Some Help Please

Zen 2nd

Saw this animé on one of those videos that change the voice and all that jazz, and I was wondering if anyone knew the name of it?

Pictures down below

Carbon Blob

Going by picture #2 I'm gonna say that that's Grenadier.

CuLT

I was tempted to watch the show purely thanks to AMV Hell The Movie making the "gun-kata" fights look spectacular.

Never got around to it though, my spider sense told me that it would probably suck for some reason I couldn't put my finger on.

Was I wrong?

Carbon Blob

Dunno what it's actually like, haven't seen it. The impression I've got of it from what I have seen though isn't the best. Everytime I've seen it mentioned it's always been in the context of fanservice. God knows how many times I've seen that gif of her reloading the revolver with the spare ammo in her cleavage, or thrusting enthusiastically while shooting.

So yeah, your spider sense was right on the money methinks.

Edit: Yeah reading back over a discussion about it general consensus was that it's crap. Also found one of those gifs:

Zen 2nd

Thanks for the quick response. Its just during the summer when I get my job back after the LC I'll be spending my money on some DVDs and that looked interesting plus its only 12 episodes long

sharingan

The fanservice is meant to be pretty extreme alright, to the point that any enjoyment you extract out of the rest of it will be based on your tolerance of fanservice. Most of the reports/discussion I have seen on it focus solely on this - the anime could be good/watchable but nobody has peered far enough through the FS to check.

One report I have seen was interesting - the lead puts on a good show of deadly competence; unlike say Vash, her nearest equivalent who seems to luck his way through most of the encounters, Rushuna is quite believable as a gunslinger.

Generally I don't waste my time with reports that focus only on fanservice - the people haven't looked past it to see if the anime is any good or not. The fanservice-ophobes have typically written off excellent stuff in the past like Popotan, He is my Master and to a lesser extent Girls Bravo/DearS.

Carbon Blob

sharingan wrote:

... excellent stuff ... He is my Master ... Girls Bravo/DearS.

I watched the first 3 episodes of Girls Bravo and DearS, and they certainly seemed to me to be nothing more than fanservice. Girls Bravo is a guy, afraid of women, who teleports into a world with nothing but women, who are all dying for male attention. Hell for half of each episode the screen was covered in fog to hide the TnA, which they later removed on the DVD's. DearS to me seemed like an average by-the-numbers harem show, and certainly didn't seem to have anything of real substance to it.

HiMM exists for no reason other than to have 2 teen/preteen girls in BDSM style maid outfits. I bought the "hey it's good, it's more than just fanservice!" line before the anime came out, and gave the manga a go. Got about ~3/4 of the way through the first chapter before I had to stop, as it just made me feel uncomfortable. A 9 year old and a 15 year old dressed in porno-style maid outfits getting into the standard harem-fare wacky situations with their horny master, is not what I'd call excellent.

psicic

Grenadier isn’t that bad a series. There’s fan service, yes.

The heroine – Rushuna Tendo - reloads her gun by giving a jiggle and popping bullets out of her cleavage – but it never plumbs the depths of things like <ugh!> Ultimate Girls. However, it’s not the main feature of the show – the story doesn’t seem to lose focus because Rushuna’s in a hot spring at the start of an episode or because she has a special way of reloading her gun. In my opinion, that’s the whole point – there is a plot and developed story in this anime.

With a landscape devastated by internecine warfare and in the wake of a recently passed rebellion, Rushuna is sent to the outer provinces (YAY! Go Centralised Government!!!) to win people’s hearts not with force but with humanity and justice. Yeah…stomach churning, but happily it’s not an anime that takes itself too seriously or pretends that it’s high-art. It also, thankfully, doesn’t get as preachy as Trigun(come on Vash…just shoot the f*ckers already).

The story has some alright characters and does some things well. For instance, although it’s intonated from the very start, it was well into the series before it clicked with me that the sidekick – Kojima Yajiro, a merc – was actually a competent hero in his own right, before meeting up with Rushuna. This is mostly due to comic/slightly incompetant way he is portrayed in the anime. Also, while some people might get a kick out of the way Rushuna loads her gun, in the story world people are more awed at her talent as a senshi(a gun master) then how stacked she is.

The story does a few ‘villain of the week’ bits before coming around full force to the major story arc. In fact, this might be a shortcoming of the series - the first few episodes start with a leisurely pace before <ZOOM!> they take off at full speed and try and resolve everything a bit too fast.

Yes, the gunfights are silly in the extreme(matrix-physics apply here), there’s a few near-breast shots, plenty of cleavage shown, sappy core message and the show doesn’t really break a whole lot of new ground. However, the gunfights can be funny and/or engaging, the heroine has big breasts – big deal? They’re not the only thing in the anime – and the world the show is set in is nicely developed even if the main character’s personality is not.

Watch it for a bit of a diversion. Just don’t expect anything life-changing, absolutely brilliant or anything too ecchi. It's a solid, average anime.

Oh…and if it came down to choosing a gun or a smile to protect myself, I know which I’d choose…

CuLT

You've essentially described a standard fanservicey show

psicic

CuLT wrote:

You've essentially described a standard fanservicey show

Fanservice included? Yes.

Is it the sole thrust? No.

Grenadier’s sole purpose is not the big bust of the main character. Therefore, it has fanservice in it(like many anime titles) but doesn’t fall into my definition of a fanservice anime.

Girls Bravo is more my definition of fanservice - i.e. plot is designed to bring fanservice elements out prominently and plot is obvious excuse for fanservice.

Ultimate Girls is my definition of baaaaad fanservice - i.e. plot is virtually non-existent, only point of show seems to be to get girls costumes off asap.

sharingan

Carbon Blob wrote:

<snip>

Carbon Blob: quote me or don't quote me. But don't reassemble my posts to give the appearance of me saying something different.

Judge the HiMM anime by the anime. Its also surprisingly non-ecchi. Girls Bravo was highly-derivative seen-it-all-before harem anime. But the humour was fresh and funny (though S2 is doing nothing for me). DearS was decent, or at least the half of the episodes where it put in the effort.