This picture is probably the tamest thing about the show.
The St. Mikhailov Academy student Oribe Mafuyu comes across a mysterious silver haired boy. His name is Sasha and he is a Qwaser, a being that draws power from Soma and is able to manipulate a specific element. And now, in the 21st century, the mystery revolving around an Icon turns the academy into the battlegrounds for the fight between the Qwaser!Seikon no Qwaser is written by Yoshino Hiroyuki and drawn by Satou Kenetsu, the artist of the manga adaptations of Mai-HiME and Mai-Otome. It is a story about Russian Orthodox Church Militants using alchemy with power over one specific element from the periodic table each. However, the Qwaser recharge their power by drinking "Soma" from women's breasts, and the stronger the emotions of the woman being sucked, the more potent the Soma. Yes, this rule applies to female Qwaser as well.As you might guess, this story is definitely NSFW. On the other hand, if you're looking for a borderline-hentai manga with action, a plot, some chemistry and gratuitous Russian words mixed in, then Seikon no Qwaser may suit your taste.The anime adaptation of this work premiered in January 2010, with a second season that started in April 2011. This time Sasha goes undercover in an all girls school to find a legendary maria. He does this by - you guessed it - sucking the breasts of his fellow schoolmates.Character sheets can be found here.The manga was picked up by Tokyopop and given the translated title The Qwaser Of Stigmata.
Examples:
Action Girl: Teresa, Katja, Lizzy and the majority of the female villains.
A-Cup Angst: Fumika has issues with her chest size. She goes into a Corner of Woe several times in episode 13, singing how small they are.
Adaptation Distillation: The anime went for a different aproach than the manga, it can be easily summarized with: the manga has action with Fanservice included, while the anime has Fanservice with action included. The change of focus is blatant in the OVAs and extra scenes from the DVD/BD releases.
Alpha Bitch: Miyuri, though she's considerably more likable than most examples of the trope. She eventually becomes a Lovable Alpha Bitch.
Anime Accent Absence: Both Sasha and Katja seem to speak fluent Japanese, every once in a while throwing in small fragments of (sometimes incorrect) Russian. Sasha even pronounces borscht like a Japanese native would.
Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Sasha, Katja, almost every Qwaser has this attitude except for Lizzy.
Author Appeal: The only explanation for what lengths this work goes to fetishize breast-feeding. Add shimmering lights, spinning action, slow-motion close-ups and a Good versus Evil battle... And the S&M, and the Russian Orthodoxy... also interesting in that the ones that seem to get off during the breast-feeding sessions are the ones being sucked, not the perpetrators.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Katja lays this on thick with Miyuri, who swallows it whole. Ironically when Miyuri tries it on Sasha, he sees through it and cuts her off immediately.
Black Comedy Rape: The second season doesn't treat all of Sasha's numerous sexual assaults on the other students very seriously.
Blood Knight: Croa may have participated in genocide against Serbians and hates Japanese too (he called them "yellow pigs"), but racial or religious hatred is only a pretext for him having the pleasure of killing people.
Bowdlerise: Nearly any scene that might possibly contain serious action in the broadcast version of the anime is either cut, shortened, zoomed in on the character's face or replaced with an image of background scenery. This can make it appear as though the characters are really angry at that damned night sky. (The DVD & Blu-Ray releases are uncensored; the The Anime Network is streaming episodes uncensored.)
The scene where Croa and his accomplices rape and murder the nuns of Teresa's Serbian Orthodox Church was quite explicit in the manga. In the animé, they thankfully replaced that with a Rape Discretion Shot.
Breast Expansion: When Mafuyu is used to complete the bad guys' plan, in the anime her breasts magically gain several sizes.
But Now I Must Go: Subverted. Sasha and Katja prepare to move on after the climactic battle, and both imply that they'll cut all ties when they go. But Sasha and Mafuyu confess their love for each other and Sasha tells her he'll be back when he can. At the end of the epilogue, Hana introduces herself with Sasha at a new school, suggesting Kajta also transferred there.
Can't Hold His Liquor: Episode 13 show Tomo can gets drunk just from smelling sake (Although, considering this was coming from a teacher whose already shown to be rather mischievous and was drinking the Sake in question...). Even more of a lightweight is Lizzy, who can get drunk from soda pop.
The Cast Showoff - The song "Passionate squall", of the ED. And can you blame them, when you've got Yoko Hikasa, Aki Toyosaki, Minori Chihara, and Aya Hirano? Two of the main cast of K-On!, Haruhi herself, and the seiyuu who sings "Paradise Lost" and "Yuki, Muon, Madobe Nite"? And then Chihara, who doesn't even voice the main character, sings the second ED.
