Kakumeiki Valvrave

Contrary to what MAL and other sources may say, Kakumeiki Valvrave (or Valvrave the Liberator - whichever tickles your fancy more) is in fact a parody anime. You might be confused as to why I am asserting this given how this anime isn't classed as such and actually appears to make an attempt at some more mature themes, but let us take a closer look at the story. And before you deem this review unhelpful based on the low score I've given the show, I might as well you right now that while I do in fact enjoy the anime, it is no discernable way ... good whatsoever outside of animation. Anyway, on with the review.

Valvrave the Liberator revolves around our main character: Haruto, a socially awkward, withdrawn teenager who attends high school in a colony in space. Haruto likes Shoko, the closest thing we have to a heroine in the anime, and in the first episode tries to work up the courage to confess his love for her only to be interrupted by... SPACE NAZIS.

I wish I was kidding.

Perhaps "space Nazis" isn't the correct term, but I'm hard pressed to find anything better to describe the all white wearing (storm troopers!), fascist war-mongering state of Dorssia - they're pretty much the evil empire in the series and they all speak German, sorta.

Following the interruption one thing leads to another and before we know it our young hero is piloting a state of the art mecha capable of singlehandedly rebuffing an entire Dorssia fleet invasion. Haruto saved the day - but at a cost! To pay the price for piloting the mecha Valvrave Haruto had to give up his humanity. Essentially, he had to die. And what happened next? Well, I was confused as you probably are as you are reading this; Haruto becomes a vampire! Hilarity ensues!

Not really. It just depends on perspective on whether you find the anime hilarious or not. Personally, I think Valvrave the Liberator is just comedic gold, and let me tell you why. It takes a special kind of thinking to put vampires, space Nazis, mechas, romance and slice of life all in school setting. Did I mention there was a brief Valvrave the Musical? Not kidding. Wait for episode 5. Just wait.

All these elements in the anime inevitably result in a sense you are watching a parody and what makes it even better is the fact that the show takes itself way too seriously thus making it all the more funnier. Just think of Guilty Crown meets space, only a billion times funnier. For realsies, I do genuinely enjoy this anime. Not because it's good, not because the animation or the music is great (neither are noteworthy to be honest) but because it tickles my funny bone.

I wish I could write more in this review, but honestly, aside from delving into the characters there's not much else to say, and I'd rather do the former because I want you to genuinely enjoy the series. So here's my advice for watching Valvrave the Liberator - TURN OFF YOUR BRAIN. Seriously. Don't even think of thinking anything because neither the plot nor the characters will make much sense to you if any at all. The anime is just so much more enjoyable that way.

Story - 1
Art - 8
Sound - 5
Characters - 1
Enjoyment - 10
Overall - 3

They told me I could become anything so I became a vampiric mecha pilot.

Well, the idea of high school kids becoming pilots while getting their own personal mecha gadgets isn't new to the anime industry. Series such as Macross Frontier, Code Geass, and Aquarion Evol all have this theme. It involves normal students who attends a normal school like any normal day. Then, boom. Something abnormal happens and their lives are changed forever. The catch here for Valvrave the Liberator? It also deals with a supernatural twist...with some blood spilled to add to the mix.

That's right. It's not a bird, it's not a ... plane, it's a Valvrave!

To be honest, I wasn't sure whether to check this series out or not at first. However, I am a fan of the mecha genre so I decided to give this a shot. What I got out though was a rather strange surprise from Sunrise's latest evolution of works. Kakumeiki Valvrave, also known by its English name as Valvrave the Liberator, is a mecha series that debuted as an original title in the year of 2013. The series is produced and handled by the animation studio known as Sunrise. And oh boy, does that spell out some controversy...

In essence, the series doesn't make much sense at various points. There's a lot going on even from the beginning. From its basis, we do know that about 70% of the current human population lives in space thanks to this development known as the 'Dyson Sphere' that is located in space. It's a city that has advanced technology above our own and holds many secrets. Then on the opposite side, there's the superpower known as the Dorssia Military Pact Federation and Atlantic Rim United States. They are an alliance that has mass amount of powers and resources. Oh and what do you know, they are picking a fight. Being a superpower and all, the Dorssia are a powerhouse with their military, technology, and elite forces. Among its members of that elite force is a powerful soldier known as L-elf Karlstein. (ERU ERUFUUUUUUU)

L-Elf is a young man who is considered many things in this anime. He has the intellectual of a military genius, the experience of an elite soldier earning him the title 'One-Man-Army', but most importantly is also labeled by Dorssia as a traitor. After a certain event in the beginning of the series, he is forced to defect from his home as he is now seen as someone who betrayed their comrades. Well, that's all thanks to a certain young boy by the name of Haruto of course. The young boy is your typical high school student with a normal life, a love interest, and friends who he can trust. But hey, what happens when you reject humanity and become someone totally different...say a vampire pilot? Sounds weird right but that's Sunrise for you. Welcome to your new life, Haruto.

Among other people in Haruto's life are his love interest, the adorable Shouko. The twist comes though when the very first episode spells out her a certain event that seemingly writes her off the series. But then, the series decides to be cheesy and return the favor. Honestly, that's just face palm worthy. So as it goes, there is also some other drama involving an idol superstar by the name of Saki. She seems to have her own issues and spells out drama for Haruto and his friends. The humor she brings into this show is hard to take seriously at all. But like I mentioned before, it's hard to take this series seriously at many occasions since it hardly makes sense in the beginning.

Valvrave the Liberator is handled by Sunrise. Fans who are familiar with the studio should know their themes and ideas that are poured into a mecha show like this. The themes of vengeance, struggle for dominance among nations, tragic romances, and mecha warfare are just a few in the series. Among other things, Sunrise decides to put all of this into a single package and tries to give entertainment to the fans. Oh it achieved that alright with some of its other absurd ideas like a little dose of high school musical and death flags seemingly triggered everywhere. Then of course, there's vampiric space pilots who are both feared and respected. It's funny in the sense that they reject humanity for absurd reasons that hardly makes any sense at all. Well, that's just the tips of the iceberg.

Among other absurd ideas is having students run an entire country. By this standard, it means that students who haven't even ventured out in the real world market are now in charge of their own destinies. It completely annihilates any sense of realism by going through its ridiculous elements.

Despite the absurdity of the series, it does maintain its premise. There is a lot of action here and there in space and on its homeland. The majority of this involves the Dorssia's military against its opposing factions and Haruto's school. Furthermore, L-Elf's “betrayal” seemingly gets one of his former colleagues' blood boiling as he views him now as a rival. The rivalry itself seems to be one sided though as L-Elf is constantly one step ahead thanks to his genius mind. It is in fact because of his tactics which resulted in several of Dorissa Army's humiliating defeats. It's no surprise how L-Elf earned his nickname. However, now the young man wants to lead a revolution. Sunrise is known for themes like this in their other works such as Code Geass and Gundam Seed. A revolution exists between different factions and each side wants to gain the advantage over the other. The catch here is that there's this mysterious Valvrave that becomes a turning tide in the struggling conflict.

The Valvrave themselves seems to have a rather strange design that fuses between machine and humanoid. Furthermore, their system makes their functions to be overpowered at many occasions. What's even more strange is the question it asks once a pilot enters its cockpit. The million dollar question is:

Do you wish to resign as a human being?
As strange as it sounds, that question and depending on the answer, will change someone's life forever.

Among other strange factors in the series is the usage of its pacing. The episode shifts between seriousness and ridiculous. It's nearly impossible to take some of the ridiculous as entertainment even with its cheesy execution. It tries to mix in way too much ideas into a little package at once. Also, some factors of the show barely makes any sense such as how Haruto is able to pilot such an advanced piece of technology given his previous zero experience in handling a mecha. Then, there's the cheesy dialogues used here and there; some related to school, some related to 'monster', and then some that makes no sense. In the more seriousness field though, there are some controversial scenes later on. Be prepared.

There's quite a lot of humor though in this series. I actually find it hilariously fun if you don't think about the plot so much. The way some of the characters behave makes them look amusing in a state of war. Then, there's the various jokes such as the Valvrave AI with a keen interest in human ideas. There's also funny gags here and there such as the humor of the '666' that symbolizes the Number of the Beast. The characters' names of the Dorissa's elite force also are based off of German origins. Additionally, we can tell that there is a lot of foreshadowing. The questions of who will pilot which Valvrave and what's to come in the upcoming struggles are just a few questions for anticipating fans.

The artwork of the series has its Sunrise production values. The way the Valvrave are structured and the characters are designed gives them that fresh look. The students' uniforms are a bit generic with nothing outstanding. However, the Valvrave machines tells a different story. The way they are designed gives off them a dangerous look and one that is very noticeable compared to some of the other mecha in this series. Among other factors, L-Elf's character makes him noticeable with his flash of silver hair. The Dyson Sphere itself also is noticeable of being out there in space with its technology to make its function while the same time giving it a futuristic look.

If there's delivery, Valvrave the Liberator nailed with its music score. Akira Senju (Full Metal Alchemest: Brotherhood, Red Garden) provides an effective OST that is quick and fits within the themes of the series. There are many times when battles are orchestrated through its nimble soundtrack to provide feedback of the action. The OP song, "Preserved Roses" by T.M.Revolution x Nana Mizuki also has a quick rhythm that provides montage of the main and supporting characters. It also creates foreshadowing through the backgrounds of the Valvraves as well as some symbolism. Finally, amongst vocal performances, the stand-out is Kimura Ryouhei who is able to maintain his calm and calculating tone of voice as L-Elf. By a measure of its soundtrack, this series does deserve some praise. Boku Ja Nai, Boku Ja Nai, Boku Jai Nai.

If you've already started watching this show, then by all means enjoy the entertainment but don't expect too much for engaging plots or characters. Rather, watch it for a way to kill time. At the same time, be sure to put those headphones on for its soundtrack. It's a 'fun' show to watch but its merits in terms of story presentation and character development is sour. Among other factors, think of this series as a hybrid of supernatural/mecha/school life/comedy/drama/romance/crazy all the same time. I mean, if you put a bunch of kids in charge of a country, there's nothing more than a eccentric ride, right?

