Grenadier

"The ultimate battle strategy: To avoid battle by removing an enemy's will to fight."

—Empress Tenshi

a.k.a.: Grenadier The Smiling Senshi

Based in an alternate version of Japan's civil war period, is the story of the travels of Rushuna Tendo, a buxom young woman possessing astonishing skill with a revolver. Known as a senshi, or firearms expert, Rushuna is on a personal journey to bring peace to the land. Uncomfortably aware that shooting people is not the best way to accomplish this, Rushuna is struggling to master the peaceful teachings of the Empress Tenshi. Accompanying her is Yajiro Kojima a.k.a. Yatchan, a skilled samurai who has grown weary of battle and sees value in Rushuna's goals. Also along for the ride is Mikan Kurenai, an orphaned balloon artist who has painful memories of her own to deal with.

Learning that there is a price on her head, Rushuna journeys back to the Capital to clear her name. Pursued and watched by a mysterious man in a clown mask, Rushuna must battle the Juttensen or Ten Heavenly Enlightened one by one, each armed with strange and deadly weapons. She gains allies as she travels, beating her enemies with her skills and winning them over with her purity, trying to learn more about the mysterious Jester and to understand the Empress's strange actions.

There's also a manga version with a plot far differing from that of the anime, with Rushuna trying to find her homeland, editing the backstories of some of the major characters (including turning her evil counterpart into an adoptive sister, and the Iron-Masked Baron into a nutjob capable of making Hitler look sane), and turning the world they live in into a post-apocalyptic scenario, except it's been so long after it that the ancient super weapons are buried deep and the world is somewhat flourishing. Production of the manga is currently discontinued in the United States, though; price gouging is inevitable.

Tropes used in Grenadier include:
  • Absolute Cleavage: Rushuna and many other females display this quite nicely.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: In the manga, Yajiro's katana can cut a giant cannon, with the helpful push of 12 well-placed bullets from Rushuna.
  • Abhorrent Admirer: While not exactly ugly, Aizen Teppa is an annoying nerd who's obsessed with Rushuna and believes they're bethroted only because Rushuna was nice to him back when they were kids.
  • Action Girl: Rushuna, the main heroine, as well as Touka Kurenai and several other members of the Juttenshi.
  • An Aesop: Conflicts are best solved with a smile--and preferably a soft hug to the chest. The big soft chest.
  • Alternate Character Reading: Used as a subtle Foreshadowing of the manga's After the End setting. Also used in the anime, where the katakana representing the alternate reading flash for a brief moment onscreen before showing the kanji.
  • Alternate History: Giving us a new version of Japan's civil war period.
    • Averted in the manga, which is strongly implied to be After the End.
  • Ambiguously Bi: Downplayed with Mikan in the manga: while she seems attracted to Rushuna and Setsuna's massive breasts, she's also lovestruck at the first sight of Juzaemon Shiga's true face, literally glomping him the moment he's unmasked.
  • And the Adventure Continues...: At the very end of the manga, after saving the country from the Iron Mask Baron, Rushuna sets sail with Yajiro and Mikan to look for further adventures abroad, at peace even if she knows what happened to her homeland.
  • Animal Motifs: Yajiro has tigers: he's known as the "Vanguard Tiger" and despite having no access to firearms can still fight magnificently with a sword. Later on he even gets a sword called Tiger's Fang and, when he attacks Namari, she perceives his attack as a gigantic tiger leaping at her.
  • Anime Theme Song: Since it aired on two different networks, there are two theme songs.
  • Badass Arm-Fold: Namari Shirogane while using the Oni Ashura battle suit.
  • Barbie Doll Anatomy: Although Rushuna is rarely completely naked, there are situations where you'd think that at least her nipples would be exposed...
  • Big Fancy Sword: A tertiary antagonist fought by Yajiro in the manga, nicknamed "Hell's Cook", wields a gigantic sword that's essentially a rocket-propelled giant kitchen knife.
  • Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics: Many of Rushuna's special techniques involve these, mainly her manga-only secret techniques, which uses ricochet to suddenly change the trajectory of bullets midflight, named "Crossfire".
  • Blade on a Stick: Kurenai Touka's weapon is called "Explosive Spear" but it's really more like a kendama on a shaft which can explode when hitting a target. Her successor among the Juttenshi and younger sister wields with immense skill a spear which mostly resembles a walking stick with a ball on one end and a reinforced metal tip.
  • Blasting It Out of Their Hands: This is Rushuna's primary method of disabling opponents, leaving them moaning and clutching their wounded hands. Of note is a time where she blasts out the axle of a gatling gun.
  • Boobs of Steel: Rushuna is the best marksman in the show, and the most endowed female. Unfortunately, so is her Evil Counterpart and rival.
    • Other Action Girls in the series, such as Touka Kurenai, also sport considerable assets.
    • Considering where Rushuna keeps her spare ammo, her boobs literally have to be made of something like steel.
  • Bottomless Magazines: Mooks with assault rifles can fire them on fully automatic for several seconds at a time without having to reload.
    • Averted in that Rushuna can only fire six shots at a time, and even after reloading repeatedly she still runs out of bullets in at least one episode. That cleavage of hers can only hold so much, you know...
    • Still, at the end of the last episode, it is shown just how many rounds her cleavage can carry as they are spilled out in a shower of bullets. Parodied in a manga omake, where Mikan actually tries to figure out how much bullets she's hiding in her cleavage (resulting in a small circle of bullets surrounding Rushuna by the time she's through).
  • Brain In a Jar: In the manga, this is the Iron Mask's Baron true form: a human brain in a jar, encased in a skull-like robotic head.
  • Bratty Half-Pint: Mikan has her moments of this.
  • Broke Episode: Rushuna and Yajiro have to resort to street performances in order to get money in one episode.
  • Bullet Time: Done completely in animation any time the action is too fast to humanly follow, such as when Rushuna creates a bullet cascade or stacks a half dozen bullets.
  • Bunny Ears Lawyer: Juzaemon Shiga is known as the Invicible Juttenshi, but looks like a total doofus with a goofy bunny suit. Turns out he wields the device called "Disassembling Fist", which allows him to disassemble all guns with a mere touch, which inevitably forces Senshi to surrender.
  • Butter Face: Played for tragedy with Namari Shirogane: due to the bear attack she endured to save Rushuna, under a mask she hides a massive, hideous cross-shaped scar that apparently took her left eye, which was substituted with an artificial one.
  • Buxom Is Better: Invoked by Mikan, who upon meeting Rushuna and groping her, happily declares that a girl like her would be extremely popular in the Peach Blossom Palace. In a Manga Omake she even asks Rushuna how could she grow them to such size and flaunts some fake breasts with her "balloon boob suit".
  • Calling Your Attacks: Nearly every episode someone will do this, complete with full screen titles. It's often conflated with Gratuitous English in the manga.
  • Character Development: It's amazing how much exploring of each character is fit into twelve episodes without steering away from the plot.
  • Chick Magnet: Parodied in the manga with Juza: apparently he's so handsome and irresistible that if he didn't wear a goofy rabbit costume to fight, he'll be unable to perform due to having all girls seeing him crawling all over him. Indeed, Mikan promptly glomps him and begs for a date as soon as she takes a good look at his unmasked face.
  • Child Prodigy: Mikan.
  • Chivalrous Pervert: Teppa
  • Climax Boss: In the manga, that would be: Namari fighting Rushuna on the gigantic landship Death Horn reanimated by Joker. The manga is far from finished, but this battle forces Rushuna to push her limits and come to term with her past.
  • Combination Attack: Two notable ones in the manga:
    • Rushuna combines her gunslinging skills (as well as a flying kick from herself) with Yajiro's sword skill to build up a slash strong enough to cut through the bad guy's giant cannon.
    • During the final battle, Rushuna and Namari performed a synchronized, symmetric gun attack, completed with simultaneous breast-bouncing reload and boob-to-boob pose against the Solar Jacket.