Chest Blaster: Episode 14 has Lily Mask's take. It destroys her clothes in the process, but oh, the damage it does.
Clark Kenting: Miyuri, Hana and Ekaterina are disguised even from each other by masks that hardly cover 1/6th of their faces.
Crash into Hello: His arrival is first masked by Tomo's dojikko collapse, then a gratuitous upskirt with equally gratuitous detail to the camel-toe...oh, there's Sasha, lost in Marshmallow Hell.
Cute Clumsy Girl: Tomo can't run without falling down. Must be hard keeping your balance with such huge breasts.
Deliberately Cute Child: Katja in public is just the most adorable little thing you could hope to meet. Katja in private is a domineering sexual predator with a talent for bondage and a taste for older women.
Depraved Bisexual: Just when you think Mutsumi is a (relatively) well-adjusted individual compared to her partner, she knocks Mafuyu unconscious in one scene and then tries to rape her when she wakes up. Even after this event, she continues to make passes at Mafuyu every so often.
Distracted by the Sexy: When the protagonists are being held hostage by Russian soldiers in one scene, Miyuri offers to strip naked for them if they'll let her friends go. Katja takes advantage of this act to run up and refill her Soma, giving her the strength to fight back.
Double Standard Rape Female On Male: Twice. Arguable in Chapter 17 of the manga, while Sasha has amnesia and Lizzy is drunk. Though to be fair, they are interrupted before they start doing it. Also in episode 13 of the anime, where the school nurse spends a lot of time trying to rip Sasha's towel off just to see him naked while he has amnesia and confusion about his true gender after the events of the previous episode.
Elemental Powers: Deconstructed. When we say that each Qwaser controls one element, we are not talking about fire, water, earth and air, but in fact about the chemical elements of the periodic table: Iron, Chlorine, Copper, etc... Apparently, Hiroyuki alsogot passing grades in chem.
Faux Action Girl: Subverted. Hana's being blackmailed but it doesn't change the fact that she gets captured so easily. She's still shown to be reasonably tough and independent when she's on her own. Two factors keep her from really being an action girl: she has no powers, meaning most Qwasers can do whatever they want with her. And second...speaking frankly, Hana's a pedophile. Katja is basically the walking incarnation of all her most twisted fetishes, and whatever Hana might say to the contrary she likes being dominated by her.
Full Frontal Assault: Happens a few times, but reaches absurd heights in chapter 24 when Mutsumi and Mafuyu have full-on duel when they're both naked.
Fully Automatic Clip Show: The ending of the last episode of season one is three minutes of pantie- and boob shots from the previous 23 episodes in short succession.
Functional Magic: Alchemy, couched in the language of actual chemistry.
Gainaxing: Less than five minutes into the first episode, and Tomo's huge breasts are already boucing a lot.
Girl on Girl Is Hot: You'll find it in practically every other chapter of the manga with varying degrees of softcore porn attached, but especially in scenes with Katja and any other female character.
Sasha often comments in Russian, but tons of mistakes make it very funny to read for Russian speakers. The male lead's Russian surname (Her) roughly translates to "Dick" in English. Considering Sasha's usual demeanor, perhaps that was intentional, but on the blackboard, the name is spelled like a transliteration of the German word "Herr" (Mister) and could mean that he's of German descent. In the anime his surname is rendered as"Hell", which is, accidentally, a nickname of a fairly well-known (and equally dickish) Real Life hacker who made his name cracking the e-mail accounts and blogs of various notable Russian bloggers and journalists.
Also the German of Eva Anna Paula Braun Silver, but it is not used as frequently.
Handsome Lech: Tasuku in the manga, though he does have a couple Moral Event Horizion worthy moments. Though, in fairness, one of those was a tongue-in-cheek moment that earned him an Armor-Piercing Slap from his partner before he actually stuck it in, and the other was a less-comedic Dream Sequence of another character.
Happiness in Slavery: Hana. While first being reluctant to becoming Katjas BDSM slave she quickly accepts and embraces her position and becomes fanatically loyal to her. Ayame as well. Katja has the ability to invoke this in others. Most of the girls were pretty normal before Katja got her hands on them.
Historical Domain Character: Eva Silver is Eva Anna Paula Braun, who kept herself young and healthy by absorbing young clones of herself. Also, Katja is either a reincarnation or some kind of time-warped version of Alexandra Feodorovna, the last Tsaritsa of Russia
Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Joshua tries to be like all the other villains, but bless his soul, he just doesn't have it in him.
Innocent Fanservice Girl: Tomo does not seem to know any shame. This frustrates Joshua to no end when he tries to humiliate her by stripping her naked. Also reading stories to Sasha using her boobs as sock puppets does not seem one bit weird to her.
