Guilty Crown Episode 16 – I Guess He’s Evil Now

So after Shu’s shocking revelation last week that people inside a hostile government quarantine zone could possibly die, what does he do?  He becomes an emo prick.  Now, I know everyone will rush to say “How could he treat the lesser people like that?” or “Why is he acting like such a douche?” but it’s like he said himself, there is no way that everyone can be treated equally and fairly and survive as well in a situation like this.  Though you might not want to believe it, sometimes you have to make sacrifices.  Let’s think about this; we have a bunch of high school kids, quarantined from the rest of civilization and soon to be killed by a giant ever-moving wall of death.  So what are these kids to do?  Hold hands, give everything away to the rest of the looters and rioters, and wait to die?  Call me crazy, but that doesn’t seem like the ideal situation to me.  So the only solution left is to buckle down and try to live, by whatever means necessary.  You will have to make sacrifices, but if you want to live it’s just something that you have to do.  You could really split hairs with the way Shu is behaving, but it doesn’t really seem like he’s acting this way out of some thirst for power, he’s just their best hope for survival.

But with that being said, Shu is still kind of a bitch.  Although he’s not really a complete tyrant by any means, he still isn’t the nicest we’ve seen him all series, especially when he finds out about what Voids can really do.  I’d also like to point out that pretty much everything that’s happening here (both good and bad) is because of Yahiro.  He suggested the Void ranking system, which helped them secure power, but also caused them to discriminate against the weaker students.  He was the one who suggested that Shu become president and rallied everyone behind him.  He was also the one who convinced everyone that Hare died because of some new superweapon.  In reality, he’s the real problem right now, and the more the show goes on, I’m beginning to think more and more that he’ll eventually become a villain.  He’s been an asshole throughout this entire show; he sold drugs, betrayed Shu, deceived him, and is obviously manipulating him and changing him into a complete jackass.

That one guy from Funeral Parlor who had about three lines in the fourth episode also returns, but his only purpose is to say “You’ve changed!  You’re bad now!” to Shu, which doesn’t really work too well, because Shu is, for the most part, just as meek as he’s been throughout the rest of the series.  The only exception to that being the situation with Souta, but that was obviously completely personal.  He even tells Inori that he doesn’t really want to be the way he is, but he has to do it because he’s their biggest chance for survival.  I don’t really understand why Shu cares if Arisa leaves or not, because (other than her void) there’s no real reason for him to give a shit about what she does.  Is it just to reinforce his new evil persona?  That’s also been a not-so-gradual decline these last few episodes.  When Shu first learns that the destruction of a persons Void can kill a person, he is shocked and angry at Yahiro, but then randomly turns evil when his stupid-ass brain figures out “Wait, if people’s Voids can be destroyed by accident, then they can be destroyed on purpose too!”.  So he’s now all of a sudden evil and consumed with the pleasure of holding peoples lives in his hands?  Sorry, but I’m calling bullshit on that, he hasn’t behaved in any way, shape, or form that would suggest that.

I also find it hard to believe the level of organization these kids are able to achieve.  I mean, Jesus Christ, they’re scuba diving in wrecked ships salvaging goods and filling quotas of vaccine.  How the hell do they even know how to operate that stuff?  They have a secret service walking around with infinitely powerful weapons and students stand at attention when Shu walks by.Really, if you had a bunch of kids running around with magical weapons that could do all sorts of crazy shit, there is now way hell that you’d be able to maintain order there; it’d be a balls-to-the-wall free for all battle.

Actually, for the most part, this episode was pretty good.  The moral dilemma of those in power and the sacrifices and expectations they must bear is always really interesting, and along with the setting and situation of everything made it pretty realistic.  Throughout the episode I was constantly thinking to myself, “Yeah, that’s really shitty and unfair, but what else could you do in a situation like that?”, and it was probably one of the few times that I’ve ever felt something realistic form this show.  But Shu’s random character swing from morally troubled leader to some evil psychopath just didn’t really seem to convincing to me.  Who knows, maybe he’s not like that in the next episode, and I hope he isn’t, but that really didn’t sit too well with me.  And Inori might as well be renamed Instant Plot-Device, because she seems to just do whatever the hell the plot calls for her to do.  She apparently is now Shu’s C.C. (though she obviously isn’t as cool) and is going to do whatever she can to help him with his plan of world domination or whatever.