[Anime] Anime: Valvrave
- Thread starter dchoc
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Nice post!!
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Man, the substance abuse = vampirism thing is not even remotely new, and it's clearly in Valvrave on purpose. In a lot of ways, Valvrave is Vampire Fiction 101: The Anime. Here, read David Dvorkin's The Allure of the Vampire. While Dvorak himself disagrees with these common interpretations of vampires and vampire fiction, he outlines the broad tropes pretty well. Valvrave includes almost every single one, and in a way that's fairly creative for its genre.
I admit that I like to overthink things, but this time, I think I'm just reacting to exactly what's on the screen. If that's not a part of the show you enjoy and not something you really want to discuss, that's perfectly okay. That doesn't mean that part of the show doesn't exist, though.
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Something else to keep in mind with Rukino's character (as far as the "accepted it" part goes) is that you can actually read a lot of her dialogue multiple ways.
On the surface level it may seem like she was okay with it after-the-fact but think about the scene in the movie theater where Haruto thinks she's talking to him and instead she's just remembering her lines from an old role she played.
It's a reinforcement of the idea that, when something in her life goes wrong, she plays a "role" as her coping mechanism. Looking at it from that perspective, it changes a lot of how her internal thoughts read.
For example, if you take the way she's acting on the outside as being her genuine reactions, the bar scene where she hides the fact Shoko is trying to call Haruto comes off as a creepy scene of a victim falling for her studly rapist.
HOWEVER, if you look at it from the idea that what she's doing is playing a role on the outside while her real thoughts are going on inside, it comes off more as Rukino realizing what kind of monster Haruto really is and that she can't allow anyone else to be harmed the way she's been.
This is what make Haruto's question of marriage at the end so traumatic for her. She's reached a point where she has to decide if she tells the truth and lets Haruto know what kind of a **** person he is... or accept that she's going to be stuck playing this role for him, quite possibly for all eternity.
On the surface level it may seem like she was okay with it after-the-fact but think about the scene in the movie theater where Haruto thinks she's talking to him and instead she's just remembering her lines from an old role she played.
It's a reinforcement of the idea that, when something in her life goes wrong, she plays a "role" as her coping mechanism. Looking at it from that perspective, it changes a lot of how her internal thoughts read.
For example, if you take the way she's acting on the outside as being her genuine reactions, the bar scene where she hides the fact Shoko is trying to call Haruto comes off as a creepy scene of a victim falling for her studly rapist.
HOWEVER, if you look at it from the idea that what she's doing is playing a role on the outside while her real thoughts are going on inside, it comes off more as Rukino realizing what kind of monster Haruto really is and that she can't allow anyone else to be harmed the way she's been.
This is what make Haruto's question of marriage at the end so traumatic for her. She's reached a point where she has to decide if she tells the truth and lets Haruto know what kind of a **** person he is... or accept that she's going to be stuck playing this role for him, quite possibly for all eternity.
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On the one hand, Lynxara, I do have to agree with dchoc's sentiment that you might be reading too much into it - on the other hand, you're posting some honestly interesting stuff here, and while I can't say I agree with or saw some or... well, any of it (to some extent - in part because I hadn't been looking for it, and honestly, I think you might be giving Sunrise/Haruto too much credit - he really does seem like the Gundam protagonist archetype you mentioned, at least to me), it still adds a lot to the show that I hadn't given it credit for, so I'm going to have to look at it much more closely now.
As far as the vampirism = drunk thing goes, from what I understand, it's not so much that Haruto goes into a vampiric fit, if you will, but he literally DOES lose control to the point that you could argue he himself isn't present in his own body during them. True, this sounds similar to "but I was drunk! I didn't mean to do it!", we ARE talking about a fictional story with magical superpowers and giant robots and all, so I think it's at least a fair thing to consider.
