No Need for Bushido

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Ina: Look samurai boy, I have no need for bushido! Now put me down, go back there, and die with honor!
Yori: Sorry, too busy rescuing you.

A webcomic set in feudal Japan that starts out with an Arranged Marriage, moves to Rebellious Princess and Rescue Romance, then Character-Magnetic Team. By the time they've gotten to the major showdowns, the team consists of:

Yorikiro Wataro (Yori), our Hero, son of the most hated man in Japan. A bit of a ditz sometimes, but his heart is in the right place.

Ina Senshin, our Heroine, a strong-willed and loud-mouthed girl. When she gets her way, it's often because she bullied her teammates into obeying her.

Cho Teko, a blind Taoist priest. Comes off as a Cloudcuckoolander by spouting Ice Cream Koans. Has a bit of a running gag about misreading the gender of any new character who comes near the team.

Kenta Daisuke or Ken, the guy with the huge sword. Enjoys sake and Kabuki plays. The Big Guy who's motivated by revenge for his clan, which got massacred by people apparently working for Yori's father.

Of the above, only Ina can't hold her own in combat, although lately she's proved to be an amazing strategist. But while Cho and Kenta are competent whenever they fight, Yori's plans often get derailed through his own idiocy or forgetfulness (as in "Oh, I totally forgot that I broke my sword last fight"), though he has recently taken out the second member of the Quirky Miniboss Squad.

The strip can be found here. The comic updates every Monday.

Tropes used in No Need for Bushido include:


  • The Alcoholic - Ken, very much so.
    • An example is in order: while the other characters are fighting a major battle, Ken, after kicking metric tons of mook ass, runs out of sake. Solution? He goes and slaughters an enemy camp, and takes all of their sake. Then, when that runs out, he repeats the process. Multiple times. Until he finally passes out. And upon waking up back in camp, he wants more.
      • Ken is here to kick ass and drink sake, and god help you if he runs out of sake.
  • Anachronism Stew - The characters sometimes talk about Canada, hot dogs, and other things that don't exist yet. The reason is obvious.
  • Animesque - The later chapters.
  • Art Evolution - When the comic started, it was... Not bad, but not great. Probably about as good as the first bits of Sluggy Freelance. These days every panel could be lifted from a high quality cel-animated movie.
    • Not to mention Font Design Evolution, because it was a badly used Comic Sans MS, and now it's an exclusive font.
  • Badass - Ken, very much so, and Yori to a lesser extent. Maru parodies this. He's...somewhat badass, but undercuts it by overusing the word, and insisting his underlings refer to him as badass.
  • Bedsheet Ladder - Averted, because the Rule of Funny apparently stated that falling on Ina's back with no serious injuries would be better.
  • The Bet - Details still hazy, but Matrix and Lex appear to have a wager going on Yori's success or failure, respectively, with Matrix not above intervening with the plot to help Yori along.
  • BFS - Ken's sword is 12 feet long.
  • Bishounen - In the later chapters, Ken and Yori get this treatment, thanks to the aforementioned Art Evolution
  • Blood From the Mouth - A few times.
