Watching Queen’s Blade is like trying to have a conversation with someone who won’t stop staring at your tits. Or like trying to converse with a really nice girl, who seems to be pretty interesting, but we keep staring at her tits instead of listening to her.
I would really, really like to notch the service back three steps on this anime. As it stands, I roll my eyes so much I keep losing track of what’s happening. What’s happening is a quest series that stars a bunch of strong women who have been rendered down to the bare minimum of personality and near-identical bodies, all of which have the same nipples.
Oh, yes. Women’s nipples do *not* all look the same. This may come as a shock to a large portion of the Queen’s Blade viewing audience. If this surprised you, I think you need to read more Hustler.
The plot, such as it is, is about a quest by a number of women for the Queen’s Blade – the awarding of which will give them the power and rank they need to do whatever it is that drives them to seek it. Each story is completely worthy, so we are likely supposed to feel remorse that not all of them can fulfill their quests. Since we so fixedly stare at their secondary sexual characteristics, I barely notice they exist as characters. “Blah blah blah,” they say, and I’m sure it means something, but we’re staring in between their legs obsessively and I’m finding it hard to care, because all I can think is, “Metal underwear and no leggings. I bet that chafes something fierce. I wonder if they carry talcum powder in their packs.”
When the characters are attacked by creatures that are stand-ins for tentacles, like snakes and giant frogs’ tongues, I also find myself wandering off thinking that this series is like the Caligula of Six Degrees of Yuri voice actresses. The voice cast is instantly recognizable. Some of them I feel a little bad for, but mostly I assume that they thought, “Hey, it’s a paycheck. As long as there are no live events, I can do this.”
I am not the audience for Queen’s Blade. I would LOVE to see a version of this without all the service. It would be a cool series. But instead, I watch this and wonder if I’ll ever get to watch something this spring that doesn’t have us staring unblinkingly at women’s thighs and breasts.
Yuri in this series is implict – lots of f/f pairs that fanboys will immediately slash because service is the same thing as affection for most. And then there’s the explicit siscon relationship that Reina’s sister has for her. I can’t help but assume that Reina and Listy are already paired in half a dozen doujinshi, as well.
In *my* fan delusion, Queen’s Blade is a classic quest story starring pairs of strong women who bond together as friends and who compete for the Queen’s Blade. In reality, it’s an exhaustingly bad series of nothing but service, held together with a plot thinner than the g-strings they all wear.
Ratings:
Art – 6
Story – 4
Characters – 6
Yuri – 5
Service – 9
Overall – 5
If you watched Xena: Warrior Princess staring fixedly at Callisto’s crotch, you will probably enjoy Queen’s Blade.
