Valvrave the Liberator

have been wanting to get this done soon so here goes :D

it was that bite that started the whole plot moving for Valvrave. I've got to admit that the both seasons were a bumpy ride, exceptionally so for Season 1. The plot was getting turned away, more questions were planted, nothing were answered, cliffhangers were given and season 1 had ended. So that basically sums up the whole of season 1. To be slightly more "insightful" the whole of season 1 mainly just focuses on how a school manage to form their own country, defend themselves with the use of exceedingly powerful Valvrave units and finally showing off a hidden Unit 02 with the ultimate evil dude piloting it. Who surprisingly isn't human as well. 

Okay, so with that confusing season 1, I would say that season 2, or the real plot of Valvrave, finally begins. All those time skips over in season 1 finally made some sense and thankfully, they got some of the questions answered. Well, some was good enough and the ending was good IMO, so for that, I'm really glad I didn't actually drop this series off back when it was still in its 1st season.

As a standalone country now, JIOR has their own government and with support from other nations, they were able to survive with aid of resources. Furthermore, coupled with the Valvrave units, they do boost a rather strong national defence. What I did see about the Valvrave's common weakness was them overheating. Well this was also a plus point to me since having a weapon that has no weakness just makes it too strong and bland to watch, at least we get to see the Valvrave's being taken down or damaged once in a while which does show that although the Valvrave units are strong, they are not indestructible, not like some godlike Strike Freedom that we have seen in the other series @_@

So what I saw interesting to the changes in the Valvrave units were the new cooling devices that they are equipped with to reduce the speed of overheating them, those do look really cool.  Other than that, the 1st bombshell that dropped onto us after a long time, was the confirmation of the Runes.

In season 2, we got to know that Valvrave units or Haruto and the others as Kamitsukis, have to feed on runes in order to operate. And these runes are what we know of as memories that we have inside of us. Which means that the more you pilot the Valvraves, the more memories you lose of the past until the point where you've used up all your runes and all you are left with is just an empty shell without memories and with that so-called "brain death", a person without runes, die. There was bound to be one who is going to die in this way, and that surprisingly was Marie.

Honestly speaking, her being a Kamitsuki was one hell of a shocker, being the very first pilot for Valvrave Unit 01 was another, and her dying from losing all her runes was the final one. I guess this was the reason why I actually started to like Valvrave as a series even more after all these twists in its plot and new elements that covers questions previously left unanswered. From her death, it can be seen that pilots of the Valvrave units will lose their memories as time goes by, but that only seems to happen to Unit 01, which confuses me. Is it because that Pino is inside Unit 01 that causes runes to be eaten by her? And that is why the other pilots of other Valvrave units don't encounter this? That was however not addressed, or should I say, not much need to address. Well, if the runes don't affect the other pilots, it is not exactly sure that they won't die, at least that stays true for our dear Inuzuka and Yamada, who lost their lives protecting what's dear for them. 

Yamada's death was a little too fast I would say, it was pretty obvious in both Yamada's and Inuzuka's death since they both triggered so many death flags that ultimately did lead to their deaths. It was quite sad seeing how the pilots die protecting people whom have stopped believing them, but after all the deaths that just kept increasing episode by episode, I head into a new episode fully prepared to seeing another character go.

A second big plot twist in the series was the revelation of the existence of the Kamitsuki. The Magius who were about to be revealed to the world, had stabbed Rukino right in front of a public broadcast, just to show that she wasn't human any more. That sure made my hair stand a little, poor Saki having to live through all that. What comes in the aftermath was a literal bloodbath since suspicion rose, people losing trust and uneasiness lead to people killing people. That was a huge problem and a true massacre of the students of JIOR. What comes more painful to watch was Shouko finally learning the truth behind Haruto and the other Valvrave pilots and her segregating Haruto on her own, before knowing that Haruto had became a Kamitsuki all because of her right from the start. 

What serves next on the main dish of the plot was the return of L-Elf. Yes he did lose his own "flames" after losing Liselotte and his meaning of life, but when he returned to the battlefield, he still retained his old cool-looking style and big tactics that finally revealed to the world of the existence of Magius themselves. There was the change of character perspective as well,  both in A-drei and X-eins, after learning the truth about Cain. 

