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Valvrave the Liberator revolves around our main character: Haruto, a socially awkward, withdrawn teenager who attends high school in a colony in space.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

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?

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.

[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)

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.

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.

"Don't cry. Don't raise your eye. It's only teenage wasteland."
-"Baba O'Riley"
The Who

We have all seen shows that focus on one facet of the human experience; be it fear, hopelessness, sadness, romance, boredom... any one of the myriad of emotions or facts of life that we go through. Appropriately, those shows that have a more singular focus tend to keep one tone. A romance keeps a romantic feel. It's situations and the conversations that drive the dialogue are usually romantically flavored. A show about betrayal keeps a darker tone, one where every action and word is drenched with a kind of paranoia and suspicion.

However, ... most writers realize that human life is not composed of just one emotion or tone. We all experience sadness and betrayal, sure, but we also experience humor and friendship. Thus, most shows, even those with a singular focus, will tend to implement multiple themes and tones along with their main focus. This can both deepen the characters and the overall storyline, as it more accurately portrays the human experience, and allows a contrast between the darkness and the light, the sadness and the joy, the romance and the heartbreak.

There is another type of show, however. Shows that don't focus on any one facet of life or any one emotion, but rather attempt to show the entirety of human existence. They can't be said to be about betrayal, despite having betrayals, or about romance despite having romantic themes. Those stories are about showing all the experiences and emotions that we go through. Some people prefer more singular focus, some people prefer broader strokes; but most people agree that one is not inherently superior to the other. Comedies are not worse for not bringing any sadness or break from the hilarity. And epics are not worse for having both comedy and sadness in one story. They are different, but equal.

It would be wrong to say that executing one type correctly is more difficult than executing the other type. To keep a single tonal show from becoming hyper-focused and flat is just as difficult as melding all the elements together into one cohesive story-line. However, one problem that the single-focus shows usually do not run into is that of inconsistent tone. And that, in my opinion, is the biggest flaw of Kakumeiki Valvrave. It suffers from inconsistent tone and thus negatively affects both the immersion of the viewer and the communication of the themes.

One driving theme that stands out more than any other in Valverave is that of growing up. This is where the quote that begins my review comes into play. Being a teenager is hard. It is a time where hormones run wild; and serving as the separation between childhood and adulthood, it often breeds a kind of confusion and despair. What is my place in the world? What kind of man or woman will I become? Are the dreams of my younger days consistent with the reality that surrounds me? What are my responsibilities, and what are the consequences of failing to fulfill them? These kinds of questions plague almost every teenager at some point. And they are not bad questions to ask. In fact, asking them is a natural process of learning about ourselves and the questioning itself helps lead us toward satisfactory answers.

In some ways, Valverave explores these questions and themes in a mature, solid manner. The characters deal with death, isolation, responsibility, and new-found power and freedom in realistic ways, and their reactions are both informative and entertaining. In other ways, the show seems to be a farce, giving foolish answers and unrealistic portrayals. Things occur which simultaneously contradict each other, not in the manner of continuity, but in the manner of tone and message. An exploration of meeting the basic needs (food, water, shelter, etc.) of ones-self and ones companions without the help of "adults" is undertaken, but then the answer is handed to the characters with seemingly no effort or loss on their part. A death occurs which serves as a catalyst for coming together and of recognizing the importance of discipline, but the message is weakened by the fact that no other consequences seem to occur when the characters fail to follow through with their new realizations. Most importantly, in a show with heavy themes of sacrifice, there seems to be little sacrificing occurring other than the obvious: "Do you resign as a human?" question which is posed at the beginning of the show by the Valverave's.

This causes a break in both realism and tone. When I am despairing of how the teenagers will survive without money or industry, the problem is solved almost as simply as with a push of a button. When I wonder if a lack of discipline and authority will bring assaults or chaos, the resulting assaults and chaos are so weak and short as to have no real affect as plot-devices. Most surprisingly is one scene where an extraordinary act of sexual violence occurs, only to be glossed over as something that just happened. No consequences or hidden triggers are released or unveiled. The complete ease with which one main character predicts his enemies movements and plans is reflected by the complete ease with which the cast as a whole is able to survive, seemingly with no thought given to how they are surviving. Challenges that appear are neatly wrapped up with little to no lasting effect other than a lesson learned. Failures result in momentary set-backs, only to unleash a new and unforeseen power which reverses the set-back so that the failure has no consequence, but rather could be seen as a kind of success of it's own. It is fine to have such events, if they are done correctly. Characters should learn from their mistakes, they should overcome challenges. But they should also be scarred. When a character experiences no pain or loss from challenges or failures, the challenges begin to lose any emotional weight, and the character loses emotional depth.

