Guilty Crown Episode 1

So, this is a series that’s been pretty highly anticipated, but I don’t know too much about it. First off, it looks like the setting is pretty futuristic, and the animation looks nice (good first impression). The series starts off with a strange girl trying to escape a mecha (at the same time, she’s appearing in a Youtube video singing a song), giving something to a robot to give to “Gai”. She is knocked off a bridge and falls into the water. Switch over to a more normal setting, Shu (presumably the main character) is on a train headed towards school. He talks with a girl on the train about terrorist attacks in the area recently (sounds like the opening to Code Geass to me…). A bit of background is revealed, as Shu talks about an Apocalypse Virus that broke out ten years prior to the start of the show. He goes to an abandoned warehouse to eat lunch and finds the girl from the beginning of the show injured, but singing. He startles her and she attacks him, but she backs down after seeing no ill intent from him. He knows her to be the singer Inori. He tries to talk with her, but they are interrupted by soldiers bursting into the warehouse. They capture her and Shu is unable to stop them. However, the robot with the package reveals a map to Shu, which he resolves to follow. Meanwhile, the stolen object is revealed to be a “Void Genome”, but its function is not revealed. They try to torture its location from Inori, but are unsuccessful. As a result, they kill civilians in a nearby neighborhood to get her to talk (Shinjuku, anyone?). Shu reaches his destination to find a bunch of thugs, which try to take the robot from him. However, a strange group arrives to stop them, led by the one known as Gai, who single-handedly takes out all of the thugs. Gai then asks Shu about Inori, and Shu tells him about her capture. Just then, the area is attacked, resulting in countless civilian casualties. A battle results and Gai charges Shu with the safety of the Void Genome. Inori manages to escape her imprisonment just as Shu arrives. He rushes out to save her, covering her from a mecha’s shot, but resulting in the Void Genome being shot. A strange mark appears on the back of his hand, and Shu reaches into Inori’s chest, transforming his arm into a weapon of some sort (some kind of blade). With it, he destroys one of the enemy mechas as the episode ends.

So, this show really did start basically how Code Geass started (although I haven’t seen any indication that Shu’s as smart as Lelouch was yet). Main character is dragged into some terrorist group’s plan, meets a mysterious girl who gives him a strange power, and there are mechas. Even the destruction of the neighborhood and the strange item that’s stolen from the military by the terrorists. Well, I definitely liked Code Geass, so I hope that this show turns out just as well.