A little back story. I don't remember how I stumbled upon Queen's Blade, but it was an intriguing enough concept to get bookmarked. Queen's Blade is a modern day "continuation" of an old "combat picture book game." (Wikipedia link) It's sort of like a table-top VS fighting game. Being from Japan, it naturally has a twist, an "ecchi" twist. Instead of the usual Tolkien inspired elvs/trolls/sword fighters, the Queen's Blade characters are all anime girls. Girls + fighting = excuse for gratuitous suggestive poses. And boy does the series deliver on that premise, most of the artwork is drawn by h-manga artists just in case, to get that proper "feel."
The series must be getting more popular recently, therefore SNK has now decided to license out their own gratuitous suggestive pose prone idol, Samurai Spirits Tenka's Iroha. She'll be joining the roster of the newly launched Queen's Gate (?) spin-off series. I'm not sure what the differences are, but the only other two characters included in the Queen's Gate series are even more stylized and geared for maximum nerd-sploitation, a goth/bondage fairy-like nymph, and an adorable "moe" little sister type. Iroha'll have no trouble fitting in with that crowd. They should totally make this into a videogame... on th DS
http://queensblade.net/
http://queensblade.net/qg/
http://queensblade.net/qg/characters/char_003.php
http://game.snkplaymore.co.jp/goods/goods55.php
