Impression:

A lot of stuff happened in this episode. Things actually function the way you would expect them to in a city that is occupied and run by a bunch of high school kids. The governing body is composed of the student council, a few teachers, and the outspoken members of the group. I only added that last part because Shouko and Haruko seem to have quite a bit of say in the community. They seem to be doing alright at first. People are working together by taking up certain responsibilities like clearing rubble and doing laundry. However, you also have a bunch of kids messing with the grocery store and watching pornography in the theatre. Like I said, this is a community that is run by children. I had the very pressing question of how they were going to sustain themselves and it turns out that they are relying on donations in order to purchase supplies. That is an interesting concept, but there are quite a few issues with that. Especially when the rest of the world is kind of at war right now. I say world, but we are dealing with space. Things aren’t all cheery because they start to learn that things won’t always go smoothly. The atmospheric system has to work overtime in order to heat Module 77 and they end up shorting out the entire thing. There was a bad misuse of the electricity. Fixing it takes the efforts of Otamaya and Yamada. Obviously, when there is a crisis as bad as freezing to death because you can’t heat the colony, there will be frustration. Dissension amongst the students occurs, but things are alright once the lights come back on. Oh yeah, I skipped the singing. In fact, there is even a music video at the end. I am not joking. Let’s get to the next section already because it is going to be very important this time around.

I am glad that they didn’t forget about the whole destruction of part of the city thing.

Current Opinion of the Show:

I was really happy with this series for a little bit. When it comes to how they handled life as an independent entity, I am happy that it felt very natural. A makeshift governing body made up of school officials and people taking advantage of their freedom by doing stupid things is just typical. The only way to go wrong there would have been to go too inventive. In the same vein, it is good that they addressed the need for colony maintenance and gathering of supplies. They can’t function independently with ease. I really enjoyed Otamaya and Yamada getting more screen time. Otamaya may be creepy, but he was able to rise to the occasion and save everyone from freezing to death. Yamada definitely deserves a lot of credit. He seemed like your typical delinquent at first, but it is clear that he really cares about everyone.I even liked one of the Haruto scenes for once. At the end when he is checking out the dock with Rukino, he finally had a monster related line that wasn’t stupid. Not wanting anyone to go through what he did is a very natural line. On the other hand, this wouldn’t be Kakumeiki Valvrave if I wasn’t upset about a few things. The first thing that I didn’t like was the very sexist job distribution. The girls did the laundry and the boys were handling the rubble. That isn’t the worst thing in the world because making high school boys handle the heavy lifting isn’t the oddest thing in the world. What got to me was what happened when they had to fix the electrical systems for the colony. The girls were all huddled into a room talking about how they hope the guys are able to fix everything. It just exuded this whole helpless girl thing which seemed really bad to me. The girls are getting hysterical while the guys are the level-headed ones. Some of which are too afraid to get involved. That just rubbed me the wrong way. I am also very unhappy with all of the singing. It bothered me when they decided to distract the soldiers by singing to them, but what happened this time was even worse. Shouko sang Jingle Bells to calm everyone down. Stupid. In order to let everyone know that the kids are fine, they streamed a music video. Also, stupid. I know that parents want to know that the kids are safe, but did it have to be said through a stupid looking music video? I wish that this series took itself more seriously. It is actually good when it ditches the stupid shit. Finally, how are they getting all of those donations? The families are kind of living in fear during the Dorssian occupation. It is possible that people from ARUS are supplying the funds, but that seemed like a lot of cash. For the most part, I actually thought that this episode was a step in the right direction as far as the story goes. I think that if they can drop the singing and the sexism, then we may have something pretty special on our hands. Also, don’t write Haruto’s character so that he is the weakest of the bunch. Bring him up to the level of everyone else. I will not accept an excuse like he needs to be relatable. A character doesn’t have to be a bitch in order to be relatable. An internal struggle trying to live with the fact that you are no longer human is good enough. I guess the last thing that I can say is that I am really excited to see what happens with that hangar full of mechs.