Bamboo Blade

The most popular (aka common) type of animes of the past year has most definitely been school comedy anime with a female cast. And this one is no exception. Thankfully they put emphasis on what matters most character chemistry.




As you should already know it's a comedy about a high school kendo club, mainly consisting of (SPOILER AHEAD!) a group of girls. It all sounds like standard fare from here, and it is. The kids get involved in crazy hijinks, make silly jokes, and even have a decent amout of action in show such as this. After watching the first couple episodes, you'll most likely have ... a feeling if you are going to enjoy the show since the same style of jokes makes their rounds. Sometimes, its even as if they know they're making an uninspired anime and actually puts in gags and jokes that are very cliche` for the genre but leaves minor (and unique) twists for the viewers to laugh. Honestly, I think their jokes get off so well not only because of their 'semi' unique approach to joke telling, but the characters are just perfect for this show.

Like all the other great comedy (and sports) shows before it, this show puts an emphasis on the character chemistry and development. This is where the show shines the most. It's just like how they intentionally make jokes about the the comedy genre its almost looks as if they intentionally mixed the character types around to create their own uniqueness. For example there's a smart looking that is really stupid, a clumsy girl that actually has good orginizational skills, and even a really loud quiet type. Good luck finding out who im talking about, but all the main characters are like that and its one main part why the comedy feels so fresh and unique. It almost feels like they all have double personalities. But the one person that really distracted me the from the others the most is quite easliy Tamaki-chan. She definitely steals the show in my eyes. Usually the show stealing characters arent the main character (Yuki, Osaka, etc) but that isn't the case here. She is the main reason why i kept watching this show. Hirohashi Ryou did a perfect job for her voice because there is no other way to do Tamaki's voice. There are other parts of greatness in this anime but I wont spoil the show any further.

Another good point of the show is how surprisingly good the artwork is in this show for a comedy show. There are various locations that you will see throughout the show, and each are shown with such vibrant color. The backgrounds are pretty detailed, you'll see alot of particle effects, reflections, and sunbeams throughout the show. And the characters are all drawn in the typical super cute borderline sexy style which is usual for a show in this type. Of course, the emphasis was more on the females than the males and you can tell because the all the men (with one exception) all look virtually the same. Another thing, is get used to their eyes as that is what you'll be seeing for the most part.

Sound effects are nothing to be super enthusiastic about. All thought the sound is very well done, once you've heard any high school anime you've heard them all pretty much. With the exception of the yelling and screaming from all the cute girls (extra points from me). They even have the girls singing the opening and ending theme song just like all the others in this genre. Well when you have cute voiced seiyu's use them as much as possible i guess. There is one uinque and hilarious sound but you wont hear it till around episode 20. Trust me when I tell you that it will have you on the floor laughing.

There are so many fun and memorable instances in this show it's hard not to give this a perfect score. They sure did do everything right in making this "slice of life, high schoo, comedy, sports" show different from all the others. But this does follow the same formula as all the other current releases (lots of girls + comedic situations + singing seiyus). Fortunately this is one of the better ones.

Let me start by saying that I was really looking forward to watching Bamboo Blade, having a passing interest in kendo(not exactly practicing it, but rather being curious about it), and I wish I could give Bamboo Blade a higher score than I have. Bamboo Blade has an amazing cast, great voice acting(seriously, the shouts are quite believable and they don't sound forced - and there's a lot of shouting in kendo) and engaging action sequences - with a memorably soundtrack to top it all off. However, it falls flat when it comes to character development and story. Half of the cast doesn't really change ... much in terms of personality - I'd go as far as to say that on occassion, some of the characters are completely ignored, appearing for a scene or two, which doesn't seem right if they are considered part of the main cast. What's worse is that this time is instead spent on possibly one of the duller characters - Tama, who sadly evolves into the protagonist of the show. Don't get me wrong, she isn't a bad character, but I feel Bamboo Blade had a perfect set up for a "decentralized" show, where each character was important, but midway they arbitrarily decided that Tama is to take 3/4 of the spotlight. All in all, as far as story is concerned, I feel like the team behind Bamboo Blade was figuring it out as they went - some plot decisions seemed odd to me, as if made in haste. I think this is generally a fine anime that had quite some potential, but made the wrong turns.

