Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid is part of a media franchise that includes this anime and two games (one for PlayStation Vita and one for smartphones). The anime consists of 12 episodes. It follows Tokomone Mamori who was a girl that her parents were anguishing over when she was young as they discovered an irregularity in her body. The irregularity is known as the Armed Virus and she never understood the impact of it until she was sixteen. She was suddenly captured and left on a remote island, later known as Mermaid.
On the island, this is where we discover what exactly is the Armed Virus, and of which is the gimmick of the anime. Those with the virus are split into two groups, you can either be an Extar or a Liberator. The Liberator sexually arouses the Extar (and this is where all the ecchi and fan service comes in), who will transform into a weapon. The Liberator can then wield this weapon, with the process known as Drive.
Tokomone is an Extar and when she was left alone on the island, she eventually meets another girl, Shikishima Mirei, who becomes her Liberator. They are transported to a castle in the middle of the (huge) island. There, we see a whole society of Extars and Liberators, and how they currently function. Valkyrie Drive has a high focus on fan service, with both censored and uncensored versions. The censored version has massive light rays to cover up the characters and these can take up to half the screen. It would have been better to just tease it so you didn’t have to censor rather than doing it like this. In terms of the fan service content, there is no teasing. It goes straight into outright sexual erotic movements and it is easy to see why it is banned in some countries.
Not surprisingly, the anime has a near exclusive cast of female characters. The characters also have shallow reasons for falling in love with each other upon first sight. It feels it is pandering too much to its perceived target audience but lacking the substance to hold it all together. As the anime goes on, you see that the whole Drive process is more and more inefficient. As the partner spends time to arouse the other in order to transform, the opponent just stands there waiting for them to finish. It is impractical and hard to believe that it can be feasible when speed is of the essence.
By the time the halfway mark comes, the plot still feels like it is going nowhere. It goes through day-to-day activities of the characters. The island is split into two factions, with one controlling a lot of the power. However, all we see are festivals, some minor characters going on an offshoot or performing some small-time smuggling. There’s no clear objective that it is heading towards. The second half finally has the characters putting in some effort to start investigating the mystery behind Mermaid Island. In the span of two episodes, it manages to reveal more interesting tidbits and promising leads than half the season that preceded it. Naturally, Mamori is more powerful than she first appeared while Mirei is hiding some extra power herself.
If you keep in mind that this is a standalone anime with only twelve episodes, then a lot of the developments are predictable. The focus on certain characters means that their secrets will eventually be revealed. It’s interesting that Mamori gets less focus in the second half compared to several other characters.
As there seemed to be a lack of an objective, the ending isn’t that great either. A bigger battle happens and the antagonist comes out to face against the protagonists. Then after a clichéd amount of developments between the characters, we get a happy ending. There is no further closure than the tiny amount of explanation given to us about the Armed Virus. We don’t get anything more about why there are several artificial islands and what they are experimenting on. There are six shorts around one to three minutes long each that was included in the DVD / blu-ray releases. They all star a different character and shows off their sexual fantasies. They pretty much dial up the fan service much higher than the show, it’s a surprise that they even bother censoring the lower body with shadows.
Overall, Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid is an anime that’s dictated by its fan service. There is a bland plot where nothing much happens over the twelve episodes, leading to a boring and average product. Not that it had any promise but having it focus so much on slice-of-life stuff that’s been done so many times before doesn’t help its case.
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