Anime Review: Why I gave Queen's Blade a 9/10 · 5:14am Apr 17th, 2016
Here's the article on my wordpress blog, which has somehow become an anime blog because that's the only thing I seem to be able to write about. I'll repost it here for convenience and because I'm bored, but if you have a WP account and want to comment, I would love you forever if you did it there, simply because nobody has ever commented on my wordpress in the month that I've had it up.
A visual metaphor if I've ever seen one
I love anime and cartoons in general. They - along with related fanworks - are really the only media I consume. Now, of course, being an adult obsessed with cartoons is like having a penis stuck in you on a regular basis - it probably means you're a pussy, and I'm no exception. Also it feels amazing and I can't stop thinking about it. No homo of course. My point is, I'm a pasty little bitch. With that being said, I think Queen's Blade is awesome, and if you don't like it, fight me. I say that with confidence, because if you've seen the show and hate it so fanatically that you would actually start a physical fight over it, you're probably even fatter and weaker than I am.
Alright, so all kidding aside, I've got these two buddies, and they're into anime too. Sometimes on a Friday night or whatever we get together and stream something. Well, one of them does it; I'm too fucking lazy. Anyway, this week we watched both seasons of the original Queen's Blade, and I absolutely loved it.
I'm sure someone (meaning you - the one person who will ever read this post) is going to be like "DWK you fucking faggot, you just like it for the tits." Now, if you take out the word "just" you'd be correct; it's not like I see something with a bunch of bouncy tits in it and go "oh no, I can't watch this!" And yeah, if your cartoon has lots of boobies, I'm probably more likely to give it a chance, but it's not like I pick cartoons because I'm going to beat off to them. I grew up on the internet man - for the love of god, if you can whack it to something as tame as a few exposed nipples, I really envy you. Also, I already have my 2D sweetheart, so I'm not choosing anything for the sake of waifu-shopping. The only two reasons I like shows with sexy girls in them are 1. Because they're pretty easy on the eyes, and 2. I know that there will be - or already is - a bunch of porn of them that I will beat off to later. But anyway, titties don't make titles, and they certainly don't make me give one a 9/10 score. The reason I gave that ranking to QB over here is because it's entertaining on multiple levels ranging from over-the-top fanservice to emotional involvement to outright hilarity, depending on how you watch it.
Queen's Blade centers around a young woman by the name of Leina, heiress to a countship that she's not really trying to accept, so much so that she runs away from home to find her true purpose in life. Episode one opens on her wandering through a desolate-looking, mountainous area, and I knew I was in for a special treat within the first thirty seconds when we meet Melona here:
In case the screenshot doesn't get it across, she's a chick with bunny ears wearing a nightie, whose hair turns into hands that are perpetually grasping her otherwise exposed breasts. Look, this show is everywhere - the entire thing's on youtube - so I would suggest you just go watch the first five minutes of it, because it's wonderful. However, if you really want to listen to me describe it, I will. Also, here's our MC, miss Leina Vance:
She's actually a very nice girl, and I legitimately like her. The reason I gave you a link as well is that the screenshot is probably going to be too small here, and I want you to look at that timestamp in the bottom left. Our heroine starts out fully clothed, and before we even hit the two minute mark, she's already been stripped by Bunny McGrabbytits up there. But that's fucking nothing. Bunny girl (who's both a huge bitch and the waifu equivalent of prime rib for edgelords) shoots acid out of her nipples by giving her titties a good squeeze, melting both Leina's sword and the rest of her clothes. Then she chokes Leina out until she pisses herself - for which we get a prime camera angle. I am not making this up.
Here's the thing though: the show doesn't play any of this for laughs or even try to pass it off as tongue-in-cheek. The tone and dialogue are dead serious and dramatic as hell. I mean, a lot of the writing is...bad. Look, I don't like to rip on people's work, but I have to say this because it's integral to my enjoyment of the show: the dialogue is pretty badly written, which I think is being generous. And the voice acting...man, there's a lot going on here, so hold that thought; I'll get to it later. Anyway, what I got in just the first few minutes of this madness was a baffling mess of mixed signals. Everything that's happening is ridiculous, yet it's being treated as if it's grave as fuck, and the awkward shit coming out of the characters' mouths only underlines what felt to me like an incompatibility between the circumstances and their presentation.
And it's not like that opening sequence was some isolated incident. Every significant character in this show is a beautiful woman gallivanting around in some state of undress.
