The recent airing of the second series of Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls poses the question of why the stylish but lacklustre first season was deemed worthy of a sequel, but also conjures up the spirit of genre stalwarts such as the long running Sekirei and Ikkitousen franchises - each series with a more ridiculous alliterative subtitle than the last - as well as one-offs such as Tenjho Tenge. The specific taxonomy of these series is usually spread between "fantasy", "martial arts" and the all-encompassing "fan service" categories, but works equally well as just "fighting fanservice" (FF).
smutty, double-X chromosome fighting still sells
With a few exceptions, the entire point of these series is to group voluptuous girls together so they can beat seven shades of tar out of one another, usually with disastrous consequences for their clothing and decency. Twice tickling the lizard brain for those who are titillated by such things then: violence and sex. Tweak the variables from breasts to blood though and you have horror (see Blood-C, Elfen Lied, Ga-Rei Zero etc.). Catering to base desires though doesn't leave a lot of room for story or character development with many of the plot lines and episodic stories simplistic even if they were in a children's Saturday morning cartoon and utterly worthless for anything other than hurtling the cast from one arena to the next.
Hapless villagers: Why is she attacking us with potassium chloride?!
Dandy pirate: *evil cackle*
Hapless villagers: That outfit does not look conducive to piracy!
Skeletons: RARGH!
Animators: Who knew skeletons were so hard to animate?
Please note: the remainder of this post contains images of nudity, if you are offended by these or are otherwise unable to view these images within your municipality due to laws or moral obligations, please do not proceed.
I'm on a quest to understand exactly why I like the anime that I do. It's relatively easy to enumerate which ones I like more than others, MyAnimeList exists more-or-less exactly for this purpose, but that doesn't really explore what makes a show excellent beyond an attempt to pattern-match (studio, release year etc.) or to compare with others to find compatibility and recommendations.
...finding interest in the mundane or levity in the absurd.
Teasing an answer more meaningful than "I just do" means examining constituents, and for varying reasons - my continual battle to write creative fiction one - characters, specifically protagonists, stand more prominently than others. To enumerate all the different archetypes would be folly and missing the point: great protagonists - great characters - transcend the clichés imposed upon them by genre or circumstance. All too often though anime lets the archetypes rule - why else would there be the existence of shortcut words like "tsundere"?
The first season of Queen's Blade was underwhelming, beyond the initial deviance on display it went only slightly further than many of the other fighting-fanservice genre shows and exploited none of the opportunities a guaranteed late night, paid channel slot offers. Season two does nothing to change this status quo and, if anything, regresses by reducing the rampant titillation and dialling up the poorly choreographed fights. It still exists in the penumbra between unabashed pornography and cheeky teenage lasciviousness but whereas its forebear had a streak of deviance, there is a laughable attempt at characterisation which transforms the plot from background noise to utter drivel. Scant recommendations can be made when the series wholly fails to elicit any response, emotional or lustful, other than pitying indifference.
the disrobing becomes an afterthought to dead-pan serious problems
At the end of the last season Reina had made her way to Gainos and - after a brief scuffle with an avatar of the oft alluded Swamp Witch - the current reigning champion of Queen's Blade, Aldra announced that the Queen's Blade tournament could now begin. All of the previously introduced combatants take part for reasons best ignored lest they crumble under scrutiny, and after the more insipid ones are knocked out, the protagonists Reina and Tomoe once again take centre stage. With nefarious whimsy Aldra pits friend against friend and master against pupil, however it becomes increasingly apparent she has an ulterior motive to the battles and that her power to petrify the living is not borne from human magicks. As the contestants are whittled down, deaths follow and harsh realities are brought into acute focus leaving all but the most stalwart able to survive.
Please note: the remainder of this post contains images of nudity, if you are offended by these or are otherwise unable to view these images within your municipality due to laws or moral obligations, please do not proceed.
The production of a Queen's Blade anime builds on the fighting-fanservice genre championed by titles such as Ikkitousen and Tenjou Tenge and takes it to the most logical next step. The series, like the "visual combat books" preceding it, is a cynical marketing ploy, a multifaceted brothel catering to every fetish and deviance able to be safely sold to lonely, lewd or lascivious males. Discarding the comparatively coy allusions to naughtiness used in other series, Queen's Blade takes every opportunity to disrobe it's bevy of disproportionately curved females with frequent trips to hot springs, dunkings in hot oil or scattering any other liquid liberally on their persons.
This cavalcade of banality permeates the series from characters to plot
The series is perverse at it's best and represents the most saleable pornography possible: only just restraining itself from full-frontal nudity or explicit sex acts, still hiding behind outlandish situations or judiciously angled shots to retain the microscopic shred of dignity the protagonists may have. Eager not to be branded as cheap smut, there is a certain grotesque inventiveness to just how far character designs and scenes will be taken in order to eke out the most obvious innuendos or exploitive implications.
Please note: the remainder of this post contains images of nudity, if you are offended by these or are otherwise unable to view these images within your municipality due to laws or moral obligations, please do not proceed.
Flying pirate ship: PEW PEW PEW!
Hapless villagers: Why is she attacking us with potassium chloride?!
Dandy pirate: *evil cackle*
Skeletons: RARGH!
Animators: Who knew skeletons were so hard to animate?