Japanese Christian: The St. Mikhailov Academy is a Christian school with Eastern Orthodox followers. There are also references aplenty to the Eastern Cross and the Theotokos (Greek title for Mary).
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Aleksandr Her, a.k.a. "Martyr Sasha." Miyuri as well, as demonstrated in episode 6. Hana too. Seeing her and Mafuyu standing next to each other and talking friendly is almost ironic considering the beginning.
Kids Are Cruel: Despite all the Qwasers and near-death experiences that Tomo and Mafuyu deal with throughout the series, the daughter of the Dean of the academy and her right-hand woman (Miyuri and Hana, respectively) still bully them whenever they can. Even their Class President was revealed to be a victim of similar abuse.
Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: A number of the characters from the Mai-HiME and Mai-Otome series (The author and artist did the manga adaptation for both) appear somewhere in the background. The cosplayers from chapter 17 may be more of a Shout Out than this.
Lolicon: Hana. Katja's intro chapter makes this abundantly clear. Taken Up to Eleven in the anime, where, near the end up the fourth episode, it shows Hana very happily licking Katja "down there". Ayame was a little too happy to help Katja with the Toilet.
Lotus-Eater Machine: The conclusion of volume 8 of the manga, which ends with Hana stuck in one of these.
Lovable Alpha Bitch: Miyuri skirts the line. Until season 2 when she completely embraces this trope.
Magical Girl: Parodied in an episode where Hana, Miyuri and Katja all don superheroine persona and fight crime.
Magnetic Weapons: Katja can use copper to turn her doll into a big railgun. She only needs coins as ammo and electricity.
Mana: It's called "soma" and is received from women's breasts (a reference to mother's milk, obviously). Forced mana retrieval is shown as a traumatic experience for the victim (judging by the sexual undertones of this particular mana-system, it could be an allusion to rape, since giving soma willingly arouses some of the "marias") and the soma is shown to be somehow connected to the "life-force" of the soma-provider (it could be her life-force itself, since, e.g., after Alexander retrieved a significant amount of soma from his "maria" (Teresa), she lost consciousness and needed a certain amount of time to replenish it. It was also hinted that draining ALL the soma from a person would kill her. According to Yuuri Noda, the strength of the soma depends on the feelings the giver has towards the recipient. Love the most powerful emotion, but it is also the most difficult to be created artificially.).
Marionette Master: Katja carries a coffin with a large copper puppet inside, which she calls either "Anastasia" or "Mother."
Meido: There's an episode in which Mafuyu, Tomo, and Sasha dress up for Miyuri.
The Messiah: Tomo, the kids at her school treat her like crap, she still has a chipper disposition. In a subversion, even after people stop picking on her and Mayufu, she still doesn't seem to be too terribly popular.
Mind Rape: In Episode 21 Mafuyu gets mind tentacle-raped
Morality Pet: Hana, Miyuri and in the manga Lulu fill these roles for Katja.
More than Mind Control: Katja immediately reads Hana's weakness and takes aim, in moments bringing her under her domination, where Hana is now happy to remain. She does so again with Ayame in season two.
Ms. Fanservice: While Tomo is the most obvious, the burden of this role is being spread out among every character with breasts. In fact, busts seem to be expanding to fill her cup size, give or take a token Pettanko.
My Master, Right or Wrong: Lizzy to Ootori when the latter decided to fake betrayal in order to route the Adepts plans. Lizzy didn't really enjoy it
Named Weapons: Katja's copper puppet "Mother"/Anastasia, Lizzy's Excalibur sword.
Naughty Nuns: Teresa seems to enjoy breast-feeding Sasha bit too much.
Non-Action Guy: Father Yuri. Flashback shows he is a warrior that fights against the 12 Adepts but so far, he hasn't shown us anything but being the Mission Control of the group and assigning Sasha and Katja missions.
Nosebleed: Miyuri (twice) upon seeing Sasha in a maid outfit and calling her "master." Also, Joshua gets a few when he sees Tomo's naked body.
No Sense of Personal Space: The Qwaser. Running up behind some girl and violently groping her boobs is just their way of saying "Hello!"
Ominous Latin Chanting: The 2nd opening "Baptize". It's all over the place within the series too.
Our Vampires Are Different: Nobody said it, but the qwaser's methods and motives are the same, and their appearance makes direct reference. The suckling scenes in particular recall others in the blood-sucking genre.
Panty Shot: Plenty here and there, but Tomo provides a particularly glorious one barely 10 pages into the manga and not 5 minutes into the anime.
