accessIt’s difficult to talk about Grenadier without mentioning Triguin. Grenadier is Trigun, at half the length, almost none of the angst, and double the fan-service. Maybe triple. Anyways, there’s a lot of fanservice. It helps that instead of Vash we get Tendo Rushuna as the titular Grenadier.
Sixteen-year-old Rushuna is on a journey, trying to make the world a better place by following the teachings of the empress Tenshi: to remove your opponents fighting spirit and end conflict without bloodshed. Unfortunately, her travels almost always force her into conflict with the kinds of people that aren’t interested in talking things over. Rushuna is no pushover, though. She’s a highly trained senshi (gun-fighter) who wields a six-shooter with deadly precision. Along the way she meets some travelling partners—including “Tiger of the Rear Guard” Yajiro and balloon-user Mikan—who tag along.
There is nothing serious about Grenadier. There are moments of seriousness, like when Yajiro has to fight his former love whom he thought was dead or when Rushuna is forced to fight childhood friend Teppa. All of these are quickly interrupted by either comedy or fan service (usually both). This is a lighthearted series about an attractive girl that likes taking baths and could easily kill you. She also has the most absurd, fastest, and greatest method of reloading a six-shooter ever (hint: guess where she keeps all of her ammo).
Luckily, we get to see this awesome reload method quite a bit because Rushuna is constantly getting into fights. Early in the series Tenshi starts sending her own personal guards to track down Rushuna, all of which are interesting characters that don’t like being reasoned with (for the most part). And if it isn’t Tenshi’s guards, countryside robbers, mad scientists, confused royalty, and all manner of bad guys show up, especially after Tenshi puts a price on Rushuna’s head. During the climax, we even get a one-on-one duel between Rushuna and Setsuna, a girl who looks (and figts) almost exactly like Rushuna.
It’s a pretty spectacular battle, and although the end isn’t exactly what I was hoping for, it wraps things up decently enough and isn’t at all disappointing. I would definitely recommend this series to anyone looking for a short, light series to have fun with.