Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Queen's Blade The Exiled Virgin: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

One man's fan service is another man's hentai.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 22, 2011

The world of anime is a self-contained universe that has its own vocabulary which seems positively foreign to outsiders. There are far too many anime-centric terms to ever discuss completely in a review such as this, so today we’ll focus on two somewhat related terms and their implications, at least with regard to the series which is the focus of this review, Queen’s Blade. The first term is hentai, a word which in Japanese more or less refers to sexual perversion but which in its Westernized usage has come to mean animated porn. The second term is fan service, one of my personal favorites, at least with regard to euphemisms whose actual meaning can’t be instantly gleaned from the terminology itself. ‘Fan service’ refers to what might be considered “soft porn,” or at the very least sexually charged, imagery which dots any number of anime offerings. These images might be things along the lines of long, lingering shots of ample busoms, or long, lingering shots of panties, or even the occasional (or more than occasional) scantily clad or even semi-nude female form. When is any given offering hentai and when is it “just” fan service? That seems to be somewhat akin to the Supreme Court’s definition of obscenity, which basically boils down to “I can’t say what it is, but I know it when I see it.” Some people are going to see Queen’s Blade as nothing more than a perhaps overly aggressive form of fan service, while others, perhaps more conservative if not overly prudish in their proclivities, may be shocked and appalled at the lasciviousness almost constantly on display in this series and will in fact probably consider themselves being charitable by terming Queen’s Blade “only” hentai.

Imagine an anime erupting like Venus from the half-shell out of the fevered combined minds of Alberto Vargas and Frank Frazetta, and you’ll have some idea of the pulchritudinous abundance readily on display in virtually every moment of Queen’s Blade. Does it really matter what the series is about when the imagery is this arresting and actually jaw dropping? Well, for you nitpickers, the basic idea of Queen’s Blade is that in some mythical land every four years a new Queen is chosen through a series of battles between contenders for the throne. That’s it, basically, though there are a number of putative shadings to this very basic setup, including various warring factions and interrelationships between some family members that are meant to provide at least the semblance of something other than the female form on which to concentrate.

Queen’s Blade is a show I would resolutely not let my kids watch, at least not until they’re a good deal older, but it’s a show I have a hard time completely dismissing, despite its overt silliness and its emphasis on sex, sex, sex (not that that’s a bad thing, mind you). The saving grace here, if it can be called that, is the almost obsessive care with which this series has been animated. Any number of buxom beauties move through painterly backgrounds and the animators have not shirked from their duty to make each and every step be accompanied by an appropriate jiggle of a breast (or two). It’s almost hypnotic after a while. Some more sensitive types might have an issue or two with some of the costumes, including one where a halter top includes hand-like objects which cover its character’s bosom. Another character is clad in a serpent, believe it or not. This is not a show for those who are easily offended by nudity. In fact more often than not, the costumes themselves fall by the wayside (one character is able to emit acid from her nipples—no, I’m not kidding—which quickly melts another character’s scant clothing). There’s literally no episode in Queen’s Blade which does not feature copious full frontal (albeit animated) female nudity.

There’s obviously something almost primal about the allure of seeing virtually naked women engaging in hand to hand (or sword to sword) combat. Witness the seemingly eternal popularity of mud wrestling for a prime current day example. But is that enough to really build an entire series around? It will be a question anyone coming to Queen’s Blade will ultimately have to answer, for the sheer inescapable fact of the matter is, there isn’t much “there” there to Queen’s Blade other than, well, virtually naked women engaging in combat. To be fair, there are disparate, if completely formulaic, characters populating the scenery, but the scenery is mostly those characters’ boobs.

Queen’s Blade is a series which probably walks (or jiggles, as the case may be) right up to the fine line separating hentai from “mere” fan service, but which in all frankness never really crosses over into anything so explicit it could be termed pornography. Of course that doesn’t mean that this show won’t be objectionable to any number of people, most likely especially women who won’t like the show’s unabashed objectification of the female form. Younger males on the other hand will probably feel they’ve hit the jackpot with a show that doesn’t require any brainpower and instead is simply a provocative feast for erotically charged eyes.

Queen's Blade The Exiled Virgin: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Queen's Blade bounces onto Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This may just be my love of the naked female form showing, but this Blu-ray is rather incredible looking quite a bit of the time. But enough about the naked breast quotient. The image quality is actually one of the major reasons Queen's Blade can't just be dismissed as low rent hentai or fan service. There has been a lot of care devoted to the character designs and environments, and they're shown off to great advantage on this Blu-ray, with exceptionally sharp line detail and beautifully varied color. While there may not be anything especially innovative in the overall design aesthetic of Queen's Blade, save for perhaps the almost fetishistic emphasis on boobs, the series looks great, with clean and appealing lines and some really gorgeous backgrounds. The last few episodes (especially the final one) also have some great looking CGI elements which are blended into the hand drawn elements with a surprising amount of skill.

Queen's Blade The Exiled Virgin: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Queen's Blade offers two lossless stereo tracks, both DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mixes, one in the original Japanese and the other an English dub. Both of these tracks are virtually identical in terms of amplitude, fidelity and overall mix, though this is one case where not only purists may want to stick with the original Japanese language track. At least a couple of the English voice actors are downright annoying, with gravelly, squeaky or otherwise less than appealing voices. The Japanese language track also has greater variety of voice approaches overall. That said, however, both tracks offer great balance between dialogue, score and effects and both offer some appealing LFE, especially in the many battle sequences. Dynamic range is also quite strong throughout the series.

Queen's Blade The Exiled Virgin: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• OVA Episodes 1-3 (HD; 8:24) are three brief vignettes taking place at the Gynos Academy.
• Textless Opening (HD; 1:32)
• Textless Special Ending (HD; 1:24)
• Textless Endings (Leina Version) (HD; 3:04)
• OVA Episodes 4-6 (HD; 9:02)
• Textless Endings (Nanael Version) (HD; 3:04)
• Textless Endings (Tomoe Version) (HD; 3:04)
• TAF 09 Event (SD; 24:19) is a sort of Comic-Con assemblage promoting the series.
• V.A. Interviews (SD; 11:47) offers interviews with the Japanese language cast, hosted by Ayako Kawasumi who voices Leina and Momiko Noto who voices Tomoe.

Queen's Blade The Exiled Virgin: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'm not prudish in the slightest, but even I was a bit agog as Queen's Blade played out. Nipples shooting acid and lightning are outré enough, but when virtually every episode lingers on the nude female form for no other reason than—well, do you really need a reason when you get right down to it? That's the salient point to keep in mind about Queen's Blade: the plot doesn't matter, the pretty backgrounds don't matter, it's all about the naked (and/or semi-naked) girls. Pretending otherwise would be somewhat akin to insisting you're subscribing to Playboy for the articles, and we all know how that plays out with various authority figures. While I can't come right out and recommend this series to everyone without reservation, I can say it's gorgeously animated, it features some passably interesting characters, and it offers ample opportunity to appreciate pulchritude. That must count for something somewhere.