes the new student body president which means that he’s taking the crown even though it was kind of forced upon him. Now, Shu becomes “King” and takes his crown while carrying the guilty from all that’s happened to him since he fatefully joined the Funeral Parlor. He takes his position as President/Leader/King while knowing what he’s done, things that he could never forgive himself for (killing of Yahiro’s little brother and Gai). Shu sees it as his fault for their deaths and that he should be responsible despite the fact that it was inevitable and someone had to do it. But the people need a leader and so Shu now walks forward as a leader while shouldering his own burdens. He will continue shouldering them and even take on others’ burdens.

Taking my own personality into account, I feel that Shu’s guilt grows tremendously when he takes on the “crown” because he would be, in a sense, replacing Gai. If Gai was there, Gai would be the one in charge but he’s not anymore. Shu is now replacing Gai. Wouldn’t you feel guilty if you had to take on the role of leadership that belong to someone important to you. The role belongs to them, they were the perfect one to fulfill that role and now that they’re gone, someone needs to be a replacement.

This made more sense in my head and I can’t elaborate any further. Does this make sense to you? What do you think the title Guilty Crown implies?

I’m having issues with Nonoha as a character and her purpose in the series. Somehow, I find that she’s just there to cause trouble for Kaito and for him to bail her out when necessary. Also, I don’t really like the way the characters look, their character designs aren’t all that great. The animation isn’t as nice as I thought it would be.

Main Characters:
Kaito: He’s smart and it makes me jealous. There’s something about his hair that just doesn’t sit right with me. He’s suppose to be possibly the smartest man alive and yet I didn’t get that kind of vibe as I watched the episode. Him fulfilling the Orpheus contract didn’t have much of an impact on me. I was expecting more; hopefully the next episode will be different.

Nonoha: Her very first lines were: ‘I even made him breakfast and went and pick him up!’ in a whiny voice and I knew right away that I wouldn’t like her. It turns out that I don’t like her at all.
When she volunteered to go with him to the Sage Puzzle, I knew that she would cause him trouble. She almost died because she rushed in with such eagerness after Kaito’s warnings. Her only good points are that she’s able to help Kaito out with her good memory and her kicks.

Favorite Scene:

I wasn’t expecting it so it surprised me a bit but then I found it kind of childish and adorable.

Final Verdict: I’ll watch the next episode since there seems to be a dude who sounds crazy.

Overall impression:

This series is pretty much slice-of-life type of anime. I’m assuming it’s going to tell the story of their 17th spring together. There were a few scenes that were pretty funny and had me laughing but not enough to classify it as a comedy series. It was interesting how cats were used to somewhat represent them and their actions. The exchanges between characters like Kaname and Yuki are fun to watch especially when they’re bickering and insulting each other. Kaname seems to be a bit flustered when their sensei walked over and talked to them. He didn’t say much and turned away from the group, it’s cute. Maybe he has a crush on their sensei, I’d like to see what happens. I want to see how this series will portray friendship and how their friendship will turn out after they go through their 17th spring together, hah. I’m interested in how their friendship will develop and how they develop relationships with others outside of their group.

Characters:

Shun: He’s very gentle and I’d say he’s a bit timid. He’s basically the one who mediates when there’s a conflict between the others in their group of friends. The one thing that I have a problem with him is his hair. Why must it be long? It just doesn’t look good. I had mistaken him for being a girl until I heard him speak.

Kaname: Man, this dude complains so much. He gets so stressed out, so tense, so pissed at the most useless things ever. But, he was cute as a kid. He has furrowed brows and his face looks so tense.

Yuta: Yuki’s older twin brother. He combs Shun’s long hair… I wonder if he’s athletic too. He doesn’t seem to fight with Kaname verbally as much as Yuki does. I’m sure he and Yuki cares a lot for Shun but I’m not sure about how they feel towards Kaname.

Yuki: Yuta’s younger twin brother. This dude seems to be the one who engages in verbal arguments with Kaname the most. He just can’t live without arguing with Kaname about the smallest things. He’s surprisingly athletic for being so lazy and he loves anime and manga.

Favorite Scene:

Lol, the twins are so awesome. Their glares are so cute~

Final Verdict: I’m definitely going to keep up with this series.

It was interesting to learn that there are services provided to those that live outside the city such as the hotel and dogs as heaters. It made me realize a few characteristics of Shion’s when the dogs stopped acting aggressive and warmed up to him. It shows that deep down, he really is a good person if people didn’t already know and that he won’t falter– at least when facing a pack of aggressive dogs.

It seems that some people dislike Nezumi because of his cruel thoughts of wanting No.6 to collapse and suffer. Yes, he sounds cruel for wanting everyone to die and going on about it being something that he’ll enjoy but we don’t know his past and his real reason for wanting the city to go down so badly. Therefore, I will not judge whether he’s evil and truly cruel until Nezumi’s past is revealed–if it ever gets touched upon by the anime.

I wonder if  Ryuji  knows or even cares about the Nura Clan and Rikuo being head of the Nura clan. I hope he doesn’t just group all yokai into one single group although he’s already done that by calling them all evil. I would think that Rikuo is on par with Yura’s brother in terms of power and strength but he probably doesn’t think that. He probably believes that he’s better than Rikuo and he’ll be in for a surprise.

