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Series: Bamboo Blade: Series 1 - Part 2
Release date: 31st January 2011
Certificate: PG
Running time: 170 mins
Director: Hisashi Saito
Starring: N/a
Genre: Anime
Studio: Manga
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
The second half of Bamboo Blade Series 1 offers more in the way of surreal comedy and outrageous action. After an impressive first half, does the anime adaptation of Masahiro Totsuka’s manga maintain the quality?
Sensei Toraji’s all-girl kendo team are chasing the goal of reaching the national championships. But the road to glory is paved with injuries, treachery, deceit, protective fathers, quiz game shows and threats of disbandment.
Facing conflict on and off the mat, can the Muroe High kendo girls maintain their focus and team unity?
When the doors of Muroe High open up, a viewer feels like he or she has attended there themselves, such is the vividness with which Saito and his writers bring to life their quirky cast of characters, and their equally quirky dramatic precinct. The series balances recognisable teen conflicts and trials with exciting action, and the cast of characters ensures that what could have been a one-joke, rather high concept simply never runs out of steam.
The juxtaposition of sweet looking and sounding teenage girls indulging a love for kendo never gets old. The series maintains a consistent level of fun that makes the episodes breeze by, as well as an impressive balance between action and surrealism. Saito doesn’t just break the fourth wall in this series - he bulldozes right through it, pulling out seemingly every trick from the animation bag. Characters shrink and de-age to reflect inferior status in conversation; comedic asides are almost bewildering non-sequiturs (think Family Guy, or even the classic 1980s British sitcom The Young Ones - only madder); and subtexts of scenes are given visible metaphorical treatment.
While the experience is initially overwhelming, the series settles into a delightful groove, with occasional knowing, deadpan winks to its outrageous happenings (“Did you hear something go boom?”/“There’s something black coming from that direction…” ). The quieter moments are just as, if not more, effective (such as Tamaki’s adorable panic about DVR-ing her favourite TV programmes over the weekend she’ll be at training camp). The filmmakers are clearly having fun, and want to share that fun with their viewer, but the efforts they make to flesh out the characters ensures audience empathy is high.
It is the surrealism that remains the most effective element of the series. ‘It’ girl Miya-miya is perhaps the embodiment of the series’ fascinating contradictions/juxtapositions. In a series that could very easily get by as a classroom comedy about plucky young heroines we can root for, Miya-miya occasionally seems like she’s walked in from another (darker) series entirely - her manipulative acts accompanied by a black aura and asides to a giant snake, the audience is momentarily almost convinced that this schemer has magical powers.
In its high school setting, the series is extremely well observed, and consistently witty. Boy team-members Yuji and Dan-kun are reliable sources of humour. The latter especially, in his odd couple romantic pairing with Miya-miya (the sight of them together is a subtle visual gag that the filmmakers refrain from overplaying), and perennial position on the sidelines, is a delight. The relationships between the girls rings true, and the mixture of high-action and -farce with recognisable teenage/high school problems gives the series its continual momentum, where it could so easily have run out of steam. In addition, the bigness of the characters creates opportunities for the writers to throw out silly lines like “The sliminess is the best part of pool cleaning!” - the fun is infectious for older viewers, and the silliness of the comedy is pitched just right for younger ones. Bamboo Blade has genuine appeal across age-ranges and gender.
These characters are the cornerstone of the whole series. Tamaki, perhaps the closest to an actual heroine, is an endearing character with an intriguing home-life and relationship with her suspicious, overprotective father. Miya-miya strikes an enticing balance between loved-up and calculating. Then there’s the sensei character, Toraji. He is an interesting mentor figure in the sports/high school genre in that he’s a bit of a sad sack, with very little in the way of genuine wisdom or insight. In fact, most memorable about him is his nerdy outlook (such as his abhorrence of 3D gaming - “Long live sprites” being one of the funnier lines in the series). On the surface, the series is a rather simple one, but the filmmakers wisely eschew making caricatures of any of their characters.
And herein lies the key to the success of Bamboo Blade as a series: a cast of characters with lives and backstories gently fleshed out over the course of the series. Episode by episode, we come to care about them all. An audience never has any trouble cheering for the Muroe High kendo team.
Freely mixing styles and tone with characters that are alternately over-the-top and understated, Bamboo Blade should not work, and yet somehow does. Consistently funny, and often touching, it is a delight from start-to-finish. A second series is a highly desirable prospect. JN
The Kendo Club is in its darkest hour!
Having a fierce swords-woman like Tamaki at practice every day gives the girls of the Kendo club reason for hope, but this team still has a long way to go. Their sensei is one false move away from losing his job, the team's facing a suspension, and even Tamaki is about to experience the bitter taste of defeat. So will the girls pick each other up and stick together as a team? Or will they crumble under the pressure and go their separate ways?
