What They Say:
Saki goes inside the Valvrave in hopes of becoming a famous singer. She bites Haruto on the neck and then pretends to be his little sister. Dorssia forces start an attack despite Shoko’s threat, while Saki pilots a female robot, which she named Carmilla.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After watching today’s episode of Valvrave, I’m actually a little impressed. The final climactic scene managed to be emotionally moving to some extent, which is a pretty significant step, considering the way this series has been going. The only real problem is that everything it took to get there was so incredibly… well, Valvrave-like. And hey, I can hardly fault a show for being itself, whether that’s exactly what I’d like in a show or not. However, setting up a scene to have emotional weight of any kind with an episode that embodies what Valvrave has become doesn’t really work, because there’s a major disconnect there.
Although the climax is still where it would be in any episode, this episode is slightly unconventional in that most of the major plot developments happen right at the beginning of it. This makes it somewhat difficult to go over since, while I’d like to go over how the episode starting setting up, that actually means giving away some relatively significant spoilers. However, since the plot synopsis covers all of that, and since the episode makes no attempt to build up suspense before revealing any of it, I think it’s at least all right to mention that yes, Saki gets her own Valvrave and abuses her newfound vampire powers and giant robot as much as possible, until she realizes that war maybe isn’t the most fun game ever.
Similarly to Shoko’s “death” and “surprise” revelation of not being dead, the first chunk of this episode all feels very rushed and unimportant, destroying any opportunity for good suspense or excitement. The fact that Saki was so self-aware of the kind of series she was in made for some good comedy in her early appearances, and that comes back in a big way as she takes the initiative to make herself into the same kind of monster, fanatical about the idea in a nearly polar opposite manner to Haruto’s outlook. What she does with this power is definitely amusing, but makes it hard to take her emotional issues as seriously such a short time later.
The battle is visually appealing as always and should be a nice treat for mecha fans even if other elements are lacking, but the content is fairly by-the-numbers and occasionally very characteristically silly, until the late stages. As I’ve mentioned, I thought the final moments of Saki’s emotional drama were actually quite well done and worked well with the intense mecha action that was coming to a head, but the overall piece was a little disjointed. With the rushed feel of the early developments and the sudden tonal change, it may have worked better as two episodes, rather than trying to condense Saki’s story into one.
In Summary:
This episode improves over the course of its running time, but that doesn’t exactly forgive the shortcomings present in much of it. As much as the later moments may provide the kick, both emotional and action-oriented, that it wants to, and that feel engaging and desired, the path to those points was a bit too rocky, or at least entertaining in too different of a way for the intended impact of the climax to feel as genuine as it would if the episode was a bit more cohesive. Splitting it into two episodes may have helped, but as it is it doesn’t come together too perfectly.
Grade: C+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Custom-Built PC, 27” 1080p HDTV.
