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Jan 9, 2025
Who was this made for?
Or rather why was it made this way?
OVA's usually introduce the manga (if there isn't already an anime), adapt new content from the manga to supplement the existing anime, remake the original anime to be closer to the Manga or are their own thing all together.
These are neither. They are anime-original (I presume, since I have yet to finish the Manga) made to supplement the Manga. The stories themselves seem to have little barring on the overarching plot of the Manga's central plot.
This would make sense, if there wasn't already an existing anime.
None of these OVAs contradict the original anime,
...
so I don't understand why they couldn't have been made to supplement it. There are some minor differences, like the pact being made from blood like in the Manga, instead of fire from the anime. But this could've been explained with a single line of dialogue.
It's not like the anime was some ancient relic either. It had released 3 years before these new OVA's. Heck, the original's OVA came out only 2 years before these came.
Replacing the original cast for 3 new episodes is an absolutely baffling decision. I just cannot wrap my head around. Especially if you had Ayako Kawasumi and Mamiko Noto on your cast. I must admit that I am biased, since I only started the old anime for Mamiko Noto. But both of which were popular and active in the industry at the time.
Another glaring difference in the voice acting is Frandels' "Huga". Which sounds completely different. I respect Shiho Kawaragi for how her delivery of this single word always fit in perfectly with any given scene.
Judging from the production quality these OVAs had a higher budget than the original anime, so I doubt that was that either.
As a fan of the original anime, I must once again ask, why?
Not to say that the OVAs were bad either. The new voice actors do a fine job and these episodes look great. If the anime had animation anywhere close to these, it wouldn't have been forgotten. I'm a big fan of the much darker tone, though both the music and character design was a bit of a step down in my book.
But I still cannot wrap my head around it. I'm not sure I'd recommend these to fans of the anime either.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 9, 2024
Who is this even for?
# Plot:
Vanquished Queen's shows what some of the main characters from Queen's Blade were up to in-between Beautiful Warriors and Rebellion. Each Episode also features a new character from Rebellion.
Episode 1 focuses on Tomoe, Nowa and the masochistic Gladiator from Rebellion. It shows how they are being tortured and humiliated by the little Goblin from Rebellion.
There is no explanation give as to when and why Aldra left Tomoe after Beautiful Warriors, nor where all those new shrine maidens came from. This takes place only months after Queen's Blade and all of them, besides Tomoe were murdered there. Not to mention
...
that Tomoe and Aldra were still alone in Beautiful Warriors, which wasn't that long ago.
Tomoe doesn't seem to care about the curse and accepts it instead of going after the witch, which seems odd to me.
It is weird how Tomoe and Nowa act like complete strangers, despite knowing each other in Queen's Blade.
There are a few fight scenes, but they aren't anything special. The best part about this episode is that Nowa decided to join the Shrine Maidens at the end and is absolutely rocking that look.
Episode 2 deals with a powerful weapon from heaven running amok on earth and has to be stopped by Airi, Nanael and her student from Rebellion.
There is no time spent on why Nanael is suddenly not interested in earth any more. Sure, Rebellion kinda acted like she uses her subordinate for the tasks on Earth, but this goes completely against her characterization from Beautiful Warriors. In which she chose to voluntarily (because she enjoyed it, you know) look over Gainos and spent time on earth. Airi's absence of Rebellion also hand-waved by her not being in Gainos.
Menace has a brief cameo, but it didn't contribute much and there was explanation as to she got there.
Episode 3 is about how the Swamp Witch tries to break Leina through humiliation and torture. The pirate from Rebellion, Lilina also plays a pivotal role.
As is tradition at this point, it doesn't explain why Leina wears that weird mask, nor why her eye color was different in Rebellion. For being the first and only episode to showcase the Witch (who looks different, but better than how she appeared in Beautiful Warriors) it certainly doesn't do anything interesting with her. We still have absolutely no idea why she wants to destroy everything, other than because evil and maybe a prophecy? It also doesn't focus on how she took control of Claudette. Or how Lilina got her ship back after this episode.
In fact, basically nothing happens. If you break it down, Leina goes on the ship, gets tortured and flees. She doesn't change as a character, nor does she try to oppose her. Now that I think about it, It is weird that none of the cursed warriors do anything to actively oppose the witch. They all passively accept their curse.
Episode 4 stars the lesser Rebellion version of Aldra, as well ass Irma and Echidna. It is mostly about Irma's revenge against Aldra and features as you might have guessed already, humiliation and torture.
You may have noticed a trend here.
3/4 episodes are mostly about humiliation and torture. That's basically what Vanquished Queen's is all about, taking characters from Queen's Blade and sexually assaulting them. But unlike the original series, this isn't played off comedic.
No, there is actual heavily implied r*pe here. Which creates a complete tonal disconnect with the other series.
Another thing all of the episodes have in common, is that they have Alternate Endings/Bonuses in the form of specials.
Special 1 goes into more detail of how Tomoe was tortured and features a lot of re-used animation.
Special 2 is a POV showcase of Airi being a made for the viewer.
