Line #63 Literature/Kurenai


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kurenai1.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:Murasaki & Shinkurou]]
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4	Shinkurou Kurenai is a 16 year old boy who earns his living by settling disputes between people. This usually involves some degree of violence, which he deals with just fine, as he is very strong and proficient at martial arts.
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6	One day he gets a very special assignment: being the bodyguard of Murasaki Kuhoin, a 7 year old girl from a very rich, plutocratic family. At first he has quite a bit of trouble with her snobbish nature, which is obviously the result of the very sheltered upbringing within the "Inner Sanctuary" of her family estate. As they spend their time together, they start to appreciate each other more and more, leading to a deep friendship which affects their lives immensely.
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8	''Kure-nai'' ("Crimson") is a {{Light Novel\|s}} series written by Kentarou Katayama with illustrations by Yamato Yamamoto, which was published from 2005 to 2008 for four volumes. It also has a manga adaptation that was serialized in ''[[Magazine/ShonenJump Jump Square]]'' from 2007 to 2012, and an TwelveEpisodeAnime adaptation which aired in 2008. The series takes place in the same universe as ''Literature/DenpaTekiNaKanojo''.
9	----
10	!!''Kure-nai'' provides examples of:
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12	* ArtShift: The opening animation compared to the rest of the anime, which renders the cast with a highly stylized SuperDeformed appearance.
13	* BerserkButton: Set off by actual physical harm to someone Shinkurou should be protecting.
14	* {{Bifauxnen}}: Yayoi, Lin, and to some extent Benika.
15	* BifauxnenAndLadette: Lin and Yayoi.
16	* BigFancyHouse: Well, a really big estate...
17	* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Kuhoin family's traditions are... weird, to say the least.
18	* BittersweetEnding: Shinkurou actually manages to [[spoiler:get hold of Murasaki after she gets kidnapped back by her family. She decides to stay though to fight their traditions, so Shinkurou still has to leave her behind]]. It's a little less dramatic in the manga, and doesn't end the series.
19	* BladeBelowTheShoulder: [[spoiler:Shinkurou, while living with and being trained by the Houzuki family, had a blade put into his right forearm that he can release at will. (In the anime, it is activated when he gets too agitated in combat.)]]
20	* BlessedWithSuck: Shinkurou's [[spoiler:built-in sword may be cool, but it's pretty scary too]].
21	* BodyguardCrush: Sort of. Murasaki and Shinkurou start caring for each other a lot, but it's obviously not romantic. Also, due to Murasaki's misunderstandings about the nature of romantic relationships (and relationships in general) she sometimes speaks and acts as if she wants to be Shinkuro's girlfriend (or thinks she already is).
22	* BrotherSisterIncest: [[spoiler: Murasaki's predestined role is explicitly to bear her brother's children.]]
23	* CarFu: In the ''snow'', no less.
24	* ChekhovMIA: Played straight with [[spoiler: the Houzukis' previous student. It seems he was responsible for the fire that allowed Yuuno to accept Shinkurou as part of the family.]]
25	* ChildrenRaiseYou: one of the reasons that Benika chose Shinkuro for the task of being Murasaki's bodyguard.
26	* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Shinkurou. In the manga Tamaki also proves to be a proficient martial artist, [[spoiler:helping take down terrorists and even holding off Yuuno when she tries to stop Shinkuro from going to rescue Murasaki by force.]]
27	* CuteAndPsycho: Do not let Kirihiko near anything sharp (why do you think her street name is ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Guillotine]]?'')
28	%%* CutenessProximity: Ginko
29	* DangerousForbiddenTechnique: See the BlessedWithSuck and BladeBelowTheShoulder sections. [[spoiler:Not nearly as dangerous in the novels, given how frequent Shinkurou relies on it.]]
30	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: Murasaki's mother]], in the anime.
31	* FailureKnight: [[spoiler: Yayoi]]
32	* FishOutOfWater: due to the extremely isolated manner in which Kuhoin women are raised, pretty much everything Murasaki encounters outside the Kuhoin estate is unfamiliar to her.
33	* FriendlyTickleTorture: Before going off to rescue Murasaki from the Kuhoin, Shinkurō offers to shake hands with Tamaki and Yamie as saying goodbye. Instead, Tamaki and Yamie proceed to tickling him.
34	%%* HardDrinkingPartyGirl: Tamaki.
35	%%* HeelFaceDoorSlam: [[spoiler: Kirihiko]]
36	* HollywoodToneDeaf: When practicing their parts in a musical, Yamie proves to be this, and Yuuno even more so, but it goes away for both of them once they stop practicing from the script and start improvising instead.
37	* {{Joshikousei}}: Shinkurou's female fellow students at his high school.
38	%%* KnowledgeBroker: Ginko
39	%%* LivingLieDetector: Murasaki
40	%%* LonelyRichKid: Murasaki, to the Nth degree.
41	%%* LoveHotels: Shinkurou lives opposite one.
