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.
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