UFO Princess Valkyrie
"It's no guess. It's for reals."
—Spottenheim
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UFO Princess Valkyrie is an Anime about magical princesses from outer space. One of said princesses, namely Valkyrie, lands her spacecraft on the Tokino Bath House, killing its current manager, the teenage Kazuto Tokino. So in order to save his life, Valkyrie gives him half her soul. Thus the obviously adult Valkyrie is transformed into a young girl who looks and acts like a child.
Valkyrie and her fellow princesses have magical powers. So whenever Kazuto and his crew encounter any problems, she is able to transform and protect him.
Aside from causing Kazuto and his sister Rika financial problems by damaging the bath house, Valkyrie has caused problems for her sister Hydra. Valkyrie ran away because she was supposed to marry a man she didn't love. Hydra, as the second oldest unmarried princess, is going to have to marry him if Valkyrie doesn't, so she goes to Earth and wreaks havoc trying to find Valkyrie. Eventually, she is stopped by Kazuto's shrine priestess neighbor and childhood friend, Akina Nanamura, who turns her into a little girl (like Valkyrie, but with her adult mind) so she is "easier to control". Also, Hydra crashed into Akina's shrine, and Akina keeps her around so she can "work off the damage".
Akina is also a childhood friend of Kazuto and has a secret crush on him, often putting her at odds with Valkyrie. So she and Hydra are sometimes partners in crime to cause problems for Kazuto and crew.
Later, Sanada, a catgirl maid of the royal family of Valhalla, the planet whence comes Valkyrie and Hydra, returns looking for Valkyrie. She is not shocked by Valkyrie's new appearance; in fact, she finds the new Valkyrie intolerably cute. Sanada takes her mission to protect Valkyrie to extreme lengths, including, for example, turning a bunch of ordinary girls who talk even indifferently to Kazuto, into mindless catgirl servants for the Tokino Bath House.
More crazy characters come along, including prima donna/diva/ditz Laine, Cloudcuckoolander Chorus, and the intolerably ruthless "older princesses".
The show is light (mostly) in nature and is kind of a slice of life show. There are four seasons, of varying length. The second season is more serious and dark than the others, mainly because of Valkyrie Ghost, a mysterious figure who appears to Kazuto.
This is a fun show to watch for its comedic elements, but Your Mileage May Vary. Additionally, it contains many instances of fanservice. (After all, it takes place in a bath house.)
Welcome to the crazy world of UFO Princess Valkyrie, where alien (though humanoid) princesses run wild and cause mass chaos among Earthlings.
Theme songs and insert songs are by Melocure.
- Absolute Cleavage: Nesty.
- Action Girl: Hydra.
- A-Cup Angst: Akina, while she isn't exactly flat, but she really feel intimidated by everyone else's "perfect" size busts. Mentioning them is also her Berserk Button.
- A Day in the Limelight: All the non-maincast princesses got one eventually. Rika also gets one in season one.
- Amazon Brigade: The Valhalla princesses.
- Ambiguously Brown: Hydra.
- Battle Butler: Miss Sanada.
- Beach Episode
- Big Eater: Laine. When her younger selves live at the bathhouse, the food bill triples.
- Bishonen: Kazuto...
- Bizarre Alien Biology
- Brainwashed/HappinessInSlavery: Catgirl servants. Pharm's Meganekko servants. Seriously, there aren't interplanetary weapons treaties against ray guns that transform ordinary women into slavishly loyal servants to a foreign power?
- Blind Without'Em: Laine (contact lenses version), Pharm.
- Brainy Brunette: Rika.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Laine.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Chorus seems to like doing this
- Breast Expansion: A scene in the second season where after Valkyrie makes a cookie bigger with magic. Just after that Hydra makes a joke about making Akina's breasts bigger. Guess what happens next. Good thing Akina wanted bigger breasts.
- Broken Bird: Valkyrie Ghost is a manifestion of this trope.
- The Captain: Nesty.
- Catgirl: Sanada, and her "servants".
- Chaste Hero: Kazuto.
- Cheerful Child: Valkyrie.
- The Chew Toy: Poor Spot, always the victim of Little Val.
- Chick Magnet: Kazuto.
- Chorus Girls: Abound. And not just the princesses.
- Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends: Averted. See First Girl Wins below (if you MUST know.)
- Cloudcuckoolander: Chorus.
- Colonel Badass: Marduke!
- Color Coded for Your Convenience: Valkyrie Ghost, as opposed to Valkyrie and Hydra.
- Cute Little Fangs: Sanada, Hydra, and Laine, also Pharm though you rarely see hers
- Dark Action Girl: Valkyrie Ghost.
