This show dares you to keep watching, and half of you won't. Qwasers channel elements as weapons, and they recharge by drinking soma, which is breast milk, and the series states that in episode one with a completely straight face and never blinks again. Underneath it, though, is a genuine Cold War of religious factions hunting the High Circuit relics, Alexander Nikolaevich Hell swinging iron like a Hellsing villain, and Mafuyu Oribe carrying more weight at St. Mihailov Academy than the marketing ever admitted. The combat choreography and faction politics really are closer to Fullmetal Alchemist and D.Gray-man than to anything on the ecchi shelf, which is exactly why the tonal whiplash is so vicious. Be warned: Katja and the younger characters are put in scenes that are indefensible, and no amount of worldbuilding cleans that up. Cult status earned the hard way, one screaming argument at a time.

Mafuyu Oribe's ordinary life shatters when she and her adopted sister Tomo come across a wounded, silver-haired man. He is Alexander, an Iron Qwaser: one of many rival super-warriors who can each command a single element and turn it into a nearly unstoppable arsenal. His faction has come to collect the mystical relics called the High Circuit, and that puts Mafuyu's friends, family and school at the center of a struggle for the fate of humanity. Her school becomes a battleground in a war she never asked to join. But the real complication goes beyond combat. Qwasers draw the fuel for their powers from a special liquid provided by the women who partner with them, and Mafuyu has already nursed Alexander once. The result is a mix of supernatural action and heavy ecchi fan service.