Five Minor Gripes with Seikon no Qwaser
1. The final boss is the Qwaser of Gold
The philosophers among you might appreciate the symbolism of gold being the ultimate evil and iron overcoming it. Productive people realize that gold is one of the most industrially useless elements on the periodic table. The Qwaser of Oxygen suffocated people. The Qwaser of Sodium caused explosions. The Qwaser of Gold displayed the following fearsome powers:
- Wearing a gold arm brace
- Molding gold into different shapes
- Producing a golden flash of light that somehow hurts people
- Possessing people (nothing to do with gold)
- Levitation (nothing to do with gold)
- Erecting a barrier (nothing to do with gold)
- Transmuting any element into gold (I call bullshit)
Even zinc is more exciting.
But Baka-Raptor, Wikipedia lists FIVE non-jewelry industrial uses of gold!
Thank you, hypothetical contrarian, for preempting at least three comments. I’ve already looked over the list. The show has no photography, no radiation protection (which might’ve been cool), no CD production, no automobile heat dissipation, and no cockpit anti-icing.
2. Sasha’s Hair
I like the heterochromia. I like the stigmata. It’s a shame the stupid hairstyle has to ruin it all. First of all, I’ll never get used to characters under 50 having white hair. Second of all, even though he’s a fighter, he has bangs occluding his vision. Practically everyone on the show has bangs. There are more bare breasts than bare foreheads on the show, which is a disturbingly common trend in modern anime. Worst of all is his earring. At first I thought it a random braided strand of his hair, not that it makes a difference. It’s hideous.
3. The second ending is better censored
(This is the censored version)
I’m not just saying this because I prefer seeing underage girls with their clothes on. The censorship makes the ending artistically superior. Case in point: the checkerboard censorship. Some things are obvious in only one direction. If you watched the censored version first, it’s obvious that you could uncensor it by removing the checkerboard. If you watched the uncensored version first, you’d have no idea you could censor it with a checkerboard. I was laughing my ass off the first time I saw it.
4. The filler episodes were better than the serious episodes
Plot is the most important element of any show (post forthcoming). Something is terribly wrong when a filler episode is over and I say to myself, “crap, now I have to sit through the plot again.”
To the show’s credit, it did pull off one of the better hot springs episodes in recent memory.
5. Tomo was better when she was possessed
Just what anime needs, another high school girl with the personality of a five-year-old. I’m glad she got possessed about fifty times. It was the only thing that made her remotely interesting. Well, that and the inverted nipples.
Final Grade: ~
Seikon no Qwaser could’ve reached + levels with a more developed plot. There honestly was potential.
Tags: creative censorship, get a haircut ya hippie, heterochromia, high school girls acting like five-year-olds, i know too much stuff i am never going to use, obscure simpsons reference, real men study metallurgy, seikon no qwaser, single tilde
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August 2nd, 2010 at 6:27 pm
You know what Sasha needs: a thick sideburn to cover those earrings.
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 3rd, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Not only would his hairstyle be more tolerable, he’d never think he was a girl during the filler episodes.
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August 2nd, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Glad I don’t care about plot, since Qwaser is totally awesome
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 3rd, 2010 at 11:44 pm
It’s not just the plot. The characters weren’t all that interesting either. Sasha and Lizzie’s master were the only two characters who left a non-pornographic impression on me. Katja came close but could’ve used some more background development.
The plot was clearly cut short. Maybe the manga’s plot would’ve satisfied me.
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digital boy Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Indeed. Pretty sure the manga is still running – give it a look. From my experience, everything published in Champion Red is made of win.
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August 2nd, 2010 at 7:32 pm
I dropped this. The emphasis on breast kinda disturbing for me even though it was expected. But no shows is totally dropped.
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 3rd, 2010 at 11:48 pm
I don’t recommend anything ~ or lower. No harm in letting it stay dropped and waiting for a second season.
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kluxorious Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 1:50 am
fuck. It gets a second season?! >_<
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August 2nd, 2010 at 7:57 pm
Wut ? Baka-Raptor, i can list a few more awesome uses of gold in industry that you forgot to research:
Electronics and Computers => highly efficient conductor used in almost every sophisticated electronic device. (example: cell phones, microprocessors, memory chips et cetera…)
Dentistry => “How would iron work as a dental filling? Not very well… your dentist would need blacksmithing tools, your smile would be rusty a few days after a filling and you would need to get used to the taste of iron.” – needn’t to say more
Medical => used as a drug in treatment of certain cancers: particles of a radioactive gold isotope are implanted in tissues to serve as a radiation source. Radioactive gold is also used in diagnosis of deceases. Not to mention many surgical instruments are made of small amounts of gold.
Aerospace => “Gold is also used as a lubricant between mechanical parts. In the vacuum of space, organic lubricants would volatilize and they would be broken down by the intense radiation beyond Earth’s atmosphere”.
Glassmaking => gold dispersed within the glass or coated onto the glass surface will reflect solar radiation outward and reflect internal heat inward, helping cooling in summer and warming in winter.
if wikipedia didn’t cut it, u can go further in this article:
http://geology.com/minerals/gold/uses-of-gold.shtml
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Short answer: none of those uses appeared in the show.
Long(er) answer: The use of the elements on the show isn’t all that elegant. As far as metals go, most of the time they’re just constructing something big and hard to hit each other with. A pole, a knife, a hammer, whatever. Nobody’s doing anything nearly as fancy as hacking into computer networks or treating cancer.
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August 2nd, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Erecting a barrier? Maybe that was a reference to that gold foil experiment where they discovered the nucleus at the atom. It would work if all the energy attacks were composed of electrons or something.
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Of course! No wonder the Qwaser of Gold possessed Tomo. Any radiation attacks wouldn’t disturb her “plum pudding.”
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August 3rd, 2010 at 12:24 am
6. Not enough Katja
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TheBigN Reply:
August 3rd, 2010 at 11:59 am
You mean not enough Katja x Hana.
I was a fan of Tomo being possessed because it showed that her voice actor had more range than the type of characters she’s usually voices. Then again, it was also fun seeing her use that voice range when doing the breast puppet show for Sasha while he was figuratively out of it for those episodes in the middle.
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
The voice acting on the show is the one thing I won’t complain about. Strong performances all around.
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
Don’t give me that. Katja (and Hana) got a very fair share of screen time, especially toward the end of the series. I’d say the most neglected character was the nurse.
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August 3rd, 2010 at 4:38 pm
I was watching this show at one point, then I just stopped randomly, and haven’t checked back. I’m debating actually dropping it (which I’ve pretty much already done at this point anyway).
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
I have a draft post about anime I dropped unintentionally. I call them “fumbled.”
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August 3rd, 2010 at 5:28 pm
I guess it’s kinda sad that a lot of shows make me think “crap, now I have to sit through the plot”, though that’s probably my fault for watching bad ecchi manga adaptations.
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
That is 100% your fault. If I were you, I’d start watching better shows and pause every five minutes to look at porn. Enjoy the best of both worlds, just not necessarily at the same time.
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August 3rd, 2010 at 5:39 pm
your problem with white hair on people under 50 doesn’t apply to Sakata Gintoki, does it?
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kluxorious Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 1:51 am
It better not.
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Don’t know. I’ve never seen…(let me look this up)…Gintama.
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August 4th, 2010 at 9:23 am
What is this show about anyway? All the blatant hentai in it kind of puts me off from watching it entirely, and this coming from me of all people…
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Seikon no Qwaser = Full Metal Alchemist – plot + porn – 90% of the male cast – dead people as a power source + breast milk as a power source
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Zantetsu Reply:
August 6th, 2010 at 1:28 am
You had me at plot removed. There was a word for this kind of thing… Plot excuse? Author appeal? Can you even take a show seriously if the almighty power source is breast milk?