- Deadpan Snarker: Rika, Hydra.
- The Ditz: Laine.
- Dreadful Musician: Akina, at least to Hydra
- Drives Like Crazy: Valkyrie, Hydra, and Pharm. But specifically, Laine. Who fortunately drives her motorcycle better than her saucer.
- Emotionless Girl: Chorus.
- Everyone Loves Blondes: Kazuto for Valkyrie.
- Evil Is Sexy: Valkyrie Ghost, as Hydra is quick to point out...
- Evil Twin: Valkyrie Ghost
- Expy: Look at Princess Inarba and just try to tell me she doesn't physically remind you of Belldandy.
- Fake Ultimate Hero: Parodied by Sanada's "Nekomimizukin" in the 3rd season.
- Fallen Hero: Valkyrie Ghost.
- Fan Service
- Femme Fatale: Valkyrie Ghost.
- Also Hydra at first.
- Fetish Fuel Station Attendant: Look at the cast of girls and take your pick.
- First Girl Wins: Subverted somewhat. Though she has apparently "lost" to Valkyrie, Akina, in the last episode, enters a wish letter that will be granted by magical properties of Valhalla. Three people make wishes, but her letter is the only one not destroyed by little Valkyrie.
- Fridge Horror: Sanada's Cat-Ear Gun. Several perfectly innocent girls fall victim to it, turning them into Catgirl Maids enslaved to Sanada and the Royal House of Valhalla. It's all fun, games, and blatant Fan Service in the show, but if you think about it a bit, those girls had their DNA rewritten and now function as unpaid, mind-controlled labor at the bathhouse. They still have their ordinary lives, surrounded by people who have no idea what happened to them and just think they're making a fashion-statement with their new ears, but at any time, they may be called away from their life to serve their true master. They have no choice in the matter. That's... kind of bad, isn't it?
- One episode actually addresses this, apparently most of the transformed girls had rather unhappy lives before they got zapped, being bored and/or lonely, but now have friends (each other), more interesting work (for an alien princess), and more confidence (apparently they gained natural enthusiasm as catgirls). It's probably a bit of an Author's Saving Throw Ass Pull, but it does show that it's a positive transition on the whole.
- Fridge Logic: Sooo... how many innocent Valhallan fighter pilots do you figure got killed as a part of the Secret Test of Character at the end of season one?
- Or what about all the civilians that would have been in the targeted area when Little Val accidentally turned on the weapons systems of Hydra's ship? The MST3K Mantra seems to be physical law in this series.
- Averted: The ADV release of the series on DVD included some World Notes from the creators about the series setting that mention Valhalla uses primarily machines for their military forces. Their fighters are specfically mentioned as using machine pilots. As for the town, must be like the Hulk franchise, everyone just gets really lucky.
- Fountain of Youth: In the form of bath beads.
- Friendship Moment: Laine and Keena/ and Chorus. Hydra and Akina, also.
- Furo Scene
- Fusion Dance: Akina and Hydra's "Akidra".
- Glasses Girl: Pharm and Rika.
- Great Offscreen War: Mar, Mur, and Spot fought in one.
- Harem Anime: Kazuto is surrounded by women. Whether they desire him or not is somewhat irrelevant (but quite a few do).
- Hollywood Cyborg: Chorus might be one.
- Hot for Student: Pharm.
- Hot Librarian: Pharm.
- Hot Springs Episode
- Hot Teacher: Pharm.
- Idiot Hair: Rika, who definitely does not reflect the implication.
- Fundamentally Female Cast
- Ironic Hell: Essentially, where Inarba sends a character if he/she has been bad. But only for a short time.
- Kick the Dog: Literally, seen with Little Val and Spot. Justified and averted because Children Are Innocent.
- Leitmotif: Everybody who has a transformation sequence. Also Chorus.
- Limited Wardrobe
- Little Miss Snarker: Little Hydra.
- Lolicon: Akina accuses Kazuto of being this when she first sees him with Little Val, but the whole thing is...well, complicated.
- Love Triangle: Kazuto, Valkyrie, Akina. Even Laine made this into a Love Square at first.
- Magic Wand: The titular character's Weapon of Choice.
- Magical Girl: Valkyrie, Hydra, Mehm...pretty much all the princesses.
- Magical Girlfriend: Valkyrie.
- Magic Pants: Valkyrie and Hydra. Their outfits seemingly able to accomodate the change in size during transformation. Also, little Valkyrie does not wear pants (just a skirt) while the adult one does.
- Meganekko: Pharm. Also something she is fond of...
- Mercury's Wings: The titular princesses all have these type of wings.
