Kojiro is a man with a dream…the dream of a years worth
of free sushi to sate his never ending hunger.
In order to attain this dream, he must assemble a team of the best Kendo
Warriors at Muroe High. He already has
two veteran members: Kirino and Saya.
And he has three fresh recruits: expert Yuji, small but valiant Danny
and his girlfriend Miyako. But there’s
one person Kojiro wants more than all of them combined: the tiny but powerful
Tamaki Kawazoe. Only thing is, Tama may
be an elite Kendo practitioner. But she
doesn’t want to practice at school, seeing as how she’s practiced her whole
life. For honor, for redemption, but
most importantly FOR SUSHI, Kojiro must do the impossible and convince this
little Kendo Goddess to sign up with his team.
Well I said this year I was going to try something
new. I know this blog tends to get a lot
of time dedicated to mecha, action and general shows where everything goes boom. So as promised, I’m dialing it back with a
series that has action, but no mecha and nothing going boom…unless you count
emotional meltdowns of hilarity, in which case we’re good on that front, so no
mecha…that’s 1/3 right?
Kendo, one of the hallmark sports of Japanese high
schools. It only makes sense that there
might be several Anime dedicated to putting it front and center. It is a sport of honor, strength, mental
fitness and above all else, it’s about having fun. And if the opening episodes of Bamboo Blade
are any indication then it looks like we’ll be having a lot of fun indeed.
There’s something about Bamboo Blade that sucks me
in. It looks cute enough, animation
wise. But there’s something more…I don’t
know, zen I guess, about it. The show
just seems like a good relaxer, able to help you unwind while also getting you
excited about something. There’s an
energy amongst this team of idealistic Kendo trainees that just gets to you. There’s something to take away from each of
these first few episodes from Kendo lessons to lessons about life to the quirks
of each member of the main cast. I’m
actually happy that some of the basics of Kendo are discussed a little. I wouldn’t call Bamboo Blade the perfect demo
tape for trying out Kendo. It will pique
interest though to learn more about the sport.
Ah Tama-Chan.
She’s so adorably cute and yet so bad ass at the same time. But what I love most about her is…she’s an
ANIME FAN!!!! Yes, the main character of this series is a Sentai loving
swordswoman with dreams of being a hero of justice. It brings a tear to my inner otaku when Anime
can have a character that reflects, in some way, love for the genre. Tama may be quiet. But when she speaks or does anything, it
easily steals the show. Plus her Chibi
designs, both in comedic moments and in flashbacks are just too freaking
cute. The rest of the cast shines in
their own way. Kirino’s optimism, Saya’s
melodrama, Kojiro’s quest for sushi, Yuji’s calmness around all this crazy
energy and Danny’s…well tiny form, each character stands out in their own
way. A close runner up to Tama would be
Miya. She may look cute and friendly
(and WAYYYYYYY out of Danny’s league).
But cross her and her black energy will flare up and scare the hell out
of you. I love how every character can
see it except the blissfully oblivious Danny.
The opening episodes do have their serious moments. This is mostly around team bullies Toyama and
Iwasa. Toyama is a sadist who loves
beating on team members, especially women apparently. There’s always an air of dread when he’s
around. Iwasa isn’t much better since he
just stands back and tolerates Toyama’s sick nature. It’s darkness like this that makes the light
of Tama shine brighter when she kicks the crap out of him in a match. Not sure if we’ll see these two bullies
again. But Tama left an impression on Toyama he will never forget. Good riddance.
Still not sure if we’re going to see a fifth team member
for Kojiro’s all girl line up for his match against his sempai. With the actual match apparently set for the
next episode, will we see our “green” member of the team (yeah did I mention
Kojiro took a Super Sentai approach to his team by assigning all of the girls
colors?)? We’ll just have to wait and
see. But overall, I’m happy to be
checking out Bamboo Blade and hope everyone is ready for a couple weeks of
Kendo comedy coverage. It’s new and
fresh right (for this blog anyway)?
See ya next week.
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