Seikon no Qwaser「REVIEW」

Details:

Producer: Hoods Entertainment

Season: Winter 2009

Episodes: 24

Genre: Action, Supernatural

Demographic: Shounen....really?

Synopsis:

In St. Mikhailov Academy, Oribe Mafuyu meets a silver haired boy called Alexander. He is a Qwaser, a being who can manipulate iron and draws his power from breast milk. A mystery surrounding an icon tranforms the academy into a setting for conflict between the various Qwasers.

To make a long story short, let's just say this was very different. Not in terms of the plot per se but rather in the use of sucking breast milk as a plot device. Frankly, the plot itself didn't stray very far from your typical good versus evil storyline and even though I tend to enjoy that kind of anime a lot, Seikon no Qwaser became quite sleep inducing at certain points. It was very episodic to begin with a new enemy appearing every episode. The plot didn't really begin to develop properly until the later half of the season.

The basic concept of a Qwaser is original though. I have to give this show credit for that. The idea is that a Qwaser is a being who has control over a single element. These elements, however, are not the typical earth, air, fire and water, but rather chemical elements that you would find on a periodic table. The show combines science and religion in a really odd way, and watching it would be a better experience with knowledge of Christianity and chemistry. I didn't really get a lot of those religious references but they're not really too important.

The characters in Seikon no Qwaser were far from original. With the girls, you have the tsundere, the damsel in distress, loli, rich bitch, and the list goes on. The males were generally the antagonists and none of them were particular well developed in any way. In fact, the characters were relatively superficial. They don't have any really solid back story. The only real explanation you get is the reason for Sasha's vendetta against the Twelve Adepts, but that was just generic. It's not generally a huge problem if there's a lack of character development for minor characters but here, the characters never stray from their given trope and really just stay the same for the entire series.

The art wasn't fantastic. The focus was generally more on exaggerated features such as breasts, rather than overall aesthetics. At times, breasts and facial features seemed disproportionate with the rest of the body. I'm not really sure if that was done on purpose or not. Although, I guess it's expected from an anime that was made for fanservice. The animation was average. It wasn't terrible but it didn't really stand out either. I thought the action scenes were done really well though. They gave a good view of what was going on.

Musically, it wasn't particularly memorable. The soundtrack wasn't revetting or anything, but it did compliment  what was going on, so I don't really have any issues with that. The opening and ending themes weren't too good, in my opinion. 

Overall, it wasn't really a memorable experience. It was basically a story made for fan service. Being a girl, the ecchi and practically borderline hentai didn't both me at all, but it does make this something I wouldn't recommend to everyone. It's not something that I would watch again either. Conceptually, it's unusual, so I rate this series a 6/10.