Special 3 is an alternate Ending to Episode 3, where Leina breaks and submits to the Witch.
Special 4 is an alternate Ending to Episode 4, in which lesser Aldra doesn't let go of her darkness and is r*ped by Echidna.
# Characters
There is barely little worth talking about it here.
Most of the characters don't change, they are tortured, almost break and get over it.
Episode 1 has a nice ending with Nowa, but other than that there isn't much worthwhile here.Except maybe that it explains why the M-Gladiator follows the goblin. I thought she was just into being humiliated, but it turns out her family was also captured. Though the justification as to why she doesn't break free is flimsy at best. The only reason she didn't was because she had to be a slave for Rebellion.
Episode 4 is actually the best in terms of characterization because Irma actually changes over the course of the episode, which as established the others don't really do a good job with.
Paradoxically, it is also the worst in regard to Aldra, since there is absolutely no explanation as to what caused the shift in her character. The memory loss was retconned to be because of her separation of the fallen angel, which wasn't alluded or implied in Beautiful Warriors at all. She also stopped looking for her sister for the same reasons. There is no explanation why Tomoe left her to her own devices if she was actively losing her memory like that.
# Theme
If there was a theme to this then it is that you should not give up even when you are at your absolutely lowest and that everyone can find and deserves happiness, even if they have committed sins in the past.
# Sound
The voice acting is still as good as it was in Queen's Blade. I'm actually surprised that Mamiko Noto and Ayako Kawasumi returned for this, since you know it is borderline Hentai.
The sound effects felt a bit lacking compared to the original series.
No idea what happened to the music, but I don't remember a single track from it. Which is surprising, considering the original had great music.
# Main Gripe
Now to get back to the title of this review.
The main problem I have with this is that I don't understand why the made this the way they did.
Queen's Blade, as is the norm with Echii anime sexualized its cast to hell and back, but it also had a lot of humor, action and treated the aforementioned cast as strong as capable.
Vanquished Queen's doesn't do that.
It doesn't seem to care about the things that made the original entertaining, and instead panders to its humiliation fetish. Which isn't necessarily bad, mind you. I am not personally a fan of doing this to established characters.
But as mentioned, Queen's Blade has always been an echii anime that used its sex appeal to sell itself, so I can understand why they thought that taking it up a notch and making it full-blown fetish fuel would work.
However, they don't do a particularly great job of making it fetish fuel either.
In fact I cannot imagine people that are into humiliation getting much more from this than from the main series, because it is far too tame for that.
Let's take Episode 3 as an example. What does actually happen in this?
Leina is stripped, then forced to run around naked in front of like 20 skeletons and is beaten up. All of these happen much more intensely in Queen's Blade itself.
She spends most of her fights nude and getting beat up there and those are broadcast kingdom-wide.
It only seems harsher here because the tone of the episode treats it more realistic. It isn't portrayed as over the top and comedic as it is in the original series. It frames Leina as way weaker than she should be.
You could argue that the witch also uses the spider-strapon curse on her. But even that doesn't seem much more cruel than what she already experienced with Melona and Echidna by this point.
The only thing that is much more extreme than what she went through in Queen's Blade is the implied r*ape, which doesn't fit the tone of Queen's Blade.
But since it isn't shown, I don't think it does much as fetish fuel for people into that. Which makes me wonder why even include it in the first place?
Even the alternate ending where she breaks is rather tame. Because all she really does is wet herself and then lick a plate, before being delivered to her home naked. The last thing already happened in the first episode of Queen's Blade.
*What I am trying to point out here by going so much into detail, is that I don't think Vanquished Queen's accomplishes either being the dumb and fun adventure the original was, nor do I see it working as fetish fuel. Which again brings me back to the title -
Who is this even for?*
Because if you are a fan of Queen's Blade's comedy, action and characters than this certainly isn't for you.
It feels like they wanted to make humiliation porn, but were too cowardly to make a straight-up Hentai. And if that wasn't their intention, then they failed spectacularly in capturing the essence of Queen's Blade.
Either way you look at it, this is the worst main entry in the Queen's Blade franchise, and it is no surprise the franchise ended right then and there.
So there you have it, these are my reasons for why you shouldn't bother with this entry in the series.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Mar 6, 2024
This was genuinely awful and sexist.
Why did the studio think, that taking one of their anime and disgracing every single main character by having them be stomped like nothing would make anyone want to watch their new show?
The clear implication that all the powerful female warriors go down like chumps against the one male character only makes it worse.
Could you imagine if Toei Animation had promoted One Piece back in 1999 by having Luffy beat the sh*t out of the Son Goku and co. back in 1999? You'd still have people be salty about it nowadays.
This is how I feel about this OVA.
It
...
is just insulting to anyone who likes Queen's Blade.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Sep 17, 2023
Witchblade is a criminally underrated anime.
A beautiful story about the love between parent and child hiding behind an ecchi facade.
It saddens me that this series was forgotten and recognized more.
The voice acting is great. Mamiko Noto is a delight as always and Akemi Kanda makes for a perfect daughter. The soundtrack is good, but not as memorable as other series from that time period. But it does capture that special atmosphere, only 2000 anime have.