I'm sure everyone has heard the term 'so bad, it's good'. There is something inexplicably enticing about the amusingly bad, as the cult success of cinematic embarrassments such as 'The Room" and "Troll 2" will substantiate. This applies just as much to anime as it does to movies, take this piece of space mecha action sci-fi junk, for example.Valvrave the Liberator is the latest from the once great studio Sunrise; an amalgam of the studio's worst tendencies and deteriorating quality. It's a show that is so wildly unfocused and possessing plot twists so ridiculous that it transcends being merely bad; it's entertainingly awful.

On the ... surface, Valvrave is blatantly generic. It has a well intentioned but soft-headed and somewhat wimpy boy as its protagonist, whom in a moment of desperation gets super-powers (this time vampire powers) and a giant robot, which gives him the power to defend himself and what he holds precious. He then finds himself in the middle of a galactic power struggle; at odds with a militaristic menace. Original, right!? Well, to layer on the cliches, the story involves a high school and revolution of the youth, things series composer Ichiro Okouchi can't seem to pull himself away from; having already used them in two of his major works, Code Geass and Guilty Crown. That's not the end of it, as the show is rife with overused tropes: the clueless love interest, the jealous secondary love interest who is a pop idol, the angst the hero has over his inhuman powers, and so on.

Of course, it isn't this saturation of stock plot elements that makes this show memorably bad, if anything they would make it forgettable. No, it's all in the writing and execution. The show loves to be extravagant and dramatic though its material is often too thin or silly to give any weight, and sometimes just downright misleading. For example, when Haruto's (our milquetoast hero) crush Shoko seemingly dies in the first episode, the show ramps up the drama so much it almost seems certain that she's dead. But of course, all this drama is ultimately wasted because (and I'm sorry for spoiling anyone who hasn't watched past the first episode) she is in fact alive, with nary a scratch. That's right, the blast not 10 feet away from her that blew a crater into the earth didn't kill her, it just buried her and the car she was running to under some rubble. This is just the first of the many poorly conceived plot twists in Valvrave. Haruto comes close to confessing his feelings to Shoko, but stops midway because he is "no longer human", a contrivance clearly put there to make room for some love-triangle dramatics. One of the characters is apparently such a strong strategist that he can predict events as if he is clairvoyant; a rather laughable attempt to make him look like a genius. Not to mention the contrived rape scene late in the season, and the marriage proposal it leads to. The plot has almost no focus and barrages twist after twist, with little thought of how these twists flow together or if they even make sense. The show plays all these plot twists straight, making them inadvertently hilarious. It doesn't help that the actual comedic moments in the show are not particularly funny.

Valvrave has a humongous cast of named characters, and absolutely no idea how to use them. Most of the characters just wonder around living their normal high school lives, and occasionally converge to make a collective decision. Majority of these characters are stereotypes in terms of personality and contribute very little to the plot, and yet the show inexplicably follows them around and gives them a decent amount of screen time. The main cast is also lax in characterization and fit into retreaded archetypes. Haruto is the average male lead seen over and over again in anime. Shoko is the genki girl with a good heart, and Haruto's childhood friend/love-interest. Saki is the stuck-up and guarded pop idol, who also harbors feelings for Haruto. L-elf is the unbelievable military genius, who serves as Haruto's rival and/or ally. Pretty much all the characters can be summed up in a sentence or two. The major factions are barely defined outside of their initial descriptions: Dorssia are the militarists, ARUS are greedy capitalists, JOIR are neutralists. Despite the initial promise of some political play, there is virtually none. There is only silly high school drama pretending to be political. It's every bit the farce it sounds.

There is at least one thing Valvrave gets right, the eye-candy. In all respects, this is a very pretty show. The color schemes are vivid and colorful, as are the character designs and backgrounds. The character designs by D. Gray-man mangaka Katsura Hoshino are not exactly unconventional, but they are distinctive and attractive, especially their eyes. The mech designs are sleek yet fantastical, with striking features such as multicolored wings, wheel-blade weapons, and laser swords. They are some of the coolest mech designs anime has recently produced; even the bulky Dorssian mechs look pretty awesome. The space battles and various other action set-pieces are exciting and feature good cinematography; there is a lot going on, but it never gets cluttered to the point of being indecipherable. There are some short-cuts and quality drops, but they are taken in the right places. The soundtrack is also very good, though not outstanding or out of the norm for the genre. The action tracks are the high point of the music, but conversely there are a few obnoxious insert songs. In all honestly, it is well directed on purely technical merits; which makes the poor direction in all other aspects a little less noticeable.

In truth, Valvrave the Liberator can't really be put on the same level as things like "The Room" and "Trolls 2" because it actually succeeds on a technical level, which is more than can be said for those two movies. Plus, it has better voice acting than the acting in those movies as well. Not for lack of trying, though, because the writing in Vlavrave is bad enough to rival those atrocities. It's not just bad, it is comically bad. If not for the strong technical merits and voice acting, Valvrave could have very well reached that next level of badness. While the loose plot threads can be remedied by the upcoming squeal, the question arises: with this season being so bad, what chance does season 2 have? Well, chances are it will be just as much of a trainwreck. Am I wrong for kind of looking forward to it?

Update: Corrected some spelling/grammar issues, and changed some things based off of the most recent episode.

So if you have read the other reviews so far, they're not far off besides the lets gang up and hate on Sunrise reviews.

Valvrave the Liberator is exactly what people say it is: A mecha about space Nazi's attacking peace loving Japanese vampires who are now forced to fight for their peace, with a money loving space America who wants to be heroes and defeat the Nazi's through exploiting the peace loving Japanese people.

So this anime has some major story issues, and they Xeroxed the characters out of many ... other anime genres, it doesn't necessarily need to be dismissed as a terrible anime. If you can watch it and enjoy it, to me that is a good anime. Not a work of art like Rahxephon, Eureka Seven, or others, but a good just something to watch anime.

Out of all of the anime I am watching this season, this is one of the ones I am enjoying the most. Valvrave is like an abomination of things that should not have been mixed together, much like Hellsing was, but this mix is actually making a decent product to watch. Its funny, slightly mind numbing, and so far, it hasn't made you want to go and cry in a corner rethinking your life (I'm talking to you Evangellion).

Plot & Characters 5
Your peace loving Japanese people are forced into battle with sudo Space Nazis/Stalin Communists (Dorsia is a mix honestly), all the while the Space 'Murican's are trying to exploit their plight for their own gain.

It’s completely built on cliché’s but its actually something that isn't copied from just one thing, and that is what makes it different. It’s not like Majestic Prince where that is just a rinse and repeat mecha anime. And honestly I can’t wait to see where they take the plot for this anime.

Character wise, you have your:

Crybaby questioning life lead male character: Tokishima
Princess starlet that wants to be famous through anymeans: Rukino
Strong fearless female leader: Sashinami
Bad a#$ motherf!@#!@ that was exiled from his home land and is also an oracle?: L-Elf
Dirty American Politicians
1 Evil Space Dictator
A gaggle of School Kids
Oppressed Japanese people
And a bunch of Nazi's

The characters in this anime share similarities to meatloaf. A bunch of clichéd character traits were mixed together and molded together and made into a character, much like the many meats in a good meatloaf.

Art and Sound: 7
Its a sunrise anime. A decent amount of production has gone into this, however since It hasn't been licensed to Funimation yet I don't have a way to see the visuals in HD. Looks alright on SD. >_>

Entertainment Value: 10

This was something that should not have been made, but was made, and actually is fun to watch. Nothing more. Just waste some time and watch it already. You’ll be surprised at what you get.

*sigh* Boy, where do I begin with this one?

If you're familiar with Sunrise, expect the unexpected. Seriously.

So in America, vampires sparkle like Tinkerbell while vampires in Japan pilot awesome-looking mechs? Sounds about right.

The story is pretty outrageous to begin with. Only requirement to pilot a specialized war machine created by a "pacifist", "anti-war" nation is to become a vampire. Along with an entire school of high school students who don't know life beyond luxury and peace to run an entire nation by themselves to compete against possibly a futuristic America and space Nazis. To this day, I don't understand how were they able to last ... this long since they treat munitions like dirt and ready to turn on each other from every incident they encounter. All in all, giving the story a 5 is generous of me.

The art is amazing as the mechs are beautifully drawn. Every little detail on each mech looks like it took a lot of effort to get right. The characters are also drawn pretty well, as usual mostly pretty boys and girls with fluid animation.

The sound is another redeeming quality. I very much enjoyed the openings and endings of this show and would like to see more.

The characters... let me liquor up before I continue. One moment.

Okay, the characters. I'm quite surprised the male lead was even able to stand in the beginning. Maybe after the future, scientists discovered to attach an artificial spine to this guy. Luckily, Haruto does develop into a stern and decisive young man as season 1 nears it's end and that's a good thing. The female lead, Shoko, is your typical Jane Doe. Miss Perfect who you get tired of watching. Saki, lord knows what's in her head since I seriously think she's just bi-polar. L-Elf needs to change his damn name so that I won't hear "ERUERUFU" 15 times in 20 seconds in 1 episode by his "lover" who has a giant man-crush on him or something. Other than that, he's the cool, tactical genius with a back story that hasn't been fully shown yet. Here's to hoping, Season 2.

Even with the absurd plot and like'em-or-hate'em cast, I can't seem to stop watching this show. Another thing that Sunrise is very good at doing. So if they're able to keep my attention for that long, I'll at least give it a decent score.

Final thoughts: ERUEFURU

It does not do this show justice to write a review on it when technically it is only half done; latter half will be airing in October 2013. But it will be a pity not to get more people to know about this show because… well, some jewels are just meant to be shared with others. If you are familiar with mecha anime like Soukyuu no Fafner, or Gundam SEED (or for the handful of you that knows Blue Destiny), or Code Geass, or Macross Frontier, heck even Guilty Crown, then you should consider giving Valvrave the Liberator a try. As for others who are ... not familiar with those mecha series, don't worry because you will not be at a disadvantage. In fact, there may be less expectations or comparisons instinctively, so it is not bad, right? What one can expect, however, from Valvrave the Liberator are lots of intense actions, eye-popping WTF moments, and tons of character dramas!

