UFO PRINCESS VALKYRIE SEASON 1
I got this series for free... and I STILL want my money back!
Review by: Craig "Evil Monkey in the Closet" Norris
Length: 12 episodes
Genre: Romantic comedy
Watched: 1-12, subbed
First, pour two cups of Ah! My Goddess into a large mixing bowl. Then add one cup of Sailor Moon or generic magical girl substitute, stirring till chunky. Next, add three tablespoons of Tenchi Muyo! for flavor, and two tablespoons of Hanaukyou Maid Tai for color. Mix until poorly disguised, and pour into large baking pan. Cook at 350 until half baked, then garnish with stupidity. Congratulations, you have successfully prepared UFO Princess Valkyrie. Serve warm. Or chilled. Or, preferably, not at all.
Plot synopsis: Kazuto Tokino is a high school student who undertakes the task of running the family business, a modest bath house. Things are going fairly well, until a flying saucer crashes into the bath house, killing Kazuto. In order to restore his life, the UFO’s passenger, Princess Valkyrie, gives him half of her soul. The exchange restores Kazuto to life, and causes Valkyrie to regress from adulthood to childhood, both physically and mentally. However, when danger threatens those close to her, one kiss from Kazuto transforms her back to her adult self, and restores all of her powers. And the craziness she attracts means that she’s going to need to be doing a lot of kissing!
Artwork: The artwork has a crisp, colorful, no-nonsense feel to it. Few of the character designs are particularly ornate, and those that are have had 
their outfits modeled off some other character. For instance, the outfits of Valkyrie and Hydra seemed to take several cues from Steel Angel Kurumi. As far as straight cell animation goes, it’s not too bad. The world the story takes place in does contain alien life forms, and most of their character designs are very unimaginative, with a good many amounting to no more than shapeless monochrome blobs. Overall the artwork comes across as okay, but one should not be expecting a delectable feast for the eyeballs upon watching this series.
Music: I’ve heard better. In fact, I’ve heard *much* better. Among the audio atrocities are several bastardized versions of Wagner’s classic Ride of the Valkyries. As Read Or Die showed us, it’s not a very good idea to mess with the classics. The rest of the soundtrack is fluffy and without substance, interminable to listen to more than once, and seems to be present only to fill in some ambient noise where innocuous conversation couldn’t be placed. In that respect, it fits in very well with the show as a whole, which lacks the same amount of substance.
Characters: The characters in the series seem to be very one-dimensional, and rely too much on playing off one or two stereotypical traits. I can’t say that there is even one likable character in the whole show; they range from flat and 
uninteresting to just plain obnoxious. Kazuto is wishy-washy and unmotivated, and fades away quickly into just another dork who winds up with interstellar chicks showing up at his house. He’s not quite as contemptible as Tenchi, but only because his character wasn’t developed nearly to that degree. Valkyrie can be just plain annoying at times. Her childlike form is totally obnoxious, and made me want to run out and get a vasectomy. Her adult form seems like an improvement at first, but we find out later on that she’s even more wishy-washy and unmotivated than Kazuto. Akina is a shrine maiden who has been friends with Kazuto since childhood, but she now harbors romantic feelings for him as well which, predictably, Kazuto is completely oblivious to. Akina has a much more take-charge personality, which makes me wonder what the hell she could possibly see in Kazuto. Rika is Kazuto’s younger sister, and she spends all of her time either helping in the bath house or studying for exams. She seems to be almost outrageously focused on her schoolwork, to the point where she has zero social life. Case in point, she turns down the romantic advances of the most popular kid in school because “exams are coming up.” Even Ami Mizuno wouldn’t do that! Next there’s Sanada, a catgirl from Valkyrie’s home planet that serves as the chief maid. She is tremendously loyal to Valkyrie, and as such is prone to gross misinterpretations and overreacting. Hydra is Valkyrie’s sister, and comes to earth to find her and take her back home, crashing into Akina’s house in the process. Because of her destructive tendencies, Akina is forced to use a shrine magic seal, which traps Hydra in a child’s body until it is released. 
Shiro acts as the family pet, enduring much overzealous “affection” from Valkyrie. Later on, we find out that he used to be some sort of space-pirate-bounty-hunter-pilot-mercenary-type-dealy-bobber. When the show is stolen by a white rabbit-dog-looking thing, you know the characters lack depth.
Plot: Unbearably contrived. The characters are placed in random situations just as an excuse for advancing the plot along. So most of the show amounts to nothing more than situation comedy, poorly executed at that. Most of the episodes have nothing to do with anything, and that, especially for a story arc that only lasts twelve episodes, is a very bad thing. The series itself is little more than filler and fluff, and whatever comedic or dramatic elements it tries to do have already been done better by other series. Indeed, for a series so heavily based around comedy, it is conspicuously lacking in laughs. There were a few parts that had me chuckle out loud, but I could easily count all those instances on one hand. Plus, the last episode was such a contrived copout that it had me cursing a blue streak. Incidentally, that’s the most emotion the show elicited from me during its entire run.
CHICKS!: This aspect of the show really pissed me off. This series boasted two curvy, luscious chicks who got the bulk of the screen time, and the opportunity was wasted by having them in child form! Valkyrie is a hellspawn of a child, but her mature form is very easy on the eyes. However, for personality reasons mentioned before, I’d have to pass on her. Now Hydra, on the other hand, is definitely a candidate for membership in my “love-nasium.” In the all too few times she is in her adult form, she is an absolute knockout, especially since her outfit is skintight from the waist up. She’s also got a fiery disposition, trying to pick up some of the emotional slack of her milquetoast sister. I particularly enjoyed the beach episode, when she transforms back into an adult, but her child-size bathing suit does not 
transform along with her. WHOA, NIPPLES AHOY! Speaking of transforming, the sequence for Valkyrie is very revealing, showing her totally naked a la Sailor Moon, but filling out to dimensions that would make the sailor senshi blush for modesty. Hydra’s transformation is similar, but she, unfortunately, is clothed. Akina is rather desirable, possessing possibly the most stable personality in the show. Her dimensions are much more modest than those of the princesses, but she makes up for it with sensibility and a few flashes of real emotion. Sanada is a catgirl. Normally I would just leave it at that and go back to leering at pictures of her, but she’s kind of mental. Whenever she feels Valkyrie’s happiness or safety might be compromised, she flips out on sprees that make crack addicts in rehab look timid by comparison. However, she did use advanced technology to transform several dozen human girls into catgirls, so I suppose I owe her one for that. Rika is cute in that bookish schoolgirl kind of way, but she’s so absorbed in her studies that she seems almost frigid. She doesn’t even blush, for goodness sake, and *all* schoolgirls blush! It’s a rule! As a whole, the chicks in the series were built from archetypes from other series, and not nearly to the same degree of success.
Overall: No matter how many times I think about it, I keep coming to the same conclusion: this series was a complete waste of my time. I just couldn’t get over how dumb it was, and the elements it stole from other, more successful series stuck out as such, and were horribly done, to boot. This is without a doubt one of the worst series I have ever had the displeasure of seeing, and not even the largest battalion of catgirls I have ever seen was able to save it. Don’t watch this series if you’re looking for anything of substance. And don’t bother watching it if you’re looking for a lot of cheap laughs. In fact, my advice to you is to not watch this series at all, and rest assured I shall spare myself from the second season. Hopefully UFO Princess Valkyrie won’t get licensed in the U.S. and we can all try to forget that it ever happened.
IN A NUTSHELL
+ Decent art
- Dumb characters
- Dumb music
- Dumb plot
- Just plain dumb
Rating: 2/10
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