OVA
Description
Hydra, also known as Princess Hydra, is one of the eight princesses of the planet Valhalla and the younger sister of Princess Valkyrie. Her arrival on Earth is driven by a personal and urgent motivation: she chases Valkyrie to retrieve her. Valkyrie had fled her home planet to escape an arranged marriage, and as the next eldest unmarried princess, Hydra would be forced to take her sister's place at the wedding, a fate she desperately wishes to avoid. This mission, however, goes disastrously wrong when her spacecraft crash-lands on the shrine belonging to a young earth woman named Akina Nanamura, causing significant damage to the property.
As punishment for the destruction and the attack she launched upon her arrival, Akina uses her spiritual powers to seal Hydra's abilities. This seal forcibly shrinks Hydra into a child-sized form, a fate that mirrors her sister Valkyrie's condition. A critical difference exists between the two princesses in their reduced states. While Valkyrie's mental state regresses to match her childlike body, Hydra retains her full adult intelligence, sharp tongue, and mature personality, often leading to frustration as she is trapped looking like a child while thinking like a young woman. The seal on her powers is not permanent; it can be released at Akina's will, temporarily restoring Hydra to her true adult form. The duration of this reversion appears inconsistent, and on one memorable occasion, transforming while still wearing her child-sized bathing suit led to significant embarrassment for Hydra.
In terms of personality, Hydra stands in stark contrast to the sweeter and more thoughtful Valkyrie. She is characterized as being headstrong, short-tempered, and impulsive, often acting first and thinking through the consequences later. Her tomboyish nature means she can be prone to destroying anything that gets in her way, and she is generally depicted as lazy around the house, though she becomes more active as the story progresses. A consistent and defining trait is her teasing of Akina, whom she frequently taunts about her small breast size, a joke that rarely fails to provoke a physical, often violent, reaction from the shrine maiden. Despite her abrasive exterior and constant bickering with Akina, the two form an unlikely and close friendship over the course of living together under the same roof while Hydra works off her debt for destroying the shrine.
Hydra's role in the story evolves significantly from that of an initial rival and antagonist. She begins as a lone operative fixated on capturing Valkyrie, but after being sealed, she becomes integrated into the main group living on Earth. Her central relationship is with Akina. Their dynamic is unique and volatile; their frequent and heated arguments serve a specific purpose. When their friendship breaks down and their mutual anger reaches a peak, they possess the ability to fuse into a single, powerful warrior known as Akidra. This fusion combines their physical and magical powers while keeping their individual consciousnesses separate, allowing them to bicker even within a single body. The fusion disperses if the two begin to agree or reconcile with each other too much. Her relationship with her sister Valkyrie also develops, moving from one of rivalry and annoyance at Valkyrie's childlike antics to a more genuine friendship and alliance, especially when working together against common threats such as a malfunctioning UFO. She maintains a respectful but somewhat terrified distance from Miss Sanada, Valkyrie's formidable cat-eared maid, and often finds herself annoyed by the actions of the other Valhallan princesses, Laine and Chorus.
In the special episode UFO Princess Valkyrie: SPECIAL, often subtitled Bride Training Boot Camp, Hydra participates in a virtual reality program created by the Queen of Valhalla to test the inhabitants of the Tokino household on their domestic skills. The program pairs characters into random, often unsuitable, married couple scenarios. Hydra is paired with Akina, and together they are tasked with preparing an entire wedding ceremony as the bride and groom, a situation that plays directly into their already chaotic and competitive relationship.
Throughout the series, Hydra demonstrates several notable abilities. Her most prominent power is the ability to transform from her sealed child form into her powerful adult princess form when Akina allows it. She can transform into a winged horse, which has a pink and yellow coloration. She also becomes a highly skilled kendo practitioner, taking up the sport during her time on Earth and displaying considerable talent as a swordsman, a skill that may be enhanced by training she received at an academy on Valhalla. Hydra is also the only character who can perform the fusion technique with a human, becoming the combined entity Akidra when she and Akina are sufficiently enraged with one another.
As punishment for the destruction and the attack she launched upon her arrival, Akina uses her spiritual powers to seal Hydra's abilities. This seal forcibly shrinks Hydra into a child-sized form, a fate that mirrors her sister Valkyrie's condition. A critical difference exists between the two princesses in their reduced states. While Valkyrie's mental state regresses to match her childlike body, Hydra retains her full adult intelligence, sharp tongue, and mature personality, often leading to frustration as she is trapped looking like a child while thinking like a young woman. The seal on her powers is not permanent; it can be released at Akina's will, temporarily restoring Hydra to her true adult form. The duration of this reversion appears inconsistent, and on one memorable occasion, transforming while still wearing her child-sized bathing suit led to significant embarrassment for Hydra.
In terms of personality, Hydra stands in stark contrast to the sweeter and more thoughtful Valkyrie. She is characterized as being headstrong, short-tempered, and impulsive, often acting first and thinking through the consequences later. Her tomboyish nature means she can be prone to destroying anything that gets in her way, and she is generally depicted as lazy around the house, though she becomes more active as the story progresses. A consistent and defining trait is her teasing of Akina, whom she frequently taunts about her small breast size, a joke that rarely fails to provoke a physical, often violent, reaction from the shrine maiden. Despite her abrasive exterior and constant bickering with Akina, the two form an unlikely and close friendship over the course of living together under the same roof while Hydra works off her debt for destroying the shrine.
Hydra's role in the story evolves significantly from that of an initial rival and antagonist. She begins as a lone operative fixated on capturing Valkyrie, but after being sealed, she becomes integrated into the main group living on Earth. Her central relationship is with Akina. Their dynamic is unique and volatile; their frequent and heated arguments serve a specific purpose. When their friendship breaks down and their mutual anger reaches a peak, they possess the ability to fuse into a single, powerful warrior known as Akidra. This fusion combines their physical and magical powers while keeping their individual consciousnesses separate, allowing them to bicker even within a single body. The fusion disperses if the two begin to agree or reconcile with each other too much. Her relationship with her sister Valkyrie also develops, moving from one of rivalry and annoyance at Valkyrie's childlike antics to a more genuine friendship and alliance, especially when working together against common threats such as a malfunctioning UFO. She maintains a respectful but somewhat terrified distance from Miss Sanada, Valkyrie's formidable cat-eared maid, and often finds herself annoyed by the actions of the other Valhallan princesses, Laine and Chorus.
In the special episode UFO Princess Valkyrie: SPECIAL, often subtitled Bride Training Boot Camp, Hydra participates in a virtual reality program created by the Queen of Valhalla to test the inhabitants of the Tokino household on their domestic skills. The program pairs characters into random, often unsuitable, married couple scenarios. Hydra is paired with Akina, and together they are tasked with preparing an entire wedding ceremony as the bride and groom, a situation that plays directly into their already chaotic and competitive relationship.
Throughout the series, Hydra demonstrates several notable abilities. Her most prominent power is the ability to transform from her sealed child form into her powerful adult princess form when Akina allows it. She can transform into a winged horse, which has a pink and yellow coloration. She also becomes a highly skilled kendo practitioner, taking up the sport during her time on Earth and displaying considerable talent as a swordsman, a skill that may be enhanced by training she received at an academy on Valhalla. Hydra is also the only character who can perform the fusion technique with a human, becoming the combined entity Akidra when she and Akina are sufficiently enraged with one another.