First let me reiterate that this show was pre-planned for two seasons so expect LOTS of unresolved questions for now (which is why I said there is no justice in writing a review on it now). Given the script and series composition is by Okouchi Ichiro (best known as the creator for Code Geass), there are certainly high hopes out there among some people. Despite all the mysterious and unresolved lose ends, I can say that I have no regret watching it and the time was well spent. The story is very fluid and captivating, which resulted in me marathoning a large chuck of it. Set in a futuristic space setting with 70% of the human population already living in space, war broke out in an academic city and our protagonist unfortunately found himself staring at the face of a humanoid robot! The synopsis sound like a rip off of many other mecha series I know, but please trust me when I say this show is unique. On a side note, I must confess that I was not very impressed with the technological gadgets shown – or I am just being picky. When it comes to character, there are plenty to like about this show. While the character development and growth may not be apparent on them all, and at times may make you scratch for head at their decisions. But as the events unfold, the viewers will get a sense of maturity developing in them. Fighting for love, fighting for survival, fighting for revenge, fighting for independence. There are no shortage of themes and reasons for the students to engage in the ugly adult affairs of war and politics.

Even if you are not sold by the plot or character, I still suggest you look up the OP and indulge in it. Yes, it is that damn good. Performed by T.M. Revolution and Nana Mizuki, it is like instant orgasm for fans, like yours truly. Or if you prefer angela or ELISA's music, you will also not be disappointed. Simply put, all the theme songs are top notch! As the latest mech series by Sunrise, one can expect superb animation quality as well as character and mech designs. At least I believe so. Therefore, whether you are looking for a short 12 episodes series with intense actions or excellent animation or plot twists or character dramas or what-have-you, Valvrave the Liberator should be on your list as one of the potential to-watch series. Don't let the lack of closure in the series misguide you, while it is true that there will be more questions than answer (for now), this show is certainly worth keeping an eye on for the Fall 2013 term.

Well, if you have seen Sunrise you must be familiar to mechas and robots.

Let us discuss the positive point, shall we? Valvrave the Liberator did well in bringing the individual elements of action and mecha, they did well in the enjoyment of the series.

And then the negative point, many mecha series that did a successful job to bring a well-oriented plot. While Valvrave the Liberator did a different thing, they put more action to the plot and abandoned the complexity of the plot which created a lousy storytelling. The other points we must know is a typical story opening that makes Valvrave lack ... of originality. It really makes this anime into a replica of the Gundam franchise.

Well, we know Sunrise is a rich company. Therefore, it's not strange that Valvrave got the animation that needed to make this anime beautifully standing in top of the world. It has a detail and pretty animation. Talk about high budget show...
And the sound settings is another good thing in this show, the opening song "Preserved Rose" sung by Nana Mizuki and T.M Revolution really got the beat. The seiyuu did a fairly well job.

Okay, if you expect a deep character in this anime, it means you choose the wrong door. First, we have our typical male hero, Haruto. He is a type of a heroic character that surrounded by two girls and one man (sorry). There is minor development that discovered within him (poor hero...). To make matter worse, he is stupid when it comes to romance. Next is the infinity number of the supporting cast that makes the entire cast too flat and flaw.

The enjoyment of the series has just saved this anime from catastrophe, it is recommended for Mecha fans. If you look for deep character and a decent storytelling you come to the wrong place but if you interested in 24 minutes filled with action and a little fan service, give it a try. At least, it's still enjoyable to watch....

Kakumeiki Valvrave is different. It's the kind of different that may turn people away simply because it doesn't follow the normal conventions one expects of the sci-fi or mecha genres, but goes outside of the box. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on the person, but to me its what hooked me to the show. Particularly since you don't expect mecha and vampires to coexist with each other. It makes sense though with the vampire theory some writers use where vampires aren't the living dead but simply humans infected by a virus that makes them abnormally strong.

One of the nice aspects ... of the story is the nice twists there are to the plots so you don't know what to expect from the particular plot line. The art is well done, particularly when it comes to the mecha and fight sequences. The sound is beautiful and my enjoyment was high. What really stands out for me is the interesting characters the series happens to have.

My favorite happens to be the hacker. Her characterization is spot on for someone with a form of autism or social anxiety. She's also a major savant and she ends up being a very believable character. Even her brother is unique and lovable despite his narcissism due to the fact he puts his sister before himself every single time. Other characters are also unique and there is a complex dynamic when it comes to the relationships of said students. Said relationships follow too the rules of logic one expects from their particular character type as well.

That also said, I'm looking forward very much to the second season even if second season is a flop, I like the characters that much.

Overview:

Although I usually review older series, I will make an exception for Valvrave the Liberator. I can't think of a better series that exemplifies EVERYTHING wrong with the anime industry today.

marketing produced, fan pandering, cash in: 11/10

"What if we ripped off Code Geass, but inserted sparkling bishounen vampires like Twilight?! "We would make a fortune!" This is what the team of marketers said that pitched this bullshit series to Sunrise Studio executives. One thing I really despise in Hollywood movies and anime is when a team of marketing executives try to "cash in" on a recent pop culture phenomenon. For example, the fucking awful ... Chipmunk movies made some money off of idiots, so executives now want to reboot every 1980s kids franchise into shitty movies like The Smurfs movies and the upcoming Gnomes movie. I like to watch a product where at least one person on board gave a shit and actually tried to produce something of quality. Valvrave, much like the Smurfs, is pure capitalism that just wants to make a quick dollar and cares NOTHING about the quality of the finished product. I don't go crazy if a series has a small bit of "fan pandering" or "fan service" but the entire series can't JUST be fan pandering bullshit! The result of more and more purely "for otaku only" series is limiting the target audience of anime to a smaller and smaller group of Hikikomori and super Otaku. This is because Japanese studios don't really give a shit about foreign fans and want to produce series that will sell the maximum amount of merchandise (like figurines and echhi mousepads) to the aforementioned uber-geeks. As a result, the average quality appears to be dropping and the industry is starting to strangle itself.

Plot: 1/10

Spoilers!!!

Just like Code Geass, the world is divided into 3 major powers: The evil Americans (Britannians) renamed ARUS in this series, the space Nazis, and Japan (of course). This time Japan is invaded not by those dastardly Americans, but by the space Nazis instead. Japan is a peaceful, economic power with no real military (besides secret robots obviously), so the Space Nazis take over quickly. However, a group of young students manage to use super robots to defeat the space Nazis that invaded their orbiting space school and declare the orbiting school an independent country run by the highschool student council. The only drawback of piloting these robots is that you must become a vampire! Of course, vampires in this series operate by their own rules so the writers can make up bullshit on the fly! The real enemy are the Magius, who are aliens that came to Earth hundreds of years ago. They were at first discriminated against, so they decided they must protect themselves by taking over the world and secretly controlling every government. The Magius profit by starting wars between the government factions that they control. However, once the Magius are uncovered and wiped out via a massive genocide (to our heroes indignant horror of course), mankind is able to live in peace. Well, at least Ichiro Okouchi is making progress in his subtlety. At least he didn't name the Magius the Elders of Zion, so if you were a complete moron you might actually miss the fact that he's actually talking about the Jews. Did I mention Ichiro is a far right Japanese ultra-nationalist? The only redeeming factor if one could possibly be found, is that at least halfway through even Ichiro realizes how fucking stupid this series is and it stops trying to be serious.

Characters: 1/10

As much as I hated Ichiro Okouchi's previous work Code Geass, at least some of the characters were interesting and I could see why people might like them. Here the characters absolutely suck. The main character Haruto is presented as a paragon of virtue, yet after the evil Lolicon AI that runs his gundam (just go with it) possesses him and forces him to rape a co-worker, he doesn't express any more guilt than if he had accidentally spilled a drink on her. She only seems mildly annoyed by it and has his baby with no complaints. This sub-plot is never even brought up again, except at the end where you see Haruto's kid. That's right TUMBLR feminists, Ichiro Okouchi is basically pro-rape. Of course, how could a man that keeps telling young otaku at Japanese conventions that the Japanese Empire were the "good guys" in WW2 and the Americans are evil, NOT be pro-rape? The Imperial Japanese Army beloved by Okouchi were the absolute worst bunch of rapists in military history. Their actions in China and Korea made the Red Army in Germany look like a bunch of angelic choir boys. The only other character of note is L-Elf, who is just a German clone of Lelouch. I'm pretty sure the L even stands for Lelouch, because the series never indicates anything else it might stand for.
There are some other characters, but they aren't even worth talking about.

Art: 7/10

The giant robot designs are beautiful and look exactly like a Gundam series. Of course the reason is that Studio Sunrise also animates all the Gundam series. Is shitty as this series is, at least the art is decent.

Ichiro fucking Okouchi:

Dear GOD do I hate this guy! Way back in the 1960s, a Japanese far right author named Yukio Mishima felt that Japan was weak without a military and will inevitably be invaded by evil Westerners. The old generation of Japanese are weak for accepting pacifism and all hope lies with the young Japanese that must rise up and re-establish the military might of the Japanese Empire as well as Japanese rule over lesser Asians, who weren't descended from the Sun Goddess. Although far right politics and ultra nationalism declined in the prosperous 70s, 80s, and 90s, now it is making a huge comeback. This is fueled largely by the economic rise of Japan's hated neighbor China and Japan's declining economic strength and rapidly shrinking population. I mention all of this because Mishima's political message is today reaching Japanese youth that feel powerless and angry, and this is now alarmingly reflected in Japanese pop culture like the horrendous sequel to Battle Royale. What Okouchi does is take Mishima's message and Shintaro Ishihara's politics and mix them with just enough cool battles, fan service for boys and girls, and forced plot twists that people are willing to ignore the absolute poison that he is spoon feeding new anime fans. I don't care how much sugar he puts in it, it is still fucking poison and I'm not drinking it! To paraphrase an old video game, "Japan ill needs a savior such as you Mr. Okoushi!"

