The Qwaser of Stigmata Episode 01 - Quavering Night

Sometimes, you come across a show that is just instantly so horrendous, so incredibly foul, you have no choice but to attempt to inflict it upon other people.

The show in question is Seikon no Qwaser, or The Qwaser of Stigmata.

Now, see, there's a lot of reasons I chose to take on this show. Many of them involve the fact that for goddamn once I don't have to worry about pedophilia. Which is great. Because I'm getting sick and tired of having to bitch about the same thing over and over again.

The other reason is that, according to Wikipedia, breast feeding is an integral plot point of the show.

... and right there, ladies and gentlemen, you  have your answer as to why I am now watching this show for you. We'll see how many screencaps I'm actually able to extract (because from the looks of things, this shit is totally uncensored).

So this episode begins almost immediately with some... incredibly questionable imagery. There's a girl tied up to a wall, and there's a bunch of round thingies up at the top of the screen with large, red, phallic-looking I don't even know protruding out of them. I'm going to guess they're candles with gold-colored penis-tipped heads or something because holy jesus this is already going to be nominated for animated feature of the year.

Then a hand grabs one of the red things and squeezes on it, and little blue flames shoot out of them all and suddenly remind me of cow udders for some odd reason. They cut to a moth, which I guess is symbolistic of something, and the girl looks up and is terrified. I would be too because all of those 'candle' things are jutting out of big-tittied women's nipples, who are just casually... I dunno. Hanging around from the ceiling? They look fine. In fact, a couple of them just flop off letting us see those lovely nipples, and within the first thirty seconds, you have a pretty good idea of exactly what you are in for.

The girls screams "don't come near me" as some other chick walks up, pops out a blade, and starts pressing against her, let's call it honeycomb. That's a nice, safe-sounding word. There's the sound of some cloth ripping, and the lady starts going on about something involving golden water and Lord Vladmir bestowing 'the one true Icon upon the Motherland' and already, I'm lost, but who cares? She's fondling the chick's tits with her blade, it's all good. Then the shirt gets torn apart, and we get this super dramatic close-up of something... terrifying I guess? I really don't see what the big deal is.

Barely a minute and you're already talking gibberish.

Then we see the moth get covered in blood that has the consistency of ketchup, and we get our OP! It's pretty light on the Mother Mary visuals. And the church imagery. Also, did you see how huge the knockers are on most of the girls in this show? Because they are ginormous! There's a song playing and some things happening, some dude with a scythe-like thing fighting monsters with big tits and tentacles and wings? Whatever. Then there's some other characters and it ends.

Boy, that was the most action-packed yet incredibly forgettable opening I have seen in a long time. Who's excited to keep watching this show?

Also I'd like to point out that there's some distinct differences in the translation of the episode names, so for the record, I am going with the titles taken from the good ol' anime database. Those guys are swell and usually know what's up. Though I suppose "Night of Terror" is probably a name that makes a lot more sense, but what do I know? One of the anidb tags is "butchered foreign languages" so I'm going to assume they know what's really going on here.

So we re-begin today's episode at St. Mikhailov Academy, which totally isn't Russian, but let's face it if the name "Vladmir" didn't already tip you off that this is supposed to take place somewhere that is totally supposed to be Russia, then I guess you are just young and naive. Moments later, they make sure to let us know that the establishing shot after the establishing shot is taking place in the Campus Church.

Oh goodie, they're going to tell us everything. I bet ten
seconds from now they'll be saying "Priest's Quarters".

Inside the church are a couple of girls praying. Then one of them (the more reasonably-endowed one of course) stands up and hears a voice in her head telling them "it's time to pray". Holy shit she was just kneeling down two seconds ago and already it's prayer time again?

But it turns out to be a flashback to when they were tiny little sprats standing in front of the altar, where their daddy (presumably) tells them that an Icon is also referred to as "The Window of Eternity". I'm sorry, is any of this supposed to be meaning anything because you are dropping an awful lot of exposition without any sort of goddamn context whatsoever.

And here I just thought they were things you clicked on.

Something about how the Icon can let them see the world through the eyes of God so on, and then they let us see what this 'Icon' is. I think. It makes as much sense as nipple candle-blowtorches.

Oh hey look it's the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. How subtle!

