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Bamboo Blade Series Collection – Review

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Bamboo Blade Series Collection - Review 1Title: Bamboo Blade – Series Collection
Published by: Madman Entertainment (Australia / New Zealand), Funimation Entertainment (North America)
Based on: Bamboo Blade Manga series by Masahiro Totsuka
Genre: Comedy, Sports, Slice of Life
Audio: English and Japanese Dubs
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic Widescreen (16:9)
Runtime: 650 minutes
Cost: $79.95
Classification: This title is rated PG for Mild Animated Violence and Coarse Language
Special Thanks: Special thanks goes to the Madman Entertainment PR Team for providing me with a review sample of this title.

It has been a short while since I last did a review of an anime series released more then a month or two ago. This time I have selected the box set of Bamboo Blade, a 26 episode anime series which surrounds a group of High School girls, each with their own unique personalities and problems that join up to their schools kendo club all in the name of helping their sensei win a years worth of free sushi. Sport clubs and school life series do border the realm of cliche, but is there something that helps this series stand out from the crowd? Read on to find out in my review of Bamboo Blade!

Bamboo Blade Series Collection - Review 2

Some Fight for Honour, They Fight for Sushi?!

It didn’t take long for pint-sized Tamaki’s lightning reflexes to catch the eye of starving kendo instructor Toraji. This second-rate sensei is an embarrassment to the sport, and hsi Kendo club is running out of members. His only hope for redemption – and a full belly – is to get Tamaki to sign-on as his star pupil.

Unfortunately, this sword-wielding prodigy is a serious anime addict, so it’ll be a challenge to get her to step away from the television and into the dojo. But once she feels like a part of the team, Tamaki will put down the remote and pick up her sword as Toraji turns his girls into a fearsome sisterhood of the bamboo blade.

There are a number of similar sport harem series on the market that use either moe or fanservice appeal in order to entice viewers to watch the series… for example I refer to a recently release series in Japan, Ro-Kyu-Bu! in which the best way to describe this series is through a shirt that is currently being marketed for the series. These shows result in varied levels of success depending on the target audience and the level of design and storytelling. Bamboo Blade surprisingly whilst having gaggles of female characters, does not decend down either path and seems to do its best in putting across a storyline about the development of the characters through kendo. For those who are perhaps concerned that they have absolutely no knowledge of the sport, you do not need to understand it to enjoy the storyline – but as they do at points ramble on about kendo terms, it might be advisable to read up on Wikipedia to get a gist of the sport.

Bamboo Blade Series Collection - Review 3

To give you a quick recap of the series, I would not consider the main character one of the five female leads but the kendo sensei Toraji Ishida. Given the prospect of winning a years supply of sushi at a mates fathers restaurant, he actively seeks out members to join his kendo team (Which was down to a single member) in order to win against his friends kendo club and achieve a years worth of nom nom noms! The entire series seems to progress down this route storyline wise, with them meeting new people who usually actively practice kendo, and then fight them in a tournment – with the purpose of saving their dear sensei from whatever trouble he has gotten himself into. The impression I got was that the storyline was simply there to facilitate the kendo aspect as well as the character development. While the storyline was nothing stellar, I did appreciate the comedic aspect to the series, in lieu of the many opportunities they skipped over for baseless fanservice.

There were a few gripes I had with the overall storyline. The key problem was with lead female character Tamaki. She is pitched in the series as a shy girl whose kendo ability is imbalanced in comparison to everyone else in the series which makes the battles with her drone on until the final few episodes where she wins every battle, often with very little struggle. The other issue, which is actually teased about in the series are the main male students. The storyline focuses primarily on the five main girls and their sensei, leaving Yuji who is experienced in his own right not having any focus in the series and being more of a referee and moral support more then anything – with his matches conveniently over before the girls battle.

Bamboo Blade Series Collection - Review 4

Putting a focus onto the main female characters, Tamaki would easily be the most important of the five and gets the most backstory. She has no real passion for kendo but instead sees it as a job and a necessary component of being an eventual “Champion of Justice” after idolizing a childrens super hero anime series. Other characters include Kirino the overly optimistic club president, Sayako who is liable to break down and is overall spontaneous, Satori who while being incredibly gifted at kendo and having the bookworm look has consistently bad grades and most probably of more interest to most – Miyako (Miya-Miya) who comes off as a sweet and shy girl but is a full yandere with a satistic side to her personality. To complement them, there are two male students – Yuji who you will most probably forget exists in the story (See above) and Donny who despite having every nerdy cliche added to his character – seems to be a bigger hit with the ladies then anyone else and is the only one who can calm down Miyako.