Overall: 3/10

Although this is one of the worst series in recent memory in terms of plot, characters, themes, execution, and most factors I consider important. Although, the art and music were pretty good. In order to be objective, I must look at the whole picture and at least recognize the few things the series does well. Thanks entirely to its massive budget, Valvrave is spared a 1/10 and given a very generous 3/10.

Valvrave the Liberator is a generic mecha series not worth watching and everyone should go watch Majestic Prince or Gargantia on the Verdous planet...This is what i would say if i was someone who doesn't take the time to actually watch whole anime series and just judge it from the first couple episodes.

Valvrave the Liberator at first appears to be an generic mecha anime produced by Sunrise the same who produced the famous Gundam series. Teenagers become super bad asses by piloting OP mechs and blowing up countless enemy grunts. This is the standard Mecha anime formula.

Being produced by Sunrise, one can't help ... but think that Valvrave is just another Gundam anime knock off trying to gain fame which at first this series appears to be. A gundam anime knock off. Hell, it even uses the same 5 mecha formula that Gundam Wing, Gundam 00 and Gundam Seed used.

The Characters of this show are as generic as can be. At least most of them. The main Character,Haruto, is basically another Shinji with a bit more balls. He's weak, timid, and tries to avoid being noticed by others. Many of the other characters seem to be flat and boring as well. One of the main love interests, Shouko, is the classic ditsy, cute and always making a fool out of herself girl that everyone likes while the other, Saki, is the cold, lonely former idol who separates herself from the class but strangely likes the main character for no other reason than being the main character cause why not.

Now while the show in my opinion suffers from this, it actually makes up for it with character development and interesting complex character relationships. Because our characters are so bland and tasteless, we can see them grow as the story progresses which thank god, they actually do. But more importantly, the character relationships that develop alongside the storyline are the key thing that i see driving this anime. You will see former enemies become allies, friends that will betray one another for their own personal goals and of course new budding romances which do not all center around the main character like a trashy harem anime.

The Story of Valvrave the Liberator i will admit will be stiff, boring and confusing. I was even ready to call it quits by episode 6 or 7 because like most 12 episode animes, that's where the climax of the story is except nothing really big had happened. Little did i know, that Sunrise was actually making this series a 25 episode series and by the time i found myself at what i thought i was the last episode (episode 12) all i could say was, "...Holy ****...Wtf...Gimme my season 2 sunrise...NOW!"

I was so confused by what was happening through the series and nothing seemed to make sense. The only thing driving the story seemed to be these mech battles and who would be the pilots of the 5 mysterious mechs called Valvraves. But Sunrise, the sneaky bastards that they are, give you clues all over the course of season 1 to the bigger plot that is at hand. No longer is this show about teenagers in a high school scenario kicking butt with mechs.

Now the musical scores of Valvrave are great. The Opening is fast paced and
makes you feel like its back in the days of Gundam Seed. The Ending is very symbolic in its lyrics. It especially represents the main character which i think Sunrise did a very good job sneaking in.

Overall, if you are willing to put the time and effort in watching this show, you will be rewarded for your efforts with a deep intricate plot that will have you twisting and turning crying out for the next episode.

[Adapted From Original Blog Post]

I guess it's hard to distinguish between what's "good stupid" and "bad stupid". I don't think there's a formula I can pin down that explains why I find anime like Guilty Crown enduring in their blatant mindlessness, and why I find the subject of today's review: Valvrave the Liberator, just sort of stupid, boring and not worth watching. So let's use this opportunity to set up a test case shall we? Let's compare and contrast and hopefully at the end of it all, I can give a solid thesis on why this show is crap, but also why there's other anime ... much like it that you all need to watch right now. Somewhere along the way, we'll find the problem, so let's get started.

Hello people of "The Wired", my name is Quan, and I'm back from my rather long hiatus to bring you a new anime review. Today it's Valvrave the Liberator, a recent entry in the mecha genre that looks to ride on the coat-tails of the genre's bombastic youth, but ends being a large firework show that neither had a point or a payoff. Let's begin then.

Talking technical for a minute, I first need to mention that this is a review of exclusively the first season of Valvrave and I have neither the seen or plan to in the near future the franchise-concluding second season. As I said in my Railgun review, first seasons or spin-offs must stand on their own, and thus I can judge them as such. This first season aired in the year of 2013 and was 12 episodes long. Valvrave was brought to us by the lads over at Sunrise, mecha-nerds in their own right who have given us anime like Code Geass and many entries in the Gundam franchise. The director was Kou Matsuo, who hasn't done a lot, but directed Natsuyuki Rendezvous and did some work on Rozen Maiden. The script was handled in majority by Ichiro Okouchi, which is weird seeing that he's written some pretty good stuff: namely Code Geass. Hell, they even have structurally similar premises; many factions fighting for world control using giant robots, seen through the eyes of a protagonist that has been recently infected by a power that can give him the ability to turn the tides of war but he doesn't really understand and slowly eats away at his humanity. The major difference of course though between Code Geass and Valvrave is that one is crap and one is not. Guess which one is which.

It is the year 71 of the "True Calender". As it typically is in mecha shows, since humanity took to living in space since the development of a technology known as "Dyson Spheres"(basically floating climate bubbles in space), the world has been divided into two warring superpowers: The Dorssia Military Pact Federation and ARUS. In between these two factions is the Switzerland of this world: JIOR, a tiny neutral nation that favors neither side of the conflict. Our main character is a young man named Haruto, a typical member of a high-school in JIOR, who lives out his daily life in peace, in between hanging out with his friends and trying to muster the courage to ask his long-time crush Shoko how he feels. One day, when he takes Shoko out to a local shrine to finally confess his feeling towards her, and, in what is quite possibly the worst timing imaginable, Dorssia attacks JIOR out of the blue, with the intent of conjuring the tiny nation. In the chaos, Haruto discovers the Valvrave: a mysteriously powerful humanoid mecha that for some reason, the widely regarded peaceful government of JIOR was developing. After accepting the Valvrave's very ominous request to "forfeit his humanity" to be able to pilot it, Haruto uses the strangely powerful mecha to save his high-school. To escape the now conquered nation of JIOR, the students detach their Dyson Sphere from the burning nation of JIOR and float out into space, declaring themselves a new country... which I'm sure is the best possible idea that they could have come up with. This, for the most part, is where the plot begins, as now Haruto must use the Valvrave to defend the nation of high-school students against the repeated attacks of Dorssia, and attempt to retain his humanity as the effects of piloting the Valvrave are felt, namely slowly turning him into a freakin' vampire, acquired with the abilities to regenerate his wounds and take control of other people's bodies by biting them on the neck. Yeah, it doesn't really make any sense. And so, from there, stuff happens, more pilots for the other Valvraves are found, and you're left with a cliffhanger ending that raises more questions without answering any of your previous ones.

Okay, so maybe I've been unfair. I'm not saying that this is at all a bad premise, while it isn't exactly anything revolutionary with the basic mecha cliches all there on the checklist, you can still make a good show out of this. I already mentioned how the premise of Code Geass is basically cut from the same cloth as Valvrave, but what Code Geass has that Valvrave doesn't is interesting politics between factions, complex characters and clever tactics. "So," you might ask, "what then, does Valvrave have to offer?" Well that's part of the problem.

You could say entertainment, and I wouldn't stop you. Valvrave definitely has lots of actions sequences, bright lights and high-school shenanigans in spades, but the problem it fails to give anything else to really offer. The characters aren't particularly likable, and hell, even though Valvrave would pride itself on being crazy unpredictable fun, the pace of the show kind of becomes stale once you realize the same thing starts happening over and over again throughout episodes: Dorssians attack the country, Haruto defends them with help from the various characters, maybe a new-color-of-the-rainbow Valvrave is introduced, and then we get to do the same thing next episode. Without clever character moments or even good comedy in between these action sequences, it just becomes sort of boring. I'm pretty sure the anime itself realized it, and to compensate, it throws in ridiculous plot-twists nearly every episode in an effort to keep you entertained, no matter how juvenile or stupid these twists actually are. But this doesn't even work, probably because the show has no sense of narrative integrity, or in layman's terms, these twists wind down to little more than trolls so that the you will watch the next episode, and then the anime will jumps backwards, hands held up, and shout "Nope, just joking!" and then revert everything back to the status quot. I remember this particular occasion when a heavy weight was dropped directly before start of the final episode, and suddenly I was a little excited; my mind was racing about how this could change the dynamics between characters and further their development. But when I turned on the final episode this morning, I found that the first five minutes of it would be dedicated to complete undoing what had just occurred. And then it's just not brought up again for the entire episode, apparently forgotten by every single character involved. Like seriously, what the hell? And when something significant actually does happen, say a character dies, there's little reason to care, because when Valvrave isn't throwing giant robots fighting one another at you, or some ludicrous twist, it's just sort of... nothing. No development, or interesting character relations, just filler with stupid characters. Valvrave hasn't had an original thought in its life, nothing will intrigue you, nothing will make you think about to any length after the fact. I guess it could be entertaining at the best of times, but I stress at the best of times. You could do worse I suppose if you wanted to turn your brain off and watch some stupid, random anime on a Sunday afternoon, but hell, I got a list of shows right here that fill that prerequisite better. Okay, let me take a breath and... Gurren Lagann, Kill la Kill, Nisekoi, Guilty Crown, Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2199, Black Lagoon, Jormungand, even Sword Art Online did this "dumb fun" thing better than Valvrave. And you have no idea how much it burns my tongue to give Sword Art Online a compliment.

The closest the anime comes to anything interesting is brought up when the genesis of the Valvraves are hinted at. I'm pretty sure this will be more closely explored in the second season, especially after all the bait the ending of this season left. Possibly the secrets that are unraveling about the Valvrave and the entire nature of the JIOR high-school can add some much needed spice to this universe, and if they turn out to be dramatic or clever or interesting, that might possibly make this season a little better in my eyes, at least for setting the groundwork. That, of course, it a lot of assumption. There is a lot of unanswered questions, and I wish I could trust season 2 to fill me in, but considering the show we're talking about.... I'm not even sure if I have enough emotional investment in these characters to care.

