Lingerie Soldier Papillon Rose is an ecchi parody of the Magical Girl genre, particularly of Sailor Moon whose plot it borrows from heavily. Papillon Rose started out as a web original, getting a brief OVA in 2003 and a 6-episode broadcast sequel called Papillon Rose: New Season in 2006.
This series provides examples of:
- Back from the Dead: The R season, despite the soldiers dying in the ONA finale. Happens to Adonis and Lupinus in Papillon Rose R. Also the finale of the G movie.
- Averted for Hikaru/ Dandy Lion, who is replaced by Razy Minowa.
- Subverted in the G movie for Hikaru, who is somehow restored to life after Razy's death.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Sister Abeille/Dhalia in the ONA. Margarette, Lily, and Dahlia, in the G movie. Dahlia in the New Season.
- By the Power of Grayskull!: "Rose Orgasm Power Erection!" which was changed to "Rose Papillon Power Erection!" in "New Season."
- Catchphrase: "Tonight I will drink...you...up..."(in a seductive voice). Used everywhere in promotional images and videos including variants like "DVD sale on Spring 2003, it will drink...you...up..."
- Calling Your Attacks: "Rose Pinkish Dynamic!" Among many others.
- Compensated Dating: According to her character profile, Tsubomi is addicted to it.
- The Casanova: Anne is a love-em-and-leave-em kind of girl.
- Hikaru/ Dandy Lion sleeps with all the girls to awaken their Papillon powers.
- Ecchi: It's not quite hentai because there's no explicit depiction of sex.
- Expy: Oh boy, where do we even begin:
- The main cast is consisted of color coded expies of the Sailor Moon cast.
Word of God confirmed that the character designs were based on the art of Sakura Wars, so both the main cast and some of the villains are expies from that series' cast as well. The three main heroines are also expies of the Wedding Peach main trio, with a villain joining them later. - The web original's villain troops are expies of villains in Sailor Moon, Cutie Honey and Sakura Wars, with the many minor villains being expies of Kamen Rider per Word of God.
- The R season's Villains are expies of popular video game protagonists of the time, namely Tokimeki Memorial, Di Gi Charat, Street Fighter and Sakura Wars.
- The Rebuild series adds another layer to the main protagonists, making Rama an expy of Kyubey and Papillon Violet an expy of Homura.
- The main cast is consisted of color coded expies of the Sailor Moon cast.
- Drag Queen: The leader of Papillon Rose R's Gel Dynasty, Chlamydia, was a drag queen.
- Frilly Upgrade: Rose gets one when she upgrades to Papillon Flora. In keeping with the spirit of the series, it has her wearing even less clothing than before. It also makes her hair grow.
- Funny Foreigner: Played with. Anne apparently is one, though her one and only attempt to speak english was broken Ondulish.
- Played straight with Rubi/ Papillon Cosmos. Her speech is written in katakana and can be read in many ways. The other characters mock her for her bad pronunciation.
- Genre Shift: The new season, though having shades of the sensual elements of the web original and OVA, is less ecchi, focusing more on Japanese lore and the otaku culture.
- G-Rated Drug: Played with during the R season. Razy Minowa is said to be dealing "anthers" per the censorship theme in the R artbook.
- Gay Bar Reveal: In Papillon Rose R, the trio visits Futanari's bar, only to discover it is of the lesbian variation.
- Girlish Pigtails: Tsubomi, since she's a parody of Usagi. Also Petite Rose.
- Heel–Face Turn: Dahlia started out as a minion of the villains, before being revealed as a Papillon Fighter.
- High-Class Gloves: A standard part of the Papillons' wardrobe.
- Hotter and Sexier: To Sailor Moon. Explicitly stated to be "A Sai*** **on for adults!" early on.
- "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: Rose tries this with Dahlia, to break the villains' mind control over her. It works, but not before Dahlia stabs Rose through the torso.
- Improbable Weapon User: In the OVA, Rose's main weapon is a vibrator.
- In the Name of the Moon: "Clad in immoral lingerie, I am the crimson butterfly of the night! Tonight I will drink...you...up..."
- Interspecies Romance: The OVA has a scene where Rama, a cat, gives oral sex to Hikaru, a human. Ouch.
- Intimate Healing: Dahlia heals Rose by lending her some of her power. For some reason, this requires Dahlia to take her top off.
- Torakage also heals Rose by doing something sexy and offscreen to her. Unfortunately, this uses up all his power and kills him.
