AnimeSugoi

What do you get when you mix girls with bamboo blades? You get a harem of girls who can whoop a$$ ^^. Bamboo Blade is about girls who have been gathered together to form the ultimate high school kendo team. But can the girls make it to the top and beat out their opponents or will there be trouble along the way that will try to stop them? Only time will tell as the girls meet with each other and form a friendship to beat all opposition in their way through power, skill, and being o so cute ^^.

A car speeds down the freeway in Japan with the driver’s goal of finding the strongest kendo team around. At a dojo, we find a blond girl practicing kendo strikes, whose name is Kirino, as the man who drove the car talks on his cell phone about meeting someone later at 9 pm. Kirino asks the man, whose name is Kojirou and her kendo sensei too, to practice with her which he brushes off resulting in whacks by a kendo stick on his flesh. Later at sensei’s apartment, we find him looking at bills and his bank account statement that states that he is over withdrawn on his account. As he looks at his clock, he notices his old bamboo blade and tries it out, only to hit his only light bulb in his apartment causing a blackout in his home. Later, sensei meets up with an old friend who makes a bet with him. The next day we see a reinvigorated sensei training Kirino as hard as he can and also wishes to make it to the finals, and only with a team of 5 girls. A couple of freshman come in the dojo and is about to be kicked out by sensei but Kirino knocked him down with her bamboo blade to stop him. The taller boy’s name is Tanaka and his short friend is Eiga, Eiga wanted to check out the ping pong club while Tanaka wants to check out the kendo club, though with Eiga begging Tanaka to check out the ping pong club causes Tanaka to visit again later.

We find a quiet looking girl with purple hair and piercing eyes trying to figure out what to write in the class journal but doesn’t find anything particular to write about and leaves to go home. Outside on the school campus, Kirino and sensei are trying to figure out ways to recruit members when Kirino comes up with the idea of throwing rocks at girls they see carrying a shinai (practice bamboo blade) to test their skill. By coincidence a football, baseball, tennis ball, and the vice principal comes flying at the two and is about to hit them when a girl suddenly knocks everything away with a bamboo broom. The girl turns out to be the purple haired girl from earlier. Amazed at her skill, sensei tries to recruit her for the kendo team only to be rejected. Sensei is determined and looks up the girls name to have an easier time of recruiting her, he finds her name to be Kawazoe Tamaki

Later, we find Tamaki defeating men more than twice her age at a kendo dojo. Turns out Tamaki is the daughter of the master of the dojo. Then next day, the two freshman boys return back to the kendo dojo at school for they have found out no ping pong club exists and Kirino pressures the two to join which they did. Sensei asks Nakata if he had a girlfriend which he replied no, but Eiga says he does leaving everyone in amazement. Kirino asks Nakata where he studied and it turns out he started when he was in grade school where he studied at Kawazoe dojo. It’s the same dojo Tamaki’s dad runs and sensei pressures Nakata to get Tamaki on the team. For the bet sensei made with his friend was if sensei’s team of kendo girls could beat his friends then sensie gets to eat edo style sushi free for a whole year at the restaurant the father of the friend owns. The next day, sensei, Nakata, and Kirino are at the dojo waiting for Eiga to show up with his girlfriend and sensie is trying to calculate how a guy like Eiga could get a girlfriend. When Eiga shows up, he had a drop dead gorgeous girl by his side named Miyazaki Miyako.

Up at the school, a boy called Toyama has lost his cell phone and is pouting about it when a classmate tells him he must of accidentally took Toyama’s because they look alike. Toyama responds by punching the guy. Near the dojo, Toyama and his friend hear Eiga trying to show off his “skill” to Miyako when he decides to let off some steam by beating Eiga up, though only for “practice” for he is also a member of the kendo club. At the same time, Kirino finds Tamaki and asks her to join only to end up dragging her to the dojo where they see Toyama beating Eiga up through kendo. Kirino tells Toyama to stop, only he doesn’t respond and no one stops him for he is the strongest in the club. Up at the school, Nakata and sensei try to figure out how to recruit Tamaki when Nakata reveals one of Tamaki’s weakness is her sense of justice. At the same moment, Tamaki steps up to stop Toyama from beating up Eiga by becoming a temporary member of the kendo club.

Impression
Bamboo Blade looks promising. You have a bunch of girls who can kick a$$ and with kendo lol. I’m going for Tamaki as my favorite character so far, I have an interest in quiet girls like Tamaki. The animation is done quite well and is nicely detailed. The scenes are also nicely colored and mix well with each other. My favorite scene was Tamaki hitting back all the objects somehow aimed at Kirino and sensei. Kirino is pretty cute with all her energy and her cat like grin :3. Tamaki I like for her quiet and powerful movements, “Speak softly and carry a big stick”-Theodore Roosevelt, which is totally true about Tamaki if you take that quote literally. Miyako looks like your cute airhead but she’s probably very serious when it comes to kendo, we’ll see as the show progresses. I’m anxious to see the other girls as well and see how they develop together as they make their way to the nationals. This is one of the fall anime’s that I looked forward to watching and you should too ^^.