This is not to say that the show is all bad. In fact, some parts are very well done. The aforementioned scene of sexual violence is very interestingly juxtaposed with a speech about fulfilling selfish desires, a speech that gains high approval among it's listeners. A scene where one character must watch the death of a very close family member is juxtaposed with joyous cheering from other characters over a victory achieved. These are examples of using inconsistent tone correctly. Where the existence of unrestrained joy in one area only heightens the anguish in another, or when the contrast between openly cheering the irresponsible fulfillment of selfish desires serves to heighten the horror of the form mindless self-fulfillment can sometimes take. These examples are moments of surprising flavor in an otherwise bland story. They are the exception, not the rule. If the show could keep the quality it expresses in those moments than it would certainly be a success, if a flawed one. But the quality is not kept, and those successes serve only to highlight the magnitude of the failures, rather than the other way around. Our characters become less than they should be and our story is neutered by the ease with which some essential challenges are overcome, and the lack of consequences to essential failures.

It is hard to determine exactly how to rate this show. Do the redeeming qualities outweigh the failures? Are the failures so overpowering that they lessen the value of those moments of brilliance? I can't tell whether the show is, at it's heart, bad or good. The execution is certainly flawed, but at the core the story has potential. Part of the problem with the show is how difficult it is for the viewer to pin down it's intentions. Is it simple teenage escapism? Is it a kind of self-aware parody? Is it an earnest attempt to portray the reality of growing up? If I could answer these questions, I feel like I would be much more comfortable in making a complete determination about the show's quality. Maybe I just haven't watched carefully enough. Perhaps I've missed some essential theme, and it is my own failing that I am incapable of appreciating the show. However, it is my opinion that any medium involving story-telling is primarily an art of communication. I hold, perhaps incorrectly, that it is not my failure of understanding, but theirs of being incoherent. If their goal was to tell us about "teenage wasteland" than they failed to do so in any meaningful way. They would have been better served just throwing in Who's Next and listening to Baba O'Riley.

Story: 4/10
Art: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Character: 3/10
Enjoyment: 4/10

Overall: 4/10

Reposting because I remembered that I once wrote a Valvrave review that was deleted for no reason.

Alright people, I've completed my viewing of the Spring '13 Mecha Trifecta. This trifecta is made up of Valvrave the Liberator, Majestic Prince and Gargantia. It's been over a year since I've found anything watchable, so I have high hopes.

The other two are great. Will they remain great? Who knows, but I can assure you that this show is awful and only makes the other two look much better by comparison, and it will stay that way.

Valvrave is a mecha anime that follows the formula in all ... the laziest ways possible, and is bogged down with Sunrise's astounding incompetence. You can pretty much use shows like this and Sacred Seven next to things like 08th MS Team and Scryed and say with a definite that this studio has no goddamn clue what they're doing anymore.

The show is about a teenage betamale who gets caught up in a war between space factions on his little neutral colony. He goes to school, has a crush on some genki girl, and is generally as uninteresting aesthetically and personality-wise as every peripheral character around him. When some albino walks up to him out of nowhere and calls him out on this, he later decides to jump in a big, ugly robot and resign his humanity to blow some shit up. And then he's a vampire, I guess.

Valvrave has "please let me be mass market" all over it. Everyone is moe as fuck, the robots are over-designed, and it's following in the footsteps of shows like Geass and Guilty Crown by taking something that's been done dozens of times, and then making the main character a macguffin-powered wizard/vampire/molester. This dark twist that risks this two-dimensional goon's humanity will undoubtedly lead simpletons to think his character is deep, but I can only hope that after Guilty Crown people are getting sick of this garbage.