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 7th, 2010 at 12:26 am
Well, they call it “soma,” which makes it completely different from breast milk…
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August 4th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
I thought this had potential as well when I heard people comparing it to Queen’s Blade. After checking it out a bit though, it became clear that those people probably haven’t seen QB, which is far superior.
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
That was the hook for me too. “Baka-Raptor, if you liked Queen’s Blade, you’ll LOVE Seikon no Qwaser!” This is what I get for trusting people.
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August 5th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
I am so fucking proud that I finally know what you’re talking about. I’ve read many of your post talking about anime that I’ve never heard of but not this one, a friend referred it to me and I finally can make a reasonable comment. I found the series a little too perverted to be taken too serious because it damn near desensitized me to boobs. Gold being the top dog was cute but I agree with what you said. I don’t know how a gold qwaser could be useful in a fight, sodium most likely would be a stronger qwaser but sadly that was not the case. I found Sasha’s scar more annoying than the earring. I don’t understand how scars can dissapear and random and have yet to find out when scars looked like red tribal facepaint. Tomo was only useful for her boobs which was one of the reasons to me to why the series was a little too perverted to be taken seriously. And I found the useless qwaser more entertaining than any of the other characters (besides the minigun qwaser who was only in one scene) he seemed more realistic in the fact that he was the only one who noticed Tomo’s giant boobs besides Tomo. Even though he looked like that guy saying ‘huge breasts are justice’ but then again those two guys were the only ones who looked like normal people.
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
I’ve watched Kanokon. I’ve watched Queen’s Blade. At this point I don’t think any anime is too perverted for me to take seriously, at least during the serious parts. Still, even if I don’t take a show seriously, that’s no excuse for it not to be good. A show’s being half porn doesn’t mean the non-porn half should be held to a lower standard.
The Hydrogen user had potential. Carbon should’ve been given a higher rank. I also wanted to see some more radioactivity. If I were in charge, the final boss would be the Qwaser of Plutonium.
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Kyoin Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
I kind of thought the show was rushed if we’re talking about the non-porn half. I thought they’d give some of the characters more personality. The story was good though, I enjoyed it. I just wish they didn’t rely so heavily on boobs. But I can’t complain. And I guess I’ll have to check out this Queen Blade stuff you guys have been talking about. I hear about it everywhere so I’ll give it a go. Never heard of Kanokon though.
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Baka-Raptor Reply:
August 7th, 2010 at 12:15 am
The cast of characters overall was pretty bland (see response to comment #2). The pacing didn’t bother me, but I didn’t watch the show week to week, so it’s hard to judge. I tended to watch a bunch of eps at a time and then ignore it for a few weeks.
Lucky you.
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August 9th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
he you guys ever wathed Kiss x Sis? that’s the prof of a ecchi anime can be just 99% echhi and still be good, but in Seikon no Qwaser they ruined everyting, it have almost no plot , and that bullshit about boob milk power is ridiculous, the problem is that seikon is not echhi it is perverted.
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August 13th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
The Series took a bad turn when it’s focus too much in the “oppai factor”. Yeah, the manga has the same plot, but the characters are more interesting. The nurse has NOTHING at the manga (only a single draw) but in the anime take a little “action” when Sasha suck her tits. Another bad thing it’s about the episodes when Sasha lost his memorie. I haven’t been more facepalm in my whole life, Sasha was so GAY, in the manga he crossdres, but he never act too sisi.
The worst about the show is the ridiculous exibition of breast. I admit the central idea of the manga is about sucking the “soma” direct from breast, but the anime is too exagerate and very embarrasing, I feel like I saw a porno movie in front of my mother when I saw a single SnQ episode, always alone and in the middle of the night. The hope of a second season more close to the manga its lost when i saw the promotion’s Katja-loli image.
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August 13th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Hey, I recomend the manga, more fun, violent and more structure and deep (not too much, but more enjoybable to read)
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