  • Bound and Gagged - Ina ends up like this in at least one set of comics.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall - addressing readers and some other things.
  • Brick Joke - "Ninja lifts Mount Fuji"
  • Buffy-Speak - "Don't do the wavy hand thing. I hate the wavy hand thing."
    • immediately preceded by "So you're, like, as blind as a...uh...blind...guy."
  • Captain Ersatz - Ken and Yori respectively to Sanosuke and Kenshin of Rurouni Kenshin.
  • Catch Phrase - "Holy Shnikies!"
    • When Yori saw Ken's zanbatou, it was upgraded to "Holy flipping shnikies of demonic destruction!"
  • Cloudcuckoolander - Cho, in spades.
  • Chekhov's Gun - the trick blade. Subverted twice.
    • Played Straight in the dispatching of Uso.
  • Color Wash - Pastel colors and green tint indicate that you see things through the poisonned Yori's eyes, and you should not believe anything you see.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, Yori comes across at first glance as an incompetent fighter and a coward but is actually a very competent fighter. Cho is all Icecream Koans and "The Tao is guiding us", but in a recent comic (this one he puts his foot down and causes a mini-earthquake.
    • The other example is Yukizane. See the entry under Obfuscating Stupidity below.
    • Cho's this too; you don't really expect him to be an amazing martial artist, he does kick serious ass sometimes.
  • Disability Superpower - Cho lacks sight and has to rely on Tao's guidance to attack. He is the best fighter in the group.
    • There's also Ryoku, one of the four Demons of Sorrow, who is also blind. He appears to have Daredevil-esque echolocation.
  • Distracted by the Sexy - as a Running Gag, Ina's father keeps making escape attempts from the sexy ninjas who captured him, but ultimately ends up knocked unconscious following an Accidental Pervert moment.
  • Drill Sergeant Nasty - Ken, while Training the Peaceful Villagers.
  • Dropped a Bridget On Him - An example that is especially amusing, as the Bridget dropped on Yori is himself
  • Every Japanese Sword Is a Katana - Averted. Has introduced more than one type of sword; introduces the name of the sword as well at times.
  • Evil Eye - one Demon of Sorrow has it under his Eyepatch of Power.
  • Eyeless Face - Cho always wears a hat that covers his eyes.
    • It doesn't always cover the place where his eyes must be. He actually lacks eyes. Creepy.
  • Fan Service - Those female ninjas aren't dressed practically.
  • Four Is Death - the Four Demons of Sorrow, Hirotomo Wataro's elite soldiers.
  • Four-Star Badass - Nataku, whose such a Badass that... you know that enormous thing Ken swings around? Nataku clashes with it head-on with his fairly normal sword, and from that position overpowers Ken causing his BFS fly out of his hands.
  • Genre Savvy - Yori. Right from the outset he seems to instinctively know he's in an Affectionate Parody of shonen manga, but it's highlighted very much during Ina's planned defense of the strategic choke point, where he demonstrates genuine fear at Ina's ability to destroy an army. By this point, he's Genre Savvy enough to fear that running in terror like he should will shift her from a Tsundere to a Yandere.
  • Handicapped Badass - Cho is an extremely skilled martial artist, able to defeat (most) of his adversaries without breaking a sweat. Badass enough on its own; more badass when you consider his handicap.

