Grenadier: Hohoemi no Senshi

I've bought the Collector's Box of this anime, watched it in two days, and actually liked it very much. I don't know why has it got such a low score or why is so unpopular, all I have to say is that this anime haves everything you look for in a good anime: decent story, rich characters, action, humor and "echiness".

The theme of the story is based on the the feudal Japan. A very old era where the weapon of choice was the katana, but in this anime there are guns as well, actually the anime itself centres around the use of this guns and ... specifically in the marksmanship abilities of Tendo Rushuna, the main female character. So being her a female with REALLY big breasts expect a lot of echi shots (lol she reloads her revolver with her real pair of guns) on the action scenes, this will make you think that the fights lack seriousness but in the end it just looks refreshing because the echiness just matches perfectly with the action sequences, that are actually quite impressive and varied. The story goes on well from the first episode through the 9th one. But then one get's the feeling that the 12 episodes range this anime has is not enough to reach a conclusion, so the last 4 episodes really are like rushed for that needed conclusion and drain the essence of the anime. But it is really an enjoyable story, not a great one just a decent one. Even so it would have felt better if they had did a, at least, 24 episode storyline for this one.

The concepts and design of the characters are nice to watch. Rushuna looks very sexy in her double-layered, boob revealing outfit. The art focuses more on female characters than it does on male ones. The exceptions are the Jester and (partially) Yajiro, also the design is focused more on the size of the breasts of the females and probably the facial expressions. The artistic design goes all out in the action scenes as well. The gun tricks that Rushuna performs are diverse and really clever, of course being a bit exagerate at the same time. The space in which the story takes place looks like a feudal-western type scenario, this really reflect that this anime mixes (and does it really well) the marksmanship with the swordsmanship themes (obviously focusing more on the marksmanship), giving as a result a really polivalent world filled with all types of characters and locations.

The sound makes justice for this anime. The opening is a bit slow but it has a adventure-theme tune that captivates and leaves the viewer wanting to see where these "travels" will take him. The battle BMG's are very good indeed, they sound really well combined with the gunshots tracks and manage to connect one stance with another in a action sequence to make it feel like a original and different one every time watched.

The characters are very rich in personality but in looks the vast majority (females) look too much of the same, I mean all of them have huge chests (except Mikan). Only Rushuna differenciates totally from all the other females with a unique and gorgeous look adequate for a female main character. Rushuna's personality is just wonderful and, at some point, seductive, "a caring mother actitude" is what the director of Grenadier describes it like. Also love Aizen Teppa perverted behavior, it does add spice to the plot. On the other hand I don't like Mikan as a character because she rarely acts as a girl, her balloon tricks are awful and her involvement in the story conflict is just lame.

"The ultimate battle strategy is to eliminate the enemy's will to fight without a combat, and to achieve that one must be unarmored to truly be able to smile and to strip the enemy off his armor as well ". This is really what this anime is all about: fight with no violence at all just by using a smile to try to make the enemy feel the same way you feel, to share your ideals.

At first glance this anime looks like a typical one. I think that is just above a average-stardard anime in story but if you mix it with the great artistic design, sound and character personality you get a really good anime that has a big enjoyment factor and an unusual theme that projects really nicely. I recommend this one whole-heartely.

Will Grenadier's service with a smile put one on your face?

Grenadier is a manga series by Sosuke Kaise. Halfway through its initial publishing run from 2003 to 2006, it received a twelve episode anime adaption by Group TAC.

It's pretty short, so Grenadier is an easy show to pick up. Whether or not it's worth it is what shall soon be found out.

Visuals:

The artwork in Grenadier is fairly consistent and doesn't show too many quality issues. It's never very detailed, but does have fairly vibrant ... colors. The majority of detail is devoted to the characters, but only the female characters show some degree of good character design. One character in particular tries too hard to make up for this and has a gigantic zipper to compensate for the designer's lack of creativity. Nearly everyone else looks fairly generic and bland, which also seems to go hand-in-hand with Grenadier's level of animation.

The animation is not anything to brag about. Scenic shots are infrequent and close-ups of someone's face commonly fill the screen. This is never overdone to a point of being too noticeable, but it is an aspect of the animation that could have been improved upon. Action scenes play with a delicate balance of movement and fairly still, panning-shots. Scenes like Rushuna's unique way of reloading a gun always play out the same, but are frequently animated a little differently at some point, which is nice. In the end, the animation is mediocre. It's not bad at all, but it's enough to show that Grenadier didn't have a high budget. The visuals, however, can't be the only place Grenadier had to spread out its budget. Sound is something everyone has to focus on as well.

Sound:

Nothing really stands out in the sound department of Grenadier. Each character's voice is normally well suited to their appearance in both the English dub and the original Japanese audio. The only downside to the English dub is that AnimeWorks felt it was necessary to add extra words into the translation so that each character's flapping lips fit the amount of syllables in a sentence. This means dialogue is often wordy and very cheesy since nobody speaks like you'd expect in a normal conversation. The voices themselves are fine, but the Japanese audio with English subtitles is recommended if you want more natural dialogue.

