Headscratchers / Valvrave the Liberator

• Okay, episode 9 comes and leaves me rather confused at just one thing: Kyuma is seen standing next to the Gold Valvrave after he punches Thunder away, and he looks like he's about to get in, cut to him coming out in the BLUE Valvrave without him even looking at it... so why didn't he just take the one he was already standing on?
  • You apparently skipped a scene. The Valvrave Kyuma got into only had hold accents, and the white parts turned blue when he got in. Raizo's was also much more yellow.
• Who raped who? Saki didn't exactly do much to stop him, and Haruto was Brainwashed and Crazy, so does that mean that she raped him?
  • That is so offensive and dumb, but some one should answer it the answer is this: They both got raped.
• So...how's marriage going to work exactly, Haruto? You're both teenagers with no concept of the word.
  • So.. you're saying Haruto should have handled that like Makoto Ito? Since all the doctors and therapists of Jior were either captured or killed by Dorsia at the beginning, it really was Haruto's only option to deal with the issue.
  • The same way it always does? Supporting each other, bonding, connecting emotionally, and talking to each other (left out being faithful as there is no way to know if that is possible when Haruto can be possessed against his will). You seem to have the belief that marriage is a great mystery that only those above a certain age have the answer to.
    • What teenage marriage do you know that had a positive outcome? The whole thing seems incredibly forced to play up the love triangle. Besides, what's going to happen if Haruto attacks someone when Saki's not around? Is he going to marry all the people he assaults?
    • I don't need to know of any teenage marriages that worked out where everyone was happy, this is an anime and as such things will or will not work out as the writers want. Being realistic is optional in a fictional work. If the writers decide that this marriage is going to work, then not even god is going to be able to mess up the relationship. Does that answer your concerns?
    • The issue is believability. Just because the writer says something is true doesn't make it believable. In Battlefield Earth, the aliens come to earth looking for gold, and yet hundreds of years later, Fort Knox is untouched. Did that happen the story? Sure. Was it believable? Not by a long shot. An experimental machine that requires a great sacrifice from the user in order to activate it? Believable, because it sets up that attaining power has consequences and a cost. A former pop idol selling her soul for more fame and glory? Believable, because she's established as someone who would do that. Not telling your love interest (who was been eastablished as someone who would always care about you and accept you) about your condition because you might no longer be human? Kind of believable, since you can't gauge 100% what their reaction will be.
    • However, sudden marriage proposal between two people after forced sexual assault on both sides when previously there was no sign of a requited romantic attraction? Now you are yanking my chain.
    • Only yanking your chain if the proposal was out of romantic feelings. From what we see of him worrying about it and keeping him awake at night, it could also be an attempt to take responsibility for the action. Being teenage robot pilots in space during wartime, opportunities for other options like psychological counseling are limited.
    • My Parents both got married at 16 and are together and happily married forty some years later. Just saying it will fail because of that is really nonsensical. It's not likely to work for entire other reasons. Mainly the motivation behind it.
  • There was a degree of romantic tension beforehand, especially on Saki's part, if you actually go back to re-watch several of their earlier interactions. Haruto wasn't interested at first, but by episode 10 he was on quite friendly terms with her.
    • I may be misremembering the phrasing but the bible lists one form of marriage as the union between a soldier and his rape victim as marriage. And while not believable it is fact.
    • And maybe if Valvrave was set in the time that the bible was written, it'd be believable that they're trying it.
    • This Troper would like to point out that since this is about believability this should be under the YMMV tab since believability is an interpretation, not a plot related question for clarity.
    • When a character is suddenly asking another character to marry him when before he never once gave any sort of romantic contact, it is a question of plot clarity.
    • Though I'm not sure it works in Japan, the rule seems to be in anime that whenever a boy does something to a girl he has to take responsibility for that. And that usually is code for marriage.
  • This Troper viewed it as Haruto determining that the only way to take responsibility for the actions he couldn't stop himself from performing is to marry Saki and take care of her, though he's probably under some degree of influence from Saki's reminder than he'll outlast Shoko (as far as we know, supported by Episode 7's intro), and her revealing how lonely she's been to him.
    • So then he's also under the influence of a guilt trip? Wow, so many great things come out of a relationship based on guilt!
  • He may also have legitimate feelings for her stemming from their shared secret and the time they've spent together because of it. We have no proof that he does not like her. He certainly cares enough for her that he'd be willing to marry her over professing his love to Shoko.
    • We also have no proof he does either. Up until this point, pretty much all romantic scenes Haruto has had were with Shouko. At what point did he ever show affection for Saki before this happened?
