In 2004, the manga series “Bamboo Blade” by Masahiro Totsuka and Aguri Igarashi (illustrator) was released and featured in the Japanese seinen manga magazine Young Gangan. An anime adaptation was produced by AIC A.S.T.A. (“Tokimeki Memorial ~Only Love~”, “Tentai Senshi Sunred”, “Godannar”) and was shown on TV Tokyo from October 2007 through April 2008.

The anime series is directed by Hisashi Saito (who worked on series such as “Fullmetal Alchemist”, “Eureka Seven”, “Bleach”) and features a screenplay by Hideyuki Kurata (who created “Read or Die” and “Kamichu!”). Character designs are by Naoto Hosoda (“Jinki: Extend”, “Nagasarete Airantou”, “Shuffle! Memories”) and 3D by Tatsuya Watanabe (“Fullmetal Alchemist: The Movie – Conqueror of Shamballa”).

Now the 26-episode anime series makes it to US with part 1 featuring the first 13-episodes in a 2-DVD collection courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment.

“Bamboo Blade” is about a teacher named Toraji Ishida who is also the coach of the high school Kendo team. Unfortunately or Ishida, a teacher who hasn’t been in the profession all that long is having a hard time keeping afloat with his paycheck. Most of his money goes to bills and food and he tries to live within means but sometimes he’s left starving for a days time and its starting to affect him. But his passion is with the kendo team and when his friend Ishibashi (a teacher who also teaches a high school kendo team) challenges him to a kendo contest among their female members of their kendo club. Ishida immediately takes it because if he wins, he gets free sushi at Ishibashi’s father’s sushi restaurant.

How can the always hungry kendo instructor resist? The problem is that he has only one female member in the team and now he and his only female kendo member Kirino Chiba go on a mission to recruit people to the kendo team and prepare for the competition.

The main characters of “Bamboo Blade” are:

Toraji Ishida – The economics teacher at Muroe High School who is the sensei of the Kendo team. Hardly makes any money and lives paycheck to paycheck which leaves him without food for days at a time. His love is kendo but has a lax style of teaching.

Kirino Chiba – A second year student at Muroe High School who loves kendo and wants to compete. The captain of the team who is full of energy, enthusiastic and her parents own a deli.

Tamaki Kawazoe – A hardcore anime and tokusatsu (which is the name for series such as “Kamen Rider”) fan, she’s also the daughter of a father who owns a kendo dojo and has learned since she was a little girl and somewhat of a prodigy of the sport. She joins the kendo club after she sees freshman students being bullied by the male seniors and because she is seen like a hero (like her tokusatsu shows), she joins the team to fight against any evil and for justice. Despite her talent in kendo, Tama-chan is very shy and soft-spoken.

Miyako “Miya-Miya” Miyazaki – The beautiful girlfriend of Danjuro Eiga (aka Dan-kun). Cute and perky on the outside but she also has a dark and evil side to her in which a black aura comes out of her (which other people except her boyfriend can see). Joins the Kendo team so she can utilize her aggressive nature and beat on someone.

Sayako Kuwahara – A second year student and happens to be like a drama queen and has a very low self-confidence. Always changing her goals and up to something new, she has high expectations for herself and when she fails, she quits and she has quit the kendo team many times just to come back later on to prove herself that she can beat Kirino.

Satori Azuma – Very talented in kendo but because of her bad grades, she was forced to quit and to focus on her studies.

Yuji Nakata – One of the few male students in the kendo club who is passionate about kendo. Yuji trained at Tama’s fathers kendo dojo. Very smart and the only person on the team who knows his sensei’s true intention of bringing female members to the kendo team.

Danjuro “Dan-kun” Eiga – The short odd looking member of the club who joins because he wants to wield a sword like a ninja. Although he appears to be kind of dumb, he is actually quite smart and even dates the beautiful Miya-Miya.

