That ending song is neat because it also exists in-universe and Michiru has a very personal connection to it, so it playing in Episode 4 messed her up for a moment. I love media integration like that.
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 1:45 pm
by Angry Critter
Episode 5 surprised me cause of how much more ridiculous and silly it got all of the sudden. Baseball being so deadly was pretty out there, too. :')
me during the few moments while clarity of writing the last part wrote:Valvrave feels like something a Twitter AI bot would generate after being fed plot points and character descriptions from other, much better series.
a man, broken wrote:I think I truly, genuinely hate this series.
the poor people reading this thread wrote:what the fuck
and now the conclusion
So a couple of weeks ago I finished playing Nier: Automata
(or at least, I got to the point where it fully crystallized its thesis but I digress)
you know when you’re just happy to be experiencing a piece of media that’s novel and cool, and it’s challenging you to reflect on your own preconceived notions and broaden your horizon on what storytelling can do?
and after experiencing it it just keeps lingering in your mind and
Yeah so Valvra--
[Content warnings still apply. sexual violence and just general stupidity that makes me question everything]
Right.
Okay so.
Imma just jump right into it
Haruto has raped Rukino.
...
Hold on I need a moment.
...
And it was fucking stupid. There was no setup to it, no real point or meaning. It just happened because the writers thought it would be… dramatic(???).
I’m still not sure.
Trying to discern what the point is of anything in the series is still an exercise in frustration. It was at least somewhat bearable as it wouldn’t linger too long on… basically anything.
Any questions I had regarding what was happening on-screen were quickly silenced by the endless, rapid fire staccato of ludicrous plot contrivances.
So after episode 10 closes out with the rape scene I had the hope that maybe… maybe it would stay at that. Because fuck me sideways if this series has the gall to try to interrogate what the fuck it just did.
Episode 11 opens and…
Okay cool we’re back at the status quo of “what the fuck is going on, who the fuck is this?”
Apparently the baddies now have the president of JIOR in custody. That is, the country that the students are a part of.
He's also the dad of Shoko, the would-be girlfriend of Haruto.
Or… were before they declared independence by literally cutting their connection to the Dyson sphere (are you still following this (don’t worry it doesn’t matter, nothing really matters)).
All of this is unfolding with the spectre of last episode’s events still looming over everything.
Is the series going to carry on with this exciting new development or are we going to...
Ah…
I was too optimistic.
I don’t think I’ve ever been this embarrassed for a series. The whole situation in the episode is awkward, as it should be. But on a metalevel I’m going to have to witness how Valvrave is going to talk about sexual violence.
And with how it’s been handling pretty much anything else I’m starting to fold in on myself through sheer cringe.
Let's roll it back it a bit.
So, after the rape Haruto messaged Rukino that they should meet up, and we get this sequence:
So, the series is aware that what Haruto did is wrong. He feels bad about it.
It presents this in a very blunt, hackneyed way, but at least it has that.
Along the way Haruto wants to say something, but Rukino brushes him off, seemingly taking control of the situation.
They sit down in an abandoned bar
and Rukino notices that Shoko (Haruto’s love interest) calls him.
Now throughout the series a love triangle has been established between Rukino, Haruto and Shoko and the implication was that Rukino was jealous of the ‘chemistry’ that Haruto and Shoko had.
And so she dismisses Shoko’s call, thinking to herself
After rewatching I'm still not sure what is meant here. Is Rukino saying she won't let Haruto apologize to Shoko, to her?
This is about the part where I’ve started to question myself about writing this.
I’m discussing the aftermath of rape but I am coming at this from a place of ignorance.
The emotional reality of sexual violence is not something that I’m personally familiar with.
I have experience dealing with emotional trauma and physical abuse, but in a wholly different context.
But in the end this is practice, an exercise on how to approach critical analysis n stuff and find my voice as it were.
To me there's boundaries to this sorta stuff, and I feel I'd be infringing on a good few were I to guess on how Rukino should be behaving.
I can only really comment on how the series itself is framing her.
Some time later Rukino and Haruto are sitting in an abandoned theater and are watching a film starring her.
The awkward tension is enough to rip the fabric of spacetime.
Haruto wants to say something, refrains and instead Rukino fills the void:
At first it seems she’s saying this in earnest…
… before she reveals that it’s merely lines from the film she remembers.
…
Right.
Oh...
Ooooooooooooohhhh...
Haruto... my dude...
Disclosure / Interlude:
I wrote this initially going by what I remembered from the first watch. Afterwards I was skimming through the relevant episodes to fill in the gaps while writing and get an idea of what scenes I needed screenshots from. Then I grabbed screenshots where necessary.
