Kakumeki Valvrave | Hako Toshokan

The final battle for a place to call home happens right now!

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RECAP: With the reveal of the Dorssian Chancellor being a “monster” just like the students of Module 77, the public in all nations are struck with fear. But quick action from the Council of 101 deters the public into believing the event a hoax constructed by the students. But interference from the Dorssian Royalists changes that tide once again. Meanwhile, Cain deploys in Unit-02 with Prue onboard with the intent on eradicating Haruto and “saving” Pino. Despite the side-effect of losing his memories, Haruto fights back with everything he has, even body-swapping with L-elf to make up for the lack of combat experience. In the end, Haruto is lost and the world now sees the truth.

With uncertain knowledge as to who the true enemy is, the ARUS forces are pulled back from engagement. Although the ARUS President knows about the Magius, he is not one of them and holds allegiance to protecting humanity, thus the lack of support once the Magius are laid out to dry. However, Cain’s appearance to fight makes up for the loss of military force.

It is truly a sad story to follow these band of brothers. They were bound by the code they were trained upon, yet cared for each other like family. They became forced to fight each other because of the Magi… because of Cain. Even though they may have seemingly died in vain, they still fought for their ideals and avenge those lost. Q-vier was still a crazy little bastard though, in my opinion.

The final battle, of course, falls on Haruto vs. Cain. Even though Cain has the upper hand in combat experience, Haruto can still somewhat hold his own. But the constant deprivation of Runes slowly weakens him. Cain’s power definitely outmatches Haruto, considering he has an abundance of Runes stocked up and is much more seasoned in battle. But that doesn’t stop him.

To make up for the lack of experience, AND to pull out the cliché “working together” thing, L-elf offers his body for Haruto to body-jack, utilizing all the muscle memory of battle while still being able to pilot the Valvrave.

As the true message behind the entire war, that message is to “never give up.” It is as simple as that. Cain exclaims that the reason for the existence of the Council of 101 is to hide the Magius and live separately in peace because the humans fear them, despite vying for co-existence once before. Essentially, the Magius gave up on co-existence. But, as we know, Haruto is fighting FOR co-existence. We got to see it in Haruto’s memories, we experienced it with him: putting up a wall of lies and keeping secrets will only make things worse (and if you still don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m talking about the relationship between him and Shoko). Never give up and if you truly want to make things work between opposing parties, you must entrust with them the truth.

Because of this surge of emotion, Haruto’s Rune power dramatically increases, giving him the edge to defeat Cain.

And so Haruto expended his life force, just like Liselotte did, in order to right the wrongs of the world. I will admit that I was happy and hoping that Haruto would be able to continue living, even as a memory-less husk. But alas, it would not be right if he did not sacrifice himself wholly for the cause.

Rating: 4/5

Going back to the flash-forwards, everything makes a little more sense now. The new era (the new year naming scheme) started after this episode’s fateful battle. The little prince is definitely a descendant of L-elf. Saki and Akira continue to live. Renboukouji and Shoko became pilots. Piggybacking on that thought, Shoko works herself to basically be a “Prime Minister of the Universe,” seeking co-existence with other life-forms that regular humans would otherwise categorize as threats.

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Final Impressions:

Kakumeki Valvrave is definitely a neat spin on the mecha genre. I have to hand it to Sunrise, they took a paranormal idea and implemented it into mech designs and a fair story plot. Animation-wise, there were a number of hiccups when it came to the at-home drama between the characters, but the mech battles were all definitely Sunrise quality as they have proven before with Gundam.

If I had any complaints, one of them would at least be that the ending felt kind of rushed. There was no real drawn out suspense or build up as to what Haruto and L-elf were going to do with their newfound goal. Regardless, it is definitely reasonable for why it was seemingly rushed in both the story and the story’s composition. After all, Haruto doesn’t have much time left to live anyways with his Rune loss.

One thing I can say though is that I enjoyed not having too much teen angst in this compared to, say, last year’s big hit by Production I.G., “Guilty Crown.” (Not that GC wasn’t necessarily bad. :P) Haruto wasn’t a pussy for the majority of the series, at least.

Series Rating: 3.5/5

Although I gave it a number of high ratings for several episodes, Kakumeki Valvrave was an interesting watch, but not something so memorable that it left a large impact. I’d definitely recommend it as a good mecha show, but there are other shows I’d place in front of it.