Grenadier: Hohoemi no Senshi

Dear readers,

If you have nothing else to watch at the moment, then you must watch this anime, since it has comedy, some action and ecchi in it.

The story about getting a bounty on your head is something I haven't seen so far, so that is original. It was confusing in the beginning though, because the main characters were saving people and the female main character still got a bounty lol.

The art is old, because it is an anime of 2004, but I still enjoyed it and that fact isn't something to be worried about. The characters were good developed and I also liked it, because ... they had guns even though it looked like the story was playing in the edo period of Japan lol.

There aren't many soundtracks in this anime, but the ones that were there, were still good enough, because the soundtracks that were playing was fitting for the tension at the scene.

I hope this was helpful, see you later, byeee!

“Grenadier: The Beautiful Warrior” is what happens when You’ve read “Trigun” and think “Hmm… What if Vash had huge breasts, zero to no drama and didn’t have a crippling donuts addiction?” It’s an anime about an overpowered, blonde bombshell gunslinger with a huge bosom, a pretty useless sword slinging companion and their journey to set the wrongs of the world right.. If You think that is an oversimplification of the anime…

For most of the anime the main cast consists of:
Rushuna Tendou - blonde, busty gunslinger with a soft spot for taking baths. Her weapon of choice is a six-shot revolver but she prefers using it ... as a last resort, preferring to avoid violence when possible. If she does use her gun, she shots to disable her opponents rather than kill. Something that is seen as weird by other people. She claims to want to end chaos and violence but isn’t all that against using it when it’s needed, something that makes her kind of a hypocrite in my book. She also uses her bosom to reload her gun, something even Vash The Stampede wasn’t able to do.

Yajirou Kojima - Tendou’s travelling companion, her self proclaimed partner and basically an annoying little shit with a tragic past that has little to do most of the series. Despite having some skills with the sword he doesn't have many opportunities to show them off, thanks to Rushuna taking care of most trouble they get into. He hates people that use guns and thinks that human life is worthless to them but he doesn't seem to mind Rushuna using one. He’s also the only one that really changes during the story. Not only does his thinking changes but also his M.O.

Technically there are two more that join the team as the story progresses but one is an annoying loli and the second one is a boring pervert (that's something I never thought I would write) that You’ll forget the moment they get offscreen so I’m not wasting time on them.

The story is divided into two parts. The first few episodes are the “Let’s go to random places and help random people” type of tale and the second part is the “I finally have a goal and motivation” type. All in all the story is very simple. Nothing wrong with that. Simple stories have a lot of pros and can be very enjoyable. This one is… to a point.
To make the story enjoyable You really have to forget about logic. The closer the final episode the more dumb stuff happens in both camps. Both protagonists and antagonists become dumber the closer they get to the final showdown. Yes… the villains seem to get lobotomised in that case but the heroes are really close to their levels of stupid. The story itself also loses its moral lesson. For a story about avoiding violence the final showdown is a gunslinging, sword swinging fest. Despite the final outcome the way the story decides to collide the main philosophies is by using violence. Something that more than one person in the show claims should be avoided. Well, I guess a lot of shows do this type of hypocrisy so I guess I shouldn't be so harsh on it. It’s still bad writing, no matter what show, book, anime or game does it.
When it comes to antagonists their plan is total BS. It makes no sense, it’s poorly explained and has more than enough flaws to make me think that they want to be stopped. Still, the villains as characters are more interesting for me than our heroes. I wouldn't mind some more info on them and their motivation.

Despite all its flaws I had fun watching this anime. The action scenes could use a little more polish in the number of frames department, but You are able to follow what’s going on and the fan service while reloading was comical enough to get a laugh out of me few times.

At the end of the day, this isn’t the worst anime that I ever saw and it does some things well. Yes, it’s full of clichés and is predictable as hell but it can be enjoyable as long as You remember what You’re getting Yourself into.

A grenadier by definition was a soldier in around the Napoleonic era that specialized in using grenades, however in anime terms aparently grenadier means "take a concept of a show that was good and add over-the-top fan-service." That good show I'm talking about is of course Trigun, and you will see me use that show as an example a lot during this review because the fact of the matter is that Grenadier is basically a half-assed rule 63 (one of the rules of the internet, "if it exists, there is a female version of it, no exception") version of Trigun. On to the review.

