Character Profile Akina, Hydra

Akina is a character from UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie. She is one of my personal favorites. Though she is a peripheral character, her part in the story is quite interesting. Akina is a childhood friend of the main male character, Kazuto Tokino. She harbors feelings for Kazuto, but she never reveals them to him. Often, she confides in Hydra, who is well aware of Akina's feelings for Kazuto. She has an interesting relationship with Hydra, who, as Valkyrie did to Kazuto, crashed her spaceship into Akina's abode. Akina makes Hydra work at her shrine to pay her off for the damages caused by the spaceship, which appears to be lodged into the roof of Akina's shrine for the forseeable future. Akina also put a seal on Hydra, who is an adult in truth, but reverts to the body of a child while under control of the seal. Akina occasionally releases the seal in dangerous situations which call for it. Instead of attacking Akina when she does this, or fleeing town, Hydra does things such as swing a magical sword, shoot lasers out of her hands, put on lipstick and have big boobs. A certified badass in this form is Hydra.

Inverse.

As I mentioned, Hydra and Akina have an interesting relationship, which I have dubbed an Odd Friendship on TV Tropes. It's like an odd couple but with secondary characters. In the second season, through a freak accident (and religious rituals gone bad), Hydra and Akina gain the power to combine into a being known as Akidra. Both have the ability to talk while inhabiting the same body. In battle, Akina's spiritual powers and Hydra's magical and physical powers are augmented and combined. Akidra is particularly effective against Valkyrie Ghost, the main antagonist of the series, particularly season 2. Unfortunately, the two can only combine when they are mad at each other. Rika proposes this theory, and it turns out to be true. The first time, Hydra reads a page of Akina's diary to an audience of main characters. After that, Akina just breaks Akina's shit whenever they try to transform. I feel bad for Hydra at times. She got the raw end of that deal. In an interesting aside, the name Akidra was first used by Akina and Hydra as their band name when Akina forcibly entered them as a duo in a karaoke contest. True story!

In the third season, Valkyrie and Kazuto are about to get married and Akina's anguish and lament over not talking to him become increasingly apparent. Hydra tells her she missed her chance and to basically settle down. This reminded me of Pirates of the Carribbean, when Will told Jack that he should have told her he loved her. But in this case, things don't work out quite the same way. I feel I can relate to Akina in her unrequited love thing as that is pretty much the story of muh life.

Akina, in the English dub, is voiced by Cynthia Martinez. The first time I heard Cynthia was in the Puni Puni Poemy dub, in which she voiced the certifiably insane Poemy Watanabe, who always refers to herself as Kobayashi, the name of her Japanese voice actress. Cynthia is Spanish and her accent can be heard slightly in her work, a fairly unique trait among voice actors as well as her signature. In other shows I have seen, she has voiced Excel Kobayashi (the same Japanese voice actress as in Puni Puni Poemy) in Excel Saga, Runa Tokisaka in Nurse Witch Komugi, and Otome Akiyama in Pani Poni Dash. Cynthia plays a good range of characters, from the easily excited Poemy to the cold and calculating Runa, who acts cute to hide her true demeanor. Otome is short and constantly harassed by her classmate Suzume, who finds her cute and tries to keep her short by pushing a pressure point on her head. As her teacher reveals, this pressure point does not stunt growth; it induces diarrhea. :I Otome is dejected as a result and gets frustrated with Suzume. I've only seen the first half of the series and Otome is not a main character, so I don't know much else about her. Akina is a very dynamic character, sometimes calm, sometimes excited, sometimes giving bad karaoke performances. All in all, my favorie of her roles.

Hydra is voiced by Nancy Novotny. As Hydra, Nancy provides a scratchy voice which brings about her spunky personality. Other roles by Nancy that I have seen are as Yomi Mizuhara as Azumanga Daioh, which was her debut; the titular character in Madlax, and Ayame Akimo in Wandaba Style. I haven't seen all of any of those, but I've seen the most of Wandaba Style. Ayame is a quiet girl, a folk singer and a hippie who sees imaginary fairies as muscular green men who freak me out personally. I've seen about 1/3 of Azumanga Daioh, which is pretty popular I guess. Yomi is a smart, athletic girl who wears glasses and is friends with Tomo, a psychopath. She acts as Tomo's comedic foil, providing humorous deadpan remarks to Tomo's over-the-top antics. Madlax is one cool customer, from what I've seen, and is some sort of spy or something. Whatever she is, she's one of the best in the biz. I haven't seen the whole show, so I don't know what her connection is with a girl named Margaret.

Let's talk about Hydra! Hydra went to Earth to retrieve Princess Valkyrie, as with Valkyrie gone, Hydra (another Princess of Valhalla) would have to get married in her place. Obviously, Hydra doesn't want this and so she goes searching for the wayward princess. She employs powers- such as turning into a flying pink/orange unicorn and splitting into like 300 Hydras-which are never seen again after Akina traps her - to find Valkyrie, but is interrupted by Akina. In the end, Hydra ends up working at Akina's shrine as punishment for crashing her spaceship into it. Often, Hydra and Akina act as antagonists for Valkyrie and Kazuto, because the two both have issues with Valkyrie. Though it's really Akina who has the most problems with her. In season 3, Akina and Hydra are called upon to pretend to threaten Valkyrie and Kazuto in their quest for wedding-related gemstones. But Akina starts to let her emotions override logic, and she ends up almost causing them serious harm, for which Hydra chastises her. When Kazuto and Valkyrie complete their quest, Hydra tells Akina to speak up and sympathizes, somewhat with Akina, providing a welcoming ear and advising voice.