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
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