Story 2/10: ... A skilled guns-woman who is a complete pacifist (sound unfamiliar?) going around with some philosophy that if she's unarmed and smiling then suddenly the whole world will act like everything is sunshine and butterflies. Eventually the plot picks up when her former teacher (who is the living embodiment of kindness, so much so it becomes rage inducing, more on that later) puts out the order for a elite group of fighters to assassinate the main character Tendo. The fact that this plot lacks any form of originality truly does harm its score however it's not just that, I've seen shows that lack originality before but still managed to be moderately good, this show is just the same thing over and over. Where as Trigun had it's moments where things got serious and more grey shade then just black and white Grenadier does away with any of the deeper moments and just makes everything pure white, this leads the show to have absolutely no dept and thus makes the plot just plain bad.

Art 8/10: The art itself is a little dated however for the most part it's pretty good. As for the animation I'll admit it's not all that bad, the movements for the combat are smooth enough although it does suffer from the same problems many modern day anime does which is the occasional part where the animation just seems poorly done and choppy. As for the character designs... It basically follows the idea that "if we put hot chicks with big tits in it they won't question if it's physically possible!" Wrong, I noticed it, the females in this show look like god damn tooth picks with breast so large you could land a helicopter on them. Forget back pain, how the hell haven't these chicks snapped in half yet?

Sound 3/10: First the music, like many anime today it's forgettable, none of the tracks particularly stand out and they just seem to blend into the background. This however is not a bad things seeing as the point of music in any form of media (other then the music industry itself) is not to distract from the show but add to the overall mood, unfortunately the music in grenadier does not in anyway do this seeing as how most of the time it just seems like a completely random track was chosen half the time rather then something that would work with the scene in question. And now for the part I've been dreading, the voice acting, the dub, good god the dub! The dub is something that make you want to rip your hair out by its roots and punch yourself repeatedly in the genitals, the voice actors are so annoying and their acting is so ungodly bad! Do yourself a favour and watch the sub, I've never seen it but it could not in any possible way be worse then the dub.

Character 2/10: I think the way they figured out who the characters would be was by buying a mad lib, the Trigun edition! Tendo is Vash the Stampede with breasts, Yajirou is Meryl, Teppa is Wolfwood, and the Tenshi guys were basically the Gung-ho Demons. Since all those characters were good though these ones must be too right? Wrong. Not only are all these characters complete rip-offs, but they're also so over the top it become infuriating! Where as Vash the Stampede actually had his more human moments where things weren't so black and white Tendo is a complete Mary Sue character, it seems the character was just made to be fapping material. And don't even get me start on Tenshi, she was so nice and perfect that I just wanted to punch her face clean off! There's also the problem of no build-ups! There's a few parts in the story where the villain is revealed and it's done in a way where they want us to be like "oh my god, *blank* was actually *blank* the whole time?!" Problem is, we don't know who the hell those characters are supposed to! I mean it's fine if it's just a few minor characters, but when the main villain is finally reveals herself at the final episode the audience shouldn't be thinking "so it was her in disguise all along!... Wait, who is she anyway?"

Enjoyment 4/10: The first few gunfights were actually enjoyable, although a little over the top (even Vash the Stampede wasn't this good of a gunman, and he wasn't even human!), however it's only the first few fight that are somewhat good because all the fights are the same! Tendo spins around to dodge the bullets, shoots the guns out of the bad guys hands, reloads using her breasts, rinse and repeat. It's just the same thing over and over from the first episode to the second last. I'll admit that at least the final battle of the whole series was somewhat entertaining with all the crazy kung-foo with guns stuff but that's about it.

Overall 4/10: You ever wanted to watch a clone of Trigun where Vash is a chick with huge tits, almost no plot and character dept, and a dub that makes you want to go to a back alley and beg junkies to beat your brains out with a tire iron? Well then you've found the perfect show! In truth Grenadier isn't horrible but it's definitely half-ass, I would recommend you just re-watch Trigun if you're looking for this kind of show, or if you haven't already seen it just watch Trigun for the first time, in which case I envy you, first times always the best.