Episode Three:

To me, this exchange of dialogue between Rikuo and Ryuji was the highlight of the show. It suggests that Nurarihyon and the Keikain family may have some special and possibly friendly relationship despite their traditionally opposing forces due to them being their respective races.

Rikuo was getting himself beaten up. It was a one-sided fight and he would’ve been seriously injured by Mamiru if Ryuji hadn’t ordered him to stop. I wonder if Rikuo can get stronger by training because he seriously needs to train.

The next episode will focus on the past and it’s something that I don’t mind. It’s about time we got some information on the past and how Nurarihyon was able to meet with his human wife.

It seems that four years has passed by since Shion and Nezumi’s first encounter. After letting Nezumi escape, the Security Bureau disqualified Shion and he and his mother ended up in Lost Town. That’s quite sad how they lost everything just because Shion sheltered Nezumi for one night.

Anyways, Nezumi’s gotten bigger, taller, and more of a badass~ I love his smirks and his attitude although he seems a lot more friendlier than the last episode or maybe he just acts like that around Shion. I’m still looking forward to more hints of BL. >3>

Now that Shion’s escaped, he probably won’t be able to go back to Lost Town and see his mother. Hopefully she won’t get dragged into the mess. I wonder how he’ll go on and how he’ll spend the rest of his life with Nezumi. And I’m interested in how Nezumi was able to escape the bureau in the first episode.

I think the fact that Nezumi looks kind of like Kanda from DGM is part of the reason why I’m going to stick with this series until the end. heh.

This episode makes the OP sequence make sense…

Yune is just so cute. She tries super hard to adapt to her new environment such as eating cheese even though she doesn’t like it. It was adorable when she tried the freshly baked bread and sparkled when she loved it.

It was nice to see them go to the open market and she tried to memorize the names of vegetables she’s never seen before. It’s so adorable how Claude treats her kindly and tries to change himself to be more considerate towards her. I think Oscar’s noticed a change in Claude too. It’s all thanks to Yune’s adorableness~

I found this to be really cute, haha. Yune and Oscar enjoy dried prunes/plums–I forgot which. When Claude tries one, he doesn’t seem to enjoy them much.

Episode Three: Japanese Labyrinth

This episode shows us two of the members from the Blanche family who own the department store and I guess they are the kind of people who believe in using money to get what they want. One of the daughters, Alice, received a kimono for her birthday and that kimono used to be owned by Yune. She taken a liking to the kimono so I’m sure she’s not going to give it up easily. Not only that but Alice’s father plans to buy the Gallery for her birthday. I wonder if Alice would want to keep Yune if she saw her…

Oscar suggested that they move if they ever ran out of business and I think that it would be a nice idea. Claude would be able to see what Japan is like since his imagination of what the country looks like isn’t very accurate but it was funny~

The sign that Claude made using Yune’s name as inspiration looked really beautiful.

I think I’m using the word cute and adorable too much. >3>

After only a few days, he realizes how hard it actually is to raise Rin and that it’s very exhausting. He barely has anytime to finish his work and he gets distracted causing him to make a few mistakes. He rushes through his work to be able to pick Rin up as quick as possible.

Another big thing is that Daikichi seems to think that Masako, Rin’s mother, didn’t want to leave Rin behind and probably had a reason for it. I had originally thought that he wasn’t quite fond of her but I was wrong. He isn’t going to conform and believe right away that Masako is a horrible mother. He’s open-minded and believes that she isn’t that bad of a person.

Rin is so cute and adorable~ She’s showing more emotions and expressions than the previous episode.

Somehow I was expecting more of this episode, it felt like a filler, I’ll explain why:

Basically, Shura came to Japan to investigate the possibility of Mephisto hiding something related to Satan.. But apparently, there’s more to it, since Shura was Shiro’s apprentice. In any case, she takes Rin to kick his ass  ”interrogate” him as to why he’s trying to be an exorcist, and all that talk we’ve seen before. And so after being blown, thrown, slashed, etc.. Rin’s feelings get through Shura, and that’s about everything the episode is about.

Though we get some flashbacks in between, Shura’s being the most interesting since it appears she was in the demon world before she became an exorcist… and not to mention that Shiro trusted her to teach Rin since she uses a demon sword too.

Oh yeah, at the end of the episode, Shura confiscates Rin’s sword until he gets stronger. So now he’s going to be fighting with a wooden sword >_<

Hopefully next episode will be more exciting =]

This is such a heartwarming series as Rin gets taken in by Daikichi when no one else in the family wants her. It was frustrating to see everyone find excuses for not wanting to take her in and when Daikichi volunteers himself, his mother and sister don’t approve of it. It’s just sad how no one wanted her due to certain circumstances. They’re making her feel like a burden.

It was horrible of the mother to leave Rin like that. I’m just thinking that maybe she’ll come back and want to take Rin away. I hope Daikichi doesn’t let that happen.

It was cute to see her running around the house and following Daikichi. What I’m curious about the most is what is she going to call him? It was funny how she called him old man which then changed to grandpa and finally she called him Daikichi. Which is it?

Final Verdict: