Bamboo Blade (First Impressions)
About:
Bamboo Blade is a Japanese manga series written by Masahiro Totsuka, and illustrated by Aguri Igarashi. The manga was first serialized in the Japanese seinen manga magazine Young Gangan starting December 3, 2004. The manga has been licensed for distribution in North America by Yen Press. An Anime adaptation by AIC A.S.T.A was broadcast in Japan between October 2, 2007 and April 2, 2008 on TV Tokyo.
Story:
Toraji Ishida is a high school kendo teacher. His friend and fellow kendo teacher makes him a bet: if Ishida can assemble a girls’ kendo team that can defeat his girls’ team in a practice match, he’ll treat Ishida to free meals at his father’s sushi restaurant for a whole year. Now Ishida must find five girls to join the team.
First Impressions:
I have made it a bad habit of mine recently to judge a Anime title on just s couple of episodes and I virtually end up shooting myself in the foot by missing a great title. I almost did it with this great series called “Bamboo Blade”. When I started watching the show it looked like just another Anime about a underdog team that wants to make it big in the national Kendo championships. (Yes it still uses the tried and tested formula.) But Bamboo Blade manages to take that formula and turn it on its head, the very first 5 episodes I watched the show seemed like the run of your mill School Life Slapstick Anime comedy show.
But after episode 6 and 7 I am not so sure anymore of the assumptions I made about this show, because if episode 6 and 7 is anything to go by then this show will only get better. What struck me first about this show is the way comedy is used, it doesn’t go totally overboard like School Rumble but is used at the right times with great affect. Then there is the animation style, at first glance it looks pretty standard but when the action scenes kick in then it turns into a whole different ball game. The way speed lines is used in the animation sequences and the animation it self totally changes during the fighting scenes, and gives the show the kick in pants that it needs.
All of the female Kendo team members are instantly lovable from Sayako Kuwahara the random person in the group to Miyako Miyazaki the girl with a split personality of sorts. But my favorite would be Tama-chan the very shy and unsociable girl who loves Anime and “Tokusatsu” (Blade Braver, a fictitious Anime in the series.) and excels at the sport of Kendo.
Oh and I recommend you turn up the volume during episode 6 and 7, the way Tama-chan screams to intimidate her opponent during a Kendo mach is truly frightening. I take my hat off to the female voice actor who does the voice over for Tama-chan, that woman knows how to project her voice. From the little I have watched so far I can highly recommend this show to anyone who likes sports based Anime mixed with school life and a added dash of Life Slapstick comedy thrown into the mix.
