Bamboo Blade Volume 1
Will it grow on you as fast as bamboo?
» Tagged 'Volume 1'
Bamboo Blade Volume 1
School life is pretty rubbish for most people, with hindsight many say that they would return. I for one would never return to school, not unless it was like the Japanese schools that I watch on a seemingly endless basis. Lucky Star, Azumanga Daoih, Host Club and Haruhi Suzumiya all seem to enjoy a level of freedom, flexibility and happiness that was devoid in my early life. Was I just a lonely horrible kid? Possibly, although doubtful. It’s just what we watch in or anime is happy. Now, that said, being in school is still hard and it’s made even harder when you’re bullied into joining a club that you don’t really know about, or want to join. This is the basic premise for Bamboo Blade – joining the school’s Kendo Club.
Although at first it’s easy to assume that Bamboo Blade is simply a sports anime, that assumption would be deadly wrong. Bamboo Blade, although has many sporty over-tones, is in fact a “slice of life” anime, with many of the elements that are essential for this genre to be successful displayed to us in various form – just hidden away behind Kendo. There’s the jaded, unimpressed, tired and dysfunctional teacher, there’s the over confident girl, the happy girl, the girl with a hidden side and the two boys who really aren’t that good at anything. Yes, all of the elements that need to exist to make Bamboo Blade a success are there.
Yet, just ticking all of the boxes on a particular form doesn’t make a show a success. Fortunately in the case of Bamboo Blade, the other elements that make a good anime are available by the bucket load. Bamboo Blade is primarily about a Kendo Club in a private school where the teacher no longer has the enthusiasm to care about Kendo, although he’s an ex-champion, but he is in terrible debt. His old teacher or “sensei” phones him and places a bet that his team would destroy theirs. Of course, with no team, and a bet of a year’s supply of sushi on the line, he gets a team hastily together.
There are two members who already exist, the team captain and another member who is absent for a lot of the first volume. This is then increased by a fair few by the appearance of two boys who seem to have the ability to pull in girls like it’s the last days of the earth. With a growing team, it’s very easy for the show to fall down the “Dragonball Z training” route, where everything becomes dead serious, the fun disappears and the show takes a nose dive.
To some degree this does occur and there are a fair few scenes which is just training, talking about training, talking about going to training and just surrounded by Kendo. Luckily these scenes don’t take the lead and the main element of character interaction and the dysfunction teacher, odd students and the strange relationships between all of them stay prevalent and this makes the show that bit more enjoyable.
The cast is fairly wide and somewhat varied, although it does fall into the classic stereotypes of this genre of anime. That’s not to say that they are uninspired characters, just, not revolutionary. Yet they are performed very well by both the Japanese and the American voice actors who do the characters justice in both languages.
The character designs are good, with all of the characters being unique enough to be memorable, but none of them are really out of place with the exception of one character. Yet this character is “right” in his appearance, so it makes visual sense.
» Final Score
6
Whilst not exceptional and definitely not revolutionary, Bamboo Blade Volume 1 is an enjoyable anime that keeps the attention of the viewer throughout all of the episodes. It’s just not in the same league as its peers.
MVM Entertainment at the MCM Expo
Logo © MVM Entertainment
We’ve also just received this press release for MVM, again, it’s perfect as it is so here you go:
MVM Entertainment is very excited to be participating in the May 2010 London MCM Expo, which is being held at the Excel centre on the 29th and 30th May. Be sure to keep your eyes and ears open as there will be plenty of news and excitement for fans about upcoming new releases!
Come visit the MVM stand where all of the box sets and DVDs will be discounted so you’ll be sure to pick up a decent bargain. If cash is short then fear not for the bargains are very affordable for even the smallest of pockets!
Here’s a sneak peak at some of the news you can look forward to at the weekend…
- An early chance to purchase the new collections for Disgaea and Gunparade March which will be officially out on the 7th June so you can be the envy of your fellow anime friends by having them before anyone else!
- Add to that list the new series of Mahoromatic Something More Beautiful – Volume 1 which will also be available to purchase nice and early.
- MVM have been coming up trumps recently with their popular Asian Cinema releases and if you haven’t got onboard yet there is still a chance with Samurai Zombie, due out on the 19th July. It has enough gore, samurai’s and… zombies to keep you entertained!
- Don’t worry we haven’t forgotten the all-important anime! Rozen Maiden Traumend is due out on the 5th July and Pet Shop Of Horrors will be out on the 2nd August.
- Finally… you must want to hear about all the new licences that have been picked up? Well the following can be confirmed: Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, Balde of the Immortal, Slayers Revolution and Slayers Evolution-R. Don’t forget that there will be plenty more announced at the Expo!