  • Cool Sword: After defeating his brother and clearing things up, Yajiro's given in gift the heirloom katana, the shining odachi called "Tiger's Fang".
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Rushuna.
  • Curtains Match the Window: Rushina's a blonde with Eyes of Gold.
  • Disney Death: Namari seemingly dies shielding Rushuna from Iron Mask's barrage of bullets. The epilogues revelas that she survived and went on to travel the country.
  • The Ditz: Rushuna has her moments of this, though it's more emphasized in the anime.
  • Doesn't Like Guns: Yajiro. Despite this, he still keeps up to gun-toting enemies with a plain katana.
  • Doomed Hometown: In the manga, Rushuna ultimately learns from the "Stranger" that their homeland beyond the sea was completely destroyed. A bit later, the revived Joker/Iron Mask Baron confirms that he personally wiped the country from the maps.
  • Double Entendre: Removing the enemies' armor. Some of those enemies would probably prefer that, in place of being shot in the hand.
  • Dragged Into Drag: In a manga Omake, Rushuna and Mikan decides to see how Yajiro would look like in the latter's "boob suit" and with a little of make up. Cue to Yajiro freaking out over the massive chest while the two girls remark that he actually makes for a rather hot girl.
  • Dramatic Wind: With Mikan's forgiveness, Rushuna's skirt is blown in the wind.
  • Everyone Loves Blondes: Yajiro for Rushuna.
  • Everything's Better with Spinning: Rushuna's method of dodging bullets tends to involve a lot of spinning. In fact, it seems as though simply spinning in place can cause bullets to miraculously change their paths.
  • Everything's Worse with Bears: Part of SetsunaNamari's Heroic Sacrifice in the manga.
  • Evil Counterpart: Setsuna the Tenshi impersonator. This is reflected quite well visually, with her outfit, hair, and skin being stark contrasts to Rushuna's brighter colors.
  • Evil Weapon: In the anime, Joker's personal gun, the Ma no Hirameki (Demon's Flash): a futuristic-looking three-barreled gun that can shoot deadly gusts of compressed air that leave nothing in their wake. It's destroyed by Touka at the end, just to make sure.
  • Fan Service: One of the figurines actually came with two different detachable bosoms.
  • Final Boss: Two different cases:
    • The anime ends up with two simultaneous battles as Yajiro fights Jester, his former master, while Rushuna tackles her evil former colleague Setsuna inside the Tenshi's Palace.
    • The manga has all the heroes teaming up to fight a revived Iron Mask Baron, who was carelessly reanimated by the Imperial City's noblemen and asbimilated a super-destructive solar-based super weapon he's threatening the entire country with.
  • Firing in the Air a Lot: Win a weekend at the Peach Blossom Tower!
  • First-Name Basis: Yatchan
  • Flower Motifs: In the manga, Rushuna's revolver is called "Himawari N.38", after the Sunflower. She later gets another pistol from her mentor called "Cosmos".
  • Follow the Leader: A blonde, pacifistic outlaw with ridiculously good gun skills; a group of assassins whose main purpose is to torture the main character with their inevitable deaths; and a mysterious, completely nihilistic antagonist, much like Trigun.
  • Furo Scene: Rushuna is constantly searching for her next hot bath.
  • Full-Frontal Assault: The second half of the second episode, by Rushuna.
  • Gag Boobs: Rushuna. Mikan also has a full-bodied balloon suits that gives her breasts on par of Rushuna.
  • Gainaxing: Like you wouldn't believe. Actually used for a practical purpose, though.
  • Gatling Good: Coupled with Arm Cannon.
  • Gecko Ending: The anime and manga deviate quite a bit after the appearance of Suirou and Teppa.
  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Yajiro to Rushuna in the manga, when she's about to give up due to sheer fatigue and hopelessness after her battle against Namari.
  • Godiva Hair: Rushuna fashions a swimsuit out of her hair in one chapter of the manga, when her hydrophobic swimsuit melts.
