Val x Love

The best way I can describe Val x Love is this. This show wants to be a hentai, but fails at being a hentai; so it is not a hentai, even though it should be a hentai. That’s right, I honestly think this show would have been better as a hentai rather than the show we got instead. It’s a show that always feels like it’s scared to go all the way and only teases it. But that isn’t the only reason why I think this show is underwhelming and the bad kind of trashy.

Reason number 1: The show’s story feels completely forced. It ... felt like the show just contrived some way to justify why these girls are living with our main protagonist. So the reason being is that Odin sees our main protagonist Akustu Takuma as being the catalyst to allow his Valkyries to grow stronger and fight Akumas, daemons serving under Fenrir. This is about the only reason we get and it happens for less than a minute, in a flashback, at the end of the first episode. I can’t say really I’m convinced as it feels like the show didn’t care about explaining and just wanted to get to the juicy harem bits. But the reason just feels weak and there isn’t enough justification. It just happens and we are just meant to accept it.

Reason number 2: I can’t say I like the main protagonist Takuma. I get that with Takuma, they were trying to go with a gentle giant character. Someone who looks scary but has a kind heart but due to his social anxiety he comes across as intimidating. I’m fine with that. But when you are surrounded by girls that want to be with him, then I can’t really feel sympathy for him because he has plenty of people that care for him and talk to. So they try to play it off as comedic but for me at least, it comes across as flat.

Reason number 3: The animation is flat. For a show that is also trying to be a shounen series, this is a bad thing if the action you are portraying feels uninspired and lazy. It uses the more cheap tactics like still images and constantly cutting away to break the pacing. So they just come across as flat. Then there is the show’s censorship. Now it does do the usual censorship like hair covering the breasts but that is when they actually put effort into the censorship. The show does an inconsistent job of censorship. In a shower scene, they do a poor job when comes to using another tactic, steam, to cover the private parts as there was barely any steam; so they just don’t bother animating anything there, private or not. Now good censorship leaves the viewer using their imagination to think what’s beyond there but not having anything there leaves the scene feeling...flaccid. And you don’t want a scene like that come across as flaccid.

Honestly, the whole show has come across as flaccid. I can’t say I personally feel any sense of arousement or being humoured when watching this show even though the show tries to do that. I heard that the show was censored heavily compared to the original material which is fine if you do it right, which they don’t. I honestly would say that you should skip or drop this show. There really isn’t anything to keep you watching or to get you to watch. I will probably drop this show not long after I post this review as I already have four other shows on Saturday to watch that are more interesting than this show and I will probably be less arsed to watch this show as time goes on.

First impression
Story: 2/10
Feels forced and contrived to get invested into
Characters: 2/10
I can’t feel sympathy for the MC and the harem is rather flat and stereotypical with little charm
Animation: 2/10
Flat and poor censorship in some areas leaves me underwhelmed.
Sound: 1/10
So forgettable and flat that I don’t even bother mentioning it till now.
My Personal enjoyment: 1/10
Bored and flaccid leaves me heavily tempted to drop this show.

Overall score 1.6/10 Recommendation: Don’t f**king bother

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 into ... the 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.

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 and ... in 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 always question myself every single time when we get such shows like this that cross the line between borderline ecchi and hentai, not to mention if it includes a possible harem. For the most part, when these materials are solicited according to how authors wanted it to be, the result always tends to wayward on the safe side while being enjoyable in its own regard (e.g. Monster Musume, How Not to Summon a Demon Lord etc). That however, is NOT the case for Val x Love here, the amount of disgust that this show holds is enough to question my sanity if the show ... wants to execute the downright full-on hentai like the manga, or at the very least, being a tease about it and just scratch the surface. What a wimp...

Starting with the story, it's some ancient Norse mythology about 9 same-household name girls chosen to be Valkyries from the land of Valhalla, whom their father god Odin has ordained them to cease Fenrir's evil and the summoned Akumas (demons) within the earthly world, and the supposedly "tree of life" Einherjar (which is male MC Takuma Akutsu) is there as means of "thirsty bloodlust fuel" to not just be a catalyst for the Valkyries to power up, but for majority of the time, being a seductive harem magnet...just because. And we all know that shows like this just drives us off the hook, as that is being used blatantly for plot convenience rather than being a major factor in driving even bad storytelling worth investing into.