So I've been parsing this thing 3 times now, and every run through I come across something new that makes it somehow worse.
The above line by Haruto for instance that seemingly makes him the good guy? Like are we supposed to root for the dude now, was he in the right to force himself on her???
WHAT
The way it's structured, paced, edited or whatever it just does something to my brain that makes me instantly forget things that might be relevant/make the thing worse.
I'm reminded of this this Lindsay Ellis essay:
Hold on while I briefly long for the sweet embrace of death
Why is Rukino specifically saying these words? Supposedly it’s because she “remembers” reciting them in the film, and on the surface the series leaves it at that.
But this scene was deliberately written for her to say these lines in the context of everything that has happened.
It’s a cop out.
The series leaves Rukino’s feelings on the matter, her emotional reality ambiguous, but has her say lines that all but explicitly say that she’s okay with Haruto forcing himself on her because she felt... lonely?
The series puts words in her mouth rather than allowing her to actually speak her mind.
She’s not allowed any real agency on the matter.
Christ.
But before we can have any sort of actual clarity on the issue bullshit happens and some more meaningless fighting starts.
And Shoko finds out that the baddies have her dad.
FEELING VERY CALLED OUT HERE
Haruto has to do his Ultimate Killing Move to get the bad guys off their backs.
But of course the ship that Shoko's dad is on is in the middle of the enemy fleet.
Why you would have your trump card in the line of fire like that I don't know...
The baddies know that this Harakiri blade is a thing, why they would choose not to just haul his ass somewhere safer... yeah, idk either
So Shoko has to watch her father get killed because the series just hates her.
And after this little tangent the series is just gonna leave the other subplot alone...
…
Right?
hah
As the battle rages on Rukino urges Haruto to go back inside the school.
Wracked with guilt and really wanting to take responsibility I guess Haruto decides to do “the right thing” and..
oh no
OH NO
OH NO
someone who makes bad decisions wrote:fuck this shit
Hey guys, wanna make up for forcing yourself onto someone else? Ask them to marry you and all your responsibilities will be absolved!!
Because what better way to fix the emotional trauma of your victim than to marry them!!
The cure-all for all abuse!
Fucking hell.
...
It keeps going.
In the next episode…
Haruto is essentially absolved of all responsibility.
And we leave Rukino clearly traumatized.
There’s no real conversation regarding what happened after this. There’s no real closure for Rukino. She just has to deal with it.
Later In season two there’s an instance where the series calls back to the rape. Rukino offers herself to Haruto as his “fits” get more and more frequent.
There’s not an actual reason as to why he gets like this. It’s never really explained as to why he’s the only person who loses control but at this point this plotline is just one of so many. It just gets lost in the meaningless noise that is Valvrave
The breakneck pace of the series actively bars any real thinking on the viewer’s part. But when paused, taken apart and interrogated it reveals that there’s actually nothing of substance there.
It is seemingly mindless and meaningless.
Now I make these little writeups to further my understanding of media, to train myself to become a better “reader”. This was originally spurred on by feelings of awe, by experiencing things that left a positive impact that I wanted to… investigate I suppose.
How did a film, a series, a book, a game manage to make me feel so good?
And as I’d dig and learn more about the way something was made, the thinking behind creative decisions, the greater context in which it existed, I’d often grow to love and appreciate it more.
This is the exact opposite.
Every little piece I turn over just reveals more nothing. There’s no sense of direction, no real weight to anything. It is an endless barrage of noise and visuals that apparently belong together by virtue of being in sequence.
Its “storytelling” devolves into meaningless nonsense, but it is in that nonsense that it loses any shred of humanity. There’s simply no regard, appreciation or respect for the characters starring in it.
And I can’t tell whether that’s intentional or not.
It just seemingly does not care for its characters.
In the end I'm just left with countless questions that the series is incapable of answering.
There's just nothing. No meaning, no purpose.
There’s simply just no point to Kakumeiki Valvrave's existence.
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Fri May 22, 2020 7:48 am
by DaikatunaRevengeance
this show is utter trash
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Fri May 22, 2020 9:56 am
by Octavia
I watched Season 2 of One Punch Man.
I liked Season 1 better.
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Fri May 22, 2020 6:12 pm
by Orange Fluffy Sheep
The holy spirit?
like
jesus posessed him and He raped her?
wha
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Fri May 22, 2020 6:15 pm
by Orange Fluffy Sheep
I've heard of leaving space for The Lord but this is ridiculous
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 6:14 am
by !saak
it could be a translation/localization quirk but i dont fn know maaaaaann
so to pilot the Valvrave you need to give up your humanity and become a "vampire"
you become immortal and are able to swap bodies by biting people
But apparently there's a shadowy group of Illuminati people pulling the strings who were at some point formless energy beings that came to earth hundreds of years ago (yes, that is what happened).
