Rance: The Desert Guardian

"Rance"

- introducing himself to bandits

Rance: The Desert Guardian is an OVA based off the Rance series.

The storyline is a non-canon adventure, not using any locations from games. Rance is summoned to defend a small desert community from virgin-kidnapping bandits. Investigating the town, and raiding their tower base, he and Sill uncover a plot to totally wipe out the village. Tonally, the episodes focus more on comedy than H scenes or action scenes.

Besides them, the only game character present is Willis. Various monster species from the series appear: Hanny, Good Morning, and Rommel.

Episode 1
The episode starts with Rance and Sill, traveling through a forest. They come upon a woman being chased by men. Rance mercilessly slaughters them with a Rance Attack, orders Sill to loot their corpses, and forces himself on the woman as a reward.

The scene fades to the title, The Desert Guardian.

A short scene shows a woman grinding against a pulsating pillar, connected to a biological room with a heartbeat. She pledges to revive the creature, and then "kill the bastards at the Oasis".

Rance and Sill enter the Arabian-styled town simply called "the Oasis", guided by an old man to its leader, Ani. She reveals why she called the adventurers there: a bandit group calling themselves "Green Scorpion" have been attacking the Oasis, kidnapping virgin girls, and slaughtering anyone who fights back. The thieves wear heavy scarves, ride on green lizards, and are led by a woman. Over the past 3 months, they've captured about 20 virgins.

Rance agrees to solve the bandit problem, excited about having sex with their leader. Ani objects, insisting that he kill the Green Scorpions' boss; to which the adventurer reluctantly agrees. His payment is 20,000 gold; after he requests more, she promises to give him "anything" she can get in the village. As Rance gleefully fantasizes about raping Ani, Sill notices that their client looks somewhat sad.

The two visitors go to a restaurant. A waitress misinterprets Rance's request for "you" (Japanese: kimi) as ordering an egg yolk (Japanese: (tamago no) kimi). Enraged at having a simple egg instead of sex, the fighter calls for the restaurant's owner - a brown Hanny named Idabashi - and demands 300 gold as compensation for hurting his "innocent heart".

As Sill counts the money, Rance violently questions Idabashi. The Hanny states that Green Scorpion come from the desert on nights with a crescent moon, and return instantly. Sill states that this night has a crescent moon. Rance follows by requesting for Ani's weaknesses (in case she protests when he retrieves his reward from her). Idabashi reveals bandits onced raped Ani in the middle of the village; and unable to fight back, the villagers all ignored it. Said bandits were killed in Green Scorpion's first attack - enraging Rance, who prepared to handle them himself to gain the woman's affections.

Ani has a nightmare of this event, where the rapists are stylized as groping hands, and the villagers have blank eyes. Waking up, she slowly smiles. Meanwhile, Rance and Sill enter a hotel to rest (and have sex).

A watchman spots Green Scorpion arriving in the distance. Before he can warn the villagers, the bandits' leader stabs him in the back, and signals to her subordinates by waving it.

Rance and Sill perform various sexual positions from a book he's reading (in the middle of sex). On their third round, going doggystyle, they're interrupted by explosions outside from the attacking Green Scorpion.

Rance makes a dramatic introduction for himself with shadows and lights above a building, cheered on by his Sill. He jumps down to face the bandits - underestimating his height, and crashing to the ground. He quickly recovers as his enemies rush forward.

A Rance Attack reveals that Green Scorpion's common forces are not human, but magic-operated armor. Sill dispels another with a Fire Laser, before being taken by one. The bandits ride away, carrying the mage and several virgins to a distant tower. Rance chases on one of their lizards, rescuing her by tossing his sword at the her captor. The tower's door closes before them.

It cuts to the woman in the biological room, revealed as Green Scorpion's leader. She begs the creature to kill Rance, then destroy the village. The room glows with green flashes, which are imitated on the outside of the tower, implying the tower has biological components. As Rance and Sill stand before it, a sign reads "To be continued"

Episode 2
Rance and Sill have been waiting outside for 2 hours for the tower door to open, eating ramen. With no results, Rance attempts to disguise himself to sneak in: first as a mailman, then a preacher, then a door-to-door salesman. As he collapses in exhaustion, Sill discovers a back door to the tower.

Green Scorpion's leader observes them entering. The two cross a jungle inside the tower. A hidden vine monster begins groping Sill, who mistakes it for Rance's wandering hands until more leafy tentacles attack openly. In the ensuing fight, they pin the woman to a wall, and block the warrior's path to her. They grope her with carefully-timed strokes, so that her sexual moans compose a melody similar to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". This impresses Rance and the other vines so much that they stop fighting to listen and applaud. In rage, Sill launches an exploding magic attack, destroying the vines and scorching Rance.

Before he can punish her, she finds stairs they use to the tower's next floor, rocky and cave-like. Over a steep canyon, the two are attacked by oncoming Good Mornings on one end, and Green Scorpion bandits led by a Rommel on the other. Sill disposes of the former with a Fire Arrow, while Rance cuts through the others brutally. His strength impresses the Green Scorpions' leader, who decides to "use him" if he can reach the top.