Outside the fairly generic OP and ED, the music chooses to let itself lie in the electronica category and shower the listener with some fairly nice techno beats. The combat themes in particular are exciting to listen to and fit the battle sequences well. Unfortunately, the theme that plays during a couple of the goofier moments in the show was incredibly short and repetitive and stood out from the rest of the soundtrack as very annoying.

Characters:

The characters of the show are a fairly uninteresting bunch. The only ones who stand out are the two main characters, and even they have problems.

For instance, Rushuna is a pretty enjoyable character at first. One may find where she stores her ammo a very entertaining factor of the show, but aside from her quirky personality, entertaining antics, and... full character design, she simply lacks a proper backstory and any kind of character development. This isn't always needed to make a character interesting or entertaining, but one could debate that her lack of development makes her a flat character. On the other hand, her traveling partner, Yajiro, turns out quite a bit rounder than she does.

Yajiro is the only character to receive any real development. He changes drastically throughout the show and does receive some interesting backstory to explain his initial motives and ideals. Unfortunately, his main flaw is that he's a little more than useless at times. This isn't actually a flaw of his character, but one of the show itself. Grenadier simply forgets to involve him in the combat and sometimes chooses to save Yajiro's usefulness for a later time get Rushuna out of a jam. Like the animation, this problem doesn't always happen. Yajiro does get some action, but he's left out of enough of it to be noticeable. The show even has the audacity to introduce a third main character later on, the token loli, whose sole purpose is to provide Yajiro and Rushuna with a cheap method of escape whenever they back into a corner.

Along with the main villain of the show and the supporting cast, nearly everyone else gives the viewer very little reason to show interest. If the characters of Grenadier are weak, then what's the main focus of the show? Maybe this is where the plot comes in...

Plot:

More than half of the show follows the episodic villain routine. The usual set-up is that Rushuna arrives somewhere new and has to solve a problem that crops up, which is usually due to a villain causing problems. The only real problem here is that the majority of these episodes rely on shallow plot, villains, and supporting characters to move Rushuna and Yajiro further towards the end of the show. Fortunately, each episode makes sure to include something relevant to the main story to keep things moving.

The thing is, whenever Grenadier stops focusing on the plot and pauses to show Rushuna and Yajiro simply interacting with each other, the show is at its best. The comedy here is plentiful, but not all of the jokes are laugh-out-loud funny. Most of the time, they're dull and feel intrusive. As if to make up for its lack of humor, though, one good joke will drop in during every other episode. It's not enough, but after sitting through the rest of the show the occasionally good comedic scene will bring a smile to one's face. In fact, there's one scene towards the end that had me roaring with laughter, and was the only scene in the entire series where I opened my mouth and physically let out a laugh.

Grenadier drops its episodic villain routine near the end of the series, and the action begins to heat up. Battles and verbal debates about war and peace ensue, one side character from an earlier episode shows up (but turns out to be useless), and a couple of plot twists reveal themselves. Did these moments come too late into the show to be of any significance? The answer is: yes. The final two episodes really feel like a slightly more elaborate filler that drops the ending in front of you and leaves. The best part of the final episode was the unveiling of a new villain. After a surprisingly wonderfully animated fight scene, the show ends. What about that new villain? Where did she come from? What's her story? Why didn't we see more of her before? None of these questions are answered, we're just introduced to her, given an action scene, and then the show wraps everything up. In other words, as soon as someone interesting came in, Grenadier was unable to handle the inexplicably weird idea of grabbing the viewer's interest and threw in the towel.

So just what was Grenadier trying to accomplish?

Conclusion:

Grenadier is rife with fan-service. There's never any full-on nudity, but you can expect Rushuna to enjoy at least one bath scene per episode. There's nothing wrong with a bit of cleavage nor the fact that Rushuna actually uses her assets for a practical purpose (hammerspace), but you can bet that fan-service was Grenadier's main goal, not its plot.

Perhaps the series' secondary goal was its theme. It's not hard to uncover, but the message it tries to get across is that to resolve situations, our first priority should be to act kind and love one another. It's pretty sappy, but Rushuna Tendou makes it clear that showing other people kindness and respect is the most important part of a conflict. If we try to understand each others view first, a peaceful solution is a more likely result; if it ends in war, at least we've already displayed our strongest weapon.

Despite my complaints, I did somewhat enjoy Grenadier. It had its moments, it had its jokes, and it had an alright theme. Rushuna Tendou and Yajiro Kojima may be the only good part of the show, but at least it has something going for it. Still, if you want to watch something about a blonde outlaw looking for world peace, I'd recommend you look around for an outlaw named Vash the Stampede.

On the technical side of things, great care was obviously taken with Rushuna’s massive assets and ensuring quality control on those ba-shook-shooks, but shortcuts are rampant everywhere else. "Oh look, he kinda froze…I guess that means he got shot?" "Explosion? Shake the still frame like a Polaroid picture!" You get the idea. The show never really impresses visually, and more often than not, it repulses with variable character models and halfhearted animation. The character designs themselves are sufficiently memorable, but not terribly unique.