42	* MeaningfulName
43	** Murasaki, from the classic Japanese novel ''Literature/TheTaleOfGenji'', was kidnapped as a little girl by the protagonist Hikaru Genji and raised to be [[WifeHusbandry the perfect wife]].
44	** The kanji for Murasaki's name means "purple" or "violet", and Renjou's wife Kazuko makes a statement about sometimes accidentally stepping on violets, which can be taken as a metaphor for her treatment of Murasaki.
45	** The second symbol in the kanji for "Kuhoin" is "feng", a mythical Chinese bird which is the king of all other birds, and the third symbol means "imperial palace" or "emperor", both of which are possibly references to the plutocratic nature of the Kuhoin family.
46	* MusicalEpisode: The characters start practicing for a musical to be held at a local park, but they soon throw away the script and start improvising. One of the best examples out there, it oddly doesn't feel out of place at all.
47	* MurderInc: The Akuu Company.
48	* {{Ninja}}: Yayoi
49	* TheOjou: Murasaki. Yuuno Houzuki qualifies to an extent.
50	* OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent: Shinkurou, aside from [[spoiler:the blade lodged in his right arm]].
51	* ParentalAbandonment: Parents in the series are either: dead, uncaring, or non-existent. There is one nice parental figure shown, but he's a grandparent.
52	* PerkyGoth: Yamie, although her perkiness varies.
53	* PragmaticAdaptation: The anime in relation to the original material. And [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVAs]], which combine both.
54	* ScarfOfAsskicking: Kirihiko wears one over her mouth, {{Ninja}}-style.
55	* SelectiveObliviousness: Shinkurou seems to be unaware of Ginko's feelings towards him. He'd probably ''like'' to be oblivious to Yuuno's feelings for him, but she's too forward for him to ignore it. He still manages it though. Shinkurou puts "effort" into being oblivious, so much so that he doesn't even notice even Yuuno's blatantly obvious love for him.
56	* ShooTheDog: [[spoiler: Yuuno basically excommunicates Shinkurou from her family to prevent Red Cap from killing him when even his DangerousForbiddenTechnique fails.]]
57	* ShrinesAndTemples: Murasaki visits a shrine with Shinkurou and his neighbors to celebrate that she's seven years old.
58	* SinkOrSwimMentor: Benika likes Shinkurou to learn things the hard way.
59	* SlasherSmile: Lin.
60	* [[spoiler:SparedByTheAdaptation: In the novels, Lin dies after Kirihiko kills her by cutting her head off. However in the manga, Kirihiko slashes Lin's throat but she manages to survive thanks to Murasaki's medical team.]]
61	* {{Tearjerker}}: [[spoiler:Murasaki being recaptured by the Kuhoins]]. Also, Shinkurou's dream at the end of the series.
62	* TokenMiniMoe: Chizuru Houzuki, Yuuno's little sister fits this trope to a T, as she's even smaller than Murasaki.
63	* TomboyWithAGirlyStreak: Murasaki. In the manga and [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVAs]], Murasaki wears almost exclusively boyish clothes - Dark-colored jackets with flared collars, flat-color T-shirts, sweaters and black shorts or overalls. Though, she does wear knee-high socks with her otherwise masculine attire. Moreover, Murasaki doesn't object to wearing aprons and feminine outfits prepared for her, in fact more often than not she is enthusiastic about them. This trope is less obvious in the anime, in which Murasaki's dress is much more girly, however, she still retains her boyish behavior and mode of speech. The way Murasaki acts and speaks, while neither overtly masculine nor feminine, is very open and straightforward to a point that it would be considered abnormal and in some cases impolite in Japanese culture.
64	* TwelveEpisodeAnime
65	* UnluckyChildhoodFriend: Ginko and Yuuno. While Shinkurou doesn't return Yuuno's feelings any more than he does Ginko's, he does hang out a lot more with Yuuno than with her. Also, when they were little kids he [[ChildhoodMarriagePromise promised]] that when they grew up that they'd run Ginko's family ramen shop together, but ended up learning the martial arts of Yuuno's family and decided to become a dispute mediator instead.
66	* UnwantedHarem: A relatively mild case. Shinkurou has Ginko, Yuuno, and Murasaki gunning for him. Shinkurou cares about each of the main three, but in a platonic sense. Tamaki doesn't seem to be interested in Shinkurou romantically, but that certainly doesn't stop her from teasing him every now and then (especially [[HardDrinkingPartyGirl when she's drunk]]). Yuuno's younger sister, Chizuru, also has a crush on him. Kirihiko is thrown into the mix with her [[LuminescentBlush blushes]] whenever Shinkurou praises her in the manga.
67	* WifeHusbandry: Inverted: [[spoiler: Murasaki has been raised since birth to be the mother of her brother's children, and is then kidnapped to ''prevent'' this]]. Also notice the MeaningfulName in relation to the trope's namesake.
68	* WiseBeyondTheirYears: Murasaki varies between believable childish naïveté and unusual wisdom during most of the series, and then has her wisdom turned up to eleven at the end of the last episode.
69	* XanatosGambit: Benika's plan to "poison the prize". See the page for details.

Context Literature / Kurenai