The other characters range between a large spectrum of tropes that we've all seen before. Jock guy, otaku girl, energetic moron girl, group of psychotic, two-dimensional villainous teens, girl whose entire character is defined by her gigantic breasts, et cetera. None of them are introduced or delivered well. No one in this show acts like a normal human being, but are rather just "anime characters". They don't have any original or interesting quirks, either. Everyone's played pretty straight, and it's really easy to tell by the quality of writing this early that none of this will get better. So yes, if you like your anime with characters you don't have to think at all about or relate to, and just want a bunch of colorful 2-D cutouts spouting recycled lines and exceptionally dumb bullshit at each other, this is the show for you. If you like your anime casts completely identical to one another, this is the show for you. If your definition of good character interaction is making noises and spouting childish philosophies at each other within 10 seconds of meeting, this is the show for you. Otherwise, watch MJP or Gargantia.

The directing, cinematography and animation in Valvrave are all incredibly "meh". There are tiny bits of good animation in completely inconsequential parts, like the hot dog eating contest at the very beginning, and the CGI moves around pretty okay, but the laser and explosion effects look terrible and there's a lot of "still thing panning on a flat background". There aren't any good or visually memorable shots in the whole affair, either, so it's not like the laziness can be forgiven like in Eva. Valvrave as a whole is just not really anything to look at.

The music sucks. There's generic opera-ish stuff while the main character is blowing things up at the end of episode 1, and I can't even remember any other tracks being present. I hate the OP, because it's just TM Revolution but worse. The opening animation is just as boring and lazy as the rest of the show, too.

I think that just about covers it. I'm not being presumptuous at all, because with the studio's recent track record and how everything was displayed in the first episode, it's not going to get any better. There's a very high chance it'll get hilariously stupid and entertaining in an ironic way, but if you're looking for any kind of legitimate quality in your show, skip this. Skip it, and go right into Majestic Prince. That show fucking rocks.

This show is so bad it's good. I rewatched it recently with some friends and it was an absolute blast.

The plot is utterly nonsensical. There are multiple seasons worth of plot points and content, the most ridiculous is the first episode feeling like an entire season of a regular anime condensed down. While it's going through the plot like a fire through a sawmill it's missing significant amounts of character arcs and development. Except, the show acts as if these arcs and development happened so you get baffling changes and laughable emotional beats. Most egregiously a character dies ... and the show nothing short of milks it for all it's worth, this character that died couldn't have had more than 25 lines of dialogue at this point and there is an actual "press F to pay respects" equivalent. Animation budget is saved by having characters just float around because "zero gravity" yet gravity mysteriously functions normally when needed, the actual art is pretty good though. Valvrave also is utterly tone deaf and seems to change it's genre at a flick of a switch. Slice of life, Mecha, Psychological, Thriller, Supernatural, Rom Com, even a little harem baiting. This train-wreck's got it all!

Speaking of harem baiting, I am shocked this show didn't stoop to being a harem. Any such points are contrasted with some of the "antics" Saki gets up to in the middle of the season. Then a certain scene near the end of the show that happens during a speech blows any points gained straight to the bottom of the sea, but hey at least it ain't a harem.

Valvrave has a single genuinely interesting character; Akira. She has a noticeable character arc that ended with her having a crisis of faith. This was the only time I was engaged with the show as anything more than trash. L-Elf is some Light ripoff that is a literal prophet, Haruto is boring and can't decide on what his character is supposed to be, Saki is kind of an absolute bitch that keeps pulling "just kidding"s everytime she almost has a character moment, and Shouko really doesn't have a character to even comment on as much as a collection of traits to groan at.

The plot is light speed and nonsensical, most of the characters are at best boring, there's a bunch of cringe, and the show is tone deaf and tasteless if not legitimately offensive. Still was an absolute joy to watch with a couple of friends. I initially watched this as it aired and apparently rated it at an 8. I have no clue why but I can at least see a slew of interesting ideas in this garbage pile, far FAR more than you'd get in other bad shows. Solid 3/10 for an actual anime, 9/10 if you're looking for bad anime.

Oh and the show has some pretty significant yaoi baiting and some yuri baiting for... some reason.

Alright, so this will be my first review, so bear with me, if you would.

It is very likely that you've seen the other reviews on this particular anime, and how they might mention that the show is 'so bad it is good'. I would like to confirm this statement. The show is literally potato, and had I attempted to watch this and take it seriously, I'd have dropped it right off the bat.

