Sweet Valerian is a children's Magical Girl anime about a trio of girls who transform into a trio of superpowered bunnies known as Relaxation Combat Team Valerian and fight the evil Stress Team, who use people's stress to transform them into monsters.
This series provides examples of:
- Flying Saucer: The Stress Team fly around in one.
- In the Name of the Moon:Kate: Come forth, Serotonin!
Pop: Appear, Dopamine!
Kanako: Dubba dubba dubba! Relaxation Combat Team Valerian, at your service! - Mentor Mascot: Panda-bu, an oddly spherical panda-thing.
- Meaningful Name: The bunny-girls are named Valerian, Serotonin, and Dopamine, all of which are chemical substances that make you calm/happy.
- Mini Dress Of Power: Despite being bunnies, they still wear them.
- Monster of the Week: In typical Magical Girl Warrior fashion, the monsters are ordinary people whose negative emotions make them a prime target for the villains' monster-ification device, and whose monster form echoes the source of their angst.
- Nerd Glasses: The Stress Team members all wear these.
- Refused by the Call: A one-shot Loony Fan wants to join the Valerians, but Panda-bu refuses because she's eaten a fugusashi ("fish-on-a-stick"), which results in her running off and becoming a victim of the Stress Squad. The real reason though is because she's still living with her family, without any dissatisfactions, while the Valerians faced all sorts of stress and overcame it; not everyone can fit the bill. She's later seen in front of the Stress Squad's lair, vying to join in.
- Riches to Rags: Kanoko used to have rich parents, but her mother died, and her father gave his company to his cabinet and went off on a trip. Now, she struggles with plenty of jobs to make ends meet and attempting to sell his inventions.
- Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Pop suffers this in one special, and her stress from being unable to revert makes her a prime target for the Stress Squad. Apparently, Panda-bu using old batteries on her communicator was the problem.
- Sheathe Your Sword: How the Valerians win against the Big Bad (whose source of stress comes from the heroines), although there's also a lot of running away added in to tire him out.
- Tanuki: What the Big Bad is.
- Transformation Sequence: A very short one, but they get a longer and more traditional one in the next-to-last episode.
- Transformation Trinket: Which are activated via card-swiping.
- Verbal Tic: Panda-bu adds "-bu" to the ends of his sentences.
