"Who dealt this mess?" That's the traditional lament of the card player looking at a lousy hand.

I just rewatched UFO Princess Valkyrie 3, the six episode series that didn't fulfill the promise of the second series. Alas.

There are all kinds of things wrong with this series, things that prevent it from being great. It's a fan service comedy, but that's a legitimate genre and it's possible to do that well. (See Hand Maid May.) You can tell good stories about good characters at the same time as you focus on the girls' tits in your art. Alas, this one didn't. It does plenty of focusing; that part's fine. It's the "tell good stories" part that's lacking.

One of the big problems with UFOPV is that Valkyrie is nine kinds of crazy. In an 8-card princess deck of wild cards, she's the strangest of the lot. Considering how strange most of the others are, that's really saying something.

She's even crazier than Chorus is at the beginning of the second series. And unlike Chorus, Valkyrie never gets her act together. Once the outside influence that was driving Chorus crazy was removed, Chorus really recovered. One of the pleasures of the third series is seeing how much better Chorus was doing. But through four series and a special, Valkyrie never really does.

UFOPV is for the most part a farce, and it's hard to tell a sensitive love story against a farcical background. The atmosphere is not conducive. One of the reasons the second series was the best of them all is that the farcical elements were toned down in favor of action-adventure, which is much more conducive to romance.

It took me a long time to really figure out the reason the series fails. It isn't because of Valkyrie; she's the second biggest reason. The problem is Kazuto. In a farce you need a sane one in the middle, around whom all the craziness circulates. The island in the storm, the anchor in the maelstrom, in a harem farce is usually the guy in the middle.

But he needs to be memorable, likable, believable as a character. He needs to be strong. He needs to know himself, believe in himself -- and the audience needs to know him and believe in him.

Kazuto isn't like that. He's a cipher. Kazuto doesn't have any character. After watching him all this time, I don't know what he's like. I don't know what he wants. Kazuto isn't a person, he's a trophy. He's a symbol.

So he doesn't serve that vital role of sane-man-in-the-middle, and without that the farce blows free of its moorings and crashes.

Yet the show is far from being a total failure. We're not talking Girls Bravo bad, let alone Eiken bad. Most of the characters in UFOPV are memorable and many are sympathetic. The women are gorgeous. And a lot of the stories are sweet and fun, while others are laugh-out-loud funny. I defy anyone to not grin while watching the first Fam episode (ep 1 of UFOPV3) when the meganekko army faces the nekomimi army with its giant cat tank.

With all its flaws, I like this series. And there has been something about it that has been itching me all this time. I think I've finally figured out what it is.

I've been watching a show made by an anime development team who are better than the material they're trying to adapt. In the cracks, and around the edges, where they have some freedom beyond the story handed them from the manga, they've managed to transcend their original material, and done some really good stuff.

I wish I could find someone who's read the manga. I'd like to ask them some questions about it. I'd be willing to bet money that Marduke and Murrenbach aren't in it. I bet those two were created by the anime team -- because those two guys plus Shiro have some of the best scenes in the series.

They get the best scene in the 6th ep of UFOPV3. The wedding is on, and there's a reception being held in a fancy floating chapel. Shiro, Marduke, and Murrenbach are invited, honored guests. And damned right, too: Shiro is family. Marduke and Murrenbach helped save Valhalla, the entire planet, at the end of the second series and they didn't even ask for pay. They went because their friend Kazuto was in trouble, and because their friend Shiro was going, and because men-of-action like Marduke and Murrenbach do not stand and watch when something big like this is going down.

So the three of them are honored guests. Their cab drops them off, and they swagger into the reception. They're bad-asses and they know they're bad-asses and they're proud of it. They're there at their friend's wedding and they're going to get drunk and have a good time. Nesty, admiral of the Valhalla fleet (and the 8th princess) drinks with them. Other naval officers whisper about them in awe, because all three of them have big-time reps.

And then Arseila the pirate shows up, and it turns out that she and Marduke are "old friends". It's a wonderful scene, funny and touching at the same time. I love those guys; they're the best thing in the series.

Was that scene in the manga? I bet not, because I bet that Marduke wasn't.

When the director is able to get the camera away from Valkyrie and Kazuto, the show is at its best. That's been the case all along. The best episodes in all of the series were the ones where Kazuto and Valkyrie have had the least amount of screen time. Which indicates a fundamental pathology in the original source material

My favorite episode of the third series is ep 4, which is about Raine. About Raine three times, in fact. It's really neat. It's sweet and touching. Valkyrie and Kazuto are in it for about 30 seconds.

When the camera is on Valkyrie and she's being angsty, that's when the series is at its worst. That's why ep 5 is my least favorite. It's almost painful to watch, but not in a good way. It's painful that I can't reach into the screen and whack Valkyrie with a clue bat.

That core part of the story, which must have come from the manga, is the worst part of the series. It's all around the edges, in places where the director got to add stuff to pad the stories out, where the quality shines through. This show is a lump of mud wrapped in gilt foil, delivered in a box made of silk.

And I think it must be the mangaka's fault. The name is Kaishaku. His other creations, which have made it onto the small screen? As card players also say, read 'em and weep:

Kannaduki no Miko
Kagihime Monogatari - Eikyuu Alice Rondo
Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora
Magical Nyan Nyan Taruto
Steel Angel Kurumi

Good Lord. The only one of those I've seen is Kurumi, and, man, was it bad. But just from the description of the others I can tell that they mostly sucked too.

Kagihimi Monogatari? Bunny girl warriors battle to recover pages from a lost magical book, the third Lewis Carroll book about Alice.

Kannaduki no Miko? 2 mikos and a mecha. You can't be serious.

And Steel Angel Kurumi? A complete train wreck.

It has to be the mangaka's fault. The two core characters in UFO Princess Valkyrie are the most repulsive (well, except for Inarba, who deserves tar-and-feathering). The further out you get in the peripheral characters, the better and more interesting they are (e.g. Raine, Marduke, and even Fam).

Sometimes when an anime is adapted from a manga, the anime team sees the fundamental weakness of the story and characters they've been handed and make wholesale changes. They should have done that for this series -- but I bet they didn't.

UPDATE: I've long had the suspicion that the reason Shiro was living in Kazuto's house is that he was hired by Mem to be a bodyguard for Valkyrie. I bet he's carrying lots of firepower (hidden somewhere about his person, and never mind where) and and can kick serious ass if he needs to. And I think even in the first series he was sending regular reports to Mem about what was going on in the household, which is why Mem didn't seem too surprised by any of it whenever she showed up. And I think that's why Sanada knew where to find Valkyrie in the first series.

If you think about it, Shiro would be a perfect choice. He's gutsy and resourceful and dedicated and I bet he's dangerous as hell in a fight, yet he looks like a plush toy and fits right in as Valkyrie's pet.

Does Kazuto know that about Shiro? My guess is that he does, or at least suspects. Otherwise, why would he let Shiro move in?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in at 10:44 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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