And so, here's the final bit of VQ2! We wanted to end with a bang, so did we make it? You be the judge!
(Will update this as soon as a downloadable HQ version of the whole thing is up)
Enjoy!
We hope you guys liked this book!
Coming next: some sweet, short side-story starring Siam starts!
Loved the Cattleya story, mainly because it has her in it. ;) And once again, awesome work to all involved! Katsuzo Hirata hinted or joked at QB VQ3, do you think we can take his word for it?
ReplyDeleteI think it's a pretty safe bet. From the other comments, it's not like they really plan ahead the stories here, and the artists are quite eager about participating, so what's keeping them?
DeleteI'm just happy it didn't turn out too bad for her XD some light tentacle action that didn't even really bother her that much, yet she still broke out of it's hold and overcame it...
DeleteI'm just glad to see anything new with Cattleya in it at this point... at least there always seems to be a new figure coming out of her every few months XD
I do hope that there's a third volume. As it is, these creator comments were quite the enjoyable extra.
ReplyDeleteFor Cattleya's defeat, I'm not totally sure I understand what's supposed to be happening. Is the Marshland Witch trying to talk her into letting herself be possessed the way Werbellia was?
Hm, I guess I understood Cattleya's like the Witch trying to get her addicted to the liquid thing and to keep her there. Kinda like how she (indirectly) arranged for the cursed Risty to stay in that tower helping her group of bandits, something like that.
DeleteAfter all, despite Cattleya's undoubtable strength, having Werbellia, the witch has no need for more bodies.
I'm sorry but I just don't get it. For example: how does someone enjoy seeing Nowa as a slave unless they hate her, at least a little? The only girls I dislike are Branwen and Nyx, and I still wouldn't wish this crap on them (even though those two are designed around being demeaned).
ReplyDeleteAs for skipping these if you don't like them, that's fine and all, except these seem to be all they're working on lately. From what I've read they don't even have plans to finish the rebellion anime.
Before I stop this post there's something else I have to vent about: that ova. With Tomoe being my favorite character, I can't tell you how awful it looks to me... After all the crap she's been through watching all of her friends die, and then having to kill Shizuka for no reason...they make a whole ova about her being tortured!
Last thing, despite how much these disturb me, I do still appreciate all the other stuff you find to put up here leecherboy.
Hating the character has nothing to do with it. The women of Queens Blade are meant to be sex objects; this is simply a situation that plays towards that directly, instead of using indirect methods (such as their clothes just happening to be torn off during a fight).
DeleteIt's not a question of "hey look, she's suffering!" It's a question of "hey, she's naked and can't defend herself and even seems to enjoy it, albeit involuntarily..."
I think it's more the idea that regardless of what happens to them, no matter how beat up, no matter how much they suffer, no matter how low they fall, they'll never be tarnished.
DeleteThe stories are pretty rough, but a lot of them do delve into the characters and their mindsets pretty well and do tell us more about them. For in failure is when we learn the true worth of a person.
I have no doubt that this was mostly drawn for tittilation but still, it's not only to make objects of the girls or revel in their suffering. There's also the idea that no matter what, they'll always stand back up, resist and stay strong.
We should probably make a ranking for the stories ranging from 'Self Sacrifice' (Cattleya, Echidna, Shizuka) to 'Hope In The End' (Sainyang, Cattleya, Shizuka) to 'Joke Bad End' (Nanael/Layla, Risty, Lilliana, Izumi) to 'Likely Story Relevant' (Claudette, Cattleya, Echidna) and finally 'Depressing with no real Hope' (Nowa, Vante/Yuit, Sigui/Branwen)
It might help people go through this if they knew there aren't nothing but depressing pseudo-rape stories in these. I think I'll do that for the compilation, to help those who wanna avoid the really depressing yet not really story relevant suffering.
That's part of my problem though, many of these stories do tarnish their characters and they often don't "stand back up and stay strong". A good example of this was the Tomoe story from the first book, she just gave up, end of the story. The random promoted replacement ninja leader is nonsensically way stronger than the previous one, and Tomoe just quits.