Make sure you don’t miss out this Bank Holiday!
Gunparade March Volume 1
Yet another mecha style anime?
DVD Releases This Week
The start of the week always feels like a huge downer, this week it needn’t be as there is a plethora of brilliant anime being made available for you to buy right now. These seven new shows are available right now:
- X – Volume 5
- The Slayers – The Complete First Season Box Set
- Rozen Maiden – Volume 1
- Romeo X Juliet – Volume 2
- Fate Stay Night – Volume 3
- Death Note Relight – Volume 2
At all good retailers.
Fate Stay Night Clips
As we reported today, MVM’s latest release – Fate Night Stay Volume 1 has been released to the public and is now available to purchase. Fate Night Stay is an adaptation of the manga, of the same name – our review of Volume 1 manga is available here, and to wet your whistle MVM Entertainment have released a few new clips of this anime to us.
The clips are:
DVD Releases This Week
So it’s a new year and it’s time for some new anime to be released onto the UK market, the four new anime that are due to be released today are:
- The Slayers Try – Volume 4
- Speed Grapher: Box Set
- Solty Rei – Volume 6
- Samurai Deeper Kyo – Volume 4
- Fate Stay Night – Volume 1
So that’s a lot of great anime available for everyone to buy through all good retailers today.
DVD Releases This Week
Like almost every Monday the UK anime market releases their DVDs to the Great British public. Some weeks we are given dozens of new hours of anime and some weeks it’s only just a couple. This week, we are falling into the latter category. With only one new DVD from MVM Entertainment being released. This release is:
- Aquarion – Volume 1
Aquarion can be bought from all major retailers and MVM Entertainment’s own store – Anime On Line.
TOKYOPOP UK Releases
Once a month the mammoth TOKYOPOP UK release a plethora of manga onto the UK market and November is no different. The following tiles are all available immediately and include some very well known titles such as Chibi Vampire and Aria. The full list is as follows:
- Animal Academy : Hakobune Hakusho Volume 1
- Gravitation Collection Volume 1
- Aria Volume 2
- .hack GU+ Volume 3
- Momo Tama Volume 3
- Fate/stay night Volume 4
- Starcraft Frontline Volume 4
- Mamotte Shugogetten Volume 5
- Junjo Romantica Volume 7
- Trinity Blood Volume 10
- Battle Vixens Volume 14
- Chibi Vampire Volume 14
- Rebirth Volume 15
- Liberty Liberty ! Volume 1
- Pixie Volume 2
So you’d better start ordering those Mangas now!
DVD Releases This Week
As with every week, DVDs are released in the UK. Sometimes there are many and sometimes there are few. This week there are a lot of great DVDs that are now available for general purchase, and those DVDs are:
- Ghost in the Shell 2.0 and Ghost in the Shell Innocence – Blu Ray
- Ghost in the Shell 2.0 and Ghost in the Shell Innocence – Standard Definition
- Ghost in the Shell 2.0 – Blue Ray
- Ghost in the Shell 2.0 – Standard Definition
- Bleach Series 4 Volume 1
- Naruto Unleashed Series 7 Volume 2
So that’s an awful lot of High Definition viewing available.
These DVDs are available from all good retailers immediately.
X Clips
On Monday, MVM Entertainment’s latest series, X is out to buy on DVD. X The Series Volume 1 is a brilliantly animated series, that according to all of the press releases has a very strong stance of characterisation. To keep on everyone on tenterhooks, here are a few clips to enjoy:
DVD Releases This Week
This week along with most, we get a number of new anime DVDs that hit the market along with everything else in the world.
To make things just a tiny bit easier for you, here are the new releases this week:
- Claymore Volume 5 and 6
- Code Geass Volume 1
- Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Volume 2
As always, these titles are available through all good retailers.
DVD Releases This Week
So after a few weeks of not letting you know, we’re now back on track with our new DVDs that are due out this week. So, without further adieu, this week there are lots of DVDs out on the UK market for us all to buy and enjoy. These seven DVDs are all anime or live action Japanese films based off manga, anime or videogames, and they are:
- Ghost In the Shell 2 (Blue-Ray)
- Beserk Box Set
- Dororo (Live Action) – see clips of Dororo here.
- Samurai Deeper KYO Volume 2
- Slayers: Try Volume 1
- Solty Rei Volume 4
- Chanbara Beauty (Live Action) – see clips of Chanbara Beauty here.
As always these new releases can be purchased through all good retailers online and in old style shops as well.
