>>335965Not to get too nerdy trying to justify the physics you see in anime, but maneuvering in the atmosphere can be more efficient than space. You have flight control surfaces to help you turn in addition to direct thrust reactivity.
In space, it would be easiest to simply point your nose in a different direction, but if you're actually trying to change your direction of travel (relative to an external reference), control surfaces in an atmosphere beat the pants off direct thrust.
The problem is, they show valks "swooping" and arcing in space as if they were in an atmosphere. It would require a ton of extra energy to artificially affect a swooping turn rather than just having the nose wheeled around. Of course, I'm assuming energy is a precious commodity like in the real world. Maybe Valks have unlimited amounts of fuel or something.