  • Groin Attack: When Arima tries to force his way into the Peach Blossom Tower for implicitly asks for more carnal services from the girls, Touka smacks him between his legs with her staff.
  • Gun Kata: Rushuna and Setsuna in episode 12.
  • Happily Married: Rushuna and Yajiro at the end of the manga.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: In the manga ultimately it's Mikan's balloon-crafting skills that gives a massive help against the Solar Jack, making a huge balloon screen hover above him to cut his source of sunlight and creating an opening for Rushuna.
  • Heel Face Turn: All the Juttenshi in the manga when they learn that Touka Kurenai, their former teacher, still lives. Also Namari, after being defeated by Rushuna and realizing the full extent of her actions.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Both Japanese and English.
  • High-Speed Missile Dodge
  • Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Touka Kurenai. After retiring, she became a pacifist who works to give both refuge to the victims of banditry and redemption to bandits who choose to reform themselves, as well as a provide a neutral zone where warriors can seek peaceful (and pleasurable) sanctuary from their violent lifestyle.
  • Hot Springs Episode: Seen in the closing credits.
  • Hyperspace Arsenal: Mikan manages to produce an inflatable boat, costumes, a glider, even fully colored doubles of herself on demand. And her 50 gallons of water balloons vanishes without a trace. Apparently Mikan is carrying an inflatable portable hole!
    • In a less serious example, Anime!Setsuna. Where in hell does she keep that chest when dressed as Tenshi?
  • I Have the High Ground: While the Jester can stand on air, he favors high vantage points such as tree tops and cliffs.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The senshi are often armed with machine guns, yet hardly ever seem to hit anything.
  • Implausible Fencing Powers: Yajiro uses his katana to fend off bullets, Jedi-style.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: Rushuna is the queen of this, and is often considered to be The Stampede's Distaff Counterpart because of it.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Basically every member of the Elite Imperial Guard. Aizen Teppa uses a special, nigh-invincible cloth, another uses sound, and the Jester uses what appears to be Frickin' Laser Beams, but is actually soul-powered blasts of focused air that can punch through anything.
  • In a Single Bound: Rushuna can pull this off, but so can others.
  • Interesting Situation Duel: In the anime, the battle against Banmaru's mini-mecha takes place while Rushuna is left without panties, forcing her to reduce her mobility out of embarassment.
  • Karma Houdini: After orchestrating the deaths of countless innocents and attempting to conquer the world, Setsuna ... goes for an ocean cruise. Averted in the manga, where she's a victim of Iron Mask's manipulation.
  • Kazuya Nakai: Yajiro. Another swordsman by him.
  • Light Is Not Good: In the manga, the Perpetual Motion Solar Jacket is a giant flower-like superweapon that was used to wipe out an entire country. Iron Mask Baron merges with it to become the very final enemy.
  • Lovable Sex Maniac: Teppa.
  • Luminescent Blush: Kasumi gets the hots for Teppa.
  • Magic Bullets: Every blessed one of them.
  • Marshmallow Hell: Done humorously, but also practically and for emotional effect as well. Rushuna hides Yajiro from enemy troops in a hot spring with it, but also uses it on a couple of her defeated enemies in a form of the Cooldown Hug.
    • In a later episode, Mikan is able to do this to a freezing, nearly unconscious Yajiro due to the thermal suits she wears giving her a more adult physique. She even embarassingly mentions that "those are not really hers" when Yajiro comments on the warm.
  • Mask Power: The Jester. In the manga, it's actually his face.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Rushuna. Yes. If it weren't for Mai Shuranui, she'd be the queen of this.
    • Also Setsuna/Namari.
  • Multi-Armed and Dangerous: For her climatic battle against Rushuna, Namari wears the massive battle exoskeleton "Oni Ashura", which allows her to block nearly all attacks and respond in kind with scorching streams of fire.
