Bamboo Blade

SPOILER-FREE!

There are two things that one can learn watching anime that take place in high school – there is no shortage of after school clubs to choose from, and you can bank on the fact that there will likely be a lot of girls in those clubs. It doesn’t matter if the club in question is one that has an activity associated with “traditional femininity” or not; as long as there is even the remotest chance of a club existing, not only will there be an anime about it, but that it will also likely have a large female cast.

"Bamboo Blade" was one such property ... that got this treatment, using kendo as the dramatic vehicle of choice. Released in 2007, the series came during that period of time when “moe” as a concept was undergoing a bit of a renaissance and restructuring. But aside from that, I didn’t know anything else going in. I have never taken up kendo before, nor did I have any particular interest in watching a sparring match in real life. For all I knew though, this series could at least help give me some appreciation for it.

As he worries about the fact that he has virtually no money and little food to eat, high school instructor Ishida Toraji meets with his senpai Ishibari Kenzaburo and makes a bet: if the group of five girls from Ishida’s kendo club can defeat Kenzaburo’s group instead, Ishida will win a year’s supply of sushi. With newfound enthusiasm for kendo, he seeks to expand the team’s roster from its lone member, Chiba Kirino. Such characters will include the reserved and tiny Kawazoe Tamaki, the supposedly-charming Miyazaki Miyako, the pessimistic Kuwahara Sayako, and the book dumb Azuma Satori.

The premise affords a kind of comedic cynicism that tinges some of the dialogues and discussions that transpire. Under normal circumstances, the team of cute girls would be gathered either through their original love of the sport or because they were shown a way in which the sport could somehow teach them something about life or themselves. While large portions of that is definitely true in "Bamboo Blade," with the characters undergoing some aspect of personal growth through their team bonding, Ishida makes for a good subversion of the supportive coach. His motivation for forming the team in the first place is one entirely rooted in selfish desire. Granted, it’s a rather understandable desire to not starve, but the fact that his heart is less-than-pure in this aspect makes him a rather fun presence.

And the cast as a whole is a lot of fun as well. Though they may not deviate too far from the familiar archetypes one would expect from a series like this, the camaraderie and joviality makes most of the dialogues and sequences delightful. As a central character, Tamaki is the adorable prodigy who wows all that come into contact with her shinai, while Kirino is the ball of fiery gumption that manages to always have a smile on her face and make amusing light of most situations. As the cast size gradually increases, each of the girls gradually expands the scope of "Bamboo Blade’s" comedic potential.

But given that the series is twenty-six episodes long, it’s unfortunate that not every character is given an appropriate amount of character or comedy to demonstrate. Of the main five girls, Satori is given markedly-less material to work with, both in terms of actions that she performs and personality development she undergoes throughout the run. The other four girls are given more than enough expansion to help make them fun characters, and even the club’s boys get enough time in the sun. Satori is introduced to the cast as the final member, so while it’s true that there just isn’t enough of the run remaining to adequately flesh her out, it’s a problem that I find should have been taken more carefully into consideration. It’s not that Satori is a bad character per se, but rather that she’s just not quite as much of a character as everyone else.

Also a slight problem is that not every battle that took place during the run was featured. One of the tournaments only includes the highlights from a single bout Tamaki performed, leaving the following scene to have Ishida vaguely talk about the other participants’ matches. Considering that kendo is the main element that binds all the main characters together, it’s an unusual decision to skimp out on what were supposed to be the culminations of all their hard work and training. "Bamboo Blade" may be a comedy, but not including more actual fights was an unfortunate miscalculation.

The matches that are featured though, even in individual rounds, are well-done. The rapidity of kendo strikes and the movement of the combatants are captured nicely, with a lot of noise from screams, clacking shinai, and stylized line work. The fights themselves may occasionally be brief, but each one has a strong kinetic energy that keeps things moving at a good pace, even in still-frame. If anything, the fights being such a positive of the show make my previous point about not every battle being included all the more disappointing.

Thankfully, the series does indeed make up for this disappointment through its handling of tone. It rapidly shifts between light-hearted barbs that have little to do with anything to outbursts. "Bamboo Blade" manages to strike comedic beats relatively consistently, both of the slapstick and off-kilter variety. It affords a kind of unpredictability to the various scenarios, as I was never quite sure which kind of comedy the show was going to be throwing at me at a given moment. Regardless of which type it picked, I more often than not was at least amused, if not smiling or laughing.

But as one may expect from a story like this, there reaches a point where the comedy takes a backseat and the more-dramatic aspects of the sport take place. The final main arc of the series occurs after a particularly stressful tournament, and the ensuing aftermaths of what happens there are faced head-on, and it’s solid. What makes this portion of the story work is that all the dramatic beats it’s going for are things that were hinted at throughout the course of the series, even if only in small doses. The resulting tension thus comes across as naturally built-up, allowed time to properly germinate into a compelling conflict.