Lets start with the plot. The very shorted summary of the plot is that people developed a way to live in space and now a majority of the human population lives ... in cities built in space. There are two major factions, and one smaller one that is neutral. Suddenly, neutral-kun is attacked! Now, our MC-kun happened to be living his typical anime protag life inside neutral-kun's territory, so he gets involved.

Now, this may seem like your average plot, but it's only after MC-kun signs away his humanity and obliterates a handful of canon-fodder that things get interesting. And when I say interesting, I mean that INTERESTING.

Like, forming your own nation out of a space city by literally tearing it from the rest of the space station interesting.

Like, becoming a space vampire interesting.

Like, space Lelouch interesting.

Like, Mecha space rape vampires interesting.

Like, Mecha space rape vampires with Lelouch interesting.

And that's not all, folks. You even get to watch as the antagonistic larger nation can't figure out how to beat one student with a mech that overheats and eats memories. (Granted, he gets allies later).

If you like great art style, consensual space vampire rape, and a really really spineless MC-kun who doesn't get much better even into the second season, well, here's the perfect anime for you! But, you know, if you want a story that makes sense and characters you'll remember for good reasons, I'd honestly suggest you watch something else.

It would be very hard for me to write a proper review and sum up all flaws Valvrave has, but instead I will write a transcript of what the executives at Sunrise discussed when making this anime. Or at least what I imagine went on in those studios.

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- Producer: Okay, we need to make a new mecha anime that is not a Gundam or Code Geass spin-off. It must become the new big thing, so we must attract as many people as we can. What do those pesky teenagers like nowadays?

- Writer: Hmm, didn't those vampire Hollywood movies make a lot of money? Vampires are ... definitely trendy right now, we need one of those. But not one of those old, scary vampires mind you, but a sparkly, gay one. And lets have the vampire pilot the mecha, why not?

- Producer: Sold! Any other pitches?

- Writer: Girls! We need to introduce a bunch of girls who like our main character. We need several types of those: one has to be caring and lovable, another has to be strong and determined. We need to make those otaku waifufags happy. Oh, and one of them has to be an idol too. So, there's a harem of girls who all fantasize about our vampire. Also, everything needs to happen in a school. Kids love school. Let's have the characters declare their school and independent country and start a war or some shit! Kids will love it!

- Producer: Yes, yes, I can see this becoming very popular definitely. I would definitely invest in this project. What about villains though? Who should these vampires fight?

- Writer: NAZIS!

- Producer: Nazis?

- Writer: Yes, Nazis. Space Nazis. People love to hate Nazis. It's impossible to make a military anime unless one of the factions is Germanic. But that's not all. We also need a Char Aznable-like character with a hidden agenda who can think 10 episodes ahead. People definitely love this type of characters, I'm sure of it.

- Producer: Great job! Now please write a detailed script of each episode so we can start production immediately.

- Write: Nah, it's okay, we can start right now. We can make shit up as we go along with each episode.
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And that's it. I can't understand how a bunch of people got together and decided to make Kakumeiki Valvrave. It is a trainwreck of bad writing and bad ideas that actually got worse and worse as it went on. At first I started watching this because I hoped it would become some kind of "so bad that it's good" anime, but the bad writing became cringeworthy. It's as if the writers decided to take every possible cliché from every popular anime and mix them together to create this. Valvrave has every possible genre in it: it's a space harem vampire mecha war anime set in a school, with tints of horror and mystery every here and there. The only thing that saves this anime from being a 1/10 is the decent animation, since some studio heads decided to splash their budgets on this polished piece of turd. I can't wait for the inevitable fidget spinner mecha anime that Sunrise will probably decide to make a couple of years from now.

I just watched this because I was curious about Renbokouji Akira, there is this scene that often appears on TikTok and Reels, where she screams when her computer turns off due to a power failure. But just watching episode 1 alone made me very stressed, what the hell is this show? Who is the creator, middle school girl? Or elementary? I kept waiting for the scene I was looking for until my eyes bled. In the end I got it in episode *, and there was nothing more I wanted in the next episode.

I say this probably because I am an adult who has ... just watched old anime that aired during my school days back there. Maybe this kind of story was popular at that time. Maybe if I had watched it back in the day I wouldn't have said this.