During his team's darkest hour, it will be up to Toraji to inspire his warriors, and teach Tamaki that sometimes only a crushing loss can stoke the flames of competition.
Series: Bamboo Blade: Series 1 - Part 2
Release date: 31st January 2011
Certificate: PG
Running time: 170 mins
Director: Hisashi Saito
Starring: N/a
Genre: Anime
Studio: Manga
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Series: Bamboo Blade: Series 1 - Part 1
Release date: 22nd November 2010
Certificate: PG
Running time: 316 mins
Director: Hisashi Saito
Starring: N/a
Genre: Anime
Studio: Manga
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Adapted from the manga of the same name, Bamboo Blade is an anime that follows the trials and tribulations of a high school female kendo team as they train and prepare themselves for a range of competitions. This box set is comprised of the first half of the twenty-six episode first season.
Toraji Ishida is a politics teacher at Menro High School, but, more importantly, the kendo sensei. Unfortunately, he's down on his luck, with very little reward or success in his everyday life, and an increasingly despondent disposition.
Toraji is struggling as he finds his home devoid of food, his belly rumbling and no sign of a paycheck for at least another week. However, the coach of the rival school’s kendo team, Kenzaburo Ishibashi, offers a potential solution to his woes, challenging Toraji to have a 5-on-5 all-girl match-up, with the prize being a year's supply of all-you-can-eat food from Kenzaburo’s father’s restaurant.
Spurred on by the prospect of a year's supply of free sushi, Toraji develops a new found determination, and sets about assembling his femme fatale fighting force. But can the five girls that have come together by determination or chance work as a team, deal with the troubles in their private lives, and improve their skills sufficiently to compete against the top schools in the region (this initial one-off match-up leads to a high school tournament, and talk of future inter-school competitions)?
As with many Seinen manga adaptations of this kind, the initial reaction to such a seemingly sparse and potentially sluggish plotline may to some prove off putting, but, as with many, the development of the individual characters proves engrossing. Bamboo Blade manages to create, introduce and flesh out a substantial quantity of individuals without ever reducing them to mere clichés, presenting each with enough screen time and emotional context to justify their actions. Not simply this, but every character is unique, from their personality through to their reasons for joining the kendo dojo and their interactions with each other, giving the audience characters to associate with and cheer for. From the unbound enthusiasm of the blonde haired team captain, Kirino Chiba, who has to instill discipline into her teammates, to the distanced personality of the immensely talented Tamaki Kawazoe and the psychologically troubled mind of Miyako Miyazaki, and her micro-sized boyfriend, there are plenty of sub plots that intertwine and escalate the tension as we build to the upcoming conflict.
The anime, while essentially a teenage drama, allows itself plenty of opportunity and time to escape the rigours of seriousness - flexing its comedic muscles. From the opening scene, highlighting the ridiculous reason as to why Toraji is spurred onto kendo success to his lack of social graces, the animators use all the traditional anime hallmarks to alleviate any tension. From characters falling flat on their backs when someone says or engages in something utterly nonsensical to the over-exaggerated facial expressions to show disdain or affection, the animators endow Bamboo Blade with an undeniable sense of warmth and charm. They also find time to poke fun at themselves, and other writers of similar series', by having one of their main characters, who is obsessed with animation, create a show within the show, “Blade Braver”. The self-referencing is particularly apparent when the cheerful Yuji Nakata, one of the few male members of the high school’s kendo club (and the only member of the squad that knows the real reason for Toraji’s determination to win), makes one of a number of his overly dramatic or emotional monologues, much in keeping with many anime, to the amusement of his peers.
In terms of animation, Bamboo Blade is at the cutting edge of contemporary anime, highlighting the immensely crisp, creative and colourful details that we may take for granted now in the West. There is an unimaginable amount of delicacy and depth to the handwork, which is very pleasing on the eye - coupled by a very sparsely used and sympathetically implemented amount of computer generated imagery.
In such a relatively short space of time, Bamboo Blade creates a great affinity and understanding of the characters within the Menro High School, while never feeling derivative or replicated from another source. Each individual slowly develops throughout the course of the thirteen episodes, whether that is through a softening or toughening of their stance, but always through promoting and understanding the values of teamwork and friendship.
Bamboo Blade proves that there is more to an anime that is ostensibly centred around fighting than the actual encounters themselves. It's the humanisation and authentic feel of the characters that that provides the driving force of a series less concerned with the bashing of bamboo than the lives and emotions of the individuals that frequent the dojo. However, by taking the time to nurture each of the students, the matches themselves take on a greater meaning and importance.
Bamboo Blade is a well-constructed, enjoyable series, which, while bracketed as a Seinen (manga targeted towards males between the ages of 18-30) reaches far beyond that demographics thanks to the strong female character presence and tendency to veer towards the emotional and interpersonal relations between the characters. BL