I mean - with all the body swapping going on, is that such a farfetched thing to consider? Not that I would personally want to argue this, but one could almost make the argument Haruto himself was raped too, or at least wasn't exactly consenting either. I think it depends on how much that state really is "him" though. Since it seems to be only related to Unit 1, I have to wonder what's going on there, but that's another issue.
On that note, is anyone else a bit bummed out that the whole body swapping thing has been kind of dropped? I was kind of looking forward to seeing what Thunder might do with it, haha.
And FlashNeko, that's another interesting thought! It does directly goes in line with the "Haruto is teh evil" line of thought, which I'm still getting used to, but have you considered the simpler possibility that she just wants Haruto to herself? I think one interpretation from their interactions up to now could be seen as her slowly falling for him (before the rape), and her (arguably, depending on how you view certain motions during the scene) "accepting" Haruto when he was assaulting her could be seen as her trying to help him in his time of "need" during his vampire attack, rather than resisting and endangering both of them.
Of course, that was just my line of thought before coming to this thread anyway. Given how they seem to be playing Rukino, it's probably a lot more complex than I'm giving it credit for, but on the other hand, I do think they were playing the love triangle angle and have been for a while now, and given how they had Shoko's "confession" side-by-side with that seen, well, I don't think that's so out there either.
As far as the vampirism = drunk thing goes, from what I understand, it's not so much that Haruto goes into a vampiric fit, if you will, but he literally DOES lose control to the point that you could argue he himself isn't present in his own body during them. True, this sounds similar to "but I was drunk! I didn't mean to do it!", we ARE talking about a fictional story with magical superpowers and giant robots and all, so I think it's at least a fair thing to consider.
I mean - with all the body swapping going on, is that such a farfetched thing to consider? Not that I would personally want to argue this, but one could almost make the argument Haruto himself was raped too, or at least wasn't exactly consenting either. I think it depends on how much that state really is "him" though. Since it seems to be only related to Unit 1, I have to wonder what's going on there, but that's another issue.
On that note, is anyone else a bit bummed out that the whole body swapping thing has been kind of dropped? I was kind of looking forward to seeing what Thunder might do with it, haha.
And FlashNeko, that's another interesting thought! It does directly goes in line with the "Haruto is teh evil" line of thought, which I'm still getting used to, but have you considered the simpler possibility that she just wants Haruto to herself? I think one interpretation from their interactions up to now could be seen as her slowly falling for him (before the rape), and her (arguably, depending on how you view certain motions during the scene) "accepting" Haruto when he was assaulting her could be seen as her trying to help him in his time of "need" during his vampire attack, rather than resisting and endangering both of them.
Of course, that was just my line of thought before coming to this thread anyway. Given how they seem to be playing Rukino, it's probably a lot more complex than I'm giving it credit for, but on the other hand, I do think they were playing the love triangle angle and have been for a while now, and given how they had Shoko's "confession" side-by-side with that seen, well, I don't think that's so out there either.
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Nice post!!
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Well, all I'll say is this: after I saw episode 2, I entertained some IRC buddies by posting an honest-to-God college-style literary analysis about how clearly the entire show used the robot and vampirism as a metaphor for Haruto struggling to accept his own nature as a sexual being, despite a suffering from massive self-hatred compounded by a virgin/whore complex that would doom him to remain sexually immature. So his attacks on others in his vampire state were coded rapes, L-Elf is actually behaving as a stage two rape survivor, and Valvrave the robot is literally powered by how much Haruto hates himself (hence why it's armed with scythes, symbols of castration in Greek myth, and has many attacks that are flagrantly self-destructive).
At the time, I was not entirely serious, but I wrote it carefully enough that it'd be really hard to argue against based on the series. To me that sort of thing is a particularly nerdy party trick, and it entertained my friends, which is all I cared about at the time. So then the rape episode aired, and one of them came back to me yelling "DAMMIT LYNX YOU DID IT AGAIN!!" and suddenly it seemed like the show had to actually be meant to be about Haruto's fear and loathing of his own uncontrollable robo-dick. I mean, how do you jokingly call a character a coded rapist at episode 2 and then the biggest plot of the show revolved around him being an actual rapist? I made that joke because I was pretty sure a Sunrise robot show wouldn't go there! But then again, the main guy behind this (as I understand it) is also the guy behind the "Nina Einstein fucks a table" sequence in Code Geass. Maybe this guy's just been dying to do a Sunrise show where fucked-up sexual relationships are driving the usually squeaky-clean tropes?