Then we come back to the present and I guess the red-haired one, Mafuyu, tells us that one day her uncle, who is Tomo's (the purple-haired one) father, left. He was kind enough to leave them a note though telling them not to worry, which was swell of him. I'm sure having nobody around to care for you is a big deal. He also left a pocketwatch for them. Tomo I guess falls asleep praying or something, so her cousin beats her in the head with a Kendo stick.

Now we get to see Tomo's incredibly generous bosoms flop around in front of our faces before it zooms out and ever so slightly up to show her face as they run. I have literally seen smaller melons than these excessively-mammoth-sized mammaries.

I realize this is anime but holy shit how do you BREATHE?!

Mafuyu chastises her for, I dunno, being absent the last three days from school, and informs her that she can't be late on the day she comes back, after all that would just be... I don't even know? Oh, and besides she's the daughter of the headmaster so she has no excuse to be late or absent.

... except for the part where he straight up and vanished on you guys one night? I'd say that gives you plenty of excuse. Also, wouldn't that make him not the headmaster anymore...?

Then they happen across some other chick who looks like a nun poking at some flowers while butterflies casually float in front of her head, and Tomo demonstrates the ability to suddenly launch herself through the air so we can see a very close-up shot of her panties for absolutely zero reason. And yes, they are incredibly childish panties, in case you were wondering.

Then there's another lovely shot of Tomo holding her skirt down in front of the camera, which really looks a lot more like she is attempting to finger her own asshole, and makes zero sense considering she fell on her head, not her ass. But whatever. This nun's name is Teresa.

I'll give you a moment. You'll probably need it because right now, I am laughing my ass off at the absurdity so far. If they weren't attempting to go out of their way to piss off anyone that happened to be Christian before, they're certainly well on their way to doing it anyways. Oh Japan.

They exchange a few words, and Teresa acknowledges that she will in fact be coming to school today... or something. I'm honestly not sure. She walks off with a pot of tulips and doesn't really say much of anything, so I'm guessing she is just a student. Who dresses like a nun. And wears a crucifix.

What's mysterious about her? She's a nun. In a catholic
school. What is so weird about that?

Oh but it gets better, since Teresa is... an exchange student. Not an ordinary one though: A special exchange student. As if those weren't already somehow mystically ingrained into the anime culture as automatically sending off warning signals that this person is either a superhero and/or demon lord in disguise. Oh and Tomo is forced to admit that she managed to trip over absolutely nothing.

So she gets helped up by her cousin and says she looks like a Prince and oh god we're going to enter incest territory aren't we yes we are going to enter incest territory sure why not.

Anyway they get into class and find themselves face to face with a bucket that has dead flowers in it. Huh. Okay. And everyone else just kind of looks at her and is like "man and she's the daughter of the headmaster man what a weirdo right?"

Oh and then some girl named Hana gets accused of doing this, and she's all "oh hey she's alive cool, I mean she was only gone three days but we all thought she sorta died whatever". She also goes on to say everyone thought she was nicked by some serial killer from the city, not that her 'weak body' had succumbed to whatever illness happened to be attacking her at the time. Also, she gets points for the TOTALLY SUBTLE FORESHADOWING.

Sorry could you try being a little less subtle here?

Then some other tiny girl tries to stand up and speak (turns out she's the class president) but Hana shuts her up immediately and changes the topic to the headmaster going missing and those murders all happening at the same time. Gee, how mysterious! If only I wasn't spending all of my time fondling this funny-looking cross and not insinuating that I am actually the one killing people at night. If only.

Then Mafuyu shoves Hana against a wall, and Tomo latches onto her back in order to try pulling her off, but let's face it: the only reason this is happening is because they wanted to show three girls sandwiched together on the screen at once.

Seriously they are all enjoying this way too much.

Then some other girl with huge knockers and bubblegum pink hair stands up, asking if they're gonna see some violent acts get committed, and the whole room just kind of turns to her for some reason.

How many more anime cliches will we see today?

So, I guess she has more presence in the classroom than the goddamn classroom president, and reveals that Mafuyu is the 'adopted maid' of Tomo. Uh, what? Whatever. How sad it is that they'd resort to violence when someone is clearly bullying them blah blah blah. Why if something happened they'd have to leave the dirty, run-down dormitory and wouldn't that be such a shame- oh wait I'm sorry she immediately loses the hard-ass look she had going as Mafuyu snaps at her and she's all "hey I'm just worried don't hurt me please I am a fragile princess".