And they are one of them is part of the main Valvrave or something?? and you become kind of like a hybrid human/alien???
And... uh... maybe they're referring to that because some of their essence goes into the pilots.
But I don't know whether they knew of the energy aliens around this point because everything happens at the same time.
Rukino just blurts this out with zero context. Characters just take everything at face value and never try to learn more about the things they discover.
I'd also like to reiterate that, even though 5 other people become pilots and it's later revealed there've been more, Haruto is the only one who goes nuts like this
at no point do we see the other pilots lose control of themselves
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 6:15 am
by !saak
I'm honestly at this point not sure whether I'm even explaining the Deep Lore of Valvrave right
but to check I'd have to go through the series again and honestly
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 7:01 am
by !saak
haha who am i kidding i will totally go through this again at some point when i make a yt channel later
season 1's animation was so good, then they switched production to a different studio and I felt the series really suffered for it
didn't get past the first 3 episodes before I dropped it unfortunately
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 9:20 am
by Orange Fluffy Sheep
so jesus is a hyperintelligent shade of blue and He's a component of the super robot and by driving the super robot protagonist-kun gets possessed by Him and His main drive is to sexually assault women?
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 9:20 am
by Orange Fluffy Sheep
is this energy being really horny after not having a physical form
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 9:53 am
by !saak
I...
legitimately don't know
I think(?) that the big robots were a weapons program that incorporate the energy aliens in some way to make something really powerful.
But the energy alien tech eats away at the pilots sanity/humanity (and also their memories (yes, this is also a thing)).
I guess the intent is to show that 'using these weapons is bad and makes you less of a human', but none of it lands because there's 5 million things that are happening at any given point.
the actual tech / magic(?) behind it is explained... but I'd have to go back in to see what exactly it was, because trying to divinate wtf all that was from memory is giving me a headache
this is why I keep saying this feels like it was generated by an Twitter bot or something, because I don't think a human really thought about any of this
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 10:02 am
by W.T. Fits
So looking over TV Tropes, apparently the Valraves are powered by Runes, which are "information particles" that can be generated by knowledge or emotion, and what happened at the end of episode 10 was the Valrave was low on power, so it possessed Haruto and forced him to rape Saki to generate fuel for itself. Apparently the commentary on the official blu-ray straight up says that scene was put there for shock value.
So looking over TV Tropes, apparently the Valraves are powered by Runes, which are "information particles" that can be generated by knowledge or emotion,
okay this I knew
and what happened at the end of episode 10 was the Valrave was low on power, so it possessed Haruto and forced him to rape Saki to generate fuel for itself.
this was explained... maybe? like he went nuts cuz he needed to feed
but that was never connected to the valvrave in the show as far as I can remember
again none of the other pilots experience these problems
Apparently the commentary on the official blu-ray straight up says that scene was put there for shock value.
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 10:14 am
by !saak
also congratulations Fits, your post is #666 in this thread
season 1's animation was so good, then they switched production to a different studio and I felt the series really suffered for it
didn't get past the first 3 episodes before I dropped it unfortunately
It wasn't the animation that bothered me. It was the fact that Saitama wasn't the primary focus of the season. What I loved about season 1 was Saitama thumbing his nose at all the overdone fighting-anime tropes. S2 was mostly about all the other heroes, who just had cookie-cutter fighting-anime stories, so it didn't feel original at all. I loved the limited parts with Saitama, but overall S2 really strayed from what made me enjoy S1.
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 3:48 pm
by DaikatunaRevengeance
i wonder from which anime just according to keikaku is
It wasn't the animation that bothered me. It was the fact that Saitama wasn't the primary focus of the season. What I loved about season 1 was Saitama thumbing his nose at all the overdone fighting-anime tropes. S2 was mostly about all the other heroes, who just had cookie-cutter fighting-anime stories, so it didn't feel original at all. I loved the limited parts with Saitama, but overall S2 really strayed from what made me enjoy S1.
ech that's a shame, I liked the part where Saitama was just chilling with the dude playing games but the "big plot" with the bad guy infiltrating the Hero Association was kinda boring
didn't miss much then
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 5:08 pm
by !saak
anyway I think we're getting close to the next page so
Re: im looking at anime
Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 5:08 pm
by !saak
I watched Chikai no Finale, the sequel film to Euphonium so expect some cinemagraphs here soon