Jun 18, 2009
First of all, I don't think Queen's Blade is the horrible thing that most people make it out to be. As of 11 episodes, the "story" which is argued that there is a lack thereof is clearly presented to you in the first two episodes as well as the last two. Reina is a future Countess, she doesn't want to be, she wants to prove she can be strong and independent, one way for that is through Queen's Blade. Now that we have that out of the way..
Story -
What's mentioned above is the basis of the story. However, when watching Queen's Blade, one has to
...
realize that there was a ton of preceding material written before the release of the anime, including three different comics, two of which were serialized in magazines. As a result, Queen's Blade has a lot of back story to work with. Unfortunately, it fails to make use of the time to explain the Queen's Blade canon and instead focuses on each character's individual story - and without the reasons for certain characters' circumstances, one might feel that they've been left in the dark. For instance, elves hate humans. But why? Fortunately there's an entirely new season coming up, so maybe we'll see if the Queen's Blade world is explained in any more detail.
Art -
Just by the amount of artists collaborating on the game books themselves means that the anime is expected to not skimp on the art direction. The character art is consistent, the backgrounds are well drawn, and the animation is for the most part fluid. Speaking of fluids, it seems divine milk is indistinguishable from oil and tears.. Wait.
Sound -
The voice actresses are famous, so no disappointments there. Actually, the voices given to the characters are very appropriate for their types. Little things aren't left out; you can hear the sound of Nowa's staff falling to the ground when defeated by Airi in episode 6. It seems like they reuse the music from the end of the first episode in other scenes often, though, and the opening song isn't that great, but that would be a subjective analysis.
Character -
As stated before, what goes on in each episode is more or less an introduction to each character of the Queen's Blade universe and what they intend to gain by fighting in the tournament. Some characters lack a certain amount of depth in relation to others (Echidna's motives are ambiguous at best, and what does Elina even do besides guard things?) but you'll find that every character has been designed to vividly stand out in terms of outfits and accessories, so it's easy to pick a favorite. Go ahead, try it out.
Enjoyment -
The series itself is truly amusing. Even if you were to ignore everything I've written up to this point, you could still watch the "wrestling" in episode 3 or so and be completely unable to resist crackling a smile or even guffawing at the silliness at which that scene was conceived. However, from my perspective, it seems that the gratuitous fan service actually ruins any chance of the anime being seen in a serious light - because if you're paying attention to the tits, you're not paying attention to the rest of the character, much less the sound and art. Regardless of how successful the game books were based on the premise of girls cutting other girls' clothes off, the Queen's Blade universe has enough material to be worked on to provide an entertaining story without resorting to things like that.
Overall -
Queen's Blade is not a series without any merit. If I were to describe it in a simple phrase, it would be Lodoss Lite. It feels like it could translate into an RPG if given the opportunity, and at the very least one could appreciate the painstaking process of drawing all those details into every character in every scene in which they're not nude. If you've read any negative reviews about the series, try your hardest not to base your judgment off those and give at least the first 6 episodes a try before you shrug it off altogether.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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