For some reason, reading the premise of this show I was reminded of the old Seven Samurai film. Trying to assemble a team of powerful warriors in order to protect a village from evil bandits… Only difference, the warriors in this version are all cute girls and the challenge is a harmless kendo competition. I am of course stretching it with this comparison but I couldn’t shake the feeling of how half a century ago Japan used to make these cool manly samurai stories and now is mostly throwing out moe shows left and right. And I don’t like that.

So anyways, Bamboo Blade is basically ... two things. One half is a motivational show, aimed to inspire people getting into kendo. The second half is slice of life comedy around the simple lives of its characters, most of which are silly girls. The problem here is that it fails to be captivating in both cases, simply because it is not extreme or fanatic enough. The kendo part for example is just dull. Although they teach you all the basic rules and moves of it, in practice all the duels never last for more than a few minutes and all you see is frozen images of people with speed lines to indicate what happened. Compared to the emperor of thrills, Kaiji was a super awesome show about a guy playing rock-paper-scissors. It felt a million times more exciting that people duelling with swords (even wooden ones). As for the slice of life part, it is still quite basic for the time the anime was made. Every episode doesn’t have more than a couple of funny/interesting moments when there already are similar shows with a dozen things to pay notice to in the same amount of time. So again, the flow of the story is quite slow and basic, becoming boring at times. As for the whole kendo championship, it couldn’t be shown any less exciting. They win or lose and you feel like nothing matters.

What further ruins it are the completely average production values. The characters and the sceneries are rather simplistic and with basic colouring, while actual animation is very rare. You mostly stare at frozen caricatures with flapping mouths, and even the duels are crummy motions based on speed lines, zooming and panelling. Voice acting and music themes are nothing memorable either. This becomes even bigger of a problem if one has already watched other school comedies with higher production values such as K-On or Suzumiya Haruhi.

Yet another problem are the unimpressive characters, who just like the humour and the production values are also average. You get this team of kendo chicks, their teacher and various friends, and nobody seems to be memorable for any given reason. That short fat guy is definitely standing out for being drawn completely different and for having a super hot girlfriend but is otherwise not memorable. As for the main team, only the airhead blond is given actual focus for watching most of the anime through her, and that other Super Sentai fan for being very dynamic and rather dramatic. All the rest are stock material and completely forgettable.

A thing which keeps you interested a bit more is the various references it makes to other anime. Being a parody of sorts, it uses them as both means to make a joke, as well as motivating the viewer to watch further (two early examples are Initial D and Super Sentai ). As funny as those extras were, they weren’t that many or that often after awhile, so compared to other major parody shows such as Gintama, this anime again fails to leave a lasting moment.

In all, I didn’t enjoy it much and I doubt it will be remembered in a few years. Anime are great when they are extreme and this one played out too safe and basic to even have a shot at glory.

And now for some excused scorings.
ART SECTION: 5/10
Analysis: General Artwork 1/2, Character Figures 1/2, Backgrounds 1/2, Animation 1/2, Visual Effects 1/2

SOUND SECTION: 6/10
Analysis: Voice Acting 2/3, Music Themes 2/4, Sound Effects 2/3

STORY SECTION: 5/10
Analysis: Premise 1/2, Pacing 1/2, Complexity 1/2, Plausibility 1/2, Conclusion 1/2

CHARACTER SECTION: 5/10
Analysis: Presence 1/2, Personality 1/2, Backdrop 1/2, Development 1/2, Catharsis 1/2

VALUE SECTION: 1/10
Analysis: Historical Value 0/3, Rewatchability 0/3, Memorability 1/4

ENJOYMENT SECTION: 2/10

VERDICT: 4/10