DeleteDespite not being really gross like many of the other stories, this story probably bothered me the most. Despite the amount of innuendo they crammed into the story, you have to remember the koma ninja's job is to kill her. I hated this story because of how it portrayed Tomoe's character, according to these books her response to defeat is to just give up and die. Sure, Shizuka's story has her coming to her rescue, but Tomoe obviously wasn't expecting someone to help her, and the fact that Shizuka is also easily defeated by her replacement just makes me facepalm more.
I was honestly heartbroken after reading it, and now it seems the focus of the upcoming ova is: torture Tomoe until her mind is broken, and with the vanquished label on it I'm not very optimistic about a positive ending. I like Tomoe for her looks AND her character, I don't want to see a Branwen 2.0...
To Final_Agent, sorry for this long post after your comment, it's obvious you don't just see the characters as objects, I just can't share your positive view on these stories for several reasons.
I'm afraid from a moral standpoint, there is nothing positive to glean from the stories or the images. Like Alzrius said, they are designed to be sex objects. I'm not really a fan of the Vanquished Queens series either (mainly because I don't think the stories are actually interesting), but we can all agree how gorgeous the artwork is, which is really the point--that even in defeat, our favorite characters are still gorgeous/beautiful/sexy, etc. I'm quoting directly from Eiwa and his comment about Annelotte on the cover page: "...I wanted people to realize how gorgeous she was even in defeat."
DeleteAbout Tomoe, there is a bit of an issue with her character that I don't get.
DeleteMentally, she's incredibly weak. If you read her ending profile in Perfect Visual Book, she wants to go as far as RITUAL SUICIDE (no one even suggested she do that, she just out and said "After this report, I'd like to go commit ritual suicide before the gods) to atone for failing to become queen.
I think her giving up to the Ninja was just that, she lost her bid to become Queen, returned home a failure and got caught by the Koma Ninja faction maybe sometime after being told she couldn't do the ritual suicide thing.
It's interesting, I wonder if Shizuka told Tomoe something heartfelt to get her to get back to Hinomoto and back to the right path in Rebellion.
Just a side note, nothing much to do with the discussion here other than point out that Tomoe is someone driven by others, not herself.
Maybe Shizuka's final act in the anime and her saving Tomoe in Vanquished Queen's is exactly what gets Tomoe to begin fighting for herself. By reminding her that Shizuka is always rooting for her and no one else.
Kinda tragic in a way.
Oh, I have to disagree with the notion that Tomoe is mentally weak. It would be weak if she was committing suicide to run away, but she wasn't. To commit seppuku requires a certain conviction that you aren't afraid to kill yourself. So it's quite the opposite--she's mentally very strong.
DeleteI guess you got a point there.
DeleteWhither the creators (and how many of them..?) of the Queen's Blade series and characters really intended them to be simply hollow but beautiful "sex objects" is something we don't really know. Maybe yes, maybe no. But a sex object is only a sex object in the mind of the viewer, it depends on your perspective. Whatever they intended, I don't see them as simply "sex objects".
DeleteIf someone is introduced to a woman's existence through just a naked picture of her, it's up to the viewer to consider the fact that there is a brain and a heart behind that body or not. A person could assume "I'd love to get to know a woman like that" or "Hmm, I'd totally fuck her all night, yeah totally..." as if she'd willingly let them within the first few seconds of meeting (and sounding as if he has such a lineup of such women that he had to consider if she was worthy of her fucking :P) Most of the "appreciation" I've come across online for beautiful women is more of the latter, I'm ashamed to say, but certainly not all of them thankfully (but I wish I could say I felt I was part of a majority).
I'm really on the fence about something like Vanquished Queens personally, but I'm at least glad that it's non-canonical side stories. I love Queen's Blade not just because of how the women look but because I respect a lot of them as characters too, so it's both a physical and mental connection for me. Seeing a woman sad, upset, or crying, especially as a result of something sexual or humiliation, is a depressing thing to and definitely the opposite of sexy or arousing. Of course, I love the nudity and sexuality and ecchiness in this series, and it's fine when they're battling, and even when they're in a tough position and even tied up by another character (like echidna or melona) it's fine, but I hate to see them defeated or "vanquished" in a fashion like what tomoe went through. If it's part of the story I could let it pass, but not if it was part of something like a bonus OVA, or like in this OVA where it's intended as nothing but non-canonical fanservice for those who get off on seeing women in a torture situation. I like to see hot, strong women kicking ass and being awesome, not torn down to weaklings.
