Overall Review: Kakumeiki Valvrave

You know that series you love to hate? Well this is the series I hate myself for loving.

I started Valvrave with one thought in mind: any mecha with Code Geass pedigree was probably something I wanted to watch. I really enjoyed the latter series in my younger days, and though I don't consider it among my masterpiece list or even close, I have seen it multiple times and loved the ludicrousness of it all each watch-through. See, I like craziness, when done with the right touch, and there are plenty of series I've enjoyed for the pure entertainment factor. There's nothing like a good over-the-top story when you're looking for something interesting, and Code Geass is just that. That being the case, Valvrave looked perfect for me, and it was one of the series I anticipated most this season. Twelve weeks later, I have to say I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

When I look back on this season, Valvrave is undoubtedly the series I'd nominate for trainwreck. It's ridiculous, it's silly, and it's been horribly mysterious about its mythos, so much so that most things seem to happen at random, though the series does hint at some greater truth some ways away. Yet despite that, I always managed to enjoy this show, and up until episode 10, everything was perfectly fun with no strings attached. Even after episode 10, I was heavily invested in wanting to know what happened next, and though I personally had issues with the rape scene, I never really thought it shouldn't have been included. Portrayed differently, yes, but not removed. Like much of the rest of the series, Valvrave in general revolves around shock factor and the extreme, and though it travels into darker territory by the last three episodes, it doesn't really lose its flavoring as such.

However, I don't want to make Valvrave out to be "that series with a rape scene". For all the impact that episode had on the overall narrative, there's plenty of other things that make the series worth watching, even if the rape scene does color your perspective somewhat later. To start with, as a mecha/action series, Valvrave is exactly what fans of classic mecha have been missing in recent years. While the CGI takes some getting used to, this is Sunrise, and there's plenty of action to fawn over. In fact, the series is so Sunrise that it's essentially an amalgam of every mecha series ever created, especially when it comes to those from the same studio. It's no coincidence that I mention Code Geass extensively, and not just because both series share a great deal of the same staff. In some ways, they're very much the same show, though Valvrave takes from many other series as well. That's garnered the series a lot of criticism since it premiered, and I can understand that; however, I don't really think that's a bad thing. There's no such thing as a completely new idea, after all, and while this anime is more obvious about it, it's not as if other series don't constantly borrow from each other. In terms of this show, that's just what makes it Valvrave, and I'm okay with that.

On another note, I enjoy the characters. I've beaten my issues with Saki to death, and while I don't like her portrayal as of late, I do appreciate that she's acted out well. That's no surprise, considering this is Tomatsu Haruka we're talking about, but even so, Saki is the outlier in a season full of interesting personas. L-Elf comes to mind as my favorite character here, as every scene he's in is magically better (by sheer power of ridiculousness; may I remind you of the screw?), though Haruto interestingly wears the mecha hero insignia a bit differently than most. To be honest, he's reminded me strongly of Ao Fukai in Astral Ocean, one of my favorite characters of all time, and that's always a good thing, though Haruto isn't quite up to that caliber. The thing is, Haruto is as Valvrave as they come. He's naive, he says crazy things, he does ridiculous things, but he does them all a certain way. He's a genuinely nice person who wants to help everyone out, and because of it, he carries a lot of that mecha-hero guilt we're used to seeing in protagonists like this. What makes him different, however, is how he deals with that. Unlike the classic self-hating shounen hero who curses his mistakes, Haruto knows when it's time to drop the self-pity and get things done. After discovering he's become an immortal vampire, he despairs for almost no time at all before realizing he has a duty to help his fellow students, and even after realizing that he's raped Saki while possessed, he wastes no time before trying to take responsibility, rather than feeling sorry for himself for a whole episode or two. It's a nice change to see that mixed in with the usual formula, and really, most of the characters here are similar cases. They're that character you know, but with a Valvrave spin.

In all honesty though, I don't have a solid reason for why I love this show. I just do; it's entertaining, it's fun, it's ridiculous and interesting, and even when it goes places I don't like as much, it's kept me solidly hooked without fail. I want very much to say that I don't like being toyed with, as the finale does with it's painfully cruel cliffhanger of an ending, but that I'm excited as I am for the second season in the Fall says a lot about the series. Whatever it's doing, it's doing something right, and though I can't really explain it, I want very much to know what's going to happen next. And honestly, at this point, I think I might just prefer Valvrave over its spiritual predecessor. Who knew?