Man, what a ride. Bamboo Blade has it all; comedy, drama, romance, all rolled up into one. By making fun of itself at random places and with the help of very fabulous characters, this show rises from its shoddy animation to join the elite group of anime this season that deserves your time.
I should get the not-so-good things out of the way first. The animation is pretty bad. No, not like Musashi Gundoh bad, but repeated animation, laziness supreme kind of bad. Up until the last two episodes, the same kendo swings from episode one get repeated over and over, with only the costumes changed. The backgrounds are nice watercolor pastels, but sometimes the characters look very funky. It`s hard to believe and oxymoronic that this show actually airs in HD.
But looking beyond the badness of the animation, Bamboo Blade is golden. The characters are a riot. Their voice actresses fit them perfectly. My favorite character out of the entire bunch is Kirino, with her happy-go-lucky attitude and her beautiful relationship with Saya, the hilarious redhead. Seriously, every time Saya opens her mouth, her voice cracks me up so much that I am left on the floor laughing. Kudos to her voice actress for providing her with such an amazing voice. The other characters also pad the show with relevant humor. You have acorn head/pimp Dan, his gay buddy Yuuji, the master kendo practitioner Tamaki, the klutz Azuma, the bipolar Miyako, and their failure of a teacher, Kojirou. As added bonus and hilarity, Kojirou is voiced by the ever-so-manly Kamina from Gurren Lagann, with all the same intonations and vocal gestures. It`s great.
The plot starts off as a standard shounen tournament fest, but midway through the anime branches off from the manga. Unlike most cases which this happens (cough cough Naruto filler hell), the director took very interesting directions in the plot. New characters that are just as cool as the original manga ones appear. Plot points are generally well paced and the comedy is well timed too.
The music is another strong point, with epic orchestral pieces to hot-blooded insert songs. I love the songs that play when the random Bravers appear, and I also love the clack clack sounds of the Kendo fights. I wasn`t very interested in Kendo before watching Bamboo Blade, but now I check out matches on Youtube. They`re even more intense than the anime itself.
Tamaki is sometimes too strong to the point of boredom, but Bamboo Blade always find ways to not fall too deep into that trap. Parodies and references are abundant. Facepalms, sweat marks, falling down in unison, everything`s there. You will definitely laugh at some point while watching, with the sudden bouts of unexpected humor.
The force of lesbian tendencies is strong with this one. Don`t miss it.