Back to the two main focuses of the budget, they’re ridiculous. No matter how busty you are, those things never narrow to ... nil at the end and suspend up to one’s armpits no matter what you’re wearing, and what’s with that fake looking shiny spot on top, it’s in every scene and lighting situation! *gasp* They’re not breasts at all, they’re balloons! Peach balloons! Movement-wise, they’re not so unrealistic if they were 80% silicone, 20% woman. I guess if they had giant robots in feudal Japan, they had plastic surgery too! None of the music is pleasant.

The opener and closer, while forgettable, sound less synthesized than the background music, which is not a good sign. The 80s are over. Let the instrument go! It wants to die!

The voice acting is pretty lax no matter your language, but if you were to watch the show, I’d have to highly recommend the sub. Rushuna is certainly the best performance, with Wendee Lee pouring forth optimism and kindness without becoming annoying, along with standout side characters Teppa, Touka, and Setsuna, but even then, those four are just okay compared to everyone else who is barely listenable. Mikkan, Furon, and Kaizan are unbearable in particular because not only do they act terribly, their character voices themselves are brain-melting screech. I’d blame the awkward script or poor direction, because there are several good actors present, but nothing approaching a good performance, just tolerable at best and oftentimes BAD, BAD, BAD! The Japanese is sort of underwhelming, and it might be terrible too, but if you’re monolingual like most, you’ll never know, will you? Ignorance is bliss.

Now believe it or not, this is NOT an ecchi title! Stalwart Yajiro is not the harem personality you’re looking for. Granted, he doesn’t have much of a personality at all, but he’s not the worm-man of ecchi lore. There is a genuine story here, and even though it’s REALLY predictable, it’s not at all a bad one. The ecchi aspects are more minimal than you would believe. For some reason, Rushuna takes a hot bath in EVERY episode, and annoying as that is, we never actually see her naked or posed in any evocative manner, so I think the device is there to emphasize her innocence and beauty in a less base manner, which is refreshing. Our heroes even spend the evening in a brothel with not ONE little dirty joke cracked, to instead focus on the story. Fanservice is limited to the bouncing bountifuls of Rushuna and some other women, as well as putting the girls in appealing outfits, which is at least marginally respectful to the viewer’s intelligence.

Which is more than I can say for the execution of the story in Grenadier. From the vow of pacifism and uncanny gunmanship of an undeserving fugitive to the violent companion with good intentions to the yang to hero’s yin villain, and the conniving toadie who dispatches Juttensen assassins when they fail in their setup missions, this was all clearly ripped straight from Trigun without copying its great characters, depth or honesty. If you can imagine it, the love and peace messages in Grenadier are even LOUDER than Trigun, but hold none of its truth and power, coming off even more false and unrealistic than anything that has ever aired on the Disney channel. That’s intense.

Grenadier is so overwhelmingly preachy, in fact, that I was sorely wishing they had spent that time on doofy humor. Then I saw the series’ attempts at humor and changed my mind. It’s not funny. I understood why a lot of these jokes were amusing, I guess, but nothing actually hit the mark because every joke was so tame and tepid, like the bad puns on those Laffy Taffy wrappers with text under the jokes saying “It’s funny because poodle sounds like puddle!” Like I said, they visit a brothel and they might as well have been at an old lady’s bed and breakfast. I appreciate that it wasn’t filthy, but they didn’t try anything daring or witty comedically, and the result is barely worth a smile, senshi.

So, aside from the fanservice, is there…anything good about Grenadier? Yes. Some of the fight scenes are a lot of fun. From a gunfight under water to fighting an enemy who duels with sound frequencies, the varied fights are unique and enthralling, but even the brightest crayon in this pencilbox looks like it was gnawed on by a two-year old, because the laws of physics are insulted at least five times in each fight to a debilitating degree. I don’t mean the laws you’re allowed to break in an action show, I mean even the ones you’re NOT allowed to break. It kills the validity and cool factor of the show’s best features. Is this show masochistic?

So at the end of 12 episodes you have a comedy that isn’t funny and a fantasy that’s a predictable ripoff wrapped up in an ecchi that isn’t really ecchi…barely supported by poorly acted characters with zero development or depth. But Rushuna has boobs that chuck bullets! Yeeeah. I’m gonna go watch Trigun now. It’s twice as long, but a thousand times better.

All in all, it’s hard to be cruel to a title that looks like it just wants to have fun, but I kept having to ask myself where the fun was hiding. The story on its own is decent, and could make for an enjoyable experience, but rather sour production values and the abnormally preachy atmosphere supporting failed humor pull Rushuna’s tale back a cup size or two.

*THIS IS A PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF MY VIDEO REVIEW WHICH CAN BE SEEN HERE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yYyPC62hRo

Thanks for reading!