The series attempts to give them all individual plot lines and focus in order to develop their characters, so for example Yuki takes Tamaki out on a “date” to see a Braver (An anime series frequented in this show) which investigates how she has both come out of her shell and to what extent her otakudom is and an entire plotline outlining the relationship between Miyako and Donny when under threat of another woman interested in him. These are but some examples, but the 26 episodes are filled with them, and while some may be an attempt at forcing generic plotlines onto a viewer, I didn’t find them tedious at all. My only slight concern was that none of the characters personalities really changed by the end of the series. Overall however, the storyline and character development complements each other well to give the viewers an experience they might not have been expecting at the beginning.

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Kudos must be provided to the animation team in design of kendo battle sequences. The limitation is that the full kendo attire obscures the face and so instead of hiding the face that would make differentiating the characters a real bitch, they decided to fading the front region in close ups to tell us what character is competing – this may seem like an obvious gesture but it is one that is appreciated none the less. The battle animation themselves occasionally resort to using the same moves, but they did a good job at differentiating each characters fighting style and including new moves as the series progressed which made the battles both exciting and unique. Out of the kendo arena, the character designs are well detailed and try to stick to more realistic appearances which are appropriate. Environments are your typical school environments and as with the character designs, suited the intended setting for the series.

Bamboo Blade Series Collection - Review 6Bamboo Blade Series Collection - Review 7Bamboo Blade Series Collection - Review 8

Opening Sequence
Bamboo Beat by Ryou Hirohashi, Megumi Toyoguchi, Sachiko Kojima, Houko Kuwashima & Rina Satou

As you can tell, this is a song performed by the five main Japanese voice actresses for this show, and is your run of the mill J-POP song that tries to keep the kendo aspects of the series present in the beat presented. Actually, it is quite enjoyable when coupled with the animation. The animation is all unique content and blanks out some characters until they appear in the series.

Ending Sequence
Star Rise by Ryou Hirohashi, Megumi Toyoguchi, Sachiko Kojima, Houko Kuwashima & Rina Satou

Same scenario as the opening sequence where the song is performed by the Japanese voice actresses. This is yet another J-POP number which whilst the opening one was sort of memorable, I went to writing this review without even remembering the style of song it was. The animation is simplistic with a panoramic view of the kendo dojo and the characters appearing as the view turns.

Bamboo Blade Series Collection - Review 9

The music of this series is your normal assortment of softer tracks that suit both fighting and slice-of-life elements of the series. Considering that this was the first series music was produced for by Kiyohiko Senba, I think he did a great job at providing a well rounded soundtrack. For voice acting, you will be happy to know that Funimation provided a rather strong dub instead of the average dub at best I was expecting. Sean Michael Teague takes the cake of my favourite as Donny. Even though the voice work wasn’t anything stellar, he suited the character perfectly. Leah Clark as Miyako and Luci Christian as Kirino were also memorable and suited the two very different character personalities.

In terms of extra content, it doesn’t really differ between the two collections in the box set. Each consist of clean opening and ending sequences and a compilation of trailers. Looking at the packaging itself, there are two volumes contained in a vertical slipcase similar to what Madman Entertainment have done for El Cazador De La Bruja and Lucky Star. The artwork on all three kept the bamboo themed background with different character artworks which were effective. Both volumes remain the original discs so no content or design has been changed from the original versions released in 2010.

Bamboo Blade Series Collection - Review 10

The school-life genre is a common one in anime nowadays and especially with ones surrounding a sport club they needed to attempt to set themselves apart from the norm, and I think they did a pretty good job at doing so. While nothing in this series is perfect with room for improvement here and there, you should not be disappointed if you were to purchase it.

Storyline/Character Development: B+
A series with both storyline and character development complementing each other effectively, resulting in an enjoyable series to watch.

Design: B
The design suited the intended setting and theme and overall well detailed.

Music/Voice Acting: B+
Funimation provided a strong dub with a number of their experienced dubbers. Music was a well rounded compilation of tracks.

Extras: C
The only extras provided were clean opening/ending sequences and some trailers.

Personal Opinion: B+
It is a series that takes the genre and works well with it. Room for improvement but otherwise would be an enjoyable watch to most fans of anime.

Overall Score: B+

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.

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