  • My Greatest Failure: In both anime and manga, Yajiro lost his precious childhood friend (and possible love interest) on the massive snowy mountains on the way to the capital, though how this develops varies:
    • In the anime, they were part of an army who wanted to rebel against Tenshi, but were sold out by their leader and left to die. On the very same mountain, the group is confronted by a revived but Brainwashed and Crazy friend who tries to kill Yajiro with a one-barreled version of Jester's Ma no Hirameki.
    • The manga doesn't specify the full context of the event, though later on Yajiro is confronted by said crush's older brother, who wants revenge.
  • Nice Hat: Rushuna's hat is nice. Tenshi features some bizarre numbers, herself. Setsuna sports a weird double-tail hat that may have been stolen from a wizard, or possibly a Keebler elf.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Some of Rushuna's more oblivious remarks come off as rather snarky if you assume she's just pretending to be a bimbo. She comes off as less ingenue in the manga though.
  • Odd Couple: Straight-headed gun-hater Yajiro with off-beat gunslinger Rushuna.
  • Only a Flesh Wound: Rushuna shoots dozens of people but never kills anyone.
  • Overtook the Manga
  • Platonic Prostitution: In the manga, Mikan mentions that despite the looks, the girls in the Peach Blossom Tower do not provide services outside of baths, company and drinks. Considering that Touka takes in girls on the run, it makes sense that she'd not pimp them.
  • Playboy Bunny: In the anime, Mikan's adult/boob suit (which here also doubles as thermal suits to protect her from the cold weather of the mountains) includes a pink playboy bunny outfit. Played for laughs when she gives one to Rushuna... which is more like a giant balloony bunny suits that, while cute, also impedes Rushuna's movements.
  • Power of Rock: One of the Jutensen-Imperial Guard-uses a specialized instrument to deflect bullets, and can probably liquify your innards with a riff.
  • Powered Armor: A few of them turns up, most notably one of the lesser Juttenshi, Oma, rides in one with a battery of rocket launchers called "Heat Armor". Namari Shirogane takes on Rushuna wih a multi-armed massive armor called Oni Ashura.
  • Revenge Before Reason: Explored with two different characters and both times depicted as something negative: while Rushuna is ultimately able to talk Mikan out of taking her revenge on Arima, the man responsible for killing her parents, she has to defeat Namari in combat to finally calm her down.
  • Revolvers Are Just Better: The two best marksmen in the show both use revolvers, and Rushuna's is not only a custom job, but also considered very outdated by the standards of the setting.
  • Rule of Cool: The entire thing.
  • Sam Riegel: Yajiro's English voice.
  • Samurai: Yatchan.
  • Serious Business: Rushuna, on hearing a villain refuse her offer of peaceful surrender with no more bloodshed: "Well, in that case; You don't get a smile."
  • Scary Shiny Glasses: Though not very scary, when Aizen Teppa hides his emotions, his lenses go shiny.
  • Schizo-Tech: Robots, machine guns, and missiles, right next to swords and samurai armor.
  • Sexual Karma: In the anime Aizen, who creepily simps after Rushuna at every point despite her blatant disinterest, is last seen receiving the clingy advances of Kasumi, the enemy mook he defeated earlier in the series, much to his discomfort.
  • She's All Grown Up: With the use of balloons, Mikan briefly appears to be older than she is, and even does Marshmallow Hell to Yajiro at one point. While in the manga it was merely for vanity, in the anime it doubles as a cold-protecting suit.
  • Shock and Awe: In the manga, Yajiro's "big brother" faces him with a rather amazing giant electrified katana that's actually blunt but can be electrically charged by sheathing and unsheathing it, enabling the user to electrocute his opponents.
  • Shoot the Bullet: In Ouka's case in the manga, is "spear the bullet" with such pinpoint accuracy they're sent back to the shooter.
  • Social Darwinist: The Jester.
  • Soft Water
  • Spared by the Adaptation: Koto-chan. Also, most of the Juttenshi are spared.
  • Spin to Deflect Stuff: Oh, yeah.
  • Super Not-Drowning Skills: Rushuna vs. Suirou.
  • Tagalong Kid: Mikan.