And then came the finale, and the fall of our hero and main protagonist, Haruto. Well, it wasn't totally unexpected that he was going to die in the end, in fact, seeing so many scenes from the future and not a moment with Haruto in it already strongly suggest that he isn't going to live to see the future. What the series did give was a pretty neat final moments for Haruto. With him in L-elf's body, the duo's ability manage to overpower Cain at the cost of all Haruto's runes, leaving him an empty shell, who remembers nothing and only manage to tap L-elf on the face after him acknowledging the fact that Haruto was his friend before passing on. Now that was just bittersweet and a sad fall of dear Haruto. 

With the epilogue, more questions were given and only some were answered. We do know now that the students of JIOR have their own country now, where all of them, I suppose, are Kamitsuki, and then there was this sudden appearance of Shouko. With her not dead after all these years and being in Unit 01's pilot suit, it would mean that she, too, wasn't human anymore and had took over Haruto's place in Unit 01. Pretty emotional to show the memories that Haruto had still stored inside Valvrave Unit 01, showing proof that Haruto too, had led a wonderful high school life. 

After the series had ended, we now look back at some of the unanswered questions:

Who exactly is the grey hair kid with Haruto's blue eyes? We can confirm that it would be unlikely to be L-elf's child since it doesn't seem like he was married even at Satomi's marriage with Takahi, so a guess, to me, would be the child of Haruto and Saki? I mean that's quite a high possibility, but the child did not call Saki his mother as well. Which more of less seals the question back into the unknown but well, who knows? Maybe he is their child after all :)

Next would be the relation and interaction of Pino and Plue. Well we only know that they too are Magius and have been "placed" into the Valvraves to act as their engine. And that, was basically all we know about the two. Come on, we need to know more. To us, they merely look like a kind of AI for the Valvrave units and a way to convert runes into power for the Valvraves, but nothing about their history and only a little bit of hint on the history between Pino and Marie, but still no clear answers. 

And then we have all the timeskips. We shall ignore season 1's timeskips since season 1 was mainly confusion and a world of unknowns. We do know that Saki was retelling the story of them in their high school year, hundreds of years ago as JIOR to the unknown kid and from there, we saw Satomi, now how the heck is that possible? Shouldn't the normal students be dead by now? Did Satomi become a Kamitsuki himself? Don't think that was possible too but Satomi's child? Nah, that too would be impossible, unless it's the child of Satomi's child. Now that would sound pretty legit but a little too far-fetched. 

Now for their plus points. 

To me, Valvrave units do seem quite "normal" for a mecha anime series since the Valvraves are not exactly godlike and have a rather big weakness which makes the battlefield a little more level once the Dorssia Valvrave clones started to appear. Kinda like Gundam 00 when the others got hold of the GN Drive technology eh. Their plot although extremely confusing at the start, did ultimately pull itself straight and finished off with a satisfying ending, to me that is. It wasn't a perfect ending, but one good enough for me. Especially the final scene between Haruto and L-elf, leaving behind a sour taste after all that has happened. Haruto really did suffer quite alot on his side yea :'( Glad they didn't actually force out any romance bits and pieces right at the end. We do know that Haruto and Shouko are a possible pairing and so is Haruto and Saki but this time round, it does serve the series a much better ending when neither of them is fulfilled.
Of course, there were the many plot twists here and there that just continue to juggle the series around but unknowingly, these plot twists actually do resolve some of the questions and continue to push the plot forward which was the main reason why I enjoyed this series so much.

Overall, I would say I have enjoyed the series as a whole, S1 was a rough ride, many non-mainstream things we got to see there, unique approach to a mecha series, and S2 just raised the entire level of the series. Really am glad to have sticked through the whole 2 seasons of the series. For those wanting to try something new or to relieve a slight feel of Code Geass, this would be worth a try but be in for a rollercoaster ride. Some might enjoy it but some might not. What I do know is I did.