    • Actually, remember this: Haruto's proposal isn't purely out of romantic love, which has indeed been lacking, but he also doesn't hate Saki at all. I'd call both of them close friends. I can say he at least likes her too, even if the love of his life is (or was) truly Shoko - who, precisely, he ideally wanted to protect rather than risk involving in the non-human mess. Haruto clearly sympathizes with Saki's past as well as her loneliness, as per Episode 11, which turned out to be real despite her mischievous behavior in Episode 6. Then Episode 10 even had Haruto saying that he'd be glad to be killed by someone like Saki if he goes permanently out of control, so their mutual trust is high. That said, I doubt they'll actually get married before the show spins into far more pressing concerns, or Saki might struggle with the proposal since she knows Haruto's not doing it out of love.
    • It's an anime. Whether the marriage would work or not doesn't matter. Maybe they get married and it falls apart and is horrible? That's just another possible plotline.
• Are the heads of state for ARUS and Dorrsia really going to take a teenage girl prime minster seriously? So far Shouko hasn't really done anything that shows her to be a capable leader other than promising to hold a festival.
  • Its not they want to take her seriously, they have no choice. She's already threatened to give the Valvraves to their enemies if they don't get what they want.
    • No, they have to take the Valvraves' seriously. Shouko, on the other hand, is a leader in name only, and without L-Elf next to her, she could be very easily manipulated. Really, he's the reason they're still alive.
    • I just said that. They have to take her seriously because they'll lose the Valvraves if they don't.
• The revelation about information particles makes the rape scene of episode 10 confusing. If information particles are absorbed via sucking blood, how could sex give the same effect?
  • Perhaps exchange of body fluids in general will do it?
  • Or perhaps the body itself becomes an instrument to absorb Runes, and merely having a part of the body inside another's (ie, teeth or a penis) will do the trick?
  • Remember that Saki is also a pilot and would also be able to absorb Runes. Sperm is DNA, and it's already been stated that DNA is considered a rune so in this case Saki is the one doing the rune gathering and Haruto is the source.
  • Word of God basically admitted that the rape was purely to increase the drama.
• So apparently, in the future, there's no such thing as special effects. Seriously, it would not take much to say that the Dorsians are faking it. The environment was under their complete control.
  • It doesn't matter because episode 12 showed that the ARUS President was in league with the Magius and already knew about the Kamitsuki. He was either already in on the plan, or he saw the writing on the wall and knew what the Magius wanted him to do.
    • That doesn't change the fact that the public won't be happy about this. Trust me, word WILL get out about the slaughter. It won't take much for Akira to hack the school cameras and get the footage to prove their point. The president will be lucky if he gets out of this show impeached and imprisoned for war crimes.
    • Unfortunately, revealing the massacre will accomplish exactly jack squat if the public ends up supporting it anyway. As far as they know, New JIOR was building an army of inhuman monsters, and ARUS was the savior who exterminated them and saved humanity. Sure, there may be those who question the validity of ARUS claims, but from what we've seen the majority of the general public was in favor of killing them all.
    • Well, after the counter-reveal, the Magius tried to use the "it was photoshopped" line to explain the Fuhrer. It didn't work.
• How could T. M. Revolution collaborate with Nana Mizuki to sing the OP songs? Isn't that the former is from Sony Music and the latter from is King Records?
• The ending leaves one big question unanswered: so we have a cooperative society of both humans and (heavily implied) Magius (minus the Council of 101), and the Valvrave pilots are still alive centuries later and view their status as a blessing now. The problem is: Rune consumption. Are the Magius still eating humans to maintain their lives? And what has stopped the Valvraves from consuming their pilots' memories? The only way the happy future makes sense is if they found some alternate, abundant source of Runes for the Magius and Valvraves to feed on, but there's no indication that this is the case.
  • Speaking of that, why did none of the other pilots seem to suffer Haruto's fate? Was it because only his Valvrave had the ravenous loli AI inside it, or did they just not use theirs to the same degree? Haruto seems to be the only one we see going crazy and biting people so does that mean his is the only one that is powered by it?
  • Haruto's powering ALL the Valvrave. When he was running on empty, they all went on empty. When he bit L-Elf to recharge, they all powered back up again.
  • Actually the whole series never informs us of any Magius beside the council of 101. In fact, considering how curiously tight-lipped the epilogue is about them, logical conclusion is that Magius were completely exterminated, and the co-existence part was only between the humans and transhumanized people such as module 77 students. And when Liselotte explained the Magius, she mentioned that there were not other sources of runes on earth at the time, but it can be seen that the third galactic empire has managed to develop technology far enough to find the alternative sources.