Review: Deciding to watch Queen’s Blade was the result of my long and intimate involvement in the Aniblogsphere. Without said external forces, I would not have picked this show in million years. And now I start to like fan-services, talk about bad influence…
This review covers both seasons of Queen’s Blade. The anime is mainly about the ultimate combat tournament called ‘Queen’s Blade’ which will decide who is the new queen of the land. Each participant, all pretty girls, has her own story to tell and lots of fan-services to offer along the way. As you can see, the story is so simple that it can be summarized in one short sentence. Plus, most of the plot devices, characters and dramatic twists are all stereotypical.
Leina, the leading lady of the show, is a spoiled child of the powerful count with family issues. She joins the Queen’s Blade to prove herself and to be free. Risty the thief seems wicked but is actually a kind person. Tomoe is an idealist who joins the fight to protect her country. You get the picture. All the characters are unique but ultimately quite formulaic. Just like the story, their backgrounds can be summarized in one sentence. But this is just an observatory statement, not an attack to the show. I think anime like Queen’s Blade which aims to please and entertain does not always have to be complex. Despite the generic characterization, the show makes it clear that it cares about the characters. Each girl has her moment to shine and all the girls interact with each other. Thanks to these interactions, each battle displays several layers of meaning. It is not just the fight for the throne but a personal struggle for the combatants as well.
What have I been talking about? This show is all about fan-service, isn’t it? So let’s talk about it then. I am not a veteran in this genre of anime so I was astounded by the sheer amount of fan-service the anime has to offer. This might sounds strange but I felt that the fan-service was the main source of suspense in all the fights. Considering the few pieces of clothes the girls wore in combat, you would have thought they would get some more serious wounds when struck by weapons. But no, despite the sharp looking blades, all they got was torn clothes and by being repeatedly struck, some ended up completely naked! And don’t get me started on the priestess’ ‘Holy Pose’ attack and Echidna’s ‘snake panty’!
Another thing I would like to make note is the world building. For any fantasy story, portraying the background fantasy world is extremely important. This is where Queen’s Blade fails. The show gets us well involved with the characters but not the setting. Yes, there is the world map flashed through the screen but the show has no sense of direction, literally. The characters appear at places completely different from each other; Edo-era like Japan, ruined Egyptian pyramid, western medieval city, the woods and everything in between. It was confusing. Nevertheless, considering the true purpose of Queen’s Blade, this setback can be easily dismissed.
Animation of Queen’s Blade is good but does not standout. Incredible effort is clearly put into animating the girls’ boobs judging from how they bounce and move according to every detail of the bodies’ movements.
In conclusion, Queen’s Blade is a fun show that is made for specific audience. If you are just looking for good show in general, I would not recommend Queen’s Blade. But if you are looking for fanservice, ecchi and possibly humor, you won’t be disappointed because Queen’s Blade does not shove these things into your throat ruthlessly but presents them to you within a well crafted anime as a whole.
Rating: B (but seriously, rating hardly matters for this show)
Facts
Title: Queen’s Blade (season 1 and 2)
Genre: Ecchi, fantasy, action
Released date: April 2, 2009 – June 18, 2009 and September 24, 2009 – December 10, 2009 respectively
Episode: 12 for each season
Director: Kinji Yoshimoto
Animated by: ARMS
Canne's anime review blog 
Queen’s Blade is one of the show that I will stir away from no matter what the situation is.
But… is that really her hair groping her breast? O_o
Yes, that is her hair groping (and sometimes massaging) her breasts O_o
Queen’s Blade was a pleasant surprise. I went into it expecting to make fun of it and ending up getting something I liked. It has its flaws, but overall it tells a good story and has refreshingly non-pedophilic fanservice.
The show which knows exactly what it wants to be is always admirable.
I thought the non-pedophilic part is one of its flaws. >_<
Agree with Baka Raptor. Honestly, I did make fun of it for the first 5 or so episodes, then I realized how good it was. It was like the exact opposite of K-On, which I kind of like for the first 5 episodes (or at least thought it still had a chance) and then totally realized it was a shit zone.
