Seikon no Qwaser - Preview

Posted by: Crim @ 2010-03-11 23:22:19

While there's very little excuse for the tardiness of the rest of the reviews this season we do actually have a valid reason for the delay on Seikon no Qwaser, we simply had to wait for the directors cut of the show to be available for us to have any clue what was actually going on in the show. We watched the first censored episode when the series first began airing and the censorship was so heavy that you simply had no clue what was going on. After seeing the directors cut, I can say that the amount of censorship makes sense. An opening paragraph talking about how heavily censored a show is will pretty much tell you which group of our readers you fall into, the ones who like Hanamaru Kindergarten, or the ones that bought the uncut DVDs of Queens Blade. We don’t judge.



Now that I have you feeling horrible about your life decisions we can move on to the review. Seikon no Qwaser is very much like Mai-Otome, the story revolves around a very upscale school that has suddenly become the center of a Sci-fi themed battle royale of sorts. The battle participants, Qwaser's, are beings that can manipulate the physical and chemical properties of metals through a combination of alchemy (without transmutation circles!) and magical Anime bullshit. Each Qwaser has the ability to manipulate a specific class of metals (Gold, Magnesium, Iron etc.) and is generally how they're referred to, with the exception of the Qwaser the story mostly focuses on, Sasha (or Alexander depending on who's talking to him and how much he/they like/know each other) who happens to be the Qwaser of Iron. The Qwaser's have suddenly began appearing at the school in search of a mysterious item that’s referred to as the "Icon" and has some connection with the father of one of the girls enrolled at the school. Seems pretty normal up to this point, the catch is the catalyst for all the magical alchemy is 'soma' how do you get soma? By sucking the milk out of breasts obviously. You can see now that there is going to be oppai flying all over the place in order for this to work correctly, and this would be in part the reason why the episodes are so heavily censored, every time a fight breaks out somebody's pulling a Janet Jackson and letting some nip slip so everyone has soma to fight with.



The show actually follows a pair of girls, Tomo Yamanobe a big breasted (possibly royalty) incredibly bubbly moe voiced by Aki Toyosaki (Yui in K-On, Yoshino in Minami-ke) and the girl that was apparently 'adopted' by Tomo's family, Mafuyu Oribe the strong one of the pair who insists on taking care of the mostly helpless Tomo. Through a series of events in part related to Tomo's father having to do with the Icon Sasha (working for the 'good' set of Qwasers apparently) ends up living with the girls and is apparently charged with looking after them for whatever reason in this war. Interestingly enough so far Sasha's soma partner is actually a nun named Teresa, and he constantly reminds Mafuyu that he's not interested in her 'inferior quality' soma, though he is apparently very interested in obtaining Tomo's.



The first few episodes of the series seem to revolve more around everyone becoming accustomed to their very rapidly changing lives than any particular plot. Things get somewhat more "interesting" by the third or fourth episode however, especially if you ask /u/ what they think. A new Qwaser is introduced, the Copper Puppeteer, who just so happens to be very into the Gothic Lolita thing and travels around with a rather large coffin in tow that she refers to as her 'mama'. She also happens to be voiced by Aya Hirano who must have some kind of breast fetish clause in her recent contracts or something because she went from being one of the most recognizable AAA tier female seiyuu's to a borderline AV actress in a mere two seasons. Katja (the loli) arrives on the scene in apparent lack of her own dedicated soma supplier so she quickly 'acquires' one. I'm honestly not sure if her choice had something to do with foul play or the girl just happens to be a huge raging lesbian, but she definitely has the hots for Katja which is made very explicitly clear.



I'd love to give more substance on the show but I honestly don’t know what the hell is really going on other than some people need to suck on breasts in order to keep fighting over some kind of magical object that hasn’t been explained.

I'd like to comment on the quality of the show but I don’t think I'm capable due to the resources available, the main source for the Directors Cut is a web broadcast of the show and its very sub par. Having said that there's nothing obviously wrong with the animation so I'd have to get the newcomers Hoods Entertainment a preliminary OK. The OP is likable enough but pretty forgettable at the same time, I don’t think I'll be adding it to my collection. The ED on the other hand is around here what we like to call "classy", the animation is pretty much the show in a microcosm, all the females in states of partial undress in a very 'Alice in wonderland' type setting that revolves around one of those old cast iron bathtubs, the song performance is quite enjoyable and I look forward to its release.



Like I said earlier this is definitely not a show for everyone, and its probably illegal for a large part of the anime fanbase to even watch in its uncut version. That being said, I think I genuinely have an interest in the show for a few reasons. I've been watching anime for more than a decade and lately there has been an increasing shift from shows that were based on being a good show based on :something: to shows that are nothing more than thinly veiled packages of gimmicks and fanservice made to sell DVDs. The problem with the latter is they don’t even go that far, maybe its something special in Japan but I don’t call seeing a panty flash a big deal and don’t really get why it has to be censored when most anime airs at ungodly hours of the morning anyways. Seikon no Qwaser gets it, if you're going to have a huge part of a show be based on a fanservicey gimmick, at least show people the goods. Another thing that I like about it is the fact that the fanservice is plot relevant, its not just ten ditzy moes tripping over their own feet every episode and creating pantyshots, there's a legitimate reason (as far as anime/the show is concerned) for all the fanservice and I am perfectly okay with that.

First Impression: 4/10
Verdict: This isn’t a good show, but its not terrible either. It has a very specific purpose and I think it gets the job done, if we're going to be seeing more fanservice shows in the seasons to come I hope they take a hint from Seikon no Qwaser. Just make sure you watch the uncensored version if you even remotely entertain the idea of watching Qwaser.