Queen's Blade
 This article is a stub. You can help 1d4chan by expanding it |
Queen's Blade is a series originating from Japan that is a perfect representation of how /d/ and /tg/ can get intermixed. The setting/series began its life as a Japanese spin-off to the Lost Worlds, an Old School Roleplaying game revolving around the use of "visual combat" gamebooks to depict battle between selected fighters. Queen's Blade took this basic idea and gave it an ecchi slant, creating a slew of characters who were all sexy women, and even a few monstergirls, but still using the basic game mechanics.
This being released in Japan, it took off, and eventually inspired a series of novels, anime (serial and OVAs), manga and videogames.
The Setting
Being basically somebody's magical realm writ large, it's not hugely complicated to get the basic gist of it: the Queen's Blade setting takes place in an Amazon-themed world, where ruling is taken care of by powerful female warriors. Every four years, a grand tournament is held in which any warrior-women who wants to enter can compete; last woman standing gets to be queen of the world until somebody manages to kick her off the throne in a subsequent tournament.
There's more background to it - for example, the world used to be run by a conventional aristocracy, but they got themselves into a war so big and destructive that the gods themselves came down from heaven, slapped the shit out of them, and set up the Queen's Blade tournament that has ruled ever since - but the above paragraph is all you need to know going in.
One notable aspect is that the series is very much an ecchi shonen slant on the Sword & Sorcery style; as such, magic is portrayed as evil, with "real" fighters instead relying on semi-mystical fighting techniques and magical weapons instead.
The Characters
...Where do we even start? This series is crawling with girls from different story arcs and continuities, ranging from the fairly ordinary every-girl protagonist to lesbian elf mercenaries who wear trained snakes in lieu of panties to slimegirls who disguise themselves as pink bunnygirls to perverted angels.