Grenadier: The Smiling Senshi

Original Title: グレネーダー - ほほえみの閃士
Romanized: Gureneedaa - Hohoemi no Senshi
Literal: Grenadier - The Smiling Warrior

Plot Synopsis

Grenadier is a TV series that takes place in a world similar to the warring states period in Feudal Japan with one key exception, the widespread availability of automatic firearms.

While on the run following a failed assault on an enemy castle, Samurai Yajiro meets a woman named Rushuna bathing in a hot spring. Despite the odd conditions of their meeting, Rushuna is undisturbed and readily agrees to use her own body help Yajiro hide from his pursuers. After that, Yajiro learns that Rushuna is a master with firearms, and gets to see her skills first hand as he watches her take over the entire castle with nothing but a 6-shot revolver. But despite her prowess, Rushuna loathes death and combat, doing everything she can to avoid a fight and ensuring that no one dies if fighting does break out.

Following this, Yajiro decides to accompany Rushuna on her journey to the capital to meet with Empress Tento, her old mentor. But there are many adventures and hazards they must endure along with way.

Reader Review

Rating: 0.5 / 5
Reviewer: Chainclaw
Review Date: 2006-10-12

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 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 sub-plots, but they don't. The stories of each individual episode are all woefully predictable and uninteresting. Nobody ever does anything to make these stories 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" mentioned in the title. Unlike the "Grenadier" line (she never uses grenades), this part of the title 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 then just another invincible god-like anime heroine who can wipe out entire armies. However, I'd say even more then her combat prowess, her greatest asset 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 (this is not an exaggeration or hyperbole). 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 fan service 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 actions 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 story lines. Suffice 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 sub-plots, 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 animation and music quality. For the most part, the environments and weapons are well drawn, and the characters looked 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 fan service is far too immature and juvenile to add any conceivable appeal.

US DVD Review

The DVDs feature a number of bonuses in addition to the bilingual audio: Commentary, clean opening and endings, alternate theme songs, production specials, and more.

Content Guide

Tokyopop calls it 16-up.

Violence: 1 - Plenty of violence, but it's not very gruesome and there are only a few deaths

Nudity: 2 - Plenty of skimpy outfits and bath scenes.

Sex/Mature Themes: 3 - A lot of raunchy acts and scenes for Rushuna.

Language: 1 - Nothing too bad here.

Notes and Trivia

Based on a manga series by Sousuke Kaise, available in english From Tokyo Pop.

Availability

Available in the US from Anime Works on bilingual DVD, as three individual discs, in a "Premium" box set, and, in early 2007, a budget-priced complete set. (All of the above can be found new or used at Amazon: Grenadier DVDs)

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