Val x Love

Date A Live: NORSE Edition Yeah right from this premise this harem anime felt much like an even raunchier Date A live but with Norse mythology (instead of Angels and Devils of Date A Live). But where the premise is interesting, there comes some elements that makes this anime rather mediocre right from the off and no it's not the fanservice, THAT is to be expected from a harem anime no the problem for LA becomes Takuma Akutsu voiced by Yuuya Hirose, as he's nicknamed as a demon as he looks extremely scary but he's the typical gentle giant and is focused more on study andin a ways he's the male version of the shy girl just with the scary aspects plastered in. The problem with him as unique of a main protagonist he is...at the start he's extremely hesitant to go into battle and generally useless and in the harem aspect, he's of course expectedly scared and nervous ALL THE TIME and under misunderstandings screeches the harem to a crawl. Of course he does improve over time but it's a slow crawl much like Takuma's plot and harem pacing. It's the harem he gets that is more interesting that of the Saotome sisters all having a certain Valkyrie aspect to them and of course they grow more powerful the more "love" Takuma gives out to them, with the harem being really focused on the romance of Natsuki voiced by Kaede Hondo and the typical tsundere, but LA's favourite character was Itsuyo voiced by Ai Kakuma because she's the President of the student body, femme fatale status and is a dadcon (in which her dad is ODIN). Mutsumi and Futaba gets some screentime to them especially in battle and prominence as the anime went along with Ichika voiced by Yumi Uchiyama on the background not doing the harem crap and is in the background helping Takuma and his harem. Shino and Kururi gets the shaft and yeah rather not get into Kururi in terms of the harem because loli but thankfully she's usually the setup to the more active harem members. The fanservice of the anime is rather typically risque mainly in the fact of the villains and the "akuma" leading the characters to risque and fanservicey moments (but they also get to fanservicey situations all in their won as well), as the akuma have "grabby hands" and you know where to go from there. While the more racy moments, well the fanservice only leads to nudity but not showing it, so it never leads to anything R18 and even then it's obviously implied if the camera looks away per say. In all the fanservice is risque for the most part but safe in some areas because TV broadcast standards and all. The animation done by Hoods Entertainment is rather meh, with consistent chibified comical moments even in it's battles and yeah since this is a fanservicey harem anime....censorship takes place. Really the character designs are distinct and good in a sense, it's when they go full chibified for NO reason at times that puts it's animation off at times, as for the battles it's ehhh ok, few beam spams or depending on the Valkyrie's power it goes from great to grabby grabby fanservicey...ehh the battles are alright but the character designs were somewhat squandered with the chibiness it has and sure maybe it's from the source material but even then. The voice cast was at the very least decent, from Ai Kakuma, Yumi Hara, Yumi Uchiyama, rina Hidaka, Misaki Kuno and Kaede Hondo. Yumi Uchiyama was pretty great doing the entire tsundere thing straight down the middle, while Kaede Hondo's Natsuki was based tsundere soo ehhhhhhhhhh. LA went for MVP as Ai Kakuma due to LA liking Itsuyo as a result. As a defence for Takuma, he DOES develop as a character, but due to his running gag being sooo shy yet "scary" becomes old VERY quickly but LA will give him A little bit of grace by saying he does develop as a main protagonist and is a bit unique in a sense, BUT with the typical harem setup, the HAREM has more investment BUT with having a rather meh main protagonist that needs ALOT of time to get on his own (round past halfway)...it's kinda hard to gain interest in this anime even in it's harem as the anime tries to push Natsuki ALOT while giving the sisters when they are needed (thus forever the support, but only until the plot said so). Moving away from characterization, where Val x Love DOES succeed in is it's world building, mainly taking things from Norse mythology and taking it as it's own in Val x Love through it's characters and what all this links to Takuma, the other would be that in it's comical situations though it's mostly the same running gag or just played for fanservice, the fanservice isn't THAT bad, if the censorship wasn't in the way but eh. Val x Love is a slow crawl of a fanservicey anime with the problem of Takuma but for a fanservicey harem anime it's ehhhh it's not the worse harem fanservicey anime LA has seen, Val x Love's detriment comes in as it's just "meh" even with it's flaws and in being a fanservicey anime, you might think LA doesn't like the fanservice in the anime, but Val x Love has an even worse problem with it's elements of it's characters and plot from "going all out" as it were. LA had mixed problems with Takuma for being a rather unique main protagonist for a fanservice harem anime BUT where he is set in as well as the harem and anime itself pushing Natsuki and Takuma any way possible DOES NOT HELP in the characterization and harem aspect respectively.

