Never seen this before.
I’d like to highlight Drasca’s comment from a couple weeks ago:
In some ways VVV has method to its madness.
Valvrave meta-goals enjoy mimic and twist older tropes. Defy and drop all loyalties at the drop of a hat for the sake of drama? Yep, VVV went there and back again.
Unite earth against common alien menace? That’s almost every space defense show ever… It made total sense then (not), but VVV doesn’t pretend to make sense now, just goes with it and twists it by having our ‘real bad guys’ make our heroes into that often used alien scapegoat.
Its become a pattern for VVV, so much so it’d take time to identify all the bloody tropes it uses.. but all the space mecha drama traditionalist ideas are here and completely ridiculous, because that’s what they are when done right— VVV just doesn’t cover it up.
Girls are stupid. Goverments are stupid. Masses are stupid. People aren’t actually that organized. All realism is thrown out the door for glorious style, and it isn’t easy to pull off successfully… but the patterns of past trope are there, used and tossed as needed.
I feel like the Sunrise people with Mecha experience up the wazoo are crafting a very smart joke while pretending to be very stupid. Sort of like Bob Dylan, and Rodney Dangerfield. They played up very yokel characters, but it requires consistent smarts and skill to do it well.
There’s so many ways this show could’ve gone wrong, but it remains entertaining and appealing. The reasons why and how are certainly deeper than surface value.
That says it all. (If you never read the comments, you really should.) Valvrave uses all the stupid tropes every other mecha series relies on, but doesn’t bother covering up how stupid they are.
For example, in this episode, we had two instances of Haruto shouting across the vastness of space to his soulmate Eru-Erufu. We have Valvrave as the “system that unveils the world.” We even have Haruto deciding to form a country where two different groups of people can live together in peace. Never seen that one before! The only difference from usual is that one of the groups is space vampires and they aren’t really different at all in the first place.
We also have our villains declare their love for humanity as a whole and use that as a motivation for senselessly murdering a good portion of mankind. Never seen that excuse before! The only difference is that Valvrave makes no excuse to cover up how transparent and retarded their reasoning is, showing a hospital in the middle of the speech. Oh, and the guy giving the speech isn’t human in the first place. It’s tempting to dismiss Valvrave as trite, pulpy and stupid, but there’s more to it. It’s actually aware of how stupid it is.
Further Thoughts
I agree 100%. Truer words were never spoken.
Yes, onii-chan~~~!
Those are enormous. Note how there’s a big shift in her body at the end of her neckline to make them appear even bigger.
Still the most awesome character. And wow Shouko sucks now.
Was that half of a Lelouch pose and evil laugh from Haruto?!!!
ERU-ERUFU!!!! YES!!! So cool! That blood lololol.
And here have some screaming:
Sunrise sure likes its psychotic redheads. Q-Vier is like Ali Al-Saachez from 00; not sure why it took me this long to figure it out, but he just loves doing what he does, has no real motivation outside of blowing shit up for lulz, is playing a miniboss role now that the final battle has rolled around, and has actually killed his fair share of people (Senator, Dog’s girlfriend, Thunder). Both characters could care less about the anime nonsense the heroes and villains are tossing back and forth; they’re in a mecha anime, why waste time on politics and philosophy when you could be making some huge explosions? And Q’s even more fun than Ali because he’s a few heads shorter than everyone else.
Too bad he’s probably going to die next episode. I predict that Akira’ll take him out because no development arc is complete without a little carnage to round things out.
I have to sympathize with the psychotic redheads. Blowing shit up for lulz is fun. He was one of the most sympathetic characters in Gundam 00 to be perfectly honest.
I can see Akira taking him out as well. Just hope Akira doesn’t die too. We seem to be on a trend towards all the Valvrave pilots dying… I wish Saki could die instead but we’ve already seen her in the future…
Haha. Once in a while, something smart comes out. Then there’s the fun and stupid things. Most of it a form of me too!
Oh yes, dem boobies. Lessened gravity is surely gracious toward them! Kudos to the art director highlighting such fanservice.
There is indeed so much Code Geass: Lelouch inherited into this show, and I thought the same as well.
Only one more episode~!! Gah. The idea is to always leave’m wanting more, but oh god I do want more and its not there.
Ugh, can’t believe it’s ending too. I really hope there is a third season. I cannot see how they are going to wrap this up satisfactorily with only a single episode left.
In the final episode, I will take great pleasure in laughing at the death of the naive prime minister of New JIOR AKA Shoko.
I hope she has to watch all her human friends die as Haruto rescues her. Then he takes her home and she watches him and Akira make sweet sweet love and she cries, forever alone. Then Haruto bites her so she has to live and suffer for all eternity as Saki’s sex slave.