UFO Princess Valkyrie (r0) quickie-review

[treatment]

This is a region-0/hk-bootleg dvd-review. The anime hasn't been licensed in Region-1. It's currently +ACQ-30 for 3-discs/12-episodes. My copy is of AC.

Scores:

-- Art

[*] A : A pretty good Mahoromatic-esque character art here.

-- Video

[*] A : Colors are bright and vivid. Animation-level is standard.

here're some snapshots of

child Warukyure:

adult Warukiyure:

Warukyure and Katsuoto:

-- Audio

[*] A : good stereo mix

-- Voice-acting

[*] A : pretty good Kanon-esque vocals.

-- Subtitles

[*] B- : Fansub-quality, with some spelling-typos here and there in some episodes. Seems that Warukyure's and Haidori's were in translated Chinese-names ( Flower Akirei and Edla, respectively). Grammar structure gets a bit engrishy in some places. It's easily followable.

-- Story and Presentation

[*] A : The story is a sci-fi romantic/drama comedy.

-- Fanservice:

[*] B : There was a goodly amount of fanservice here being set in a public-bathhouse setting. Catgirls in maid-outfit. Naked human and anthropomorph girls. Lolicon-heavy.

-- Verdict:

[*] B : as long as you keep your lolicon-bias in check. Otherwise, it'll be a C-grade because of the lolicon-fantasy premise.

: This is a very interesting series, to say the least. It's chockfull of fanservice. It's lollicon-heavy with some pedophilia-vibe that the series acknowledged itself. Despite it all, the series is funny and engaging.

High-schooler Tokino Katsuto inherited and runs a public-bathhouse from his grandpa. He's managing it with his sister. He gets pretty much gets killed or mortally-injured in the first two episodes establishing the story. Warukiyure's the reason. She crashlanded her ship on the bathhouse and gets him killed/mortally-injured again while playing hide-and-seek. Warukiyure imparts to him part of her soul for him to survive. The consequence is that Warukiyure becomes a kid and Katsuto becomes her legal-guardian. Haidora's seems to be related to her and was fighting her until Akina (Katsuto's shinto-priestess childhood (girl)friend) put a spell on her and transform her into a child. It gets a little awkward, to say the least.

Beware: The critical misgivings I have for this series was Warukyure's character-premise of child/adult transformation. It's a little unsettling as it conveys pedophilia-fantasy, despite the innocent understanding/acceptance of high-schooler Katsuto as the main lead guy in the story. That stuff pretty much distracted me at first viewing while trying to enjoy the series as it pretty much got to my head of "WTF?! That was too blatant!".

Oh, well. I'm not sure if I'm being a little too overly critical of this series, even tho I enjoyed it. I just didnt appreciate the subtle implication of trying to justify lolita complex thru the Warukyure's transformation.

Despite that critical misgiving, the series is really enjoyable.

--treatment--

Edited September 29, 2003 by treatment