He fights into a stone hallway, where Sill rejoins him. Deciding they have enough experience, Rance calls Willis. She performs a stripping dance and levels them up: Rance reaches level 45, and Sill reaches level 40. As she leaves, Rance declares his intention of raping her later.

An army of Detection Hannies appear to defend the tower. Like Puchi Hannies, they're tiny, brown, and use suicidal attacks. Rather than exploding, however they emit "Youkai Fluid". They're too agile for Rance to hit. Sill kills them using a wide-range magic attack called "Tornado Flame" that she learned from the level-up. Unfortunately, this makes the sticking fluid in their bodies come out as projectiles. It clings on both of them, encasing them in a giant glob and immobilizing them.

The Green Scorpions' leader looks on laughing; but is suddenly taken by pain. Her eyes change color, and she requests the castle to release them. Holes in the stone walls suck the fluid out, saving them.

In the next room, the captured virgins (about 30 total with the previous episode's kidnappings) are forced to grind on wooden horses, with pulsating tubes sucking the juices. Thinking it's a party, Rance attempts to join them; only to be interrupted by Ani, rushing over to help him escort them out. She's taken by a sudden pain. Her eye color changes, and she asks Rance for a moment alone, gently stroking his penis. A worried Sill is left to guide the virgins out.

While she leads them to the exit, Rance and Ani have sex in the biological room; first with him behind, then with Ani riding cowgirl. After he cums, Ani reveals the nature of the tower: it's a living entity powered by the sexual energy of virgins, and can only be awakened by a strong man's semen. She slides back into a wall, declaring that his cum has revived "The strongest Atlas Hanny in history". Stone surrounding the tower collapses as Sill dives back in, revealing the whole tower is a 150m-tall Hanny. It charges towards the Oasis to destroy it.

Ani reveals that her personality split when she was raped by bandits. One part of her resented the villagers who allowed her to be assaulted. This alter ego developed telepathy, and borrowed power from the Atlas Hanny to form Green Scorpion and attack the village. Her "good" side's influence prevented her "bad" side from directly destroying the village; while the "bad" side's thirst for vengeance prevented her "good" side's suicide attempts. Ani's "good" side hired Rance hoping he would kill her; and the bad side allowed it because she needed access to his semen.

Now, Ani has fused with the Atlas Hanny's nervous system. Killing her will restore it to a normal tower; but the wall encasing her is hard to pierce. Despite her begging, Rance is hesitant to murder a cute girl. As he hesitates, Ani's evil side summons a purple arm from the wall to hold him. The Hanny fires a gigantic Hanny Flash at the Oasis, setting it alight. Orange spikes pierce Rance.

Sill enters the room and releases Rance with a Fire Laser. As he bleeds, he orders sill to destroy the wall. Ani's evil side taunts him, asking if he can live with the guilt of having killed her good side.

He angrily declares that he'll obey the wishes of a woman he fucked. Sill goes ahead with another Fire Laser, releasing Ani from the wall - at which point Rance stabs through her stomach.

As night becomes day, the Atlas Hanny freezes. The walls crumble, making it a tower again. Ani's good side returns for just long enough to thank Rance, before dying.

Rance leans back on a wall in thought. He accidentally breaks it, stumbling backwards and hitting an orb. This launches a second beam attack from the tower, this time completely annihilating the Oasis.

Resolving that "this kinda thing happens often", and it's best to do something take their minds off it, Rance removes his pants and jumps on Sill.

Trivia

 * Like in the games prior to Kichikuou Rance, Rance is ambidextrous. He holds his sword in his right hand for most fight scenes; he wields it with his left arm when questioning Idabashi, posing atop the building, and part of the last fight.
 * On the same note, Detection Hannies are vulnerable to magic.
 * Rance's eyes are blue for most of the animation, but brown in the opening sequence. He also has a slightly different hairstyle in both; the opening design more closely resembles his appearance from Rance 3.
 * Ani's split personality disorder resembles that of Wrench Luncheon and Gi in canon.
 * Rance refers to his penis as his "Galactic Magnum" in episode 1, and "Ultra Super Magnum" in episode 2. JPz Records' subtitles replace both of these with the more-recognizable "Hyper Weapon".
 * Unlike Daiakuji: The Xena Buster and Rance 01: Hikari wo Motomete The Animation, this OVA does not use any music from the original games.
 * One piece of promotional art has Rance and Sill in poses similar to the ones they had on Rance 1's manual cover.
 * Rance and Sill's voice actors reprised their roles for the CD Drama "Shinjitsu no Rance". The voice actresses for the waitress and the girl fleeing bandits also returned; respectively, voicing Lia and the drama-original character Min.
 * In Episode 2, after the encounter with Detection Hannies, Rance's sword is stolen by a whip. The source of the rope is never seen, and by the next room, the sword is back in his scabbard.