“Bamboo Blade: Part 1 comes with episodes 1-13 on two DVD discs.

VIDEO & AUDIO:

“Bamboo Blade” is presented in 16:9 and for the most part the animation is pretty cool as it integrates CG to the animation. Because of the fast pacing of the kendo, there is quite a bit of action in the series. Character designs are quite interesting as we see cool character designs and sometimes hilarious facial expressions.

Audio is presented in English 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound and Japanese Stereo. For the English dubbed track, the anime is front and center channel driven with certain sounds of the shinai (the wooden bamboo sticks) hitting each other and crowd ambiance to footsteps can be heard through the surround channels. English voice acting is actually very well-done! Japanese dialogue is front channel driven and is Dolby Digital stereo only but for those who have a modern home theater receiver can select stereo on all channels for a more immersive soundtrack.

Subtitles are in English.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

“Bamboo Blade: Part 1″ comes with the clean opening and ending themes and FUNimation Entertainment trailers.

JUDGMENT CALL:

When it comes to sports related anime, I’m actually a big fan of it. May it be “Slam Dunk”, “Big Windup”, “Yawara”, “Eyeshield 21, “Prince of Tennis”, “Captain Tsubasa” to name a few… I’ve been a big fan of anime sports series especially if the anime focuses on characters that are underdogs and become high achievers.

So, I was wondering how an anime series based on kendo would be. I’ve learned and even practiced kendo (for a very short time) and mainly because it is a very discipline-based sport (and for some friends its part of their lifestyle), for those on the outside, an anime based on kendo can be seen as boring or quite technical. But “Bamboo Blade” is nowhere near boring, in fact…once you start watching it…you’ll find the series to be quite fun!

For the most part, the series is definitely created to be anime friendly for those not familiar with the sport (or for those who despise sports anime) by including pretty girls who have their own interesting personal character traits, add in a lot of humor, girls (and a few guys) training in kendo and what you get it is a fun anime series known as”Bamboo Blade”. And I think it’s quite appropriate since there are many anime fans who are so against sports-related anime series, “Bamboo Blade” is one of those few anime series that won’t bore them.

But what about those who are fans of kendo, what can they get from “Bamboo Blade”? Well, the series does feature the training of kendo, the action scenes of kendo and also the spirit of kendo. The anime features some of the technical aspects of the sport but for the most part, the for the anime series to be quite fun and enjoyable for non-kendo/non-sports fans, the series is not dominated by it. It’s a character-driven anime series and for the most part, its made to be entertaining. From Tama being a kendo prodigy, it’s interesting to see her go out and fight the best at various high schools, the cute and perk student Miya-Miya who sometimes unleashes her evil dark side and freaks people out when they can see that aura around her. To the sensei who is trying to survive and teach kendo but at the same time, is looked at quite pitifully because he lives his life poor and without eating while trying to keep this facade that things are going well in his life.

The facial expressions and animation is pretty cool. Animators definitely capture the action of kendo from the shinai hitting the other shinai, the various hits allowed in the sport to the footwork. Everything comes together quite nicely and there are many non-kendo episodes featured as well.

Overall, every episode of “Bamboo Blade” has been quite entertaining and fun. I found myself laughing and just really enjoying this anime series a lot. So, don’t let the kendo theme scare you, “Bamboo Blade” is not your typical sports anime series. It’s about friendship, teamwork and also adversity and I can’t wait to watch the final half of the series.

“Bamboo Blade” is definitely a series worth checking out!

