valvrave the liberator 1
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“Do you resign as a human being?”
Valvrave the Liberator starts with Faction Z’s special forces sneaks into Faction E’s orbital habitation station. They manage to kill the customs agent, and no one is the wiser. Is it just me, or is space security really lax? Would there be cameras? Or other custom agents? Or people who notice that said custom agents are missing? I mean, these guys aren’t exactly Professor Moriarty here in their cunning. They literally shot being point blank and walked into school while mumbling about their cause and making other ominous statements. In a special twist, the leader of Faction Z’s special forces meets a normal protagonist from Faction E. Despite being “in love” with some hottie, we all know deep down protagonist will form a “special” bond with Faction Z’s special forces leader. You can’t make this stuff up. And it’s totally original to anime. Never been done before.
Inside this orbital habitation station, for whatever reason, there’s a fucking experimental mobile suit built underneath the college. I mean, that seems to be the most logical place to put advancement weapons development… if you’re Syria, North Korea, or Iran and don’t want the US bombing it. But in space? In the future? I dunno. And you’ll never believe this: the special forces team screw up and let the most precious (out of 1 in this case, but still, precious) mobile suit escape! What a twist!
Faction Z manages to break into the orbital habitation module! And it kills everyone because everyone gets sucked out into the vacuum! Oh wait, nope. But they do cause a lot of havoc as mobile suits battle it out on top of a civilian city. Wouldn’t base defense be better served outside the module? Why put defenses in it but not outside of it? Ah, I’m sure they have a good reason for this…
Because the protagonist has “no choice,” against better judgement, he goes into the mobile suit. And, yeah, he’s a natural at piloting it. He’s like the little kid in Rookie of the Year who breaks his arm and then discovers he has a 120mph fastball. That’s the protagonist. He’s piloting a mobile suit better than Mobile Suit Jesus himself.
Despite the activity and death outside, there’s always time for a random fanservice scene. Must check to see if those floatation devices are good, in case they need them… oh, andohbytheway, the ultra mobile suit deployed from the swimming pool. Because there was no better place to put a mobile suit launch area. I mean, they couldn’t use the forest behind the school or in the cliffs? Nah. Let’s put it under the swimming tool. If the teacher with the floatation devices happen to be teaching a class, well, it’s her damn fault for being there. And this mixing of fanservice during mecha play… never been done before. No anime studio is bold enough to try it.
Hey, it’s Ruri from Nadesico, seemingly even older than her Prince of Darkness days. But this show isn’t Nadesico. Valvrave is an original creation. Don’t let the fancy TM Revolution opening distract from that.
In a twist no one will see coming, the protagonist is killed. And then he comes back to life because he has special green red glowing particles infused inside him now somehow. I mean, this internecine warfare between two space factions using mobile suits where one faction tries to steal a mobile suit under a school of the other faction but fails and has a plucky youth piloting said mobile suit instead and features random fanservice and people returning from the dead? And featuring TM Revolution? Totally original show. I totally have never seen this show before, eleven years ago. (Or last season.)
Alright, alright. Enough snark from me. Valvrave the Liberator is the homeless man’s Gundam Seed. I don’t know why Sunrise would recreate Gundam Seed without Gundams, but they did. And for whatever reason, it’s not written by Morosawa but instead by Ookouchi… yes, the Ookuouchi would wrote the undervalued Shigofumi, the excellent Planetes, and the awesome Azumanga Daioh. Unfortunately, all those are adaptations. What about his original work? Let’s see… Turn A Gundam… okay… Code Geass… and Code Geass R2… I see… GUILTY CROWN. Sunrise decided to remake Gundam Seed using the writer of Code Geass and Guilty Crown. This can only end in a train wreck. You can already see the signs in Valvrave with the numerous logic holes, the dodging of pew pew lasers by mobile suits, and the setup.
(Think it was about seven minutes in when I heard Jun Fukuyama’s voice during the pushing bullying scnee and realized, “Hey… I’ve seen this before… and… it can’t be Sunrise, can it?”)
When I saw the “Do you resign as a human being?” prompt presented by a typical anime haremette, I knew exactly what was going to happen next: Haruto would become a vampire. Why? Because, he is discarding his humanity, and there needs to be a hook for this mecha series besides being the homeless man’s Gundam Seed. Therefore, vampires are in, so he will be a vampire. More importantly, it gives a reason for how people can come back to life in this world. Shouko? She’s not dead. She’ll be back, and make for a Shoujo – Haruto – L-elf love triangle in the vein of Inori – Shu – Gai.
The animation is really good. Very smooth, good details, and the backgrounds are fantastic. The mecha design is typical Gundam: Valvrave is dressed up like a cheap neon hooker while all the fodder mecha are utilitarian grey. But I don’t get the outfits. At least Gundam Seed had the sense to put Jesus Yamato and friends into futuristic clothes… everyone in this show looks like they were plucked out of modern Japan. Would a society that could construct a Dyson Sphere still wear blazers? And school uniform swimsuits? I mean, the clothes even seem dated for 2013 let alone whenever this show is supposed to take place.