  • Take My Hand: Yajiro and Fuuka, episode 9.
  • Taking You with Me: How Yajiro finally defeats Jester in the final episode: taking a page from Rushuna, he throws the sword away and lunges at Jester with a hug, sending them both flying from over the roof to the distant ground below. Yajiro barely survives the fall.
  • Talking Is a Free Action
  • Talking with Signs - Suirou, one of the Juttensen, communicates underwater at great length with Rushuna, educating her in underwater combat through an extensive series of pre-prepared signs. In the manga he actually runs out of space as he's "talking" to her.
  • Team Shot
  • Technical Pacifist: Yatchan believed that only with a sword could you feel the weight of a human life.
  • Thanks for the Mammary: When Mikan first meets Rushuna, she proceeds to throughtfully grope and squeeze her breasts, claiming (to Rushuna's confusion) that she'll be very popular with clients. In the manga she ends up doing this to the Juttenshi member Setsuna (actually Namari Shirogane, Rushuna's adopted sister), claiming, much to the latter's embarassment, that while she has nice boobs, they're not as soft or big as Rushuna's.
  • The Gunslinger: Rushuna and Setsuna.
  • This Cannot Be!: Iron Mask Baron's reaction in the manga upon seeing Yajiro and Rushuna taking down his Death Horn superweapon.
  • This Looks Like a Job For Aquaman: Suirou, the underwater specialist member of the Ten Senshi.
  • This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Yatchan versues the Jester in the anime.
  • Title Drop: The word Grenadier doesn't even come up until the 10th episode, when Rushina is given the title of Grenadier for having allegedly slaughtered all the Juttensen that went against her. In the finale, the title of Grenadier is bestowed on her, but repurposed as Grenadier: The Smiling Senshi for her mastery of removing an enemy's will to fight.
    • In the manga, Grenadier is mentioned later on as the title given to the strongest, most destructive Senshi. Iron Mask Baron believes that by defeating the Grenadier, one can claim the country for themselves.
  • Twelve-Episode Anime
  • Unorthodox Reload: Rushuna loads her gun by ejecting bullets from her cleavage. grenadier-unauxreload_9914.gif
    • The most amazing feat though is that she then fetches them with her open revolver.
    • It apparently was part of her training, since Setsuna pulls this off as well.
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment: See above.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Baron Iron Mask has a frantic one as he see Rushuna, unfazed even by the barrage of solar-powered blasts, pushing through to deliver him the coup de grace, mentally screaming his incredulity at how someone like her, from the "Strongest Warrior Clan", would fight for peace.
  • Weird Moon
  • Wendee Lee: Rushuna's English voice.
  • What Measure Is a Mook?: Averted: Anyone Rushuna meets is offered a hug and a smile, and if they try to kill her, she'll stick to her ultimate strategy.
  • Where Are They Now? Epilogue: The manga finale, through Mikan's letter to Touka before disclosing on the fate of the three main heroes:
    • Mikan would eventually return to become the second owner of the Peach Blossom Tower, until eventually her wanderlust pushes her to travel the land once again.
    • Yajiro eventually will become so strong and skillful he'd be known as the Strongest Samurai, a title he'd never acknowledge himself.
    • Rushuna after finally reaching her homeland and leave a single flower in memory for her fallen compatriots would return home and actually marry Yajiro.
  • Whip It Good: Yuzuriha the Brilliant Explosive uses a whip/ribbon-like weapon that can generate explosions, but she's not seen much in use.
  • The Worf Effect: Played for laughs for the last three Juttenshi (Honmaru Tojo "The Cunning", Danmaru Oma "The Heat Armor" and Yuzuriha Shimon "The Brilliant Explosive"), despite being introduced as such, are easily crushed by Kurenai Ouka to show how much ahead of them she is.
  • Wrongly Accused: Early on there's apparently a wanted dangerous criminal known as the Blonde Demon. Due to her blond hair, some people thinks it's her the culprit.
  • You Have Failed Me...: Standard operating procedure for the Jester and part of his master plan.
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