As much as I loved Queen's Blade, I soon realized how I shouldn't really consider it to be my favorite ecchi series, although it once was because of how it was so beautifully and even intelligently put together... if it was an all-girls fighting game instead of a game book series it'd easily be the best one just going off its story and characters (especially with their diversity and originality even among all attractive female characters in anime as a whole). Still, I came to realize how I far more enjoyed the ecchi in an anime like Kanokon. It made me wish that one of the OVA specials had been something like... Airi teasing the only real male in the series - Rana... (man, that little dude is the luckiest shota in all of anime, lol). Don't get me wrong, I still love QB though.
My hope for the OVA is that something good comes out of it for those who aren't so keen on seeing these ladies upset, like the imp getting his ass kicked.
As for what Eiwa said.. well, it's not like she would physically change in appearance when she's defeated. Of course she still looks beautiful.. like a beautiful flower is still beautiful even after it's been spat on, heh. You can't really say much about the people behind a creation like an anime or manga or characters beyond the things that they've made. We love what they make, but we don't really know the people behind them most of the time. I mean like when you consider that the guy who created the first good Pokemon manga was a hentai artist, lol.
I happen to like some of the artists' commentaries on their respective pieces. I like Oda Non's work quite a bit and have some of his doujinshi on my desktop.
ReplyDeleteI definitely loved reading those comments. It was also great in the Visual book released in english. I especially loved Hiraku Kaneko's and Oda Non's comments... they're my favorite Japanese artist and character designers. Some of Oda Non's hentai are among my most favorite, lol. It appears that some of these artists enjoyed drawing their characters as defeated while others felt they went too far when they actually came out pretty tame XD
DeleteLong time fan of the blog and thanks for the translations.
ReplyDeleteAny word on if they would touch the Queen's gate series in this form or are they going to say Copyright and bad publicity in the way they couldn't get Kasumi in the game. It would be interesting to if they could at lest get Cute or Maron and the monster girls there as well.
If these questions have been asked before sorry tldr all comments.
I'd have to wager they'd only be able to portray the characters they own, such as the original characters from QB and QG SC games (Cute,Maron, Aryutta,Luna,Hyumina,Aine and the like.) The 3rd party characters, I honestly feel it'd be a stretch for them to try it, and it wouldn't necessarily expand much on the Queen's Gate universe.
DeleteYep, like Ninja says, they'd probably only want to try with the chars they own... but it's quite telling that they haven't really released any kind of QG artbook (apart from the ones directly about the game), I don't think they trust too much in their appeal?
DeleteIt might simply be that they don't own those characters and Banpresto does instead.
DeleteSo Cute, Maron and such would each need their own license like any of the other QG girls.
That would also explain why none of the original girls have official books as well. Oh well it was worth a shot I guess ...
DeleteAny progress on the batch?
ReplyDeleteWell, it's coming along nicely, though I hear the proofreader is studying or something...?
DeleteI don't remember if i asked you already, but if you need any help with anything, i'll be glad to assist.
DeleteOh, thanks. But well, it's mostly our pal Final Agent who manages the team and whatnot... and the most desired skill is still translating ^^U
DeleteThe batch is usually on backburner whenever I have something more important to focus on, right now that being the final chapter of Exiled Warrior. It's almost done though, there's only one final thing to get proofread and stuff...I just need time to get to it!
Deletehey i have a question: in the Extras folder of VQ2, there're stories 'bout Tomoe & Ymir, are those stories belong to VQ1 or they're the extra of VQ2?
ReplyDeleteThey're stories that came after VQ2, so we compiled them in there while we weren't sure if a VQ3 was going to come out (of course, it did).
Deletei see, thank you. Keep up the good work and have a good day :D
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