There's also this quite bizarre side story that takes place in the distant future, involving what I presume are a mother and child in a post-Dorssia/ARUS-war world, and it raises some interesting implications for what could take place in the future of the anime, but assuming it actually is what I suspect it is, it does little more than just unnecessarily spoil huge parts of the story, and by extension, the second season. There are only about two of these segments in the entire show, so unless it somehow brilliantly ties into events in the second season, I fail to see the point of them.

The characters don't exactly redeem anything either. Haruto, A.K.A our main character is as boring as they come. He is another one of those "insert-main-protagonists", by which I mean he has absolutely no defining features whatever. The anime wants you to get all involved with his struggle to retain humanity as he turns into a vampire-thing-whatever, but that struggle is highlighted so rarely that I don't even know if it's worthy of mention. It doesn't exactly come up in the terms of the plot, in fact, I think the biggest factor his transformation played in the role of the story was so he could have an excuse not to tell Shoko he liked her. And I think that's literally it. I can't bring myself to hate Haruto I suppose, but he's another one of those characters you could literally replace with any run-of-the-mill protagonist who was a "nice guy" and I'm relatively sure nothing would have changed whatsoever. So, I guess I don't really like him much either.

Shoko I think, is the one character I like in this entire anime. She's a bubbly piece of inspiration that helped to entertain me with her quirky antics when the show had run out of ideas of what to do in between robot battles, but unlike all the other characters, her quirkiness isn't her one singular trait. She can get serious when the situation calls for it, but still can remain stubbornly positive when things look dire. It's this optimism that lets her get along with everybody, and even form a friendship with Akira, an extremely anti-social hacker that lives in a hovel of cardboard boxes in the corner of the school, which ends up playing a huge part later on in the series, and was one of the only relationships which I felt was built up well. However, Shoko also has her flaws, typically trying to bear pain all by herself without showing it(sort of like Minori from Toradora), which eventually reaches a boiling point at the anime's climax. She's not a great character by any means, but comparing her to the rest of the cast, my positive viewpoint on her stands.

I'm surprised I haven't mentioned him yet, but L-Elf is the last main character you need to remember here. A fugitive of the Dorssia military who is forced to cooperate with Haruto after Haruto takes over his body and uses it to escape, L-Elf is forced to change his mission from changing the Dorssia empire from the inside and instead work with the Valvraves. L-Elf is the cold calculating type, he doesn't concern himself with relationships with the other characters or saving their lives, only what is the most efficient method to complete the mission. His reasons for working against Dorssia are kept very secretive, and by secretive I mean we only get one flashback that hints the reason might be rooted in his meeting with the princess of Dorssia when he was a child. I mean, I trust myself to fill in the blanks from there, but I'd still say L-Elf still has the most potential development out of the entire cast, though I can't say it won't be handled in a sloppy and half-asked way. The way he interacts with Haruto, who basically has completely opposite ideals than him could be interesting, but that dynamic wasn't explored in any detail in this season, nor do I really expect it to be explored in the second. So yes, just like the rest of the cast, he's boring in the end.

This anime actually has a fairly large cast, with various members of the student council and body, the Dorssia and ARUS military, as well as those in between, but it's actually really hard to say anything significant about any one of them. They are all one-dimensional; all the usual stereotypes populate this show, from the obsessive idol, the nerd, the NEET, the girl who dies so we can all feel sorry for her, the bad guys who are bad because they're bad, and all the blandness in between. It's quite remarkable really that such a huge cast can have no real variety or stand-outs, and I ended up not really caring about any of them. They're all just a really unlikable bunch of people, and that's probably one of the key reasons why Valvrave isn't able to stand on the same ground as the shows it's trying to emulate.

Done by Sunrise, the animation quality of Valvrave the Liberator isn't really something I can get all that excited about. There's no lovely backgrounds, or cool aesthetic choices, everything typical; so the animation is there and does its job. The only thing that's worthy of note is the character designs, which besides from being a little eccentric with hair-styles, sport these very unique eyes of varying shades of blue and green. It's not so much of a problem as just something I noticed. The many, many fight scenes are alright; they are at least somewhat exhilarating, and will keep you entertained while they last. However, and I think this sums up my whole experience with Valvrave's animation, looking back, while I never had a problem with the animation, unlike some other shows with typical animation, there was never one standout moment where I thought "wow", or "they really put a lot of effort into this scene". That's not good, not really.

Same for sound too. The OST for Valvrave was done Akira Senju, who like the writer, actually does have a couple of decent works under his belt. Most notably, he was responsible for the OST of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which while I haven't seen(and before anybody starts questioning my credibility I did see the original anime), I know for a fact it has some brilliant music, and the same can not be said for Valvrave. There's a couple orchestras and the such in there, and while it sounds okay for battle music, it's nothing you haven't before; and the rest of the OST mostly consists of those typical slice-of-life jingles you've heard in absolutely every other anime ever. But finally, here's something good to talk about. In stark contrast to the lackluster soundtrack, the OP and ED of the anime are actually quite superb. The OP "Preserved Roses" is probably one of better openings of last year, with exciting music(if basic visuals), and the ED "Bokujanai" is quite unique, pairing high paced Japanese rap with a catchy-as-hell chorus, and marries them together wonderfully.


So, I think we can label Valvrave a failure in the end, a failure to provide good characters, memorable scenes, or even to entertain. I asked a question in the beginning of this review, and that was, roughly "why does Valvrave fail at being dumb fun?" and why should you not watch Valvrave as opposed to an anime very much like it, or an anime whose sole purpose is to provide easy brain candy. Well, I think I've got an answer now, after looking at the lack-luster characters, the stupid plot-twists and all that other wonderful bullshit. For all its eccentricities, Valvrave is a show that's missing a lot of soul. When you watch a show that tries to achieve that same feeling that Valvrave attempts, I at least feel, it's a show born because the creators wanted the audience to have a little fun. Valvrave feels like it's engineered for the sole purpose of keeping the audience around long enough so they feel obligated to buy merchandise, and all the craziness that it contains: those stupid plot-twists and ludicrous situations, are born from that. And yes, you could argue that's the purpose of every anime that's ever existed, but still, you're not supposed to be so obvious about it. As I said in the beginning of the review, Valvrave is an empty fireworks show; an hollow mess that's devoid of passion, creativity and soul, that feels like its very blue-prints was built to pander to the biggest demographic possible. So, I guess what I'm trying to say in my very long-winded way, Valvrave is a bad anime. Not self-aware. Not "so-bad-it's-good". Not clever in any way. It's the inevitable result of putting together as many typical tropes of the mecha genre as possible, mashing them together, and hoping that it will be eaten up by the masses. So yes, just... plain... bad.

Final Verdict: 4/10

P.S: Not that I want her to be dead, but didn't she get hit by a missile? People typically don't survive that.


For this review and others, feel free to check out my blog! (Link on profile)

Kakumeiki Valvrave: A Liberating Viewing Experience

Okay, I'm going to take off my reviewer hat for this one. While I usually base an anime off of its overall plot, characters, and production elements, I'm going to have to break the mold with this one. This series, I dare say, is so bad, it's good. It's like watching a Michael Bay movie. You know it's bad, but you just can't take your eyes off it.

Kakumeiki Valvrave is perhaps one of, if not, the most cliche mecha anime I've ever seen. You name a mecha anime trope and this series has got it. I'd even call it ... the love child of Code Geass and Gundam Seed because it steals so many elements from both. Military members sneak into a neutral country to obtain overpowering weapons? Check. High schoolers learn how to use a mecha on a whim? Check. High schoolers obtain a mysterious power that gives them an advantage? Check. An uprising takes place in the middle of a war to create a 3rd party consisting of the protagonists? Check. Overpowering lead character? Half-check. Love triangle? Check. I could seriously go on-and-on, but I'll just leave it at this. What makes this series so great despite it's cliche as hell story? The fact that the writing and production staff give us the impression that this series is self-aware. It's supposed to be aesthetically pleasing and cliche and for some reason, it made this series a fun watch. I'll be honest, this was probably the most fun I've had watching a bad anime in a long time.

The story is about as Gundam Seed as it gets. L-Elf and a special ops group from Dorssia sneaks into Module 77 to obtain secret weapons known as Valvraves. However, their plan is thwarted when our series lead, Haruto Tokishima becomes enraged by Dorssia's invasion and the assumed death of his high school crush, Shouko Sashinami and as a result of it causes him to crawl inside the Valvrave and use it against Dorssia. It seems he is successful, but he learns that the Valvraves are not ordinary machines, granting him a power that even gets him to question his own humanity. Generally speaking, it's an okay story...but it's been beaten to death by prior mecha anime. The only new element this series introduces is the element of immortal, vampire-like abilities for these would-be mecha pilots. An interesting element to say the least, but I would argue that vampire stories and mecha anime are two subjects in the media right now that are beaten to death and are getting old.

I will say that the characters for this series are pretty damn likable. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that Haruto is actually one of the least likable characters in the series and he's not even that bad of a character. I really enjoy L-Elf's calm and scheming demeanor, Shouko's quirkiness, Saki's downright celebrity craze, Akira's adorable as hell NEET-like personality, Raizou's "It's Thunder!" badass personality...and that's only a few of the characters. It's an interesting mix and even while some are lacking development, their personalities shine through to make for an interesting watch.

The production elements (animation and music) I would say are solid, but not breathtaking. I will admit though it is nice to see T.M. Revolution back doing anime theme songs again. He's really damn good at it and his song Preserved Roses, the OP song for this series duet style with Nana Mizuki gives this series the upbeat start that gets me looking forward to each new episode.

Overall, Kakumeiki Valvrave is a downright enjoyable series. Sure, it's story is extremely cliche, but this is one instance where I can somewhat overlook it due to how fun this series is with its cliches. I'm almost willing to say this series is self-aware of this and takes advantage of it. I also have to give this series some credit, it had an event in a later episode that ended up sparking one of the funniest anime memes I've ever seen. I'd highly recommend this series to anyone that enjoys Sunrise's mecha anime like Gundam and Code Geass. I'd also recommend it if you can enjoy a series that doesn't take itself too seriously. However, if you're looking for an original mecha anime with a heavy story like Neon Genesis Evangelion, I'd say give this a pass. All-in-all, while I will say I've seen better anime this year, I don't think I'll see an anime that is as fun as this one to watch.

