Bamboo Blade – Moe Kendo?

Due to reasons I can’t fully remember anymore, I dropped Bamboo Blade after the first episode, although it seemed pretty good. Now I finally had time to watch it.

The funny thing about Bamboo Blade is that it looks like a moe anime although it really isn’t. Of course all the characters are more or less moe in their own ways, but the focus isn’t on the moe-ness of the characters but kendo. This was a good choice because, frankly, it’s really difficult to come up with an 26 episode anime with only moe.

While some would consider focusing on kendo a good thing, there are those as well who were disappointed of the lack of focus on moe. Personally, I do love moe, but only as side dish. Moe alone is no good. There are millions of different aspects of moe and trying to cater all tastes in single anime simply doesn’t work. Since I like the “silent and reserved girl”-moe I liked Tamaki a lot, but I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone couldn’t find a character to like in Bamboo Blade because there is only a handful of characters. However, I think it’s better to focus on few characters and make clear difference between main and supporting characters.

Another thing that really caught me off guard was realizing that there is no fanservice in Bamboo Blade. Yes, I mean that literally, there was no fanservice at all. No beach episodes, no hot springs episodes, no panty shots, no nothing. However I think this was another good thing. A lot of animes have tons of fanservice that is only there to catch watchers’ attention and prevent them from realizing how bad the shows really are.

So, Bamboo Blade does not focus on moe and it has zero fanservice. Is it still worth watching for the kendo alone? Yes, it is. At first I was really skeptic because I usally don’t like tournament animes (animes where the characters practice some sport or martial art and fight each other, this is not an official term), but Bamboo Blade has proved me that such animes can be made without all the bullshit. Since I still don’t know much about kendo, I can’t really say wheter the kendo in this anime is authentic or not, but I do can say that the characters didn’t use any “fancy techniques” that look outright unrealistic. The battles were exciting and looked good, which is certainly a good thing.

The plot of Bamboo Blade was fairly cliched and you could usually guess what was going to happen. Well, I’m not going take points away because of that since pretty much all the tournament animes are rather predictable. There could’ve also been more character development, but there was enough to satisfy me, but I’m still sorry that Kirino, Sayako and Satori had virtually no character development expect for their introduction.

I also must point out that the animation in Bamboo Blade was really good. Although a lot of scenes, mainly those related to kendo, are re-used many times, the quality of animation stays good through the entire series. On the other hand the animation is quite plain with no creative use of different animation styles or special techniques.

The bottom line is that if you want some moe and/or fanservice, Bamboo Blade is most definitely not the anime you’re looking for. But if you want to see a good tournament anime, the Bamboo Blade is exactly what you’re looking for.