Robo Geisha

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"Geisha is... Japanese girl. Geisha is... beautiful. Geisha is... wild. Geisha is... ROBOT."

Robo Geisha is the story of two sisters: Kikuyakko "Kikue" Kagusa, a geisha who is renowned for her beauty, and Yoshie Kagusa, who works as a servant in the same teahouse as Kikuyakko. Yoshie suffers near constant abuse at the hands of her elder sister, who derides her lack of grace and potential for becoming a Geisha at every opportunity. While Yoshie for the most part tries to take this treatment in stride, at times her rage boils over and manifests itself in almost-superhuman feats of strength.

Their lives change when the young heir of the Kagano Steel Manufacturing corporation notices one of these feats, and forces the sisters to become part of his private army of geisha assassins. Accepting their fate, the sisters quickly rise through the ranks of the geisha corps, constantly replacing their human flesh with ever more deadly and bizarre mechanical body-parts and weaponry, each hoping to out-do the other in their ongoing rivalry.

However, when Yoshie is given the order to eliminate the family members of the other girls that have been kidnapped and forced into servitude by the corporation, she has a change of heart. Vowing to bring down the company and its cadre of cybernetically enhanced assassins once and for all, she puts her nearly unmatched skills in the arts of death-dealing to use in an effort to avenge the lives the corporation has taken in its mad rise to power. This decision puts Yoshie on a path that will inevitably lead to a final confrontation with her now more-machine-than-human sister, and to uncovering the secrets of the men who have been pulling their strings all along.

Robo Geisha is a Japanese splatter-horror/action/comedy film directed by Noboru Iguchi (The Machine Girl). It stars Aya Higuchi as Yoshi, Hitomi Hasebe as Kikuyakko , and Takumi Saito as Hikaru Kageno. Originally released in Japanese theatres in 2009, it was later licensed for distribution in English by FUNimation. See James Rolfe review it here.

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Robo Geisha provides examples of the following tropes:

• Action Girls: Yoshie and Kikue, and, well, the entire geisha army.
• Animeland / Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo: There is not a Japanese stereotype in existence that this movie does not portray. Yakuza, Geisha, Ninjas, Samurai, Sailor Fuku, Kaiju, Tokusatsu... you name it.
• Ass Shove: Shows up with the cybernetic AssSword, which is exactly what it sounds like. Considering the rest of the film, it's surprising when the girls point out that using a sword protruding from your ass is not only embarrassing, but also really awkward to use. It doesn't stop them from having a sword fight around a conveniently placed stripper pole.
• B-Movie
• Badass Grandpa / Cool Old Guy / Handicapped Badass: Kanai.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Both played straight and subverted - the most damage Yoshie gets to her face is having the skin of her cheekbone torn off, revealing her cyborg implants, and it doesn't look too bad, but poor Kikue has the skin on her face removed from the bridge of her nose down as part of her full transformation.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Yoshie.
• Black Bra and Panties / Stocking Filler: Essentially what the Tengun wear.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: An interesting take on this trope, as one of the many hidden weapons in Yoshie's arsenal are a pair of retractable katanas that emerge from her arm pits.
• Black Comedy
• Bloody Hilarious
• Body Horror: Kikuyakko, by the end of the film.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Kikuyakko, towards the end. Also the Tengun.
• The Bully: Kikuyakko starts out as one towards Yoshie.
• Calling Your Attacks: Happens often.
  • "Wig napalm!"
  • "Breast milk from hell!"
• Camp
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Both Hikaru Kagano and his father, Kenyama. They kidnap and force young women into becoming their personal assassins, attempt to murder anyone and everyone who gets in their way, and they ultimately desire to destroy Japan to achieve their goals.
• Dark Action Girls: The Tengun.
• Dirty Old Man: Kanai has shades of this, notably during his death.

This is paradise!

• Drop the Hammer: Courtesy of Yoshie.
• Evil Plan: The Kageno's true goal is to drop an atomic bomb into Mt. Fuji, which they believe will destroy Japan so that they can rebuild it in their own image.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin
• Eye Scream: When one of Yoshie's targets gets too fresh with her during her performance as a geisha, she responds by gouging his eyes out with a pair of fried shrimp.
• Facial Horror: Often, and usually, but not always, Played for Laughs.
• Fusion Dance: Yoshie and Kikue combine into one being at the end, using their combined powers and weapons to defeat Hikaru and his giant castle robot.
• Gainax Ending
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry
• Go Out with a Smile: Kanai.
• Half The Woman She Used To Be: After getting caught up in a suicide bomb blast (intended as a trap), Yoshie is seen crawling away from the wreckage, minus her lower half.
• High-Pressure Blood: While this is present in nearly every battle, perhaps the most bizarre example of this is when massive gouts of it can be seen erupting from damaged buildings.
• Humongous Mecha: Giant castle robot, anyone?
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Yoshie towards Kikue, during their final battle.
• Improbable Weapon User: Yoshie, as displayed by the aforementioned Eye Scream example. Two words: "Fried Shrimp".
• Jerkass: Kikuyakko, although later she is shown as more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Large Ham: Pretty much the entire cast.
• Mood Whiplash: The overall fun, campy silliness is toned down a lot when it is revealed that Hikaru sent Yoshie on a suicide mission. And forces Kikue to watch.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Hikaru, if what he does to Kikuyakko's exposed brain as he kisses her is anything to go by...
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot
• Overly Long Gag: Some of the death scenes.
• Panty Shot: Yoshie gets a lot of them when she's dressed in a Sailor Fuku.
• Refuge in Audacity
• Robot Girl: The Kagusa sisters, as well as the deranged members of Kagano Steel's elite "Goblin Corps".
• Rule of Cool / Rule of Funny: Pretty much the entire film.
• Seppuku: An unfortunate geisha assassin recruit is ordered to do this, after she decides that she doesn't want to go through with the initiation and wants to leave.
• She's Got Legs: Yoshie and Kikue.
• Spiritual Successor: It's fifth in an unofficial series preceded by Meatball Machine, The Machine Girl, Tokyo Gore Police, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl and succeeded by Mutant Girls Squad.
• Stripperiffic: The Tengun.
• Toku
• Took a Level In Badass: Yoshie, naturally.
• Torpedo Tits: Kikuyakko's first cybernetic upgrade is to have her right breast converted into a machine gun. (Her left breast? The trigger.) Additionally, the Tengun fire acidic breast milk from theirs.
• Widget: Boy howdy.