Review - Queen's Blade: The Exiled Virgin

Queen's Blade: The Exiled Virgin - Complete Series
Media Blasters
300 minutes

Queen’s Blade is a anime that essentially is a fighting show. Women compete every four years for the honor to become queen. The show focuses mainly on Leina, the middle daughter and heir to a Count who doesn’t wish to follow in her pre-planned life path to forge out on her own. However, she is woefully unprepared and learns much about the world on her travels. But she meets and fights many other girls along the way and finding many excuses to loose her clothes.

Despite this show being created just to show T&A, the animation is pretty good. The character designs are good and varied, and the flow of the action is pretty smooth. The background art is interesting. And since there are many different lands where the combatants originate, there are many different settings they have to create.

But if you’re not into excessive fanservice, you best stay clear of this title. It is rated 17+, and boobs fly around exposed every episode. I certainly would not pick this up for any public library. Not to say that there would not be an audience of teen boys who would love it. But if a parent were to catch a glimpse of the show, I would be very hard pressed to justify it’s presence in any library collection.

Review - Ramen Fighter Miki

This is an older review I wrote April 26th, 2009.

Title: Ramen Fighter Miki - Collection
Volume: DVD 1-3
Running time: 300
Distributor: Media Blasters

I watched this series on the recommendation from Ray, my fellow Anime Club host and friend. He summed up the action by saying "its a ramen delivery girl who has fights on the way to her stops." And, of course, he is right. But there is more to the 13 episodes than only the fights. There are only a half dozen characters each with their back stories on how they want to fight Miki, and each episode is broken into two mini vignettes. It's not very deep and there really is no point to the show, but it made me laugh out loud several times.

Miki works in a ramen shop with her mother, and is sent out to deliver food. Miki's mother is the only person stronger than Miki, but there are many other people in the neighborhood who want to beat Miki because she has bullied them. Included in this group is Megumi, who works at the bakery across from the ramen shop and Kankuro, who was beat up in elementary school by Miki. And then there is her most vicious foe, Toshiyuki, who is the freakiest looking dog ever animated. But he can fight.

One of the better episodes is when a young girl has the mistaken idea that Kankuro is actually in love with Miki and works with him to woo Miki. Of course, he thinks the girl is actually putting him through training to beat up Miki. And like all the other episodes, it never really works out like he planned. So after a romantic movie, dinner, and a trip to the amusement park, the inevitable conclusion comes as no surprise to anyone. Like Ah! My Buddha and Girl's High, Media Blasters did not dub Ramen Fighter Miki. But with the hyper-action comedy of the show, I'm not sure it would be as funny in English as it is in Japanese. The animation is not super detailed, but kinetic enough in the fights to make me laugh, and the character design is good.

I would not hesitate to buy this for the library. There is no fan service of gratuitous jiggleing to warrant any red flags for parents. The violence level is pretty high, but it is all cartoony with no blood at all. And the final episodes shows what happens when the 20 year old Miki gets drunk (so there is underage animated drinking). But with the single joke of Miki beating everyone up, I thought this was a fun series and definitely worth my time.

Review - Ah My Buddha - Vol. 1

This is an older review I wrote April 6th, 2009.

Ah My Buddha - The Aroused One Vol. #1
Volume: DVD 1 / 6
Running time: 100
Distributor: Media Blasters

I first experienced this series a couple years ago when I downloaded from bittorrent this show but never got around to watch it on my computer. I heard it was rather ecchi so I wanted to check it out.

This is the story about a temple where all the disciples are girls, except for Ikkou, the grandson of the master. Ikkou is a typical male lead in these harem type stories, not too bright, clumsy, and slightly pervy. But he has one hidden talent - when he sees one of his classmates naked, he becomes a super-priest, reciting sutras like the most enlightened monk ever.

Ah My Buddha is not one of the most profound anime produced. It's not even great for it's genre of ecchi comedy. But I found it enjoyable and will continue to pick up the rest of the volumes (when they are on sale.) The character design is clean and the girls all have their typical personalities and body types. Ikkou get the crap beat out of him a couple times each episode for doing stupid things. And there is an underlying story concerning the temple which is hinted at throughout the first episodes which I'm sure will be brought out more as the series progresses.

This show is hard to recommend, unless you like these types of shows. On one hand, there are better harem comedies out there with more fan service. But on the other hand, if you like the harem comedy, this hits all the cliche plot point we all expect. However much I might personally enjoy shows like this, I would never pick it up for the library. With too many nosebleeds and extreme jiggling, if any angry parent challenged this, I would be hard pressed to justify it's artistic merits.