This extremely violent but hilariously funny character is the best in this anime.
This review of Bamboo Blade should be the last one for at least a week or so, as I will be dragged down by personal commitments for the next few days. Anyway, with 3 reviews in a week, I think I am doing just right. By the way, this is the latest 2007 anime that will try to get the Best Anime of the Year 2007 award from Nodame Cantabile.
Story:-
A kendo instructor of a high-school club makes a bet with his friend that his kendo club is better than the friend’s. As his club only has one active member, he has to scout the high school for new members, and he finds the gem that is Kawazoe Tamaki. With her entrance into the club, the kendo club changed dramatically.
This anime belongs to the sport genre, thus it will be judged with a higher standard just like I do with romance genre titles. The story surprisingly is not a typical one that you can normally see in this genre, but more like the ones you can see in a shounen anime. The story is good but not exactly compelling, but fortunately there are elements of humour like usage of distorted faces that supports it somewhat. For a sport anime, the lack of over-exaggerated ‘techniques’ is also a breath of fresh air. It also helps that the story managed to stay fresh throughout the series.
The thing that you can see better in this anime is character development, and this allowed us to see few reasonably strong characters in this anime, mainly from the female members of the kendo team. All the female members of the club plus the kendo instructor are interesting in their own unique ways, and I always looks forward to see what they will do next, how they interacts with each other or with other parties and how they evolved to achieve what they wants every time I started a new episode.
The ending is not exactly good, and there are hints of a second season there. I hope there will be one because this anime still has a lot of untapped potential.
Facial expressions are used extensively in this anime.
Character Design:-
Character design in this anime is pretty ordinary actually. As usual, there is virtually no black hair in this series whatsoever.
Our favourite character here is looking for someone to be beaten into a pulp.
Voice Acting:-
A positive point of this anime, voice acting in this anime is great even with a relatively unknown cast. At least it is better than the disappointing Dragonaut. There seems to be no outstanding voice gigs though.
Music:-
Just like Dragonaut, the OST is great but no so for any of the OP/ED themes.
And she is now examining her weapon of choice for beating people into pulps.
Animation/Direction:-
Another positive point for this anime, the animation in this anime is top notch, and did not suffer at all in the very many fast-paced scenes this anime has. Choreography for action scenes (mostly kendo fight in tournaments) are pretty good, at least in the eyes of some who does not really know kendo like me. The directing is decent too, allowing the story to flow freely with minimal flashbacks or fillers.
Her ecstasy as she does what she likes the most is shown above.
Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Nothing more and nothing less. Too bad that I raised the standard recently after watching Capeta or this anime would have scored more. Nodame Cantabile is still king for the year 2007, and honestly speaking I do not really see this taken away from it.
The terror on the face of one of her victims as she swoops in for the kill.