WE GET IT YOU'RE RELIGIOUS.

God it's like we can't go more than two minutes without them going HEY RELIGION IS SUPER IMPORT HEY DON'T FORGET CROSSES HEY DID YOU KNOW CHURCH HEY CHRISTIANITY OH LOOK GOD. WE ARE SUPER DEEP BECAUSE WE KEEP SHOVING RELIGION DOWN YOUR THROATS HERP DERP.

So after introducing a classroom of characters whose names we'll never remember except for Hana who is clearly an evil villain or something, we get to listen to some dude talking about how all the victims of these murders were young women that were 'pure' and 'without lovers', and how 'soma' is more powerful when taken from virgins.

Right. The report goes on and oh god.

Yeah that's never going to be misinterpreted.

We finally get to meet Gene Starwind. I mean, some dude that looks like Gene Starwind.

Super subtle eyepatch is go!

Oh look Teresa is supposed to have a partner or something, guess we'll just cut over to two girls holding hands while we focus on their skirts. Tomo and Mafuyu talk about how Hana used to not be such a cunt when she was younger, and how Tomo doesn't let her fight, but that's okay because Mafuyu will just make a giant meal for them to eat and then Tomo walks off laughing about how her stomach is in trouble.

Oh brother.

But then she's all "time to be edgy by suggesting God hasn't saved us and her dad is still missing, ALL IS DARK AND BLEAK IN THE WORLD." Then we get a moment of seeing Tomo on her knees crying in a very suggestive pose, but it lasts only a second as red there realizes she is being left behind. Whoops. There's more talk about the princess and the knight in shining armor, and then Tomo trips and we once more get a full view of Tomo's erogenous nethers as we realize she appears to have somehow fallen directly on top of some dude. Who is currently being smothered by her breasts.

What I want to know is, how does Mafuyu not realize she is laying on top of someone until after she has walked over to see if her friend is okay?

So after realizing she is suffocating someone, they see he has silver hair and looks exactly like that little kid in the not-Virgin-Mary portrait at the chapel. Also, he seems to be wearing lipstick for some reason.

I get the impression silver is a big deal for him.

He then proceeds to fondle and then immediately suck on Tomo's knockers. Through her clothes I guess. Because hey, who cares if there's cloth in the way, this is anime and cloth has the same consistency as water.

So they take him back to their place while Tomo is all "man you didn't have to break your sword over his head" and... Tomo tells us that this guy... is a girl.

This guy.

Is a girl.

Okay sure whatever. At least the two girls seem divided over whether this mysterious stranger is a boy or a girl. One would think that after having carried them home, they would have literally gotten a good feel as to their guest's gender, but what do I know?

So they prepare to 'check' (something that Mafuyu doesn't seem to understand how to for some weird reason) and now they find their newfound pal has simply vanished. So it's up to Mafuyu to head out and go looking for him, when she discovers that the church is on fire! So she'd better look into that and save that painting.

So what, blue flames are just a thing you're used to?

Instead of asking the correct question, which one would think is WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON our heroine here instead seems inclined to ask why this is happening. She runs over to grab the painting, and that other chick from before the opening shows up to taunt her, and saying some fairly unintelligible bullshit gibberish gobbledygook.

How do you pronounce ANYTHING in that sentence?!

So cloak there magicks some spinning razors out of the air, and proves that she is incapable of hitting a stationary target with them as they just kind of fly around the room not really doing anything. Oh, and despite the sword supposedly having been broken, it is totally all in one piece here. So there's that.

Anyhow the 'razors' prove to not really even be that as they wrap around Mafuyu and tie her up to the wall, but not without ripping up her clothes just a tiny bit. After all, considering the lovely little opening bit we got, it would be a real disappointment if that didn't happen at this point, right?

So Mafuyu puts two and two together and realizes this is the serial killer, right?

Like I said. Subtle.

So she says something about having lost time due to the low-quality 'soma', and the translators are kind enough to let us know that soma means "holy milk". Except that's not exactly what soma is? Except that in the context of this show, that is exactly what it means. So yeah. Subtle.

Oh and now the ceiling is suddenly full of other girls who are tied up for whatever reason. Oh and I guess the blue fire is gone too? She walks up and laughs and shows off some kind of tongue stud piercing she's got going on, and is all about how she couldn't find what she was looking for, and that she hoped this girl could help her find it but guess not oh well just gonna lick your face and make you look like you totally want the D now.