The landing from that conflict, however, is not so clean. Most of the underlying problems the characters are facing end up getting resolved within the span of a single episode. While on some level this rapid wrapping up of the issues makes sense given that the series is primarily a comedy, it seems that "Bamboo Blade" wasn’t terribly keen on letting the drama build up for too long. Perhaps the underlying thought is that if drama takes centerstage and oversteps, the change of pace would be too alienating. Frankly, I wish that it had stayed. It also teases a second season within the last episode’s final seconds which, even at the time of this writing, never materialized outside of the manga. It's upsetting that the show never got to see that potential realized, whatever it could have been.

And the reason why it’s upsetting is that, as flawed as the show could sometimes be, it was always a delightful watch. It is not a perfect series by any stretch, but there were indeed many moments where I simply had a good time watching it. Rather than being a series of dull outings, it managed to pull off its own brand of fun. For better or worse, the show is simplistic, and this time around the block, it worked towards its appeal. Plus, I would be lying if I said that after finishing a couple of episodes at a time, I didn’t hear those kendo screams echoing in my head.

Bamboo "Blade" may not necessarily offer much variety in the girls’ sports club type of school anime as far as character is concerned, but it has its own spunkiness and aesthetic charm that gives it life. The premise affords a kind of comedic cynicism and slapstick that works more often than it doesn’t, and the actual fights were well-done. I did grow to get a new sort of appreciation for kendo, and while my general aversion to sports anime may not have been fixed by it, watching this show was a pleasure.

This has the worst structure of a show I've ever seen. Despite that baffling aspect, Bamboo Blade is a lighthearted irreverent comedy maybe worth your time.

Let's get the negatives out of the way.

First off, the show's premise is that a school's kendo sensei, Ishida, makes a bet with his friend that his team of girls can beat his friend's, with the reward being a year's worth of eating at a restaurant.

This weak hook to the show is resolved in a handful of episodes. Let me repeat: the reason for this show existing is resolved in a handful of episodes.

After some meandering, the show comes up ... with another premise: after a disastrous encounter with an influential figure, Ishida's job is at risk so he decides to win the national kendo tournament to make himself indispensable.

You'd think this should have been the premise all along, considering the high stakes. Regardless, the show's complete lack of urgency, momentum or adherence to sports tropes almost makes this new premise as meaningless as the initial one.

By the time episode 20 rolls around there is no sense of escalation or impending finale to the story. The characters are not knee-deep into a tournament or anything like that, in fact there's no kendo in that episode at all, the show is more concerned with inter-relationship dynamics and characters goofing around.

So if you go into this show expecting the traditions of the sports genre, think again.

There's no explanation for newcomers as to what kendo even is. There's no "discovering a sport via a character new to it" structure. There's no shonen/Naruto-esque explanation of the tournament and its rival teams. All this, despite the fact that there are indeed characters who join the kendo club for the first time and need to be taught the sport, and that there is indeed a tournament with rival teams making an appearance. The show just doesn't have the time to treat the viewer as kindly as it treats Dan-kun (a humorously drawn character who creepily sounds like he's 30 years old).

I already knew enough about kendo personally, so I didn't feel in the dark, but I imagine people who know nothing about it, will feel a mild frustration that the show doesn't take the time to methodically explain the ins and outs of the ritualistic martial art.

So, instead of a structure of a sports show, you're just kind of thrown into the lives of these girls who hang out at the kendo dojo. The show's comedy is its highlight. It's irreverent and goofy, with a pleasant cast of characters.

Tamaki is a standout, and ostensibly the show's protagonist. You'd think that would be Ishida, but he's such a superficial character, useless as a teacher and has no character arc, that the actual protagonist is Tamaki. She's the one the viewer goes on a journey with, she actually has a character arc.

Tamaki is an introvert, and in a show tempered with incompetent narrative writing, she stands out as being authentic. My favourite moment is when she starts a job for the first time. The writers nailed what it feels like for an introvert to do that.

On the negative side, there's a subplot involving a stalker that struck me as very odd. Sure there's plenty of laughs to be had during the storyline, but the victim of the stalking is (accurately) portrayed as being freaked the hell out about it, to the point of paralytic fear, and I don't really find that amusing. The whole thing just stuck out like a sore thumb compared to everything else going on in the story.

Also worth noting that Ishida sensei is beyond useless, he doesn't teach anyone a single technique in the entire show. Near the end instead of taking responsibility himself, he decides to leave a pivotal and stressful decision to one of his students like a coward. Garbage writing for a garbage teacher.

So Bamboo Blade has a baffling structure about it, you keep waiting for the plot to heat up, but it never does. Its stuck between being a slice of life show, and one with stakes. It feels as if it was written by someone completely new to the art of storytelling. If you go in with lowered expectations, you might find the show a good time though because it can be quite funny.

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 by anyone. Anime are great when they are extreme and this one played out too safe and basic to even have a shot at glory.