IRUn's House of Whatever

"Time to delude myself into thinking people care what I think!"


Hello, hello, hello! And welcome to the next installment of ItsaRandomUsername's ItsaRandomReviewBlog! The place where IRUn voices his thoughts on any video games, books, comics, movies and etc. for no other reason than to take up blogspace.

Warning: Might be equal parts insightful, opinionated, and probably offensive. Tread lightly.



Winter Animu 2012 Episodic Reviews:
Thursday


* Guilty Crown -- Episode 16

That's right y'all, Guilty Crown! The show you either love to hate, love, or you end up straddling some uncomfortable middle ground regarding your opinions towards it, this is that show of the Winter 2012 season.

So in the last episode Hare gets gunned down by some attack choppers, therefore causing Shu to have a Heroic BSOD and slide down the slippery slope of moral/dissonance. In this episode, we get to see what sort of repercussions that Hare's death had on the poor bastard.

This time the class president's grandfather sends in a small team of former Undertaker members to rescue her from behind the red line (*insert joke about UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ and ducktail pompadour haircuts here*) so that she can be claimed for an arranged marriage. Gramps is clearly doing this for her own benefit, so I doubt anyone can really begrudge the old guy that much.

One thing leads to another and Argo comes face to face with "President Shu Ouma". Shu is rocking a bitchin' new scarf, and has adopted a harsher, stricter stance when it comes to running the school, even going so far as to adopting an almost Darwinian belief regarding how F-ranked Void owners need to earn their place by doing hard work and overcoming blatant adversity. Such is the case when one guy is running out of air while diving in a sunken military ship but can access his spare tank by pressing a button on his helmet he needs to "find out for himself to overcome himself" .

Argo, one of the Undertaker members looking to extract the former student body president, doesn't like this one bit because he thinks Shu is trying too hard to act like Gai or whatever. It might be a matter of pride on his part, since Undertaker was canonically known for going to questionable lengths for the sake of freedom-fighting.

Dude definitely took Hare's death the wrong way, but nobody can deny the newfound efficiency that the school and the students have. Also, Shu isn't completely souless -- he knows that what he's doing is harsh, and probably unfair to certain groups, and that sacrifices of liberties and statuses need to be made but he truly believes that he has no other choice available to him in these terrible times. It's do or die, keeping efficient all the way until they can finally escape from behind the line. In a way, I find that rather admirable, even though if things continue to worsen then it won't look too bright for him or anyone else. It shares parallels with the whole "a king does not outwardly burden themselves with human feelings in these times" sort of situation that Saber of Fate/stay night had to deal with in order to help her own country.

This sort of writing is what helps to make Shu not a one-dimensional character, which helps.

Whether it is "right" vs. "correct" vs. "ideal" is a whole other argument entirely, but I'm not going to bother myself with that. Those sort of questions aren't easily answered, which leads to debate, which leads to people drawing their own conclusions about the show.

*although to tell the truth I am personally for the "benevolent dictator" route in this type of situation.

Whether you want to hug Shu or give him a swift kick in the pants, no one can deny he is a polarizing character. Back in the start of the show he was the super passive guy who would go along with what others said because he had no self-confidence and was dragged into a fight he didn't want to be a part of because he simply wanted to help a girl in trouble without thinking about the consequences. Then he became Gai's wingman as an invaluable asset to Undertaker's cause, then when Gai kicked the bucket he had to lead the refugees when they decided he was most suitable to protect them because of his Genome and his previous experiences with Undertaker. Even now it seems as if Shu does it all because he feels compelled to (sticking with Undertaker because Inori and he has the Genome, a combo of being pressured, puberty, and relationship-building) not necessarily because he wants to. But at this point he can't back out now, not with so many counting on him. Shu has no choice. Failure isn't a viable option for him because to fail means to die.

Don't hate Shu for what he has done and what he does. Pity him.

That's what I'm doing.

In other news, Guilty Crown is still a must-see on my weekly list.


tl;dr Shu in Guilty Crown acts like a dictator, but not without good reason and not without having internal strife about it, when Voids break people crystallize and die, the wall is getting closer, Shu is determined to help his fellows through hard times but also troubled by the methods he chooses to adopt, Mana is apparently able to possess Inori and turn her SUPER YANDERE, and it seems as if Gai was resurrected by GHQ's faction, possibly as the third Void user (formerly Scrooge's of the upcoming Guilty Crown: Lost Christmas visual novel? Only time will tell...)