Because rape is sexy!

After shoving her thumb down the girl's throat for a moment, she then proceeds to talk about... Magnesium. What?

So now she proceeds to basically use the bamboo sword as a phallic object, not just poking Mafuyu's chest with it, but running it up and down between her breasts. Because hey, I guess that's sexy right? Then she does some weird contortionist backflip thing and backs away from the girl who shouldn't be capable of moving, and keeps talking about how weird it is that Tomo keeps coming to class for some reason. What is even up with that anyway?

At this point, red there demands that she show her face, and how she doesn't know how hard it is for Tomo to keep showing up all the time.

Wait. So you managed to figure out that this is the person running around murdering people. Yet you somehow completely miss the part where she shoves a unique-looking crucifix practically in your face?

Then I guess she is about to set the girl on fire, but then goes "psyche! Did you piss yourself?"

Uh, okay? Is this really necessary? Then again, this is a show that's spent a great deal of time setting itself up to be pretty blatantly a hentai, except that it's not because you're not allowed to show hentai on television even in Japan. But it's pretty much the closest thing you can get to it. Whatever, the portraits are burning now, and the murderer is all "oh whatever nobody cares about you shits" and Mafuyu is all "oh noes, we really are all alone because nobody ever sticks up for us how sad".

Then she plays the part of trying to be strong and the woman makes magical knives fly at the girl, who is saved by... chains.

Yeah. Chains. Some silver-haired girl or boy or someone shows up, and... some other stuff gets said.

Wait wait wait. Now we've got the Three Musketeers involved?!

This person is then described as "one lovedb y God and betrayed by God".

.... what the f**k?

Well at least that part made sense.

But the boy/girl/whatever collapses from not having had 'soma' in a long time but leave it to Teresa to leap out of the ceiling while flashing her incredibly frilly and lacy panties in our face several times as she flips through the air, to perform what is actually a very well-animated sequence of knocking those weird magical rings out of the air.

This show is incredibly subtle with its fanservice. By
not being subtle whatsoever.

So Teresa introduces herself as one of the Twelve Adepts, the Pax Romania.

.......

*sighs*

Okay. Continue.

So it is at this point that Teresa turns around, walks over, kneels down and pops her top down and flops out a tit in Sasha's face, while Mafuyu is wondering what the hell is going on, and the villain just f***ing stands there for no goddamn reason because she is suddenly somehow unable to act.

But after about ten seconds of being dumb the villain is all "oh hey I have magic" and starts shooting more of those magical rings at them, except that as mentioned before they are incapable of hitting a goddamn thing and just swirl around them as Teresa shoves a nip into Sasha's face and the rings go flying up into the air while they also scream at the same time. There's a lot going on in this show, you see. It's not just all about tits and sucking on them. It's got depth.

So Sasha suckles that teat so hard, all of the windows f***ing shatter. No, I am not even joking. That is literally what happens.

Mafuyu, on the other hand, stands there completely dumbfounded.

Well when was the last time you saw a grown man get
breastfed? I dunno.

So we get to see Sasha drinking for a good thirty seconds as Teresa says some weird religious bullshit, and then Sasha finally lets off as breast milk goes shooting all over the place and that scar on his/her face turns red, as does his/her left eye, and then the whole chapel just explodes.

Oh, and now we have subtitles for our subtitles because now he is talking a completely different language. I'm going to guess he's talking Russian, and Mafuyu is left wondering just what the shit is going on, when she should be wondering how Teresa suddenly managed to re-dress herself in the last ten seconds.

It's her attention to detail that really makes her special.

So Teresa goes on to say that this kid is someone who "received Mary's Soma... one who can control a specific element."

Oh god.

So I guess sucking on the Virgin Mary somehow turns you into an "Alchemist". Which lets him "manipulate electrons, control vibration and atomic bonding."

Yeah okay you lost me again.

You could have just summed this whole thing up as "he can turn metal into other shit just by touching it". That would have saved you so much time, and been a hell of a lot less confusing. But she goes on. And on. AND ON.

*groans of agony*

HE IS. A QWASER. ONE OF THE FEARED ONES.

Right. Well at least they were able to tell us that f***ing much. So he spouts some bullshit and makes a giant scythe while asking if this chick has ever felt fear or whatever, and then cuts her in half except she instead vanishes in a poof of blue fire.

