When you look at something like Queen’s Blade Rebellion at face value, you do not immediately think “cash grab.” Or at least you hope to god that it is not. Then while you are watching it, it is very clear that the situation's reality is clear; it is exactly what you feared it might be. A complete, nothing cash grab with no soul or style to speak of.
As I have said before in my previous reviews of the series, Queen’s Blade is not what many perceive it to be: A completely dumb titty anime with no plot or characters to care about. While the dumb titty anime part is not exactly far from the truth, I found the story and characters to be better than your average ecchi series to the degree of Queen’s Blade. It is not brilliant, but for what they are, they are fun and entertaining in their own right. However, after watching Queen’s Blade Rebellion, I feel like all of those accusations could fit with this season more than any others. It’s almost as if they hired the writers who have never watched the previous seasons and only know it vaguely and wrote a story that they feel would fit the show to a T.
Halfway through watching Rebellion, it hurt. Like it was almost like watching a completely different anime series. For one, this season feels like the one with the least comedy and more drama. This might be an okay sign with other anime, but not with Queen’s Blade. I never anticipate the drama, and boy, does it not work with this one. It does not help the fact that this story is completely incomprehensible and not focused in the slightest. It is similar to the criticisms I had with the first season being unfocused in completely different subplots I did not care for. At the very least, with Rurou no Senshi, the plot was simply a battle royale between other female fighters to achieve being the Queen’s Blade. In Rebellion, it is a literal rebellion against a tyrannical queen that wants to control everything. Yet, the uprising does not feel like anything grand or sophisticated at all. It feels like many adventurers farting around with their own common goal.
The new characters in Rebellion are an absolute atrocity to the Queen’s Blade series. No memorability or soul to speak of within any of their character archetypes. The only hope I had with a character being memorable was Mirim because her story was sympathetic enough for me to gravitate towards. That, of course, was immediately cut once Luna Luna erased her troubles, and there was no point in her being the story in the 2nd half. The “main protagonist,” Annelotte, has to be the most nothing anime protagonist I have ever witnessed in quite some time. She has no personality to make her interesting, no interesting motivation for the conflict, and her interactions with the other characters are banal at best. Luna Luna could have at least been a nice sexy cutie for me to look at with her magical codpiece. Still, good god, she was an absolute annoyance to the show halfway through, and that pains me to say to a character voiced by Harumi Sakurai (Ryouko from Anejiru).
The rest of the characters are already too forgettable for me to even comment about. However, I can comment on the characters they decided to bring back from the previous seasons. First off, no Menace, no buys. Sorry but that is just inexcusable in my eyes. Secondly, what is the point of even bringing these characters back? Why is Ymir all of a sudden serving the Queen and turning bad? What was the end of getting Melona back in the last two episodes? Why is Elina now bad? No convincing explanation for any of these situations. If I were in a writer's position, I would make this into its own self-contained story that has nothing to do with the previous seasons. It would feel less of a complete cash grab to try to entice old fans into watching this.
Nothing has changed in the technical aspects from previous seasons regarding the action set-pieces and character designs. They still look nice, and the action is still fun to look at even though they got a little samey after a while. Thanks to this, this show does not get a completely horrendous score on my grading scale.
If this was one way to kill a franchise, this was the perfect way to do it. Not that this will since Hobby Japan still makes tons of merch for this show, even though they have only released small OVAs since this season from 2012 with no new tv series on the horizon as of writing this review. I do not know what the future will hold for another season, whether they will go back to the original characters, try to do another new cast, or, god forbid, try to continue this story, considering how cop-out the ending was. It can only get better from here, but I am not holding my breath.
Grade: D