Bamboo Blade

Bamboo Blade is one of those manga that you find on a random manga site,and decide to try it out.Then you come across it at your local bookstore and only bought it because you had the money to spare.

At least thats what happened to me.

Bamboo Blade is a manga that has a very slow pace.If you've watched the Bamboo Blade anime you probably notice this,since it is also very slow paced.The story is quite simple;Tojiro needs to win a kendo match,and get together five girls for this match,or risk giving a bashed up trophy to his sensei.I gave the story a seven since it's a very normal and plain story plan.Nonetheless it's still entertaining.

The art is good,but i certainly wouldn't call it a masterpiece.The art is just,well,a little lacking for me.I find,though,that the art is beginning to stick to me,and man tama-chan is soo cute!

The characters are great.Why?Because they all fit together nicely,and have distinct personalities. the five girls on the team for example:Tama-Chan;the quiet, underdeveloped, and not to mention unbelievable kendo skilled girl,Kirino: the bright,funny,sarcastic girl that seems to illuminate whatever room shes in,Miya-Miya:Dan-kuns gorgeous girlfriend with a split personality and a sadistic love for whacking people when he's not around (she's my personal favourite),Saya:she always quits in the middle of doing things and looks too tall to be a girl,and finely Satori:a naive strong kendo playing girl who is always concentrating on her studies and was tricked by Miya-Miya to join the club thinking kendo would improve her studies. Hows that cast for you?

The enjoyment is a ten because I find that a lighthearted story with a nice crop of characters fights and laughs,is an enjoyment in it's own,and i highly recommend it to anyone who likes corny jokes,all-out kendo battles,and gorgeous sadistic girls.

I have read this manga when i was midschooler. Now, after i became an adult, i didnt remember the story of this manga. I only remembered that this manga was somehow good. But when i tried to read it all over again, i realized that i have discovered a treasure.

To start off, this manga is a chill read. The first half, that is. But it transforms into something else, very subtly and very smoothly, in the second half. In the first half, it’s our everyday shounen manga covered in kendo as the center background. Then in the second half, this manga transforms into a seinen genre without discarding its shounen part. Doesn’t make it a mess, that transformation? No, it doesn’t.

The transformation from one genre to another is pretty difficult thing to do in a smooth manner, if not impossible. But changing from shounen to seinen smoothly is as possible as a teenager turns into an adult in a year. Shounen genre tends to focus on “what i want” vibe, with burning spirit and hard work. The first half of this manga does the same thing, but in a very relaxed way. Almost each and every character focuses on what they want to do (not specifically talking about Saya here) in everyday life setting.
Seinen genre, on the other hand, tends to focus on “what i have to do”. It’s an adult mentality where only an adult (doesnt matter his/her age) can relate. This genre tends to talk about the heavyness of duty, responsbility of choice and commitment.
In this manga, the first half and the second half was merged in a very smooth manner, by transforming the thing that the characters want to do into things that they have to do. It needs to be noted that this transformation wasn’t discarding an ounce of its shounen aspect. It’s very clear if we take a look on UmexUra battles and Tama’s finding of her reason to swing her shinai.

That transformation i wrote up there has consequence, obviously. And the consequence is character developments. This aspect is what makes this manga a treasure. Character development in this manga shone very brightly, and probably not even lose with other development cases from other animanga titles. These developments are pretty wide and deep, but one development that really worth to note down is Ishida’s. His development is very realistic, honest and touching.

There’s two sad thing that i want to note personally. One, this manga could still go further actually. Even the writer, Masahiro Totsuka sensei, already imagined what would happen after the Hiryuuki. But this manga stopped which was unfortunate.
Two, there’s a gap of story and style between the anime and the manga. I personally love the manga version as this version can handle the development smoother and more impactful. But that is that.
Try reading this, i hope you will enjoy it, and more than that, i hope it’ll have an impact to your life 

A Fun Read:

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD;;; (37 chapters released at time of writing)

I stumbled across this manga when browsing through a manga site, it didn't particularly catch my interest at the time, but I decided to read it out of sheer boredom.

The plot is simple, A teacher who runs the Kendo club bets with his former school senpai that if his girls kendo team can beat his then he wins a years worth of free food at his senpai's restraunt, however even assembling 5 girls for this battle appears hard, however he stumles upon the incredibly skills of a young girl who he's determended to join his team.

I found this manga to be fun and light hearted, A slice-of-life crossover with sports and high school life, again although these things aren't the typical things I would look for in a manga.The characters are well executed, especially Tama-chan who's background i've found interesting uptill now, and the rest who are very colourful yet still hold their own traits that are either humourous or just interesting to read.

To summarise read this if you're in a light hearted mood not looking for anything too serious, if the plot isn't interesting enough for you the characters will surely draw you in enough to make you want to keep reading on, I myself will defiantly look forward to up and coming chapters in this series.