(Context for the "again": at episode 2 of Madoka Magica, I wrote a long theory about it having to do with Kyubei wanting to use magical girl angst to reverse entropy. I was not entirely serious at the time, but again, to me part of the joke is making the theory hard to argue against. And... well, I'm sure you're all aware of how that show played out.)
No, this is totally true. But like... Haruto hasn't really done a whole lot to try and protect innocent people from his vampiric fits. He's caught in a catch .22 in this regard, making his situation pitiable (even if a lot of it's his own fault). Part of the character's conflict is that his value to others is based around this ability that he hates, that reflects on a part of himself that he hates. On the other hand, Haruto is a typical teenager who's desperate for approval and attention from others. So Haruto clearly thinks about ways to protect people from himself, but he doesn't really act on it often save with Shoko (who is the virgin in his virgin/whore complex). Otherwise, given the choice between the loneliness of separation and the possibility that he'll hurt and exploit the people around him... well, he chooses the second thing. He doesn't want to cope with the pain of total separation, on top of not wanting to exile himself with his least favorite person in the world (himself).
Well, I am pretty sure the whole point of the bit where Haruto has to agree to a contract when he gets into Unit 1 is to make sure that you can't easily argue that he was a victim. A lot of the point of the show seems to be examining what Haruto does when put into a dominant, aggressive position. To power up that robot, he had to literally agree to renounce his humanity. Yeah, sure, he probably had no idea what the specific consequences of that agreement would be. But seriously, what the hell kind of person answers "Do you resign as a human being?" with a "Yes"? Why would you expect an agreement like that to lead anywhere good? Haruto just wasn't thinking at the time, and that in itself I think says a lot about the character.
This logic is fine if you want to argue that, basically, Rukino is willing to play the role of the whore in Haruto's virgin/whore complex. She's willing to be the filthy, tainted woman that Haruto will ultimately care about far less than Shoko, who he'll probably never touch. Now, that fits her character... but man, think about how fucked up that is. It means Haruto is getting together with a woman who hates herself as much as he hates himself, and whose ideas of sexuality are just as immature and twisted. She was willing to lie there and be raped, and even try to convince herself that she was helping!!, rather than stick up for herself in a way that might inconvenience her rapist. It's absolutely a valid characterization, it's even a way real women are often pressured to act, and part of me suspects that you'll be 100% right when all's said and done. But, urgh, isn't that just nauseating and vile? And it's not at all "simpler," it's just one more beat in the fucked-up tragedy of Haruto's rampant robo-dick that is Valvrave.
There's a love triangle element to Valvrave, but it's a sick and unhealthy one. The ending I would expect is Haruto ultimately refusing to accept Shoko's love because he's "not good enough" (i.e., he's not willing to accept a sexual relationship with her wouldn't "devalue" her somehow, because Haruto's view of sex is one rooted in terror and childishness). But Haruto would probably accept Rukino, since he can use being around her to further beat himself up every day with thoughts of how disgusting he is, and Rukino will accept whatever he does quietly. It's almost the exact opposite of how the classic Macross triangle plays out, if you look at it that way.
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Talk about one hellofa cliffhanger to end the season on…god damn, this episode is probably the best one yet too.
Member of the Doomcock Army, w/o respect we reject
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I forgot this place talked about anime and hey look a Valvrave topic! Maybe I won't encounter certain reactions from episode ten-
Kind of surprised a tokusatsu forum never pointed out the Gomess costume.
Not here too!:disappoin
Kind of surprised a tokusatsu forum never pointed out the Gomess costume.