And the problems just get more worse, starting with the character cast. Especially MC Takuma Akutsu himself, as being a big-buff human with a demonic face but a kind heart, it's easy to judge him on face value that due to his social anxiety, he wouldn't maintain a straight face and tend to hide away in the background. This kind of character, we all have seen an ounce of it before. The damning indictment is to send the 9 girls (not to mention they're all blood-related sisters), part of the same household onto him, as if discounting that these are the ONLY ones needed to quench his frightened heart, compared to the numerous school classmates and teachers readily available within reach. Trust me, I've tried many times to compensate "character development" for fapping fetish, and that almost works instantly every time. And comedy, you say? There ain't any of that sorts of it lying in here, that's for sure. The 9 Saotome girls, each unique and different in their own way, boobs big or small, are still subject to Takuma's groping hands to feel and "inject" the various Val x Love tasks (like as if I didn't know it was almost like a ripoff from Date A Live, only that the latter does it way better and less obnoxious).

The problems don't end there, OH NO. As expected of Hoods Entertainment in their ever increasing mediocrity of shows, the visuals and animation are downright abysmal, there's no redeeming quality on it, especially on scenes where there's full-on nudity that's meant to be experienced like hentai shorts, but just with bad "light-source-shade" and "steamy" censorship on both the covering up of breasts nipples and private parts. And don't ever you say you never watched hentai before, when you know that the full experience we should've got ended up being a worrisome waste of fap material. Not to mention the flatness in the action scenes, it was exactly as advertised from the get-go with the PV(s), to put it simply, horrendous and unwatchable.

IMO the only thing worth talking about is the music, and that's not even worth the saving grace either. The OST (the OP and ED rather) is catchy to me, but that even gets old fast, not to mention the cringeworthy background music that is chock full of the expressions of comedic lust. I'd appreciate the Technoboys Pulcraft Green-Fund for helping out with the various versions of the Saotome girls' ED, but that's the best I can say the good about this show overall in my honest opinion.

All in all, this show isn't just worth your time, but shouldn't be worth a single prick of consideration. When life gives you lemons, Val x Love isn't the solution. Just avoid this shitshow and stay far, far away from this one.

I dropped this show on 4th episode because is just bad. They introduce you not 3 not 4, not 5 but fucking damn 11 characters on first episodes plus one bad guy that works for another bad guy... Did they said that it was good to introduce characetrs little by little!? hold my bear!.

The art is ok-ish, the sound track non existan, the characters boring stereotypes the only good thing of the show is the main character... and is not even that good.

The story has some kind of potential but for me is just a boring show, non explaining anything about the world or whatever ... just like I'm odin, here have my 9 daughters and have fun with them and fightning some kind of demon... which they don't do because there is no fucking fight which is ok.

So if you want fan service... you don't have any... well a bit on 4th episode, surely is going to go that way. If you like that kind of anime it's maybe ok for you, if you like some decent anime, just stay far awy from this one, seriously, is even worst that to love.ru and masou gakuen hxh... and I thought I wouldn't find anything worst than masou gakuen hxh...

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 any ... further 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!!!!

Val x Love is about the ecchi and thats it.

The story is almost inexistent.

Even if you are about to watch this anime for the ecchi, you will probably get tired of it as i did. There was a lot of times that i was about to drop. This because ecchi without the story just doesnt work for me. There are hentais with better story than this anime.

The thing is that the animation is good, the voices are good. If they had put more effort in the story this anime could be ao much better. Its a waste...

Would i recommend this anime? No

I had read the manga. Basically it follow a similar premise to "Sekirei" in that the heroine need the affection of the Protag to get stronger. Problem is the protag has the face of a downgraded Fire Brigade protag and timid personality of a beta male doormat, a cringey combination. In his defense he has a bit of a character growth after about twenty chapter in, not that much growth though.

I give the manga a score of generous 6/10.

It was nothing special, but it wasn't bad enough to had me dropped it. I heard that it got an anime and figured, "Hey let's go and ... take a look, it will become a decent fanservice show at least."