Now they're standing in front of the ruined church and Sasha's like "oh I was only chasing Magnesium, I'm outta here".

Wait. Her name was Magnesium? How the hell does that make any sort of sense? Then he's all like "whatever if you can't save yourself you're not worth living, go home and make sure you live till tomorrow" or something, and those scars on his face start bleeding all over the place.

Oh see, I get it. Stigmata! How clever.

So Sasha walks off bleeding all over the place, and next day the chapel is all back to normal. So she steps in to ask Pastor Gene what is up, and he kindly informs her that Teresa isn't around today because she was feeling ill. To which we... get to see Teresa... sitting on her bed. With only her panties on. And butt in the air. Pressing her nipples against her bed...?

Uh, what? How does...

He then walks out saying they should talk more the next time they meet, and bids her farewell. But then she's all "the hell is a Qwaser?" and he's all "oh, you know, it's a thing that uh, you'll find out. When you need to."

Then Tomo's boobs happen in your face, and she asks her red-haired friend if the Father told her anything. But nope, he didn't say a thing, and man, whatever could have happened to that boy they saved yesterday?

Pretty sure Herr is a German thing.

So our new Mysterious Transfer Student is only 13 years old. And already, everyone wants to jump his balls.

Those are totally the looks of someone who's gonna rape ya.

Of course it's left up to our heroine to completely go off on this dude for no real reason while her friend just laughs at whatever she does.

Because violence is funny!

So this Alek guy gets to walk around wearing, once again, the most subtle outfit possible.

See if you can spot the symbolism in this picture!

Then he's all "whatever go away and forget about last night" and those other two girls show up and try talking down to them and are all "Sasha, right? That's what close friends would call a dude named Aleksander right?"

Super. Subtle. Especially since that makes ZERO SENSE AT ALL.

So he flips out at them in Russian and is all like "don't ever call me that again" and pisses off those other girls. One of whom finally introduces herself in the stupidest way imaginable.

Awesome and that is important why exactly?

So then Sasha is all like "lol you hide behind other people how pathetic" and talks about how she's not gonna rattle him that easily. Then he just sorta makes the support for the table melt as he gets up, and makes that other girl fall. Because, again. They're being subtle.

Oh, but of course Hana would wind up with her snatch getting rubbed against the pointed tip of the table support, and us getting a lovely spread-eagled view of it because, y'know. Pointless pantsu shots are cool.

Oh but to make it even better, her panties are stuck to the tip. So she just kind of moves back and forth while moaning because that is even more hilarious.

Again, subtlety is this show's saving grace.

Yeah I got nothing.

Sasha decides Tomo's breasts are excellent, and we get to see some dark hooded figures sitting around a table doing dark hooded things.

Of course they're circling a coffin.

Then some more things happen what just... ugh.

Japan. Right. Okay. Sure.

We get to see some out-of-focus silhouettes and then some dude sitting in a chair and one of the dark hoods talks about how the power of Mary is all theirs and may God be with them blah blah SYMBOLISM. Did you think the episode was over again because NOPE NOT YET.

So we cut back to Sasha who finally lets go of Tomo's boobs and walks off like it's nothing but a thing, and he plays the I AM DARK AND SUPER EDGY card.

Award-winning dialogue that.

Then the church bells ring and we get our SUPER EDGY DARK OPPRESSIVE ENDING. Except that it's not because it immediately turns into typical J-Pop while girls pop their tops off and roll around in bathtubs while fully-clothed.

Then there's weird shit like this.

Also, more incredibly subtle symbolism with... oh screw it just look at the picture.

Penis cross imagery. Awesome!

More girls in bathtubs and standing around like dolls and just... I don't even know. This whole ending is simply bizarre and just... ugh.

I can only guess water is somehow important or something, considering everyone has a pair of teats to suckle on at some point, and we all know how important that one is.

So yeah. Seikon no Qwaser. Now you know.

Now you know why I have to watch this show. Because it is terrible beyond all belief. If this were a hentai?You wouldn't even be reading about it. Hell if it was an actual hentai I would probably watch it just because, frankly, it is so laughably bad how could I not?

But instead, it is simply laughably bad. Because it wants to go there but can't.

But hey, it's got breast-feeding I guess so that counts for something right?

I'm going to go soak my head in the sink or something. Because this show makes my brain hurt.