12.13
Now... time for Carousel!
Last week’s episode of Valvrave was the Valvrave for people who hate Valvrave as hundreds of vapid teens were mowed down by underpaid government bureaucrats armed with submachine guns. It was disgusting, it was insipid, it was the most entertaining 24 minutes this morose lumbering trainwreck has yet produced. For my part, I can say that me and my colleagues in the Thaumatroop were quite entertained by the bloodbath, however judging from some random tweet I got after this week’s episode, the fanbase thought last week’s was the “WORST. EPISODE. EVAR!!!!”
…said fanbase also thought Episodes 5 and 10 were good television. To borrow a page from the late Roger Ebert, may I suggest that they are not “properly evolved”.
See... it did make more sense when you were dead Shoko!
Right, with that out of the way on to Episode 22! Last week, Haruto’s deep dark secret was finally exposed to Shoko and the gang. This week, the rest of those secrets are revealed. We being once again in the far far future where Saki Watanabe, Satomi Renbokuji, and Prince MichaelMaybe are paying a visit to “holy ground”. Said holy ground being the remains of Sakimori Academy, overgrown and disused recalling the climax of everybody’s favorite 70s scifi epic… “Logan’s Run”! Hundreds of years earlier however things are in a much more dismal state. Shoko is untrusting of the two remaining Valvrave pilots because of what happened with Haruto and won’t let them protect her. Haruto and L-Elf, now sporting trendy space suits stolen from the set of Planetes, are stuck in some large (and rather colorful) crater on the moon. And Saki is forced to get coumfy with R-Drei in their little story arc that went nowhere.
As if the show didn't flashback us into knowing that already....
Deciding that to protect those other surviving morons that are in her shuttle she’ll have to use VVVI, Shoko finally enters the cockpit of the unit only to instead end up in a conversation with Pino. And thus, through the magic of stock footage from previous episodes, Shoko learns exactly how Haruto turned into a monster, why he turned into a monster, and more to the point why he was trying to keep her from turning into a monster. To say the least Shoko doesn’t take it very well. Neither does Haruto when L-Elf finally spills the beans that he…kinda killed Shoko’s dad back in Episode 11 (ah the good ol days when this show would have the protagonist accidentally murder his ex’s dad in one scene only to propose marriage to his new girlfriend whom he had just raped the next!). Ah but this game of one douchey revelation one-upmanship has to keep going as Haruto dumps the sad fate of poor Lieselotte on L-Elf…
...and hackneyed writing. P.S. BUY OUR ANDROID AP!!!
Naturally this leads to a one-sided fight where L-Elf just punches the hell out of Haruto. What then follows is a very strange borderline non-sequiter scene where Haruto has a vision of the currently deceased trio of Kyuuma, Aina (megane-girl for those who don’t remember) and Marie telling Haruto he should go die or something in the most cheery, heartfelt way possible. BUT THEN! “Shadow Haruto” (for lack of a better name), a reprentation of Haruto’s physical self…or something, I don’t know anymore this episode was fucking weird and boring, convinces him not to. Likewise, L-Elf has a vision of Lieselotte who tells him to get over it. Green Magius energy is generated by Haruto, because why the hell not, and the two get saved by Saki in VVVIII whom R-Drei just kinda let get away…because that arc fucking sucked.
So yeah... I fucked Saki. AW YEAHHHHH!
It wasn’t much of a surprise that Valvrave could not sustain the pace generated by last week’s episode however it is a surprise that they would follow last week’s episode with easily the worst episode of the season so far. I hesitate to call it a recap episode despite all the callbacks to previous events and recycled footage (one of which literally is a video clip) since its 70% new stuff, and I’d like to think Mitsuo Fukuda had a hand in this week’s episode at least. However what’s really annoying is the rather baffling ending where Haruto and L-Elf both have weird spiritual transcendence hallucinations and get rescued by a deus-ex-machina. The fact that this ending makes absolutely no sense is one thing , the fact that its the kind of nonsensical magic bullshit that this show has shoved down our throats on multiple occasions and the fan base just loves is another. Yup, that’s why they liked this episode… its the long belated of good ol’ retarded Valvrave from Season 1. I hope you’re happy Marquis…
1/10