Some good news (and not something you get to say often these days): an upper tier ecchi manga is getting an anime.
Here’s the basic plot Summary from the manga: High schooler Akutsu Takuma is one ugly motherfucker. Not just ugly… scary looking. As such he’s learned to accept a lonely life without friends. One day, Takuma is chosen to play a role in saving the world by Odin himself. Nine beautiful valkyries are sent to battle the forces of evil. Crucially, their powers are fueled by feelings of love, and seemingly it’s a love that only Odin’s chosen, Takuma, can supply.
While the premise sounds like Shinmai Maou no Testament or Masou Gakuen HxH, there is an important difference. Whereas in those two series the girls were empowered by feelings of lust, the girls of Val x Love are powered by feeling of love. This lends a warmer atmosphere to the series that is more inline with the likes of To Love-Ru or Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san. The character designs tend to reflect this as well, preferring to emphasize cuteness over raw sex appeal.
But make no mistake, the manga is jam packed with nudity and sexual situations, and it gets off to the races faster than To Love-Ru or Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san did.
Currently there are seven volumes of the manga, six of them have been compiled on this site. I have in my possession the seventh volume which released recently, so be on the lookout for an update soon.
As far as the production aspect goes we know almost nothing. But here is what we do know:
- An anime project for Val x Love has been greenlit. It’s going to happen.
- It will be a TV series. There is easily enough manga material to do a traditional 23 minute x 12 episode season if they want to.
- The website was created by Avex Entertainment, which is a little odd because they haven’t been associated with ecchi anime in 10 years.
- The manga has sold between 400,000 to 450,000 volumes so far, which is chump change compared to the most popular manga, but it was apparently impressive enough that every news site has made mention of this number.
Here’s a review of the stuff we don’t know: Who’s making it? When is it coming out? How many episodes? How long will those episodes be?
One thing I’ll speculate on. I remember reading somewhere earlier this year that Sunrise Beyond (formerly Xebec) was planning to announce new anime projects this summer. Val x Love fits perfectly into the modus operandi that Xebec had when choosing their ecchi projects (schmaltzy, likable characters, and ridiculous amounts of nudity). The production company for Val x Love could potentially be announced this summer, so the timing is somewhat interesting. Hopefully it’s not just wishful thinking on my part.
All I’m hoping for is a full proper season. Give me 12-13 episodes at 23 minutes each, and you have yourself a leading candidate for ecchi of the year with a series like this. I’ve said before that right now is a rough time for ecchi anime, but a great time for ecchi manga. If you made a list of the ten best ecchi manga running right now, Val x Love would probably make the list, so it’s really cool to see it get an anime.
I know people have asked me to make a “most eligible ecchi manga” list for the best ecchi manga candidates to not yet get an anime. I’ve got a couple of opinion based posts coming soon, including that one. Look forward to it!
