Monday, March 28, 2016

Bamboo Blade Part 5 Episodes 14-17


With their team complete, the Muroe High Kendo Team continues the journey to Nationals.  Each team member is growing in strength and confidence thanks to the inspiration that is Tama.  Even the Machido girls, reuniting with the Muroe Girls for a training camp, cant help but notice how much stronger their friendly rivals have become.  But with growth comes new challenges.  Kirino has a hidden emergency that threatens to derail her progress in Kendo.  And when Muroe goes up against Tozyo High, Tama encounters an opponent of dark intent.  When pushed to the limit, how far will Tama go to get justice against the evilest opponent she has ever faced…and will Kojiro be ok with her actions?
This week saw the return of my favorite Muroe Frenemies and some interesting drama, some more unnecessary than others.

I could’ve sworn that Azuma on the team was a sealed deal last week.  Nope, I was wrong.  And that I think resulted in a little time wasted (we even got another Rami appearance and I think she’s the most pointless character in the series so far).  Really, I think we could have skipped that episode all together and gone right to the training camp.  The return of Ishibashi and the Machido Girls was as fun as I expected.  I’m still waiting on their inevitable spin off story.  You had to love Tama a lot though.  Her death glare to her father should he touch her Anime recordings was hilarious, as was Tama’s fire eyed good morning stare to her teammates and guests (FEAR THE POWER OF TAMA THE OTAKU!!!...but actually more on that in a sec).  In addition to the Machido Girls, we got a couple of sweet scenes between Kojiro and Ms. Yoshikawa.  Could there be more going on between those two?  She’s certainly cute enough to warrant being a potential love interest.  And she’s an old school gamer, def Kojiro’s kind of girl (Genesis over SNES though? I think not).

The second half of the set got started with some unnecessary drama, well unenecessary given the general tone of this show.  It was scary to see Kirino’s mom unconscious.  But given how laid back Bamboo Blade usually is, it was kind of underwhelming to see that Kirino’s mom had overworked herself silly and that Kirino had to take her place at the shop for a bit.  Seriously, it’s called a phone Kirnino, CALL SOMEONE!!!  Still, Saya’s worry of her best friend was touching.  What drama was surprisingly effective was what happened when we got to the Prelims. 

Tama faced the ultimate opponent this week, the commander of Tozyo High, Koishi.  What a real piece of work: doing anything necessary to win, including hurting an opponent before a match even starts.  And she does it with such sincerity and false sense of modesty.  That cat eyed smile made me sick that such a girl was even allowed to hold a Bamboo Sword.   But again, beware the power of Tama the Otaku.  Though if Kojiro’s reaction is anything, Tama might have gone too far.  Is it because of the throat strike she used, or her not telling anyone about her injury?  Either way, Koishi’s plan backfired in the worst way when Tama went all out…and then happily offered to help her up. Guaranteed, Koishi wont ever be the same after that match.

After a little bit of forced tension this week, it looks like we’ll get some nice fallout from this match.  Not that I don’t like the humor (I love it) but fake outs like with Kirino’s mom are kind of cheap.  The stare off between Kojiro and Tama is going to offer some good character growth im sure.  Catch ya next week for more Bamboo Blade.

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