Well I was wrong.

I dropped the anime in three episodes... I need to power through just to watch 3 episodes and you know what? it's not even worth it. The fanservice was meh, the art was average, there are no moment that makes you think that it's worth to be watch again.

Conclusion: Go read the manga if you are really bored, go watch the anime when you are in a coma.

This is hentai without showing the actual sexual stuff. The characters for the most part have nice designs and some potential, but none of it reached because of the terrible plot for this show. I don't like the story whatsoever. If the story/plot of the show could be changed while keeping the characters then it might have been a decent or average anime. However, the plot is such an important aspect of anime that it is not even anywhere near decent or fun to watch.

I found myself skipping a lot of the scenes because of how boring and poorly written the story was. Let me ... tell you, I never skip anime scenes. If I find animes to be boring or slow, I usually 1.5x or drop the anime. Because I found the characters to be somewhat likable, I ended up watching it, but the story made me want to just skip it. The animation is also pretty good for what the show is about.

As others have said, this show is too nsfw for casual viewers yet not nsfw enough for other viewers to enjoy. I think the worst part about this show is that it had the potential to be a (albeit kind of raunchy) decent romance because the plot they set up for the MC and the world isn't too bad. What holds it back is it being a harem (and one with WAY too many characters) and the sheer amount of fanservice every scene has (I left when the Valkyrie sisters decided to play tag where they have to snatch another's panties to win. Yeah, it's ... that kind of show...).

The MC is meek, very anxious, and supposed to be a gentle giant character. The Valkyries are sent to the MC to help him save the world; they are fueled by love and need to do intimate acts with the MC to level them up and fight monsters. If this show only had one Valkyrie to pair with the MC instead of nine, I think there would be a lot of room for character growth. Instead, each girl has a stereotypical personality and the only growth they get is that they eventually level up with the MC.

Also, the animation is dreadful. I honestly started this show because I thought the MC was cute, but between the stilted animation and how he's drawn in a chibi style 75% of the time, it's distractingly obvious that not a lot of care was put into this show.

If you're looking for something with a storyline done before in a different setting, and happy to skip out on a decent storyline, this could be for you. It uses the same sort of plot as Hybrid Heart and can be found the derivative of others as it tries to combine leveling up of isekai, with the ecchi for a cheap thrill.

The stories are about a guy who chose to be the lover of 9 valkyries, and you worry at first when you see it as some are pre-pubescent and you think, how far is this going to be pushed. But ... the FBI shouldn't be raiding you for watching it. It uses the older sisters to try and build up a forced physical and emotional relationship, with your typical guy who doesn't have a care in the world for girls or people.

We get the typical tropey discomfort of the forced fumbling around and uncomfortable situations you're supposed to laugh, or aww at. Personally, I sighed at how badly written it seemed.

The concept is simple, fall in love with the scary-looking guy, be molested, or eventually worse and you will level up. You will have to continue this even when feeling used and abused as the show explains through people's actions.

The fact is they go along with most of it, and he grows more comfortable as things go on, with the idea is ok to be felt up, etc, to save the world even if the reality is, he just wants to study.

I honestly think would be better off pushing this as hentai, as I never understood ecchi that doesn't show nipples when you can see clearly boobs etc, it pushes the fan service that hard especially with 2 of the girls undeveloped as if young teens. The story is derivative, poor at best, and is your typical hopeless loser, gets the girls ambition as a story. The art is mediocre to average at best, and if your in it for ecchi and fan service, you will like it. Sounds not the greatest for setting the mood but it is what it is. Overall it's watchable, but will never be a masterpiece

After watching for the first few episodes, I can confidently say that this anime is basically softcore version of Testament Sister of New Devil and Hybrid × Heart Magias Academy Ataraxia. Both of the anime that I mentioned above are bolder than this anime, so I personally enjoy that more than this anime.

For example, in this anime by doing kissing already can make the heroines more powerful, compared to HxH Academy Ataraxia where the heroine must be in climax to get more powerful.

If you enjoy that kind of anime where the heroines must power up by doing ecchi things with the MC, I recommended ... it. But if you don't, please don't bother watching it.