Guilty Crown - Episode 19

With Gai on the rampage and now Inori seemingly captured, it seems as if the enemy holds all of the cards as we enter the final straight of Guilty Crown.

However, everyone has perhaps reckoned without Haruka, who takes it into her own hands to kill Mana in the hope of stopping the current madness - a plan which quickly fails when she finds that her opportunity to do so has already been lost.  With that, Haruka has no choice but to go on the run, first in the direction of the Kuhouin residence before finding out about the fate of its head, which instead leads her into the path of the remainder of Funeral Parlour.  Meanwhile, her adopted son Shu seems to have plans of his own, taking Arisa hostage before hearing of Haruka's plight and going in search of her.

Thus, much of this episode turns into a cat and mouse game, with Shu and Segai both seeking to hunt down Haruka while she goes on the run with the last remaining Void Genome in the hope that it could be used as a final opportunity to save the world from the Apocalypse Virus.  Ultimately, it's Shu who takes on the burden of using the Void Genome despite the dangers it may pose to him, seemingly setting us up for a grande finale which will see him facing off against former comrade Gai, with Inori also very much at the centre of proceedings.

As a largely action-led piece, this was actually a pretty decent episode of Guilty Crown, if only because its series of set pieces allowed us to gloss over some of the other plot holes and items which still don't make sense in favour of just enjoying the show's aesthetics and sense of "heart" when it comes to delivering big, belligerent stand-out moments.  By this point I doubt any kind of ending will save Guilty Crown from a critical panning, and deservedly so in a lot of ways, but as pure, dumb entertainment I'm continuing to rather enjoy it somewhat.