I'm usually not very into mecha animes, but Kakumeiki Valvrave changed my view.

Plot:
Im sure the plot has been done before, because there is many animes with high schoolers in mechas(take like almost all of the gundam series), but Valvrave put there own twist onto things. Valvrave deals with a lot of demonic attributes with not only the creepy music but how the protagonist (Haruto) is always trying to bite the sh*t out of someone. While watching this anime, it's got me thing what it would be like if my high school became a country. Every episode somehow the story progresses. At first when my brother ... started watching it, all i did was look at it and I thought it was stupid, but I decided to go back an watch it my self and I couldn't wait to know what happened in the next episode. Valvrave can defiantly be an anime you judge at first site, but since every episode ends with a cliff hanger...you desperately want to know what happens next.

Art and Music:
The art is very crisp and I can see the artist of this anime really focuses on colors, because it really brings out and brightens everything on the characters. Watch Valvrave in HD(shout out to nwanime), your eyes will bleed because of the brightness(joking, but HD Valvrave is the best). I like both the OP and ED 1, but the second ED is ok but not great.

Characters:
Valvrave, like most animes, makes you hate the main character(Haruto)...because he's a b*tch. But because he's the main dude I guess you can accept him(but, Haruto did gain some extra points to me in episode 10). I hate the main love interest of Haruto, Shoko. I love the second sort of kinda of love interest of Haruto(she likes him more than he like her), Saki. Saki is a little annoying in the begging, but after finding out why she's that way...you love her. The other main dude, L-elf is awesome. And the other characters you either love, like, hate, or don't really have an opinion on.

Romance Aspect:
I had to add this as its separate category, since I'm a girl who loves her romance. Valvrave has actually more romance then you think(which I like oh so much), but it pisses you off a little , cuz the anime writers have to be cliché some times and do the "right" thing(although I want to see I guess you could say the "wrong" thing)...you'll get what I'm talking about if you watch it. To say the least, Valvrave's romance parts kinda of get you excited.

Overall, I give Valvrave a 9/10. The anime is well thought through, it has great art, music, romance, but that anime all together has to involve a little more to the next level. Because, it's a time of anime that if they don't throw in new curve balls into the second season...it can become sort of redundant.

What the fuck am I watching?

Is what I think of every time I finish an episode. Especially after episode 10 like really? Funny thing is I expect something like this from Sunrise and I love em for it. Can't wait for the second season.

Honestly I've really enjoyed this Anime so far, I'd say its the best of the Season if I didn't like Giant titan smashing. For overall enjoyment this Anime has been outstanding, it reminds of a parody, something like tru blood in space with mecha. I thought something was missing in this show and I found it in episode 10 which is why ... I decided to write my review now. This Anime is full of random ass things but for some reason its just great. The Art is top notch and that is to be expected of Sunrise but I think this is the first time I have seen CG Mecha actually on equall terms with drawn Mecha fights. The sound isn't anything special but its not horrible so it works out. I originally thought the story was just awful but as more episodes have come out the story is beginning to unravel a bit and I think it's safe to say that story is fair since I really just overall enjoy the anime. The characters is where any of my disappointment lies. None of them strike my mind as different then any other anime except maybe Saki. There is not a lot of story behind the characters so you can't really attach to any of them. And I mean cmon who wants the hero boy to be their favorite character? But its great because some of the characters happen to give up their humanity and be Vampires :D

Anyways don't sit here reading this go enjoy the Anime and be mind boggled like I am.

How will Kakumeiki Valvrave be remembered? That remains to be seen, but the show is at least on the way to achieving its intended outcome of providing entertainment at any cost.

As the first collaboration between Aniplex and the Sunrise animation studio, Valvrave is a series that relies on spectacle as the main source of its inherent value. This is a show where going beyond the limits of reasonable storytelling is the entire point, not accidental or unintentional. While the series may not stand up to highly critical scrutiny, it is self-aware of its own preposterous nature and feeds on incredulous reactions.

Of course, this sort of ... shameless approach can easily backfire on the creators. The precarious artificiality of its construction carries the risk of making the preponderance of absurd or funny elements too much for the average viewer to bear, but for the time being I feel Valvrave seems to be worth at least one watch, as long as the spectator is willing to both completely relax and dismiss any expectations of common sense or virtue being the guiding principles of the viewing experience.


Story:

It is difficult to avoid noticing that past Sunrise projects such as Gundam SEED, the original Mobile Suit Gundam, Code Geass or Infinite Ryvius, among other shows, are all being used as partial sources of real or perceived inspiration and imitation here. Within that general context, the basic premise of Valvrave seems fairly predictable at first glance and surely won't earn a lot of points for originality. However, even the most obvious comparisons can be misleading.

Many of those similarities fulfill the role of giving the audience a false sense of security. In this case, the Valvrave equation also includes a few surprises which were conspicuously missing from the initial pre-airing promotional videos and advertisements. For instance, the first episode felt like a slightly reworked interpretation of the typical Gundam premiere, when a boy named Haruto from Module 77 accidentally finds the Valvrave mecha and defeats an invading Dorssian force, but then the creators pull out the rug below our feet with a last minute plot twist which nobody in their right mind could possibly see coming. The ultimate ramifications of this supernatural turn haven't been fully explored so far, but it does make for several entertaining and amusing scenarios.

Is this as juvenile as it sounds? Definitely, considering that a more serious show would try to slow down or retroactively justify itself for a considerable amount of time after taking such a sudden left turn. Instead, Valvrave prefers to keep going. This production usually only pays little or no lip service to such concerns before quickly preparing and dropping the next crazy twist. By design, excess and exaggeration are the norm. The character of L-elf, whose over-the-top plans are rarely explained and whose ridiculously impossible predictions are openly called "prophecies" by both himself and those around him, actually serves to highlight this fact. Even the mecha action, while also competent in the traditional sense, has a rather whimsical edge and includes several goofy elements.

To the writer's credit, somehow the series does occasionally get to have it both ways. Certain scenes manage to break away from sheer ridiculousness by engaging in perfunctory foreshadowing for intriguing future events or at least adequately lining up a few of the pins before taking them down again. Nevertheless, all too often the show is just as willing to make fun of its own attempts at drama or seriousness, even at the expense of the poor characters themselves. Where other series would try to desperately hide their silliness at the first opportunity and concentrate on making the dramatics always feel genuine, generally Valvrave can't play itself straight for too long without otherwise shifting the tone and even winking at the audience from time to time, especially given the bizarre behavior of a certain AI entity that seems eager to slightly break the fourth wall.

Unfortunately, in light of a controversial event that happens towards the end of the broadcast, I imagine that good taste must have been in short supply in the staff room. Which isn't the only problem: the basic structure of the season isn't particularly innovative as a whole, in spite of all these entertaining maneuvers. After an extended introductory arc, the second half treats us to several episodes where the main focus fleetingly goes from one new Valvrave pilot to the next and most of the enemy forces prove to be at best creatively incompetent during their weekly attacks on the students. The formula seemed to be gradually getting close to exhaustion, before the season finale spiced things up again with a technically interesting yet not entirely satisfactory spin on the current course of events. Where we go from there is anyone's guess.


Art and Animation:

By the usual standards of modern Japanese animation for non-theatrical productions, the series regularly manages to look decent with only a modest amount of obvious budget shortcuts. The color palette tends to find a happy medium between darkness and light that works well with the material. The character designs of the various students and Dorssians aren't particularly original on paper yet still manage to come across as very distinct in practice, and the 3D computer graphics used for the various mecha and space action scenes are generally above average.


Sound:

The music composed by Akira Senju is surprisingly effective, managing to properly set the varying moods of this story and successfully accompany the major battle sequences without any glaring issues. In addition, the opening by Nana Mizuki and T.M.Revolution as well as the two ending themes by angela and ELISA are good performances by popular industry artists. There's no accounting for musical preferences, but I feel this particular technical aspect of the show's production is perhaps its single strongest point.


Character:

The protagonist, Haruto, is currently the weakest link among an admittedly typical cast of characters. He is another peace-loving boy whose life changes after jumping into a giant robot and who often finds himself being the center of attention against his wishes. That said, one notable element which saves Haruto from being as annoying as other similar or worse protagonists is his considerable willingness to fight, in spite of his personal worries. Curiously, after the first episode he rarely ever hesitates and is quite prepared to kill in battle when necessary. There's really only one scene where he experienced actual angst and, while it seems hard to truly sympathize with him, at the very least I didn't find Haruto unbearable. Just mostly boring and in need of development.

Frankly, the external circumstances surrounding Haruto sound more interesting than the guy himself. Surprisingly enough, the series benefits from unexpectedly making a couple of the other regulars who interact with him either mildly compelling or simply entertaining enough to pick up the slack.

L-elf may lack the usual charisma of other mastermind-type characters and his personal background has only been partially addressed, but he still provides a clear contrast to Haruto's inherently kind nature and even has an oddly socially handicapped yet still amusing personality despite his cold exterior. Perhaps more importantly for a series of this nature, he is a frequent source of unrealistic actions that can be appreciated for their audacity if you do not demand any sort of credible explanations for them.

Two characters which are especially divisive are Shoko and Saki. They're both very flawed individuals who can attract or repel due to their childish attitudes and impulsiveness. In fact, that's part of why I'd dare to argue they also displayed a slightly more nuanced form of characterization than what was obvious at first, in addition to the various exaggerated shenanigans they directly carried out.

Shoko isn't too smart and comes up with ridiculous ideas that somehow work even if other characters explicitly point out their silliness, which is good for more than a few laughs and a couple of face-palms, but in truth she's more of an idealistic leader than merely a buffoon. Saki combines a cynical edge, a selfish attention-seeking attitude and a manipulative yet honest loneliness, while also seemingly destined to play a larger role in the future. Of course, you could simply call them a "good girl" and a "bad girl" at heart, period, which is undeniably true. Still, even if neither of them may fully escape from their constituent archetypes, since the show isn't aiming high enough to accomplish anything truly new, the fact is they contributed to making Valvrave more enjoyable than its own protagonist did. Well, at least for those who didn't react negatively to either of them.