Best. Girl.
This lovely lady here is Risty, a mace-wielding warrior and bandit who saves Leina's life by besting Melona in combat. That's great, and I'm glad she did, but I just want to know something - what person who calls herself a warrior-bandit struts around in a thong with her tits half out? I mean, I'm assuming that lifestyle involves a lot of running and jumping and stuff, right? So who the hell would want to do all that with a piece of fabric wedged up their ass? Look at that camel toe, too. That cannot be comfortable. And with a bust that size, wouldn't one want a bit more support? Yeah, I could try to explain it away. Maybe Risty has some deeper reasons for dressing how she does. Maybe that sweaty strip of cloth riding up in her soft bits soothes her troubled conscience and reminds her of better days. Maybe the thong was a gift from a close friend or relative she lost to this unforgiving world. Maybe she uses her partially-bared knockers to surprise and distract her enemies.
Except that last one wouldn't fucking work, because every other chick in this universe dresses the same or worse, so people have to be immune to it by now.
Look, obviously I'm a brilliant storyteller, and had I written the script for this show, Risty's thong - all the thongs, in fact - would have such a compelling backstory that you'd be blinking back tears the next time you looked at bikini pics with your friends. Although they actually kind of do this with Leina's, because her thong goes with the suit of armor she wears, which belonged to her mother.
"Mother, please allow me to bear your longsword and don your armor; they will help me find the strength," she says as she mounts this cherished heirloom firmly between her shapely buns, fiery determination smoldering in her eyes. It was around this point that I was afraid I was going to end up with a hernia from laughing so hard.
Yes, I understand that fanservice is fanservice, and I don't even question it 99% of the time; I take it for granted to the point that when something like Kill la Kill actually attempts to incorporate it into the story in a semi-thoughtful manner, I'm like "whoa." What feels different about QB is the amount of fanservice coupled with how out of place it feels amidst the series' sober atmosphere. It does have moments of "comic relief," but those usually only come along when Nanael is talking, at which times I'm more worried about when she's going to shut the fuck up and leave rather than any mood-lightening she might be providing. Nanael - an angel who attempts to officiate over matches in the titular Queen's Blade tournament (which is held every four years to choose a new queen because reasons) - is literally retarded and is sort of the Jar Jar Binks of the series. Okay, maybe that last part was too harsh; she's definitely retarded, but she's not that bad. Still, her scenes break things up with a combination of incoherent babbling, acting like an idiot, and panty shots, because she's the "funny" character, and also probably because she's one of the few females in the series who wears actual panties instead of a crotch-flosser. Oh, and of course there's Echidna, the rapey elf lady whose underwear is a live snake.
But discounting sparse moments of intentional silliness, it feels like the show has two competing purposes: to be softcore porn, and to tell a serious story - namely that of Leina's journey from naive rich girl to noble warrior. The thing is, while these ideas seem at odds with each other, it's often hard to tell where the line between them is, and maybe that's intentional. When Leina faces Melona again and pisses herself in terror for the second time in the same episode, I didn't know what I was supposed to feel. I mean, I find the idea that our heroine is so inexperienced with combat that she's prone to wetting herself out of fear to be interesting as a sort of raw, gritty character trait. However, the way it's presented - especially the second time, where we get a nice close up of Leina's stained panties and the pool of urine between her sweating thighs as she lies on the ground - feels like fetish material. The fact that her adversary laughs and shames her for it could be more fuel for people who are into humiliation, but it could also just be humiliation for the sake of characterization. Well, I thought, the two aren't mutually exclusive, are they? And yet moments later, she defeats Melona by plugging up her acid-spewing tits, causing them to expand to massive proportions before exploding in a giant fireball, giving me the impression that someone's ticking fetishes off a list here. Yet despite how ridiculous this is, it's treated as a moment of triumph for Leina, with a swelling orchestral crescendo in accompaniment (I love the music in this series, btw).
That kinda leads into my next point: despite it being populated almost exclusively by busty sex pots in thongs, life in the world of Queen's Blade is no friggin' picnic, and I'll use my favorite gal for an example.
