GUESS THE DUMB Week 9

Shu is the perfect guy to take on the Oregon Trail, because if everyone gets dysentery, he can just absorb it and everyone will be fine.

Guilty Crown is over, and I am sad. Whatever one’s opinion may be about the overall quality of the show, it’s been quality entertainment, and I do believe the creators genuinely tried to make it a big, awesome action series. They came up far short, to say the least, but I did at least enjoy watching Guilty Crown each week, even if it was for all the wrong reasons. If I have one complaint, it’s that I wish the finale were more of an insane trainwreck. It unfolds almost exactly as expected, which is a bit disappointing. But I guess it’s not too surprising to see a series like this use nearly every beat from the Stock Anime Ending Playbook. Then again, Guilty Crown is selling decently from what I’ve heard, so what the fuck does my opinion matter?

By the way, I’m planning to do a proper Guilty Crown retrospective next week that will feature the final polls in this wonderful series. So, yes, stay tuned for that!

Now for this week’s voting . . .

1. Mmm mmm good. It’s a sweet, tasty treat for a Mana to eat!

2. The ballet of the apocalypse. I get the feeling this scene sounded awesome on paper, but in execution, it’s just silly. Even if I took Guilty Crown seriously, this would be a silly scene. To be fair, though, it’s difficult to use classical (or classical-sounding) music well, because many folks are trained to think “omg soooooooo pretentious” upon hearing it. It’s true sometimes, and not true others. Here, I think they just thought it sounded cool, but maybe there’s some deep meaning I’m not getting. I’ll just be sitting here in Silly Land in the meantime.

3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QQ0hH4MYsk. Just as a nod to Mira.

4. A magical plot flower growing in a pile of crap. If I never see another magic plot flower, it will be too fucking soon. I knew as soon as that stupid thing grew from Inori’s tear in the previous episode that this stupid thing would be the cause of some bullshittery in the finale. Damn you, magical plot flowers!! Damn you to hell!! *shakes fist*

5. Bang. Serious question: Is he one of those water shark dudes from Naruto?

6. Taking a stab at cancer. I know he’s probably getting the cancer crystals like everyone else is (i.e. through magical ballerina moves), but it looks like he’s getting cancer from stabbing himself, which, actually, is kind of awesome.

7. A sinking ship. Oh, Guilty Crown. You take the time to kind of sort of hint at a ship between Daryl and Tsugumi, and then you proceed to do fuck all with it beyond this short bit. At least it resulted in lots of fan art and doujins (I assume).

8. Da’ath’s grand plan. So they basically wanted everything to turn into Shinji’s alternate universe in Evangelion. Got it!

9. He did it all for the Mana. Aha, so Gai just wanted to get laid! A perfectly acceptable reason for nearly causing the end of the world.

10. She died the way she lived: Getting pierced by bullets. Poor Arisa. The way she’s treated by the series is so ridiculously, hilariously mean-spirited. But, hey, I guess she deserves it because OMG SLUT LOL!!!!11!1!!!1!!!1!

11. Daryl was a nice guy after all. Never mind the untold numbers of people he slaughtered. He’s actually very sweet!

12. Shoe liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiives! It turns out that all along Inori had the power to absorb cancer too! It’s a good thing she has that power so that Shoe gets to live on and dress 40 years older than he is and eat cake and listen to Inori’s music while crying every day that he’ll never see her again. A very good thing!

So there you go — a good, robust group of dumb shit to vote on. Have fun!

Last week’s poll predictably resulted in the most lopsided victory yet for Shoe riding Segwayfax into battle. But will the Segway ride strong against the NEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW champion . . . little!Mana thinking dirty thoughts about unborn baby Shoe?! An intense battle, for sure!