(And concerning this Dyson Sphere… society would have to become a Type II civilization to construct it. I don’t believe the idiots running the world of Valvrave is capable of leading a Type II civilization. At least Gundam Seed was smart enough to just be a few space stations at La Grange points. That I can believe. But a fucking Dyson Sphere? We would have to mine out all of Mercury just to construct a small fraction of a Dyson Sphere. Come on. I already rage enough about dodging pew pew lasers, don’t make me rage about the Kardashev scale manipulation too.)
Totally not a character from Robotics;Notes. Duhuhu.
23 Responses to “valvrave the liberator 1”
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hmm I might have to watch this just to see if the Ruri clone is any good. I know Shuffle didn’t disappoint for the most part.
“Sunrise decided to remake Gundam Seed using the writer of Code Geass and Guilty Crown.”
If you had put that at the start of the post I would have said thank you for the perfect review and skipped the rest of the post. I can’t believe I almost started watching this on Hulu…
Also, I’m borrowing that quote for anyone that asks me about this show.
Ahhh, feel that tsundere love flowing.
The title should be “Valvrae, the Stealer”, because the almost complete copypasta of SEED ep01. While the Val looks like the hooker version of Dunbine (Fabulous flashy dress included), the enemy MP units are pieces of junk that not even a post apocalyptic junkie would use!
Worst of all: this is actually Twilight in space. C’mon Man!! This is worst than Mark Sanchez and the Butt Fumble!!!
Wow, two fiskings one after the other. Kinda entertaining.
Unless its Jou Edogawa from Sasami-san@Ganbaranai.
I think that’s because he was injected by the Vampire Nanites from Trinity Blood. They must contain some sort of canned piloting algorithms.
The surface of that Dyson sphere looks to be about 2 solar diameters away from the surface of the sun, which is consistent with the world being run by idiots — they’re cooked for sure, unless they fall into the sun first, for having foolishly built their structures on the interior of the sphere.
Actually I don’t think those are real Dyson spheres, since several are clearly visible from earth orbit. They look more like big space colonies surrounding some sort of exposed nuclear furnace. But then obviously they should be cylindrical not spherical.
I see you ignored his Shinn-type emo breakdown where he sat there two minutes without even looking at the screen. Hell, the Gargantia Ep 1 intro had better mecha combat. And it wasn’t terminally boring. Unlike Space Code Geass Gundam Seed Destiny.
What? Your blogging this instead of the other better mecha anime that is Suisei no Gargantia?
Dyson spheres? Is this an anime about vacuums? Perhaps a perfect analogy considering how much plot it’s sucked up from other places.
http://tinyurl.com/cylxq3g
Hey, launching from under the swimming pool worked for Thunderbird 1
http://youtu.be/QKKVoR1X5lM
I feel like Code Geass R1 should be held in separate regard from R2. R1 was damn good and another show to mix its lighter elements with the flip on the gundam tropes would be welcome. R2 never happened (It wasn’t the same writer right?)
So waiting for the thin slicing of this season..
too many wtf cliched details.. and what’s going on with this mecha fever
Am I the only one that’s impressed that ÅŒkouchi managed to kill two main characters this season before Urobutcher killed anyone? I think Valvrave gets the early nod for “Most Glorious Trainwreck 2013”. But hey, at least they didn’t rotoscope this one…
I don’t know why anyone would be acting remotely surprised here, since all this screamed Gundam and SEED in particular from the beginning. Even the flawed science or logic holes aren’t anything special by the usual mecha anime standards.
None of this is supposed to be hardcore science fiction and I don’t think the creators are remotely trying to make it so. Dyson Spheres that aren’t true Dyson Spheres, in mainstream entertainment? How shocking and unusual!
Surprisingly though, it doesn’t really remind me too much of Code Geass, let alone Guilty Crown….which was mostly written by someone named Hiroyuki Yoshino anyway, not this Ichiro Ookouchi guy, for the sake of those who may happen care about facts or trivia.
Honestly…Code Geass didn’t invent twists, you know, but at least that had better ones at the start and a better first episode in general. Now, this all comes across as rather boring to me instead.
So yeah, Valvrave. It’s really just Gundam all over again with vampires, but that’s not a very interesting twist.
Jason is a tsundere. He actually loves this shit.
Idiot protagonist. Why are there so many idiot protagonists in mecha?
I think this says it all: http://www.ggkthx.org/2013/04/valvrave-02/
Hack:”Write what you know” is a rule amongst Sunrise writers?
ok I’m two episodes in and this is just so horribly sunrise in all the right ways. I just wish it had some sweet escaflowne music to get me pumped when his mecha starts going all glowing god mode.
Just watched Ep 2, mind blown, don’t even know where to start. It train wrecked so hard it jumped 1000 feet off the track, did a barrel roll, thru a ring of fire, over 100 buses, landed in a pool with 2 inches of water while doves were flying across the scenes filled with JJ Abrams lens flare, in slowmo, John Woo-style.
Actually, never mind my wall of text. Just 4 words can accurately describe it: Sense, it makes none.
“Do you resign as a human being?†<= Man, when I read that, I thought of my collection of hentai mangas that have netorare and mindbreak and is growing at a worrying rate.
Despite having that very-last part spoiled for me(not a big deal, just forgot this was one of the anime that have scenes after the end credits)…Why’s this idiot keep calling them mobile suits..?
Thin slicing where?