A picture's worth a thousand words
As a child, Risty witnessed her parents' violent deaths when they became casualties of a war between nobles. Orphaned, she had nobody to rely on but herself, and grew up into a sort of Robin-Hood-ish bandit and bounty hunter. She resents nobles and their authority for obvious reasons, and does anything and everything that will get her some money, but she passes what she doesn't need for survival along to the next generation of orphans...of which there are many. She's the first person to show Leina just how ugly things are for those without privilege, leading her through the fly and disease riddled back alleys of a small settlement after donating some recently stolen gold to an orphanage full of starving kids. "To the strongest go the spoils, that is the law of our land," is a refrain she often repeats. While pretty archetypal, Risty's character is sympathetic and likeable, and she often serves to highlight the unforgiving nature of the world...but she's also running around in her underwear.
Then there's Tomoe:
Get used to that expression, because one of Tomoe's defining qualities seems to be that everyone she loves dies a horrible death. Aside from that, she's a ninja warrior-priestess we meet just moments before her entire clan is slaughtered in some pointless fight. Two friends give their lives to save hers, one of whom dies in her arms. During that scene, I actually started to get emotionally invested - Tomoe and her clan are the only group of women in the entirety of this fictional realm with a sense of modesty, and they dress like normal people. Well, normal for ninjas...I assume. The image of Tomoe sobbing over her dead friend's body in the middle of her burning village actually got to me, and when the episode ended right after, I felt sobered - and considering how high I was at the time, that's saying something. Then the next one kicks it off with Tomoe and ninja gal-pal Shizuka trying on swimsuits until they get distracted and her top falls off. I would say you can't make this stuff up, but someone did.
So to sum up the plot at its most basic, Leina, Risty, Tomoe, and the rest of the large ensemble cast make it their mission to travel to the capital city of Gynos (yep) to win the final round of the Queen's Blade, each in hopes of acquiring the money and/or power to fix their miserable lives. Along the way they make friends and enemies, mature (and I mean emotionally...physically they're good), and end up naked every two minutes. Camaraderie, betrayal, inner conflict, sexual assault (I'm looking at you Echidna, you thirsty bitch), a sprinkling of incest, and general sexual humiliation abound.
So getting to the point of why I like Queen's Blade, the premise is entertaining enough on its own. I understand wanting to write a violent, emotional fantasy story, and I understand wanting to make an over-the-top fanservice show...but I just have to wonder whose idea it was to do both at once. The animators are really good at depicting bouncing tits but not so good at battle scenes, and I feel like it would've been much easier for all involved to just make some storyless slice of life anime about hot girls getting naked in everyday scenarios that didn't involve fight choreography. Yet it seems like QB legitimately wanted to be more than just porn, and even if the script is frequently clumsy, I respect that. Once I just kinda accepted the idea of a bunch of girls with massive emotional baggage and equally massive boobs trying to murder each other with swords that are often only able to cut away clothing, I could sit back and get invested in each character's story and struggles. Like I said, the writing isn't going to be winning any awards, but it's got a definite heart to it that stresses the importance of interpersonal bonds, trust, and leaning on friends when your own strength isn't enough. It's kind of like what My Little Pony would be if it contained death, gratuitous nudity, and trivialized molestation between family members. By the way, if you're one of those mythical people out there who aren't psychotic, but just haven't been told that it's wrong to climb into your older sister's bed while she's sleeping and fondle her, it's not okay. That is one lesson this show will not teach you.
The other reason I like Queen's Blade is that there's more than one way to enjoy it. If you want a fantasy-adventure-slash-soap-opera about the trials and tribulations of a group of warriors who happen to be naked chicks, just watch the subtitled version. If you want an unintentional piece of comedic genius, watch the dub.
Okay, so imagine you're on a corner downtown, just chilling and smoking a cigar, like you do. You see a classy looking dude in a tux walking down the street, a solemn expression on his face. He stops in the middle of the sidewalk, and without preamble, begins singing a pretty boss rendition of Con te partirò. People stop and start taking video with their phones and stuff, and then after about thirty seconds, the dude unzips his fly, whips out his rod, and just starts beating it. You and the rest of the crowd are confused and possibly offended, but he's singing and jerking with such confidence and vigor that nobody can really say anything or look away. The guy finishes the song and his business in a forceful crescendo, and then - without a word - zips up and continues walking. Those gathered remain, murmuring amongst themselves in an attempt to come to some consensus about what the fuck just happened.
That's what watching Queen's Blade is like.
Now imagine the exact same scenario, but the guy is Gilbert Gottfried.
That's what watching the dub is like.
Two completely different experiences, but each is entertaining in its own way. No homo.
