Kakumeiki Valvrave

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.

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.

Code Gundam... I mean, Kakumeiki Valvrave, is essentially a Gundam show with its very own Lelouch. Except Lelouch is a side character, while the MC is as dumb as a bag of bricks and has the mental state of a baked potato.

I have to skip out on a full review, because once again we're graced by a wallflower male protagonist with a childhood crush he can't confess to, followed by an episode 5 insert of a super hot third wheel love triangle. Don't you just love it when the most potato of all potato MC's lands in the middle of a bunch of girls fighting ... over him while he drools on himself and doesn't have a clue about anything?

Oh, he also gets superpowers that make him immortal, but like any good wallflower MC with no aspirations and no personality, he just cries over it because apparently superpowers are lame because you don't get to be "normal" any more. Bohoo.

I can't watch such cringe any more.

Production values are pretty good. Story is fine - just your average gundam show of some random ass kid finding his very own overpowered mech with which he can fight for love and friendship. Though the cliche has been beaten to death at this point and it has long stopped being exciting.

Watch if you're into teenage cringe and mech battles.

My overall experience with the series was a five. Kakumeiki Valvrave was an actually interesting show and a unique difference from the mecha series with only the vampire like mecha with runes to generate on from the humans. My personal opinion about the series that it could've added more flavor but, there was plenty of subjects and non-developed character associations that didn't went as planned for the series.
I've really enjoyed the entire sound-track that matched each scene that gave me the emotions for each episode. I love the fact that every ending starts off with a beautiful angelic song that sounds so good. My ... only problem with them were the signalling at the end of the episode but the dramatic entry did it so well. The sound effects were a problem because of it's high frequencies but, they sounded okay but were merely over used in the entire series. Most of the sound-track was overly used and repetitive depending on the emotion per scene. You will be hearing them frequently a lot and it will get irritated quickly.
I didn't partially liked the scenery choose and the characters development. Each character had a specific avenge plot to characterize who they are as a character but, most didn't really got the completion of their avenge and it went to destruction near the finale end of the entire series. I wish there was more for the "One Hundred and One guild" but, they're wasn't and so for the Dorrissian. They're wasn't enough memories or messages put for the main characters like H-Huen or Q-Vier. The term, "Blitzendegen" appears a lot after their salute to their superiors and the term doesn't make sense. I'm very fond by the mass use of the "Adults hatred" from the children in the first season that wasn't placed properly in the second season. I thought there was going to be a running gag along with that to prove a point. For the beginning of the series, the just spend their time in high-school like any other ordinary Japanese' animation. There could've been more on the JIOR scientist and why they created the mecha's that fused with the OS. That could've brought some attention to the series. Even though it's a dramatic starting point but, still bring some missing clarity to the series. I really did like Haruto's growth of a character but some character's death in the series are promising but never outstanding. The other is the runes and how their memory is fading while they're not following any instructions or understanding who the OS truly is. They're really power creatures but I know the scientists just want weaponized creatures to control the mecha in large amount of energy but, how did they actually aligned in the first place?! Was that they're secret of having a neutrality between humans but why did they wanted to fight in a war again to get out of associating with the humans? Was it actually the Magius fault for connecting with the human's in the first place to blame it on others. Was Haruto's character really displaying how the Magius was acting and the "A Hundred and One guild" was behaving? Why didn't they captured the Valvraves which they knew about them to explain the situation more carefully? I love the series so much when it comes to viewing the world and the term "Unveiling to the world" that's the best conclusion for the series. "Avenging, Unveiling, Promising, Protecting" were a few main words that the series wanted the audience to know. I cried at many deaths but besides (Liesettotes/Marie) they weren't that interesting.

For me, the first season was meh. It was okay I guess but the story was mediocre. The story line didn't wow me so I started taking a look a look at the characters.
The main character was a whiny kid for the first half of the season. I wasn't surprised but I was hoping for some character improvement. Long story short: I didn't get what I wanted. Most characters are flat and when they start killing some people off, the music and everything makes you want to feel sad but in reality, you're left trying to remember who that character even was. All in ... all, it passed the time but that was it. In my opinion, the second season was better.