Ken: Wait a sec, so you're, like, as blind as a...uh...blind...guy.
Cho: Indeed, I lack that particular sense.

    • Ryoku is also blind, and just as badass.
  • Hello, Nurse! - Matrix, the mysterious watcher who actually dresses like a nurse at one point
    • This phrase is actually used at this point.
  • High-Pressure Blood - Usually accompanied by the Unsound Effect: SPEWING!!
  • Highly-Visible Ninja - Besides the regular, sneaky ninja, there are some that really stick out.
  • Ice Cream Koan - Cho loves these, though they do occasionally seem to actually mean something. Occasionally.
    • They occasionally make partial sense if you think about them really hard.
  • Improbable Weapon User - one ninjette uses fans.
  • Improvised Weapon - Yori has to do this often. Broken sword, sheath, trick sword...
  • I Resemble That Remark - Ken punching a guy that said he wasn't "agreeable".
  • It Got Worse - As of now, Fujio's dead, the villagers are being massacred, Purple Samurai is mortally wounded, Ina's breaking down, and Cho's been beaten by the two Demons of Sorrow who only just appeared.
    • As it turns out, most, if not all of this was seen by Yori, who at that point was under the influence of a halucinogenic drug. Later comics confirmed that Ina, Cho and Murasaki at least, are all fine and kicking ass. Fujio's actual status is unconfirmed, but he is likely to be alive as well. Of the three Demons of Sorrow, only one was confirmed of actually being there.
  • Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique - Ken's preferred interrogation technique.
  • Jidai Geki - Feudal Japan
  • The Magnificent Seven Samurai - Lampshaded
  • Master of Illusion - Uso
  • Meaningful Name - "Shounen" is boy in Japanese, which he is. Also, Uso's name means lie, and he uses illusions.
    • It doesn't matter how much he insists, Murasaki's name means purple, not indigo.
    • General Nataku's warmongering might have been an inevitable reaction to him being named after the japanese god of war.
  • Moment Killer - Cho is right on time to kill this moment.
  • Mooks - ninjas.
  • Mook Chivalry - Played straight and subverted by the Demons of Sorrow. Ryoku attacks first, in a (mostly) fair duel. Then Uso announces that he's going to try next, so you expect another one-on-one. But when they finally confront Yori, all three of them attack at once.
    • Subverted(?) again when it turns out that the other two Demons are just hallucinations, and Uso is the only real one.
  • Now or Never Kiss - A variation here, because death isn't entirely imminent for the two, but the situation is seems nonetheless rather dire.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity - Yukizane, at the beginning of his negotiations with Ayane. Lampshaded with Ayane's realization: "And another thing! You're--... you're... not nearly as dumb as you look".
  • Perfectly Arranged Marriage
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad - the Four Demons Of Sorrow
  • Runaway Fiance - Both Ina and Yori.
  • Running Gag - there are a lot.
    • Cho seems to be less than competent at guessing the gender of people he's never met.
    • And all people who find out that he's blind tend to do that wavey-hand thingy to test. He doesn't like it when people do that.
    • Also, Ina has pushed over Yori a lot, though one of creators said he never even realized that and it wasn't intentional.
    • Ina's father is constantly distracted by Boobs of Steel and captured with knock-out drugs.
    • Cho is a part of prophecy about a blind taoist, a hindu and a cleric entering a bar and ending the world. And he keeps trying to walk into bars.
    • Ken regularly threatens merchants that whatever they're selling better be the best he's ever had, or he'll kick their ass. He has yet to kick a merchant's ass yet.
    • As a meta example, Made-up sound effects are used often.
  • Samurai - Quite a few. Yori isn't very good at it
  • Shout-Out - Ken and Yori's fight on first meeting is either this or an Affectionate Parody of Kenshin and Sanosuke's first fight.
    • The title itself is a very well-hidden shoutout to Tenchi Muyo!, the title of which is often translated as "No Need for Tenchi".
    • Ninjas are said to use swordchucks. Swordchucks, yo!
    • Tao binds the galaxy together.
    • Yori's first rescue of Ina—running away from trouble while carrying her—echoes a Rurouni Kenshin side-story that was a sort of pilot for the series.
  • Show Some Leg - Courtesy of Suzuka, resulting in Masuhiro's failure...multiple times.
  • The Shogimaster - Yukizane.
  • Slipknot Ponytail - Yori, during the first half of the battle with Ryoku
  • Sociopathic Hero - Ken, as seen here.
  • Stripperiffic - All female ninjas. Justified in that they dress like that to distract their enemies.
  • There Are No Rules - Sorta.

Ken: Here's Ken's rules to fightin: First, in battle, yer either killin' or dyin'. So whatever you do, don't ever stop not dyin‍'‍. Second, we don't have time for stupid rules, so stop standing around there like a bunch of idiots, and start beating the crap out of each other!

Ina, being carried by Yori: It looks more like you're running away to me.
Yori, running: The code of bushido, the way of the warrior, would never allow me to just run away!
Ina: Look samurai boy, I have no need for bushido!

  • Tsundere - Ina.
  • Took a Level in Badass - Yori does, right around the time the Art Evolution really kicks in.
  • Unsound Effect - All the time. Among notable others are the commonly-used DOOM! and the once-used DRRAAAAMMMMAAAAA, as well as the ever popular HEAD... BUTT!
    • Not to mention SHOCKWAVE! and OH? NO! HE DIDN'! (not a typo).
    • And, of course, ITSATRAP!!, immediately followed by NICE!
    • SHEATHCATCH!
    • DA FACE!!!
    • FLAMEWAR!!!
    • ALSOFAKE!
    • Lampshaded by "insert your sound effect here".
    • IMPLAUSIBLE! is the unsound of a key flying through the air, inserting itself into the lock, and then turning.
  • The Worf Barrage: Ken's ludicrously big sword rarely hits anyone important. Not only that, but the taoist monks and Nataku managed to block it outright. Nataku later ups the ante from that, and just overpowers Ken while clashing with his BFS head-on.
  • Yandere - Yori fears Ina is moving this way. Or maybe she's just a fantastic strategist?
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