The rest of the cast has its ups and downs, since the other Valvrave pilots received some fleeting time in the spotlight yet the main villains usually lacked even that much until the last episode, but as a whole they can be considered underdeveloped and thus not worth discussing in further detail for now. Frankly, Valvrave could be rightfully accused of having several unnecessary secondary or tertiary characters who competed for screen time with the main cast and with each other. They couldn't all be properly portrayed -or, for that matter, even used as effective sources of superficial entertainment- within twelve episodes. Will another set be enough to address this? Probably not.


Enjoyment:

When you go past the previous considerations, it all comes down to the fact that Valvrave is often just a lot of dumb fun.

You might not always care for the isolated moments of drama and melodrama, or you might even find how the series deals with certain issues to be morally or intellectually questionable, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't entertaining to see what crazy twist or unexpectedly interesting event happens from week to week, or what new mecha action scene will come next, or how the creators will explicitly or implicitly highlight the absurdity of a major or minor development.

In the end, for me it's clear this show knows it is an artificial, messy construct made with the intention of entertaining its audience through bold spectacle and twisted humor that borders on the farcical. I can't consider it particularly "good" in a general sense, but I also won't call it truly "bad" at this point in time. Even at the expense of the entire edifice potentially crashing down once and for all next season, I enjoyed watching the first season of Valvrave.

Written by the the same guy who wrote Code Geass and it shows. It is almost as if some of the possibilities of Code Geass that were cut short in that series are explored here. What if Lelouche and Euphemia had succeeded in building their little state? They would be be in a very similar position as the students from Sakimori High.

It has a very similar character setup: the kind Mecha pilot and the "evil" genius tactician fighting
against domineering powers for their own way to the future. Also there is the student council and the child of the prime minister.

And there is a supernatural element ... milked for story potential (shaking up relationships and giving the underdog an distinctive edge), this time it has a vampiric theme.

Last, but not least for this preliminary review let me add that the contrast of school life versus high politics is also similar to Code Geass.

However, Ōkouchi takes the elements and tries to make more out of it than a carbon copy of Code Geass. The more the the story progresses it plays out differently from Code Geass. Familiar elements enter in different constellations and go to different ends. I am anxious to see how the season ends.

First I started watching this anime as a filler for Gargantia, then I was fascinated by the similarities to Code Geass, and now I see it as a new work from an author grappling with themes that he is not finished with yet from his last one.

If you want to see an anime about space Nazis, body swapping vampires, high school students who create their own country and vampires raping these high school students: this show is for you. If you want to see a show with the whiniest main character since Mirai Nikki: look no further. If you want to hear the characters try to pronounce German names (e.g. "ERU-ERUFU", "KOE-VIERU", "HAA-NOINU", "RIEYSEHROTTEH"): look no further. This review will cover 5 aspects of our opinion about this trainwreck.

~Story~ 1/10
Starting off, our ultraheroic, and super manly protagonist tries to confess his love to his tsundere crush. This is definitely not a ... cliche. Then, out of nowhere, his school gets attacked by space nazis and he dramatically watches his beloved tsundere crush die. The shock! After that, he pilots a robot, gives up his humanity and becomes a whinybodyswappingrapistvampire. "Is this a word?" you ask? As of now it is. This is the actual plot of the first episode, ladies and gentlemen. We're not making this up. But in episode 2, his beloved tsundere crush is alive and well! Why? Because plot convenience. Great writing there. The school then decides to create their own country: which consists of their school (again: we're not making this up). From here on, everything goes downhill. Our favorite high school student citizens (or whatever they are) start singing a crappy J-Pop song, and our awesome whiny protagonist teams up with a space nazi who can predict the future and that the other space nazis are going to attack the school, and where. Again: why? Because plot convenience. Also, apparently our favorite protagonists has to rape high school girls because of the fact that he's a body swapping vampire thing. Once again, we're not joking. Of course we can't cover the entire story here, but what we can promise you: it only gets worse from here on.
[CONCLUSION]
The story is inconsistent, cliche and plain stupid. Also, using rape in an anime for no good reason is just a no-go. It's simply disgusting.

~Art~ 6/10
The art in this anime is colorful and bright: it was our favorite aspect of this show. One of our few problems with the art is that whenever the story gets dramatic (or at least when it tries to be), the art ruins the mood. When the story is facing reality, and it's being what it is (some sort of happy high school drama) then the art is fitting.
[CONCLUSION]
The art was pretty much the best thing from this crappy show, in our opinion.

~Sound~ 5/10
J-Pop. Why is there J-Pop in the middle of an episode? It makes as much sense to us as it probably does to you right now. The opening however, was a Japanese (mixed with some beautiful Engrish) duet. It's loud, bombastic and it kind of fits the show. The ending wasn't anything special, but it was decent. As for the background music... more J-Pop. Seriously, it's everywhere in this anime, especially in scenes that really do not need a crappy J-Pop song playing in the background. Because which dramatic mecha battle doesn't need a happy, upbeat J-Pop song playing in the background?
[CONCLUSION]
We actually liked the opening, and we thought the ending was okay. The background music however was questionable at times. The music wasn't that good, but it certainly wasn't the worst part of this show.

~Character~ 1/10
Heroic main character-kun, Tsundere-chan and a random guy who can predict enemy attacks without having done any logical research are the main characters of this show. The directors did a great job creating the best and the most original anime cast ever, right? They even added a shy girl, an antisocial girl, a best friend and an arrogant girl. The antagonists in this anime were even worse. Their motives basically came down to "I love killing". We all know these kind of antagonists.
Every imaginable trope in anime is used in this cast. Congratulations creators, on creating the most extraordinary cast ever!
[CONCLUSION]
There is close to no character development (except for the fact that Heroic main character-kun turns into a body swapping space vampire rapist thing), our protagonist is whiny and unlikable and everyone else was unoriginal. It is not very likely that you'll care about the characters' lives and bringing them back to life (Tsundere-chan) was a stupid move that prevented any possible character development for our favorite body swapping space vampire rapist. Also, the antagonists are plain and boring.

~Enjoyment~ 2/10
Watching this was just as enjoyable as being crushed by an elephant and then being forced to watch Mars of Destruction on repeat. It was fun to laugh at some stupid parts in the anime, but we don't believe that this was the goal that this show was pursuing. We have no idea how we worked up the courage to finish watching this.
[CONCLUSION]
Please save yourself and skip this one. We regret watching this and would much rather have spent our precious time on something useful (or at least a better anime).

Over all, we certainly did not like this show. Please stay away from it and spend your time on a show that doesn't involve space Nazi's or bodyswappingspacevampirerapists. Thanks for reading, and if you haven't read the whole thing: we understand that too. Peace.

The first half of Kakumeiki Valvrave (Revolutionary Machine Valvrave), subtitled Valvrave the Liberator, functions primarily as a setup arc to introduce its large cast of characters, plus several giant robots. Rather than being "the system that exposes the world", this first season instead seems to demonstrate what happens when teenage fantasies go horribly wrong.

Set in a high school -- yes, it's one of these shows -- on a space colony in Earth orbit, the mostly adolescent characters find their world turned upside down when the love child of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Dorssia, invades their country JIOR, which being based on perceptions ... of today's Japan, is run by pusillanimous wimps who are determined not to fight back. However, they have a secret ultimate weapon underneath the school, the Valvrave, which the otherwise passive Haruto Tokishima is the first of several students to take over and fight back against the Dorssian onslaught. As you might guess, the story has a rather camp feel to it, and sometimes goes into weird slice of life territory, reminiscent of screenwriter Ichiro Okouchi's previous work Code Geass. And similarly, it does take some rather dark turns later on, and has its unexpected moments. It's not brilliant, but it's captivating, to say the least. A warning for some people: there is a mostly off-screen rape, as well as some gore in this series.

Characters are, well -- if you've seen other anime series, you probably know these characters, since they mostly follow established archetypes. And with so many of them vying for screen time, their backgrounds aren't explored much during this first season, though some complexity is hinted at. I found myself developing favourites, and loving to hate some of the others.

The art is fantastic, with character designs by D.Gray-man creator Katsura Hoshino, and cool mechanical designs for each of the robots. The attention to little details in many scenes, the crisp and clear animation, and exciting action sequences make this show a pleasure to watch.

Sound is excellent as well, with great voice acting performances from Yuichi Nakamura (Yamada "Thunder" Raizou), giving the character a sense of badassery; Aoi Yuuki (Akira), giving a true sense of her character's crippling anxiety; and Daisuke Ono (Cain), capturing the evil menace of this character. The music is great, too, with the first ending theme, "Boku ja nai" by Angela, as a ear worm that left me feeling especially emotional after the show, along with the exciting opening theme "Preserved Roses", the haunting second ending theme "Soba ni Iruyo", and great background music during some of the darker sequences.

Overall, while the story feels a bit like a slow start of something potentially great, the first half of Kakumeiki Valvrave has still been for me the most enjoyable anime of the Spring 2013 season. Even though some of the lines are often silly or melodramatic, making this show a bit of a guilty pleasure to talk about, it drew me in and became the one anime I was certain not to miss each and every week.

This review is being written about 5 episodes into the series.

Ugh, this series I just damn BORED after a while and at first I didn't know why. I'm fairly easy to please, some good action, cool characters, and a passable story and I'll likely be held over.

When I started to think about the series I realised why I, someone who has generally low expectations for things and will let blatant flaws slide, was so bored. This series just fails to deliver on pretty much every level.

Now I did not go into this series expecting an epic space opera. When I read about it ... on TVtropes I just thought "well from the tropes described it seems like a campy super robot ride so I thought okay i'll turn my brain off and just let the show take me for a ride. But then when I started watching we got things like tactical espionage, a neutral nation being suddenly attacks people dying and it was starting to look like the opening to a gundam show. So is it trying to tell a drama filled war story about the horrors of war? It seemed more like a quirky slice of life romance 5 minutes ago. What the hell Valvrave?

