Bamboo Blade Volume 1

Although I am still a newcomer to the UK anime market, I’m pretty sure that we haven’t been graced with an anime based on a sport before; the genre might have been evident in some parts of certain anime but there hasn’t been one hugely focused on the subject. It was only a matter of time until something came along; however, it turned out to be based around the traditional Japanese sport of kendo: Bamboo Blade.

This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered the series; I had a read-through of the first volume of the manga (by Masahiro Totsuka) which gave me the gist of what to expect.

Bamboo Blade starts at Muroe High School kendo club where team captain Kirino Chiba is shown practising her sword movements to the unmotivated part-time teacher and Kendo instructor Toraji Ishida (nicknamed Kojiro.) With no new members coming to the club and being in financial difficulty adding to his problems, it’s not until Kojiro meets his old kendo coach Kenzaburo Ishibashi – who offers a bet of free sushi for a year if he can beat his female kendo team –  that he finds the determination to encourage more girls to join the club.

Bamboo Blade introduces its main characters as the episodes progress: the experienced and kindly Yuji Nakata; the strange, simple-looking Danjuro Eiga who introduces his beautiful yet sadistic minded girlfriend Miyako Miyazaki to the sport (I say this because when she is with Eiga her persona is very kind and supportive but without him she shows her bad attitude); Sayako Kuwahara, who sets various goals for herself that change from time to time; Satori Azuma, who is a strong kendo fighter but struggles with her studies, and last, but not least, Tamaki Kawazoe, the female lead.

At the start Tamaki comes off as an anti-social student but is one of the best at kendo; however she does it all the time at home and finds it a chore, thus showing no interest in joining the club.  After being mistaken as some kind of hero to protect the club from evil, she joins up and we come to learn that even though she confident and shows no nerves in kendo, she is human when doing basic tasks for friends. Kojiro is another example; even though he is the adult and leader of the team, he acts like a child when he wants his way, reminding me of Yukari Tanizaki from Azumanga Daioh. This sheds light on how the members of the team befriend and help each other to become better fighters.

As a person who only knows kendo from hours of playing Persona 3, I find the series does very well to explain the traditional gear, the footwork that’s involved, and how to score in a match. Comedy is also a factor in Bamboo Blade and its gags feel more random than anything; some parts of the episodes made me chuckle – like the supermarket scene – but nothing hilarious.
      
As for the presentation of the series, it shows typical anime emotives, chibi and moe-looking characters for most of the female cast, which is never a bad thing in my book. The voice acting in both English and Japanese is acceptable.     

My gripe is that after the main practice match in the middle of the episodes the series heads into mediocrity with the plot struggling to find out what it wants to do next. Some character development does help but it felt boring at times. The 3D effects in episode one are unnecessary, but thankfully they are not used again.

Extras are few with the Textless Opening to “Bamboo Beat” and Textless Closing to “Star Rise” which are forgettable J-Pop songs.

In Summary

Excellent character development and great kendo fights are enough for me to recommend this to anyone who has an interest in the series; it’s not a perfect start, with some shortcomings, but good enough to gain a decent score.