Sexy Priest: Father Yuri. It's to be noted that he's a soldier that is a priest in disguise.
Shameless Fanservice Girl: Mutsumi. During Mutsumi and Mafuyu's naked duel, Mafuyu fights with only one hand because she uses her free arm to cover her breasts. Mutsumi, who isn't even wearing a skirt or panties, fights to the fullest of her ability and doesn't care that she's fully naked in the slightest and makes no attempt to cover herself up when others show up. Also, in the anime, before Mutsumi and Tasuku's fight with Jita and Milk, she taunts her opponents by announcing that her breasts are much larger and therefore better than theirs, and by extravagantly tearing her shirt open in front om them.
Chapter 17 contains a few to other series, most notably Visual Novel/Fate/stay night. Chapter 21 has a slightly extended one to Kamen Rider. There are others, but these are most obvious.
A panel in the second chapter of the manga has someone who looks quite a lot like Zangief. Given the context, it's obviously not coincidence.
Side Story Bonus Art: One piece in particular features Mafuyu, Tomo, Katja, and Hana baking cakes in the nude. Why? Why not?
Spell My Name with an S: Seems that translators can't quite agree whether the title should be "Seikon no Qwaser" or "Seikon no Quasar". "Kwaser" and variations with a Z instead of an S have been used, but much more rarely. And is the school named St. Mikhailov or St. Mihailov? Tokyopop made the first case a non-issue by going with something completely different.
Third Law of Gender Bending: Appears to be averted for now, but if amnesia becomes a recurring battle injury for Sasha, Katja may not be able to resist.
Tickle Torture: Shows up sometimes, specially between Katja and Hana.
Too Hot for TV: Internet broadcasts and the DVDs get this treatment.
Too Kinky to Torture: Eva Silver's 'daughters' react to pain with sexual arousal and encourage people they meet to torture them as thoroughly and horribly as possible for maximum enjoyment; they even get homicidally angry if the torture isn't up their exacting standards. Specifically raised this way so they don't try to resist when Eva kills and absorbs them to preserve her own youth. Well, the fact that Eva is a sadistic bitch may have played a part as well. Occasionally a problem when Katja wants to punish Hana for making her look foolish and discovers that Hana loves it. Also Ayame.
Triang Relations: Katja, Ayame and Hana. Type 7. Hana none too happy to find out that Katja has Ayame. For some reason they bark at each other.
Unsettling Gender Reveal: Inverted in the anime, when Miyuri is briefly infatuated with Elizabeth because she looks like a cute little boy to her until she sees Elizabeth strip naked and finds out she has different equipment down there. Played straight with Jita in the second season when she tries to collect Soma from a big breasted girl in a virtual world. Said girl is Sasha who's mind somehow made him appear as big breasted woman. She is less than pleased when her boss tells her.
Unusual Ears: Sister Teresa appears to have cat ears (or at least clumps of hair shaped like animal ears), but the reason behind them has not been explained.
Unusually Uninteresting Sight: In one episode, Sasha, Teresa, and Tomo pay a visit to Katja while she's in the midst of training Hana. Specifically, she's riding on Hana's back, Hana is fitted with a gag-bridle and a horsetail butt plug, and Katja's using a riding crop to remind her to whinny instead of moan. Sasha is just standing there with his usual grumpy expression, Teresa has a very mild "huh" look on her face, and Tomo is "huh" herself with just a tiny bit of blushing. For the rest of the scene they act as if Katja is just sitting around in an easy chair as they talk.
What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: As a Qwaser, Joshua possesses the ability to control an element. As luck would have it, his designated element is roentgenium (no. 111), an artificial element with a half-life of about four seconds that can't be found in nature on Earth.
Wholesome Crossdresser/Dragged Into Drag: Sasha forced to dress up in a maid outfit as part of a bargain Mafuyu struck with Miyuri in one part of the story. The flip side is that in the anime a Russian soldier was poised to rape him anyway even after finding out his true gender near the end of the episode. The author seems to like putting Sasha into drag so much that it became the central theme of the second season where Sasha goes covert ops in an all girls school.
World of Buxom: Except Fumika, Hana and the vice student council president.
Xanatos Roulette: the various Adepts who were killed by Sasha (and then re-killed by Ootori) were actually sacrificial lambs all summoned by the blonde guy (Tanner), and were necessary for the Qwaser of Gold to be resurrected in the body of Tomo, so said Qwaser could later use a special Faberge Egg that somehow contained a giant elemental circuit that could be used to imprint the Blade of Maria on her(?)self if not for the interruption of Mafuyu. Was it too much trouble to just kill an equal amount of non-Qwasers yourself and get the same result?
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