I’ve never been a big collector of the sports animes like Prince of tennis or the newest one Big Windup, but after seeing a few episodes on HULU I got hooked on this series and knew that it would be a perfect collection for my anime library. The main cast are about five young school girls who are part of the not so very popular kendo club at their school which is run by a kendo teacher who has to not only try an keep the kendo club alive but scrounge up enough money to pay his bills and get food. When all seems lost to him he meets a kendo trained prodigy a young girl new to the school who he gets to join the kendo club, and as the show goes forth and a few new members join the action, drama, and hilarity commence. The series tries to show the viewer the values of friendship, the trust and loyalty needed between your teammates, and the courage and dedication to continue even if at first the loss or failure seem insurmountable. The characters are great and are giving enough emotional depth for each one that you’ll root for them to win, and even though the series does have some drama into it it doesn’t saturate the series so much with it that it becomes to serious. The voice cast for the Japanese cast were incredible for their roles bringing out their characters emotions superbly and Funimation also did a great decision for their Voice cast for the dubbed audio. Sadly the extras aren’t much just the usual trailers and textless intro/ending songs and for the price I would have liked just a little more with that but oh well. So if you’re a big fan of sports anime series like Big Windup or Prince of tennis here’s another great choice and if not the series is still worth a look regardless….

Bamboo Blade Part 1 is a shining example of east meets west culture in the anime medium. The concepts, the menus, the atmospheres and even the humor are undeniably Japanese and yet thanks to FUNimation, American viewers are given the opportunity to take and apply domestic sensibilities to the universal themes within.

Coming in at a total runtime of 325 minutes, Bamboo Blade Part 1 consists of the first thirteen episodes of the show spread across a pair of discs (housed in a standard sized DVD case). The show wears an appropriate TV PG rating due to animated violence and a bit of light adult-oriented dialog.

Language options are standard sub and dub fair, which means the viewer has the option of running the original Japanese dialog vocal track (stereo) or an English dub (Dolby 5.1 Surround) and the choice of displaying English subtitles under either track.

Extras are unfortunately quite slim in this collection and include textless songs and a crop of FUNimation trailers on the second disc.

The story goes something like this: Kendo instructor Toraji is a bit of hack who, aside from running a pretty poor after school club, is so broke that he can’t afford to eat. As fate would have it, a friendly rival of his happens to be jealous of Toraji’s earlier accomplishments in the sport and lays down a bet (really more of a competition) with some interesting stakes: Should Toraji’s team be defeated, he is to hand over his prized Kendo trophy but should they be victorious, it’s a full year of free food at his favorite eatery. The gurgling in Toraji’s empty gut accepts the challenge before his brain has a chance to consider the odds.

Enter big-eyed, small-mouthed Tamaki; a slightly depressed pint-sized high school girl with lightening fast reflexes and a love for anime that keeps her a slave to the TV set. With the right kind of persuasion, Toraji hopes to convince Tamaki to trade in her remote control for a Kendo sword (hence the title, Bamboo Blade) in effort to increase his chances of not only holding onto his trophy but gaining a year of hot dinners on the house. Hey, the man is starving after all!

What he comes up with is a team of five young ladies each of which boasts a different colored hair do and skill set. Toraji’s training methods need improving nearly as badly as the girls do themselves but where there’s a will there’s a way.

In presentation the program makes a habit of never taking itself too seriously and in many instances the lighthearted humor works without going over the top. There is an underlying sense of competition/ rivalry as after all, the core of the story does revolve around a Kendo tournament, but it’s never quite a plot device that drives a dedicated shonen title either. Rather high school high jinks, cute girls and a bit of drama make up the foreground here with martial arts training and fight sequences offering the backdrop.

Both language options are pretty tight with the original Japanese dialog work edging out the English dub. Not to discredit FUNimation and their impeccable scripting/ acting of late, the fact is that Bamboo Blade is precisely the type of property that the Japanese cast just absolutely excels in mastering. The jokes are a bit more fluid, the zaniness a bit less forced and the timing a bit more natural.

In all Bamboo Blade Part 1 represents a fun little tale with some cool action sequences and lovable cast just rife with teenage camaraderie, competition, and rivalry. The entire show consists of 26-episodes that ran in Japan from 2007-2008 and it look as though FUNimation will be brining out the second (and final) collection to North American markets soon.