Finished Queen's Blade Rebellion. My general opinion on the series remains unchanged: the first half of the season is poorly paced, with Annelotte running around for no reason (by her own admission!) and too much focus on the Hyper Vibration Armor subplot which is later rendered moot. Some might take the re-casting of Aldra as an amnesiac housewife to be a bad thing, but i looked on it well because her whole character arc in the old series was about the tragedy of her life, and she seems at least to have found happiness in domestic normalcy while she tries to recover her memories. The anime hits you over the head with implications that Annelotte either is or is sharing her body with Aldra's long-lost sister, and the plot pulls together beautifully in the second half with other tidbits like that, the return of old characters and some hearty action, leading up to the revelation that Claudette has become completely overpowered, due to a curse of the Swamp Witch who corrupted Claudette into an extremist tyrant and enhanced her power in the bargain. The hook for season two is that Claudette is basically unbeatable (like Aldra before her) and that everyone needs to come together to overthrow her.
A poorly-paced start but with a perfectly satisfying ending leaves me feeling better overall, but they could have done more to flesh out the characters. The earlier seasons did a lot to imply backstory for a lot of characters and give them stronger motives, while backstory and motive are sadly left unsaid in a lot of Rebellion, though perhaps it will all be made clear in the inevitable second season (fourth season overall)