- Miko: Akina.
- Mono-Gender Monsters
- Moral Dissonance: Sanada, when one opens the fridge...
- Ms. Fanservice: Laine and Miss Sanada.
- Musical Episode
- Mysterious Past: How Spot came to be Valkyrie's pet.
- Nerds Are Sexy: Pharm takes this Up to Eleven and back again.
- Nice Guy: Kazuto.
- The Nicknamer: Rika, who calls Little Valkyrie "Valkyu".
- Also Little Valkyrie who calls people by cute variations of their names, like "Hydie" for Hydra and "Chorie" for Chorus.
- Non-Action Guy: Kazuto...oh boy.
- Not Blood Siblings: The eight princesses of Valhalla are referred to as sisters due to tradition rather then any blood relation.
- Not Himself: Used ironically, as the past versions of Laine see a marked difference in the character of their future self.
- Odd Friendship: Akina and Hydra.
- Official Couple: Kazuto and Valkyrie.
- Onee-Sama: Valkyrie to Hydra. Though this often seems cast aside as a joke or a phase Hydra went through, even though Hydra doesn't seem to prefer the male gender, though, besides Kazuto, there isn't much choice. Also, Valkyrie to Laine, in a flashback episode.
- The One Guy: Really, other than the little pet guys, Kazuto is the only major, or even recurring, male in the show.
- Only Sane Man: Kazuto and Spot usually share this role.
- Only Sane Woman: Rika.
- OVA: Season One's "Special Series' Highlights Episode" and "UFO Princess Valkyrie: SPECIAL - Bridal Training"
- All of "UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie 3"'s "About the Relationship Between Girls and Glasses" season.
- "Banquet of Time, Dreams, and Galaxies" 's two episodes.
- Panty Shot
- Power of Friendship: Parodied, because Akina and Hydra have to actually become mad at each other in order to activate their Fusion Dance, and separate when they get along again.
- Pretty in Mink
- Religion Is Magic: Priestess Akina.
- "Ride of the Valkyries": A rather unique verson of it is often used during the series.
- Romantic Comedy
- Rousseau Was Right: Arguably, the tragedy of Valkyrie Ghost.
- Sealed Natural Disaster in A Duel: The Blizzard of Time, and four lost princesses of Valhalla.
- Shotacon: Akina, when she saw the de-aged Kazuto as a result of the aforementioned Fountain of Youth
- Shout-Out Chorus spends an entire episode claiming something is coming to destroy the Earth, among the things she claims it to be are four White Comets, the Star of Death, and Unicron.
- Less blatantly, the princesses of Valhalla draw their power from Valhalla's moons.
- Shrines and Temples: The Nanamura shrine.
- Small Girl, Big Gun: Sanada and the Catgirl ray gun.
- The Snark Knight: Rika.
- Space Pirates
- Stalker with a Crush: Laine.
- Star-Crossed Lovers
- Straight Man: Rika, to everyone else, and is probably the borderline Only Sane Man.
- Strange Girl: Chorus. She thinks she's a robot and has also thought she is an alien. (Well, technically she's right about the alien part.)
- Talkative Loon: Chorus.
- Talking Animal: Mar, Mur, Spot.
- Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Valkyrie, back in her academy days.
- Hydra and Nesty also.
- Team Pet: Spot.
- Third Person Person: Little Valkyrie.
- Time and Relative Dimensions In Space: The whole Laine thing. At first it appears to be random (type 3), but eventually she figures out how it works and is able to control it (type 4).
- Time Travel: Laine, Laine, and Laine.
- Token Loli: Valkyrie and Hydra fit this trope unless they do their transformations.
- Transformation Sequence: Valkyrie, Hydra, Valkyrie Ghost, Laine, Sanada!
- Troll: Chorus, may or may not be intentional.
- Troubled but Cute: A lot of the characters fall under this, actually.
- Twelve-Episode Anime
- Unlucky Childhood Friend: Akina.
- Unwanted Harem
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Laine's ability
- Morphic Resonance: While she is a capable Voice Changeling too, the two parts of hers she can't possibly modify are her breasts (she is somewhat well endowed) and her antennae thing which is also her 'weak point' since pulling it means she will revert back. These are the only thing that can give away her disguise, especially when she try to put on a disguise as a male character.
- Waif Prophet: Chorus. Even though most of what she says is nonsense, she is somehow able to predict the 12 Moons of Valhalla arc.
- Whole-Episode Flashback
- World of Buxom: Out of the eight princesses, Chorus is the only one who isn't extremely ample, and that's because despite her height, she's actually one of the youngest if not the youngest of the princesses.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Hydra and Chorus.