Valvaraged

I know, I spent most of the first half of this show comparing it to SEED, mocking it’s obvious Gundam roots, and they still show by the way, but god fucking dammit, this episode really just had to go there. It was going to happen, we all knew it, but it still came out of nowhere.

It was pretty obvious when they found more Valvaraves that there would be more vampires added to the show from the main cast. I thought Shouko would be next, but Rukino jumped in there first and got herself a shiny green Valvrave with REVOLVER KNUCKLES and some crazy dancing shit that involves forcefields or something, I dunno. She sparred no effort taking it out into battle against Dorassia, but wound up needing GARruto to save her silly butt, even though she figured out how to do the heavy lifting in the end.

But then in the next episode, ol’ L-Elf decides now would be a good time to SHAKE AND BAKE with his pal, Haruto, and place the school in lockdown, having already sensed A-drei’s intrusion. He lures Haruto down to his Valvrave and tries to get him to go in on his military state, A-drei breaks in anyway, gun battles ensue, Q-vier busts in and starts shooting up the place, Haruto gets trapped under a beam (IN ZERO GRAVITY, WHAT?) and Rukino is pinned under an ambush outside in her unit. Solution? Take over L-Elf’s body and pilot Red to save the day…

God.

Fucking.

Dammit.

I know, it’s not really as gut-wrenching as it could be, they teased us with Shouko’s death in the very first episode only to bring her back, but this is pretty dead by Sunrise standards. The real fucking twist would be if she assumed one of the other Valvrave units and became a vampire, regenerating in the next episode. My mind would be fucking blown.

But Valvrave, god, I really hate to admit this, but I am actually liking this show as it progresses. SEED cliches aside, it really just keeps getting a tiny bit better with each episode even if it dives into LOL SCHOOL HIJINKS every so often. It’s infuriating, because I want to just say “Yeah, it was okay, space battles and such”, but the last few episodes have just been good. I notice an entry on MAL for a second season, does that mean we’re getting a full season, or was this good enough to green light for another? I’d say after the massive failure of Sacred Seven, Sunrise is doing something right, even if they’re just piggybacking off proven formulas.