Ive been down with a cold the last week and didnt get around to do a figure review.Thats where I am pulling a joker out of my sleeve and present you yet another Queens Blade Book review! This time were gonna take a look at the follow up series of QB called Rebellion. It is set a few years after the last Queens Blade Tournament and contains some heavy spoilers concerning the end of the original QB Story.

Lets take a look at the grim new Rebellion World after the Jump!

The content of this book was originally released on Hobby Japans Hobby Channel on a monthly basis including the Artworks.Hobby Japan tweaked some of the minor Story Plotholes and graphical inconsistencies and threw in some extra chapters as well as a Drama CD and released it last fall as the book your seeing.The Story Book is,as expected of Hobby Japan, of high quality with 64 coloured pages bound in hardcover with an accompanying Drama CD with a great cast of Seiyuus.It is unlike the Battle History Books a Light Novel with lots of text and a few illustrations inbetween.

Sounds pretty boring to somebody who isnt capable of Japanese but luckily Fabio of Synergetic Beans did a translation for the Hobby Channel releases.This still leaves the extra chapters only avaiable in this book untranslated but youll be able to understand the big picture thanks to him. Thank you Fabio!

As a matter of fact I collected Fabio`s Translation in a PDF and want to share it with you here

(Its no beauty but beggars cant be choosers)

Lets talk a bit about the Story itself now…

Rebellion is set a few years after Leina has won the Queen`s Blade Tournament but she decided to pass the title to her big sister Claudette who she thought of as more capable as queen.Leina`s decision to pass proved to be fatal though since Claudette turned out to be a ruthless ruler thats driven by power and greed.She soon took over country by country through violent battles and doesnt hestitate to crush anyone that opposes her since she sees herself as ruler chosen by god.

Most of the Queens Blade contestants,including Leina, vanished after the Tournament and their whereabouts are unknown.There are two familar faces serving under the new Queen of Gainos though: Elina and Ymir.Elina is now the leader of the assasins of the Fang and proved to be totally unstable since the disapperance of Leina and loves to torture the prisoners of war.Ymir on the other hand was bound by dwarven law to serve the Queen who had beaten her in combat as right hand.She was happy more than happy to oblige since theres a profit to be found from that position and she loves to experiment on new crafting techniques with stolen technology.

The Story begins when Annelotte,the last remaining heir of the Kreuz family, stands in her destroyed homeland and decides to take it in her hands to take down the Queen to restore peace in the world.The Rebellion begins….

When I heard the Plot of Rebellion for the first time I was really amazed at Hobby Japans decision to take a turn into a dark and grim direction that explores the nastier sides of some of the former good guys and ignoring most of the established cast and going for a new one.I do know that some people were more than unhappy how Elina and Ymir developed but these character traits were always there but never manifested this extremley before.I can only salute Hobby Japan for having the balls to take the franchise into a whole different direction which will surely piss off some of the fans.

Throughout the progression of the story two other familiar characters pop up: Tomoe and “Maria” (who looks like a certain QB touranment Winner) but those also have changed drastically.Tomoe has been cursed throughout her travels and lost her eyesight and Maria has been struck with a mysterious disease thats forcing her to sleep 16 hours a day and intense drowsiness haunts her during activities.

Hobby Japan decided to reduce the activtities of those two to a minimum though and they merely act as sidecharacters that aid the Rebellion army.The Focus clearly remains on the Rebellion Army and the opposing Queen.

Ah look how I ramble again….Anyways I didn t expect the new Queens Blade series to take this radical turn and I am more than delighted that Hobby Japan tried something different.I am still on the edge to see what will happen next and luckily they started a second Illustrated stories volume at the beginning of the year.You can find the translations of those also at Synergetic Beans. Fabio hasnt progressed too far as of now but there are already quite some twists in there!

Profiles for Annelotte and Claudette

Yes,thats Melona Slime.I wonder what happened to her…

Maria and Elina

Huit and Vingt

Punishment? as ordered by the Queen

Poor Mirim…This Scene was nearly too much for me

Ymir and Mirim

Extra Stuff from here on

Training under a Waterfall is nearly as essential as training in the mountains

Tomoe and Tan Yan/ San Yan

Who might be that mysterious Maria? XD

Siggy and LunaLuna

Without the Dust Cover

Lets have some fun talk about German customs this time…Remember how I was ranting about a package probably returning to Japan? As it turned out its was witheld by german customs for 1 1/2 months for investigation of forbidden materials.I cant see how a order consisting of this and Siggy`s Visual Combat Book could be even suspected to contain forbidden material but yeah they checked it very,very through.I dont know what they expected to find but they even checked the sealed Drama CD.

I dont mind that they check deliveries entering Germany but I do mind that they dont send a notice to the reciepent waiting desperately for the package.I already saw it lost somewhere in transisition because it took so long.This is far from consumer friendly and would take very little effort from them to make this a more pleasureable experience.

Thats it for today Boys and Girls!

I hope you enjoyed your trip ^^