I don't know what anyone else could have expected from this show, of course it's terrible. But this is a kind of terrible that I find to be very appealing to watch at times. There's something about these battle harems that I find really enjoyable, but it's really hard to put my finger on what precisely it is. Maybe it's the base level titillation from the abundance of fan service. it could be the absurd and roundabout ways shows like these justify their fan service. Perhaps it's because of it's simple portrayals of characters.There's also the paper thin plot it has until it falls intothe deep end and simply becomes a joke. Or just a culmination of all the above which this show more or less is. Val x Love is kind of a monster of the week type of show with a thin coating of Norse mythology hence the Val in the title standing for Valkyries. Valkyries being the nine girls, each on fitting into a specific archetype such as the loli, kuudere, himedere, etc etc. Although the blonde haired tsundere also facilities as being the "main girl". All bounded to the main male protagonist who they must form a special/romantic bond with in order to level up like some video game character, and be more capable to fight the enemy and prevent Ragnarok(I think). The way that they bond is usually for the most part risque and mostly serve as the fan service of the show. Doing actions such as kissing, groping, bathing together, or just spending time together which also usually devolves into more fan service. I'm not sure if there's a word to describe the kind of person that characters like the protagonist are. He's such a heavily flawed in so many ways that it comes off more artificial rather than believable. He has a somewhat scary looking physique but is mostly a wimp who is scared of human interaction. The fact that he has to have intimate contact with the Valkyries exacerbates it. The only thing he is noticeably good at is studying, and even then the slightest bit of pressure can make him panic and fail exams. It’s all done so purposeful to the point of contrivance for the purpose of having easy character development. But that’s the thing, it’s so easy that it’s down right predictable from the very first episodes. Not to mention that if they weren’t to do that, all that would be left is a rather irritating character. The antagonists aren’t really that note worthy aside that they are also taken from parts of Norse mythology as well. I guess it's because the conflicts are more centered around the main protagonist sucking it up and kissing one of his harem in order for them to fight. Of course from the last paragraph it’s less of a conflict and more of an inevitable amount of time. There’s probably a lot I could say about the production value, but if you know what you’re getting into when it comes to the story and characters. You probably know what you are getting into when it comes to the visuals and audio. That is to say, it is serviceable for what it is. And that’s something that can also be said about the entirety of the show. It’s a serviceable bad show that isn’t a total joke, but enough that it can be seen in an ironically enjoyable light.

Well, well, well only a handful of people made a review of this kind of harem themed anime, and quite frankly only a few gave this a high score, tsk tsk tsk welp that's their opinion, cu'z the bottom line there wasn't any love for this anime and who can't blame them???? When you have something like this where the story plot was simply all over the place and as one commentator has it in the forum the main character was the worse main character ever. Also, this anime was just too focus on the eye candy and ecchi to simply sell, so without anyfurther adieu, here were my ratings for this shitty anime: Story-Poor 3: like I've said the story plot of this anime was simply allover the place,in fact the story itself was more on the weird relationship of the lousy main character with his Valkyrie harem. Art-Very Good 8: Basically this was the only gold lining of this anime, the fan services and some nearly there quasi hentai. Sound-Fair 6: No Comment here. Character- Poor 3: It was said that Takuma Akutsu the Einherjar was basically the worse main character ever , and they're totally right cu'z he's one part pussy and 2 parts pathetic and 3 parts stupid, basically his character was a forced one where a pathetic guy like him becomes this Einherjar or should I say the one who's to be them Valkyries lover / sexual predator as a way of boosting their powers to fight against them demons..... TBH, only Natsuki and Futaba were the ones that he had some-kind of naked skinship with... the rest , well he only molested them except Kururi and Yakumo. The Saotome sister, well, they're the Valkyries, that for some reason started to invited themselves into Takuma's house and much to the guy, his life was never the same again as he also got involved in their business of dealing with them demons whom were out to destroy the world. As for them antagonist them demons lead by Ur and Tohru Inukai was pretty much as pathetic as the protagonist given that their roles as baddies were limited to simply being do lame bad things that even with the addition of Skud and Roskova was just lame that their action were just too predictable to say the least and the bad part was they got away. Enjoyment-Poor 3: frankly only those who couldn't get enough of harem themed anime can enjoy this to it fullest, frankly to me this was more of a chore than anything else. Overall- Pathetic 1: Season 2 anyone????? IMAO , don't even think about it BITCH!!!!

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