Valley girl ninja
Earlier I mentioned bad dialogue, but honestly, if you watch the sub it's not much of an issue; some of it's a little wonky, but no more than plenty of other shows I've watched without issue. But the rewritten dialogue for the dub? Oh man. Maybe it wouldn't even be that bad, but then there's the voice acting and accompanying sound editing...
It makes me want to meme. Some of the voice performances are decent, but the majority of them range from bad to amazingly bad, and the sound editing doesn't help - I actually heard the audio clipping on many occasions. Shizuka sounds vaguely like a valley girl when she first appears, but progressively less over the course of the series. Melpha sounds like she's drunk most of the time. Every line out of Elina's mouth is just...what are you doing still reading this? Go grab some beer and watch this with your other weeb friends - I guarantee you'll have the best stream night ever.
The English dub takes a show with a ridiculous premise and makes it just plain ridiculous in its entirety. Like, I caught at least one or two lines that were grammatically incorrect, and I don't mean in a slang type of way - I mean like whoever wrote the script for the dub just fucked up, whoever proofread it (implying) missed it, and the VA was like "fuck it, they don't pay me enough," and went ahead and said it anyway.
So that's why I give the show a 9/10 - it's not brilliantly written, but it's a decent adventure/drama that has a soul and actually knows how to build tension. I like most of the characters and love some of them. The animation is pretty good, and though some of the fight scenes just look bad, the fanservice is one hell of a spectacle and it's done right (if you don't watch the show but you're into boobs, at least check out the s2 EDs; there's three of them, and they will turn you to diamonds, I give you my personal guarantee). To top it all off, it's automatically re-watchable, because the sub and the dub are such completely different but worthwhile viewing experiences.
In short, Queen's Blade may not excel at any one thing, but it has a ton of different things going for it. Any show that can make me laugh my sides sore, connect with the characters to the point where I tear up, and then go on a doujin rampage immediately after is fucking excellent in my book. I reserve the 10/10 ranking for shows that have legitimately changed my life, and that's a hard list to get on - there's really only three items on it - but if a show gives me a week or more (and I'm talking marathoning, not waiting for something currently airing) of good times and inspires me to write something, I'll definitely give it a place on the rung just below.
"Bruh," someone says, "you shouldn't give a show credit for fanservice, and you definitely can't give it plus points for a dub that's so bad it's funny. Furthermore, you freely admit the writing is often janky regardless of language, so the laws of objectivity demand that you give this show a negative score, homes."
"Dude," I reply, "I don't want to do any of that."
Despite its popularity, I feel like there's a sort of consensus across the sectors of the anime community I frequent - even by some who like the show - that QB and works like it are some kind of "lower art" or "guilty pleasure" that you can sort of enjoy, but also have to trash-talk just to prove you aren't basic.
I'm not a critic or an analyst; at the absolute most, maybe I'm a reviewer or commentator. Also, I've only written three "articles" including this one, and I clearly remember stating that if I wrote another post about anime, I would hang myself as a matter of public service (and I totally will as soon as I post this, realzies). If there's some objective standard of what's good and what's bad in anime or cartoons or anything, I'm not qualified to speak for it. I'm not worrying about what I "should" feel or any conventions I'm supposed to follow in judging media, and in the same vein - despite the fact that I respect Queen's Blade for actually trying to be something in addition to a neckbeard-baiting tittyfest - I don't even care about authorial intent, both because I usually can't confirm what it is, and because it doesn't ultimately affect my experience except in an anecdotal, after-the-fact sort of way.
I'm not trying to sound pretentiously rhetorical (that probably didn't help), I'm just stating my philosophy as best I can: the singular standard I rate anime or anything else by is how it affected me, because that's the only criterion by which I have any right to judge it. I don't believe in objectivity when it comes to media, so that's out the window, and despite the fact that I love reviews, I'm not the critically-minded type, so I can't try and give an assessment according to any generally-accepted standards regarding quality in animation or its accompanying arts. All I can do is tell you what I think, and then encourage you to have a look at the material in question and see how you feel about it.
In other words, I think Queen's Blade is great, but that's just my opinion. Regardless of what you've heard, give it a shot.
needs more tiddies
I really want to comment on this but because I have no knowledge on the subject whatsoever.. Ill just say this article is well written like always and it is a very insightful review.
So, one of these days I may just have to see how the YT for this works on my shitty internet.
During times while wife is sleeping or otherwise occupied, of course.
3948689
Dude, it sucks that your internet's so shit, it would be hilarious to stream this together