Queen's Quality is yet another example of a novel, fun premise that morphs into an uninspired adventure, complete with the excesses popular in manga. I originally rated this as a 9 after 45 chapters, so my mediocre rating signals a rapid decline in quality. What happens when our emotions take control? When we lash out at others, overwhelmed by feelings of anger, inadequacy, fear? When we bully others for being different, cursed, and these fears spread and so does the pain to others? Queen's Quality takes a very literal approach to this, with malice and other emotions visualized by "bugs" that spread and overwhelm our minds.Sweepers "clean" individuals of these bugs by entering their mind vault and purging the person of their rampant emotions. Some nefarious people use this to their advantage, spreading fear and doubt to take over someone's mind, effectively brainwashing them. In a rare few cases, however, someone can attain much greater power. After realizing their full potential, queens can control and manipulate thousands simultaneously, with nearly unlimited power, and can either purge much of the darkness from society or become a plague that spreads through it.

Queen's Quality is anything but the first to tackle human emotions, how they overwhelm us, and hurt us. But it takes this to an engaging, comical extreme, where we can see this malice forming around others, thwarted by those cleaning with dish rags, broomsticks, and toilet brushes. To combat evil, our leads spend bootcamp-style time purging every nook and cranny of the faintest hint of dust. And the art complements this incredibly well, with rooms turning to black as someone is overwhelmed with malice. Unfortunately, the story completely loses the plot and its emotional core later on, adding on poorly thought-out layers until the story barely resembles what it started.

Our leads balance each other well. Kyutaro's is strict and good at controlling his emotions as part of his discipline in becoming a sweeper, although he's isolated and a bit of a loner as a result. Fumi lives the hedgehog's dilemma. After losing her childhood memories and seeing everyone she gets close to hurt and lash out at her as a cursed child, she both needs a home while fearful of hurting those around her. There's some excellent, unresolved romantic tension between the two, balanced by Kyutaro being the embodiment of Mr. Clean. Fumi's adventure to become queen forces her to confront her emotions and trauma, and Kyutaro adjusts to how he can protect Fumi has her consort.

As the story continues, Queen's Quality increasingly trades style for substance and replaces the excellent storytelling around human emotions with some generic adventure with an evil villain. The rituals, like cleaning, to control our emotions cease entirely for epic scenes in battle between mythical opponents. The soul of the story slowly dissipates, becoming a hollow shell of where it started. Much of the focus seems to be beautiful shots with an exquisitely clad cast decked out with powerful weapons. It's a promising lead with a semi-satisfactory midpoint that then falls apart while dragging on without purpose or direction.