- Heteronormative Crusader: The main Papillon Trio, upon realizing Adonis and Lupinus are lesbians. Funnily enough, this happens minutes before they die and it is implied that the trio completely ignored all the blatant hints of them being a couple throughout the season.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In the OVA, after Tsubomi tries to transform with Cutie Honey's phrase, Rama asks her how can she even do that without the Air Element Fixation device. After telling her to stop joking around, Tsubomi agrees, noting they could get in trouble for copyright infringement. Rama sighs while looking at the camera disappointed.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: At the beginning of "New Season," the girls have been made to forget their identities as Papillons.
- Meaningful Name:
- "Tsubomi" means "flower bud."
- Also, Petite Rose's main attack is "Pinkish Paipan!" "Paipan" means a person who lacks pubic hair, either because of shaving or youth.
- "Futanari", Papillon Adonis's civilian name, means "Hermaphroditism" and "androgyny".
- Meido: In "New Season," the girls work at a Maid Cafe in Akihabara.
- Mentor Mascot: Rama, the perverted talking cat. Instead of having a crescent moon on her forehead, she has a butterfly, and in the OVA, she has a condom on her tail.
- Monster of the Week: Of the typical Magical Girl variety where a mundane object is transformed into a monster.
- Mysterious Protector: Dandy Lion in the ONA/OVA, and Torakage in "New Season." Dandy Lion is a specific parody of Tuxedo Mask, except instead of throwing roses, he throws semen.
- Naked First Impression: When Hikaru and Tsubomi first meet, she crashes into him, falls over, and consequently flashes her panties at him.
- Nonindicative Name: "New Season" is the first and only season of the TV series.
- Otaku: The girls spend most of their time fighting in Akihabara, so they have a bevy of fanboys who follow them around, observe and comment on the fight scenes, and sometimes help the girls out.
- Psycho Lesbian: Sister Beene from the OVA. Adonis and Lupinus have shades of this as well.
- Shout-Out: The OVA has several shout-outs to the original Cutey Honey: the title card is done in the same style, Sister Beene's name is a reference to Sister Jill, and when Tsubomi first transforms, she yells "Honey Flash!" as her clothes shred off, but Rama tells her to knock it off and transform properly.
- Several plot elements of the ONA are shout-outs to Sakura Taisen 3, mainly the main protagonist living a double life by day and night. One of the sound bites available early on also refers to the Papillon Soldiers as the Shinjuku Kabuki division, with Tsubomi singing the Sakura Taisen theme song.
- In-universe example: Starting from the R season, Shizuku's character profiles mention her love for an S&M erotica author, Dan Onihachi. Her attacks in the New Season consist of shibari techniques and are always named "Sacred Onihachi-styled ___ shibari". In a meta sense, a person named Dan Onihachi is credited in the ONA for screenwriting. Doubles as Mythology Gag.
- Sixth Ranger: Dahlia in the New Season; Adonis, Lupinus, and Petite Rose in Season R of the ONA.
- Stripperiffic: It's right there in the show's title — they fight in lingerie.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Papillon Rose's vibrator doesn't work against Gel Dynasty's troops in Papillon Rose R. Why? Because their reproductive organs are male. Averted when she gets a power upgrade and receives an anally driven attack.
- Tamer and Chaster: The series lampshades this in "New Season" by the once perverted cat Rama, saying the titular heroine needs a new weapon and attack move.
- The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: A plot point in the R season: a lethal STD virus is killing future Tsubomi/Flora and her daughter Kotsubomi time travels to the past to kill her unknown father, whom Tsubomi contracted said virus from. It is implied to be HIV/AIDS.
- Theme Naming: Each girl is named after a flower.
- The ONA's four main villains are all named "Sister Bee", but in four different languages (german, russian, ancient greek and french). Their leader is named "Queen Bee", but in Latin.
- The G movie's chapters are all titled starting with the word Mysterious.
- Think of the Censors!: In the first episode of "New Season," Papillon Rose is about to do her "Pinky Vibrator" attack from the more hentai-themed OVA, but Rama stops her before she can say the full name, claiming that the censors won't allow them to do that anymore.
- The author of the R animation archives hilariously tries to get past the censors in some of the character profiles, as they are meant to be for a TV anime series.(ex. censoring the word "lesbian" in Papillon Adonis's character profile only to immediately change his mind and un-censors it, while wondering out loud if it will bring him trouble).
- Transvestite: The villain organization in the R season consists of transvestites and pre-op/HRT transgender women.
- Transformation Sequence: Averted with Dandy Lion. His character profile mentions he is just a cosplayer, so he doesn't need one.
