Grenadier Anime Review

Quick Review

• Reviewer: Chainclaw
• Review Date: 2006-10-12 (updated 2012-10-11)
• 0.5 stars out of 5 (?)

Grenadier is a pretty typical show about traveling warriors trying to brave the hazards of a feudal Japan full of guns. Despite the title, there aren't actually any grenades. More notably absent are a central plot, substance, interesting characters, and meaningful content. Basically, what you read in the plot synopsis is what you are going to see, over and over again: Rushuna trying to avoid fights, Rushuna getting into fights anyway, Rushuna wiping out entire armies with her pistol, Rushuna lecturing her foes about morality, Rushuna pressing people up against her breasts, and Rushuna taking lots of baths. If that doesn't interest you, then there isn't any reason to watch the show at all. Even if it does, everything in this series--from the shameless fanservice to the uninteresting action scenes--is so poorly done and badly executed that it hardly matters. About the only good parts are the quality of the animation and music.

In the end, there really isn't any reason to recommend this to anyone. The action is bad, the characters are lame, the plot is worse, and the fanservice is far too silly and juvenile to add any conceivable appeal.

Read the full-length review...

Full Review

• Reviewer: Chainclaw
• Review Date: 2006-10-12 (updated 2012-10-11)
• 0.5 stars out of 5 (?)

Grenadier is a pretty typical show about traveling warriors trying to brave the hazards of feudal Japan with only a few notable aspects worth mentioning. One is that, despite the film's title, this series does not have any grenades in it. Another is the complete and utter lack of a central plot, substance, interesting characters, and meaningful content.

Basically, what you read in the plot synopsis is what you are going to see over and over again for the entire series: Rushuna trying to avoid fights, Rushuna getting into fights anyway, Rushuna wiping out entire armies with her pistol, Rushuna lecturing her foes about morality, Rushuna pressing people up against her body, and Rushuna taking lots of baths. If that doesn't interest you, then there isn't any reason to watch the show at all. Even if it does, everything in this series is so poorly done and badly executed that it hardly matters.

The central plot of Grenadier is almost non-existent. The thing that is supposed to link all the episodes together is Rushuna's journey to the capital to meet the Empress, but this hardly has any bearing on the story until the last few episodes, when they finally get there. Mainly, it's just an excuse for Rushuna and Yajiro to find problems and situations requiring their services, such as villages that need saving, bandits that need to be defeated, and corrupt kings who need to see the error of their ways. This might have been forgivable if the situations in each episode involved good stories, action scenes, character development, and subplots, but they don't. The individual stories are all woefully predictable and uninteresting--nobody ever does anything exceptionally entertaining or commits a genuinely surprising act.

The characters don't contribute positively to the show either. The main focus of the series is on Rushuna, who is "The Smiling Senshi" of the title. Unlike the "Grenadier" line (she never uses grenades), this part is accurate, as she is almost always smiling, regardless of the situation she is in--even during battle. But a far more accurate title would be "The smiling senshi with absurdly huge breasts who feels the need to lecture everyone about how violence is bad and can't go 15 minutes without a bath scene." Other then that, Rushuna is little more than yet another invincible, god-like anime heroine who can wipe out entire armies. However, I'd say even more than her combat prowess, her greatest strength is her ability to find incompetent enemies. The creators of the show tried to make her a bit more interesting by having her vehemently oppose violence, but that doesn't help matters at all. Basically it just results in her saying things like "war is bad," "we should not fight," and "can't we all just get along?" Then after a fight, she sometimes pacifies her enemies by pressing them against her boobs (no, this is not an exaggeration). I suppose that might actually work in real life, but it's hardly a redeeming quality here.

Sadly, that's just a minor sample of the fanservice she provides. Rushuna flaunts her sexuality so blatantly that she makes Fujiko from Lupin III look like a nun. In addition to the previously mentioned abundance of bath scenes and her method of "pacifying" her enemies, her action moves are pretty raunchy as well. She keeps the ammo for her revolver in between her breasts and can fling it out with a rapid spinning action for a quick reload. Apparently she can keep enough bullets in there to do this several times in a single fight. There are plenty of other naughty things about her as well, but they are hardly even worth mentioning. In the end, they all seemed like a pathetic and immature attempt to make up for the show's extremely bad action scenes and storylines. Suffice it to say, they fall well short of that goal.

The other characters, even Yajiro, are largely relegated to minor supporting roles. They have their own subplots, but mainly it feels like they are just along for the ride on Rushuna's trip to the capital. Yajiro doesn't even do anything useful in the first few episodes The villains are not any better. They are just a typical collection of power-hungry wannabes, the majority of whom are pathetically inept.

The only thing that might have salvaged Grenadier is some good actions scenes. If it had them, then perhaps its other glaring flaws could be overlooked. Unfortunately, these are just as bad as everything else about the show. Many of them consist of Rushuna defeating massive armies of rank-and-file troops who are armed with submachine guns and assault rifles, but can't hit her when she's standing in an open field. The rest of them consist of smaller duels with tougher opponents, but most of them go down without too much of a challenge, and even the formidable ones usually don't push Rushuna to her physical limit.

About the only positive things I could find about this series are the quality of the animation and music. For the most part, the environments and weapons are well-drawn, and the characters look pretty good, too. In addition, Grenadier's opening theme song is excellent. It really gives the impression that you are about to witness an epic saga. Unfortunately, once the song stops and the show starts, it becomes apparent that this is not going to happen.

In the end, there really isn't any reason to recommend this to anyone. The action is bad, the characters are lame, the plot is worse, and the fanservice is far too silly and juvenile to add any conceivable appeal.

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Related Recommendations

Trigun has a similar premise in a sci-fi wild-west setting, but without the fanservice and with considerably deeper moral and philosophical meaning in the hero's dislike of combat and refusal to kill people; it also has somewhat better action. Tsukikage Ran is a bit similar in that it's a fairly lightweight series about an unbeatable swordswoman in a not-particularly-realistic (though not this unrealistic) feudal Japan.