About the setting, it’s really not that confusing. All of the characters are from different areas of the world. If you ask me, the world is similar to that of Hyrule in Zelda Ocarina of Time. It’s not especially big, but it has everything from a desert to a forest to a town.
Maybe it was the editing that made me felt like the characters spontaneously show up in different places within a short time.
shit zone…LOL
Seriously this was one of the first things I ever watched, and it was mostly out of curiosity since all my friends warned me against it. However it’s more interesting than it seems. Fanservice and Airi aside of course.
And non-pedophilic fanservice? I’m quite sure there was a dwarf character somewhere in the series…
Ah yes, the dwarf blacksmith girl who wields giant axe. But there’s no scene in which she was nude. Was it still count as fanservice?
I’m not a fan of fanservice anime at all, but I have become quite a fan of Queen’s Blade. While the anime has it’s flaws, it really makes up for it with it’s excellent characters. All of the girls have superb and diverse character designs, and are voiced by some of the biggest voice actresses in the industry. The interaction between the characters is what really made the show interesting to watch. QB was a pleasant surprise.
The fanservice is plentiful, but I felt that it never felt ‘forced’ like in other fanservice anime; it was just part of the style of the show.
Agreed that the fan-service for QB comes very naturally though the bath scenes are still kind of forced. :P
Seems like there are a lot more QB fans out there than I have expected.
I wasn’t that familiar with such fan service heavy anime when I first watched it either. It really is strange how it actually does build suspense.
Agreed about the world building. We have no sense of time, location, or distance. I never have any idea how far Reina is actually from civilization or home.
“Rating: B (but seriously, rating hardly matters for this show)”
Haha yea. It’s such a love/ hate anime.
Yeah, it’s kind of strange to see Reina travels from medieval Europe to ancient Egypt and ends up at Roman empire @_@
I watched this anime only because of Aya Hirano and Airi. Other than that, like I care:D.
I watched it because others were talking about it, that’s all ;)
The good thing about Queen’s Blade: it wasn’t ridiculously horrible and some of the parts were actually half decent.
The bad thing about Queen’s Blade: it wasn’t ridiculously horrible, which meant I didn’t have a huge amount of material to poke fun at…
On second thought, Queen’s Blade did caught us by surprise by its decent quality and many people felt that it was better than it actually was. Thus, there are so many good reviews about it :)
You’re pretty brave to give it a try. It has such a strong reputation, I think it scares off most people.
After High School of the Dead, I think a lot less people we still get scared by Queen’s Blade o_o
Pingback: Anime Instrumentality Blog | Reminiscing over the Decade’s Anime Music – 2009
One of the BEST I have seen in a Long time! Lots of HUGE BOOBS everywhere ~ Echidna the Elf assassin is my favorite!
LOL, good to hear that! ;)
the story is better in season 2 , seriously , especially in eps. 07 , my friend cried alot ,;D
Thanks for the recommendation! ^^
I understand where the creators were coming from when they created this series, and I commend them for their bravery. However, in every which way, no one has yet to throw a spike at Queen’s Blade or seriously critique it. Generalizing it as a fanservice anime does not validate it as widely as it is heralded. And it’s not just Queen’s Blade that gets blind praise like this, but that’s for another time.
I’ve honestly seen h-animes with deeper stories and well-knit characters than this. Just because something is generously produced does not make it an acceptably meticulous creation. (See Mass Effect 3) But I’m beginning to realize just how meaningless the word overrated has become.
Queen’s Blade is merely a beta to what the entertainment industry has now perfected, and it should be expected that we would blindly accept it.
Thank you for the comment :)
I have seen only a handful of this group of anime; it’s not exactly my type. I tried to view it on the ground that I thought it was built from and find out what viewers can get from it.
With that said, what you said was true. I, and many others, let things slide for the show. Thus, I did not forget to say that I did in the review and hoped that the readers would understand my approach to this anime.