Therein lies the first problem: Random out of nowhere mood whiplashes.
Okay so a bunch of child solders just killed two people and are sneaking into the colony disguised as students to find some sort of millitary secret. Fine okay so what are they looking for? Oh hey let's jump cut to an eating contest between two students and completely ruin the series mood. What follows is about 10 minutes of awkward slice of life hijinks about the guy and girl competing earlier trying to work up the courage to confess to each other. Then literally right as they are about to say it Giant robots with crotch lasers get launched out and start blowing shit up. Again, what? I'm glad you went back to the millitary side of things but that was kinda random. Also why are your crotch laser robots attacking anyways it's not like your child soldiers have been found yet so wouldnt starting a large scale millitary attack raise alarms and make it HARDER to their jobs. This action leads directly to the main character Haruto getting the Valvrave is you just left it alone you would have gotten the damn thing. From this point things seem to stay consistantly in the war aspect of things. The federation opposing the empire comes to help the colony and focus is given to trying to evacuate civilians okay fine they're taking a logical course of action and trying to evacuate people before the enemy returns and the area becomes a combat zone. But nope suddenly teh enemy comes back and attacks earlier than planned so Arus (the federation) decides to pussy out and abandon the innocent students, taking the valvrave so they can get a leg up. How does this resolve? The students use the Valvrave as a bargaining chip to declare themselves an independent nation. Again WHAT?! so everything becomes hunky dory they're all happy and safe in their new amazing nation. Then the power goes out and they go into winter mode running the risk of freezing everyone to death. Gee, it's almost like a nation run entirely by teenagers is a bad thing. So you see the anime has a tendancy to suddenly jump between a millitary show about a super robot and a slice of life romantic comedy.

This leads into the next problem: The slows fails to deliver expections for both a Super Robot and a Real Robot anime. Now lately these two terms have been used to seperate shows based on overall tone and presentation, at least in my opinion. Super Robot connotes more hammy over the top GAR charm. It's like the anime equivilent of dumb action flicks, to me at least. Filled with screaming, over the top action, and quirky charming characters who supply us these things. Real Robots tend to focus on more realistic applications of these weapons. The horrors of war and what happens to one because of it are usually present themes. Battles take more realistic bents as actual war strategies are used and things tend to be overall darker and grittier. These are generally my personal guildlines of how I judge series and when evaluating Valvrave it falls flat on either of these appeals. The Valvrave seems almost underpowered sometimes. It relies on it's flashy pink lights to be able to get close and hit someone with a sword. The fight scenes didn't really scream AWESOME it was just like okay Valvrave deflects lasers then slashes things, BORING! It's one flashy over the top attack is honestly really stupid and shows many design flaws in the eponymous robot that should have gotten it turned into space dust. So it's focus on close quarters means that it'll be mostly focusing it's attention in front of it. So if the Dorssian army has the brains to try a pincer attack, a forward force drawing it's attention while a second force attacks from a vulnerable angle, you could probably destroy or capture it REALLY easily. The thing apparently overheats if you do ANYTHING meaning you literally can't even MOVE without running the rish of shutting yourself down. But it's okay let the heat build up and you can STAB YOUSELF and fire a massive heat ray. So how exactly does the reactor work with a giant sword hole in it then? Any super robot worth it's salt could pound this thing flat.

Real Robot aspects are even worse. The constant mood whiplash leaves everything jumbled and messy. If you, the viewer, can't even register the consequences of their actions, how do you expect the characters to?

Speaking of characters third problem, they're all idiots all of them no exceptions.

Okay so you have Haruto the whiney, probably not out of shape, socially inept joke of a main character who finds a way to ruin the entertainment value in EVERY damn scene he's in. Dude can't win an eating conest, dude can't throw a punch, dude can't work up the courage to confess to his love interest the list goes on. So looking past that why is he the main character, what's his stake in all this? His love interest gets blown up in the first episode (spoilers she's fine) and that suddenly turns him from a spinless pussy to revenge seeking genocide machine. *smack* another point for the mood whiplash. Also apparently piloting a giant death machine for revenge does NOT include reading the goddamn CONSOLE DISPLAY!!!! People seem to justify that one as him being panicked and not thinking, claiming anyone would be disoriented in that situation. That would have been passible IF THERE WERE ANY CONTROLS BESIDES THE JOYSTICK AND CONSOLE. He turns the thing on and then proceeds to just keep wiggling the joystick expecting it to work. Okay I understand your in a panic but if it doesnt move try checking what is literally the ONLY OTHER DISPLAY YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!! From then on the boy continues to show absolutely no form of sense, endlessly angsting about his "cursed" existance, doing what everyone else wants to, and basically being a carboard cutout used to resolve the plot whenever it rears it's ugly head.

The love interest Shoko is a walking plot hole because i'm pretty sure particles beams can't be dodged by moving 20 feet forward. It clearly has some form of impact blowing the site away and seemingly destroying the entire area she was in. Then she somehow spontaneously becomes a politcal leader instigating the whole independent high school nation and being the de facto leader of the cast. Her character is strange jarring and makes no sense.

L-elf is a giant god mode sue. His crazy almost prophetic predictions run on so many assumptions that SHOULD go wrong but don't because he has plot convenience on his side. That and everyone in the show is a brainless idiot who's never heard of actual millitary strategy.

Rest of the characters arent even worth mentioning because they're so bland I can't connect names to faces.

The Dorssian Empire feels like a cheap ripoff of Season 1 Britannia from code geass, made even less subtle who destroy nations and forcibly deport it's citizens because....because.

Arus is a spineless nation with a worthless millitary who run away screaming at one Dorssian fleet, despite their previous appearance showing them capable of fighting back. (But of course L-Elf wrecks their army because he can see the goddamned future)

Some people may think it's worth a watch for the camp value, I say it's boring, forgettable and the only good things about it are the Valvrave designs, which are admittedly interesting and the opening (collab. of Nana Mizuki and TM revolution? yes please). The series fails to deliver what is expected of it's premise, and the rather interesting plot ideas are bogged down by vapid idiot main characters, and sudden random mood whiplash that'll leave your brain sore after watching.

Oh boy, where should I start? Should I start with how the pacing of this show is as consistent as a drunk driver? The shallow characters? The terribly executed plot twists? The pointless shock value? The stereotypical meccha fights? Does it even matter where I start? It IS Valvrave that I’m reviewing.

So how about we start off with talking about the dialogue? Normally I don’t focus too much on the dialogue unless it stands out as being really good or just really bad and Valvrave, you guessed it, falls in the latter. The dialogue was honestly the first thing I noticed when I started this ... show because of just how generically delivered it was. Sometimes the dialogue was trying to way hard to be inspirational and it made for a lot of cringe-worthy moments. But then again, I actually laughed at how outlandish the dialogue could be some time so I will cut the dialogue some slack as the writers probably did try to make it as stupid and inexplicable as possible.

Now as for the characters actually delivering the bad/good dialogue, I wouldn’t categorize the cast as dull, but they’re far from compelling. Our male lead, Haruto, is definitely the worst characterized out of the bunch. He goes from being your incredibly typical meccha lead, to suddenly becoming Liam Neeson (except not as well-acted or energetic) then back to the boring typical male lead… but this time as a vampire. In a nutshell, Haruto is one bland inconsistent character. Even when he’s angry, he’s boring to watch and there’s really no passion put into him.

It’s rest of the cast that’s a bit more interesting. As characters, they’re shallow and nothing we’ve seen before; I could have cared less for them. It’s really the outlandish antics that made them entertaining throughout, especially Saki.

Now while I’ve criticized the dialogue and the characters, neither of those elements are what really set me off.

It’s the plot and what an absolute trainwreck it is.

Yeah, I get that the show is suppose to be ridiculous and over the top and I’m glad that the writers recognized that fact. But since does that make it okay for a show to do whatever the Hell it wants? The direction is way too over the place, the pacing is botched, plot twists are poorly executed, and it’s full of stupid plot points that never amount to anything in the end and the sad thing is, Valvrave actually tries to bring some of its themes together. It’s so fundamentally and structurally sloppy that it just becomes an ugly mess.

Even with all that said people still try to push the argument that “Yeah, but it’s suppose to be structured that way. That’s what makes Valvrave over the top and fun!”

No, no, no.

First let me make this clear that Valvrave is not special or unique or groundbreaking. This “over top” formula has already been done countless times and much, much better in fact. Look at Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure and FLCL. They have compelling characters and though their plot is completely absurd, it’s still well executed. There’s actually thought and great timing put into when plot points and twists are brought up and that’s why those two shows are brilliant and why Valvrave isn’t.

Finally, how could I not finish up without talking about the shock value in this show? I already wrote a whole spiel on the sexual assault, but I’m going to briefly go over the matter again. The shock value in Valvrave is just played out for senseless shock value. That’s it. Does it add to the characters or the plot? Nope. Like I said, the shock value is just there for shock and I HATE senseless shock value. It's distasteful.

This is suppose to be a stupid over the top show, right? Then why do we have a completely pointless scene of Haruto sexually assaulting Saki? I just don’t understand why Valvrave threw in pointless shock value, oh wait I do… to try and take itself seriously.

Why, just why? Did the writers honestly think I was going to take this show SERIOUSLY?! Don’t make me laugh, just stop it.

I’m done talking about this show. There are probably a bunch of other flaws about the plot that I didn’t cover, but I think I’ve trashed it enough. I will admit, even with all the hate I’ve given it, that I was mildly entertained by what a train wreck this show was and just how sappy and energetic the show could be at times. The show does pack a punch and at least it knows how to have fun with itself… some of the time…

Do I recommend?: At times, Valvrave mildly entertained me with it’s absurd antics, but in the end the plot was a complete mess. If you’re looking for some outlandish, over the top entertainment, there are much better shows. I’d suggest FLCL, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Aquarion Evol and even Highschool of the Dead. Though, I suppose if you completely, and I mean completely, turn your brain off, then Valvrave will satisfy your outlandish needs.