Animation quality is on the usual level for anime of this era, but I was a fan of the direction, which elevated some scenes.
Plotwise the first half starts really
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strong and while the second half declines in quality, rushes several plot points and makes very questionable choices, it is still an entertaining watch that makes me beg for more.
Its biggest downside is the inclusion of several new plot developments in the second half that aren't properly developed since the anime only has 12 episodes left.
In my opinion, they should have either focused more on developing the elements of the first season to conclude them satisfyingly, or extend this series by another12 episodes.
I personally would have much preferred the second option, since I loved the cast and would have loved for all of them to develop a bit more.
What drags it down is it missed potential, had the series maintained the quality of season 1, it would have easily been a 9/10, but it sadly fell down a bit towards the end. I still believe it is closer to an 8 than a 7, but it should have been better.
To conclude, I'd recommend this to anyone who is nostalgic for 2000's anime and who wants to see parental love between a mother and daughter, which is sadly a rarity in action anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jul 2, 2023
So here is our first taste at Fate/strange fake.
And I must say it really is something.
One thing in advance, the pacing was really and I mean really fast. I doubt anyone not unfamiliar with the Nasuverse will have any idea what is actually going on. Even the anime Fate fans will likely have trouble understanding a lot of concepts this special talks about, without further context.
And while it is nice to see the attention to detail (Zelretch, Gray, Iskandar, etc.) and them adding new scenes (Rider being shown to stop Gil and Enkidu to relax their Master), I feel like this should have been at
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least 80-100 minutes long.
The special roughly adapted the first Light Novel, while cutting quite a bit, but the gist of it is in tact. Including the climatic fight between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. And I must say, I was a bit disappointed. The special didn't manage to properly depict the sheer gravitas of their fight, at least in my opinion. It cuts off too much and their sword clash looks rather generic. The animation is one thing, but the directing could create some tension if properly done. But I think both of these problems are most likely a direct result of the budget. Had they had more time and money to work on this, then the most important moments in their battle could have been given the proper time to breath.
A problem the teaser had when it debuted in December, was the animation quality. Some of shots looked really unfinished and while I must say that the overall animation quality was great, there were still some rough bits. Including Gil and Tiné walking.
All in all the Special is good, but not great. They did a great job with what budget they had, but having read the Light Novel, I must say it could have been much better.
Final Rating: 7.5/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jun 23, 2023
What a waste.
By the way don't read this if you haven't watched the show. It will contain a lot of spoilers. Including basically every twist this season throws at you.
Not to mention that it's more of a rant, than an actual review.
Now let's get to the actual good stuff.
This two volume story arc starts of promising. Sousuke actually has an interesting arc. Dealing with his PTSD makes him appear human for once. Kaname gets something to do and honestly her scenes are among the best this season. The atmosphere and tension, the impending doom she feels whilst being sure she is followed are
...
brilliantly executed. But then her arc kinda ends. She puts up a fight. Wins anti-climatically, before disappearing for a couple of episodes, only to reappear at the end without much of an explanation.
Whom was she fighting you may ask. Well one of the new characters, Yu Lang. All in all the new characters appear interesting at first glance, but looking back they don't really amount to much.
Let me ask you one question.
How did the two sisters matter in the end? Why did we spent so much time with them? They hyped them up like they were nobodies business, only to nonchalantly kill them off. They were absolutely no threat to the main characters. The aforementioned Yu Lang gets caught by trick that still makes me question how Kaname pulled that off. Yu Lang was right behind her and looking at the entire roof from the high-ground. How exactly did Kaname manage to prepare that decoy, without her noticing it? For how skilled she was supposed to be falling to that and than underestimating an opponent she should be familiar with felt like an anti-climatic way to go.
That said Anti-climatic endings encompasses a lot of problems of this season. Let's take the venoms for example.
Before the final episode a single venom was an actual threat. We are constantly told that it is almost impossible to fight them, unless they are confronted by another lambda driver user. So it would seem that Sousuke would finally be able to put up a fight if he mastered his right?
Wrong, after finally mastering his lambda driver, Sousuke easily beats 5 of them without any effort. Where is the tension? You could argue that the finale was an internal struggle and that Sousuke would be able to win, if he only got his shit together. But at no point is it hinted at that he would be that powerful, before it happens. For all we know, him figuring out the lambda driver would put him on even grounds with the venom users.
Next up is the big bad of this arc was just as bad. He somehow managed to be even less interesting than Gauron. Speaking of which. He actually survived. After being seemingly killed off three times in season 1 (4 if you include flashbacks), he is still alive and kicking after his Venom self-destructed at him through Lambda Driver magic. Give me a break. At least he is finally dead now.
You may wonder why I still gave it a 7 then.
Well because it should have been an 8.
The set-up really is great.
And that lousy finale won't take that away from it.
So even though I may appear angry at this anime, I really am not.
Disappointed is what I am.
Because this could have been something marvellous.
Anyways, I mostly wanted to vent.
Don't expect any of my other reviews (if I ever write any) to be like this.
Now that that's done, have a nice day.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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