Bamboo Blade Volume 1
Will it grow on you as fast as bamboo?
» Tagged 'Volume'
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.
DVD Releases This Week
Ah My Goddess Volume 2 Copyright Manga Entertainment
It’s Monday, it’s 9 o’clock and that’s time for the latest anime DVD releases to hit the UK shops. This week there’s a very meagre amount for us to choose from and this is something that hits us every now and again, this time around the single volume to choose from is:
- Ah! My Goddess: Series 2 Part 1 – RRP £19.99 – £11.99 hmv/Amazon UK (hmv free shipping)
Next week doesn’t look much better either…
Gunparade March Volume 2
“The opening of the first few episodes gives a brief but detailed description of what is happening in a fictional world, where alien life forms known as the Genjyu have taken over control of the world and people have been living in fear of these creatures since the late 1940s. Rather than being intelligent life forms, the Genjyu are no more than parasites, spreading across the world at an incredible rate and leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. To try and battle these creatures, all modern forms of warfare have been employed and it would appear that not even a nuclear bomb is able to disperse the creatures and prevent full invasion. As such the use of these powerful weapons has left the planet poisoned with radiation. Yet the aliens continue to live on whilst the human race struggles to live ordinary lives alongside them”.
Continuing from Gunparade March Volume 1.
By the end of the first volume the story seems pretty much explained and the characters are somewhat developed. The first episode of the second volumes opens with a very light hearted beginning with the main characters creating and organising a puppet show for some of the younger students at their school. Considering that these older students are meant to be training to destroy the Genjyu in super, high powered, monster fighting robot machines to put on a puppet show is a gentle touch to show some humour. This is also a nice twist away from the generic alight fighting animes in the market that don’t contain so much as a giggle; however, this first episode is not without its bloodshed.
Within the first episode a few more Genjyu are introduced, bigger and more dangerous than before. This danger becomes even more apparent when one of the best student fighters is taken down by one of the Genjyu and has toxins enter their body through an open wound. This leads to some gruesome scenes and by this point the character’s relationships are developed and their concern is projected very well. By the end of the first episode, several students have died which truly impacts where this anime is prepared to go. Unlike a lot of anime, Gunparade March is not afraid to actually kill off some characters.
In the following episode, life tries to resume as normal, but student’s deaths are still on everyone mind which makes for a very depressing episode and rightly so. In this second episode, another new Genjyu is introduced which emphasises that just because lives have already been lost, doesn’t mean to say that these foul beasts rest. It reminds viewers that the war is still on going and it is seemingly never ending. This new Genjyu is also referred to as ‘The Brain’ and it soon becomes clear that other Genjyu are it’s spawn and if The Brain is destroyed it can no longer produce new Genjyu.
As to be expected with any new breed of anything, the new breed is tougher and not as easy to destroy especially as this one can multiply. The students find themselves having to withdraw temporarily thus making things a little more interesting, leaving the viewer eager to know what the next move is going to be and just how will it pan out.
The animation quality hasn’t improved at all since the first volume and although it’s not bad, it’s just standard. The same can be said for the voice acting for the English cast, just a little bland and forgettable. However, credit must go to the storyline which is fast moving and glides swiftly between more relaxed, humorous scenes to serious fighting scenes. Most viewers are likely to have worked out by the end of the first volume whether this anime is something that they would want to continue with and the second volume really does just carry on from where it left off.
» Final Score
6
It’s good and so far that’s all it is. It hits all the right buttons with regards to the viewers who enjoy weapons, aliens, blood shed, comedy and the occasional adult humour. The only thing that really lets this anime down, again, is the voice acting. They are often over-the-top, exaggerated, forced and feel as though the actors themselves lack experience. The anime itself might have received a 7 if the voice acting wasn’t embarrassingly bad.
DVD Releases This Week
Not every week is a long weekend, for those of us who work outside of the service industry we’ve just had Friday, Saturday, Sunday and today off from work or school. Perfect long weekend, if only it was always like that! However, for some bizarre reason the anime world has got things the wrong way around!
Last week there was only two new DVD releases, although large box sets, this week, there are seven new anime releases and two further DVDs worth taking note of! So, without further adue, here are the releases:
- Fate Stay Night Volume 4 – hmv and Amazon (hmv free shipping) – £9.99 (RRP £14.99)
- Ghost Hunt: Complete Series 1 Box Set – hmv – £26.99 (RRP £39.99)
- Gungrave: Complete Collection Box Set – hmv – £28.99 (RRP £39.99)
- Negima: Complete Series 2 Box Set – Amazon – £25.47 (RRP £34.99)
- Romeo X Juliet – Volume 3 – hmv and Amazon (hmv free shipping) – £9.99 (RRP £15.99)
- Rozen Maiden – Volume 2 – hmv and Amazon (hmv free shipping) – £9.99 (RRP £15.99)
- X – Volume 6 – hmv and Amazon (hmv free shipping) – £9.99 (RRP £15.99)
The two that are noteworthy, non-anime but Japanese related DVDs are:
- Geisha Assassin – hmv – £7.99 (RRP £15.99)
- Battle Royale – hmv £9.99 (RRP £15.99)
Geisha Assassin, also known as Geisha vs Ninja is being released by MVM Entertainment and is a light-hearted film where Geisha’s and Ninja’s clash.
Battle Royale looks like a license rescue as it my copy was released by Palisades Tartan. Battle Royale for those who don’t know it, is where a group of children are taken to an island and have to kill each other before they can escape.
All of the above DVDs have got links next to them to the cheapest place we could find to purchase them from, if there are two places the same both links have been given but extra information in brackets where needed.
Make sure that rather than pirating these items, or just downloading them that you purchase these DVDs to help support the growing anime industry in this country!
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
It’s Monday, so this means that there’s a chance that we’ll be seeing some new anime releases and this week, unlike last, that’s exactly what we’ve got. With 5 new DVDs, one of which is a complete collection, there’s plenty of new anime to watch and enjoy. Those new shows are:
- Desert Punk – Volume 6
- Aquarion – Volume 2
- X TV – Volume
- Gunparade March – Volume 3
- Saiyuki Reload Complete Collection
As always these are all available from all good retailers and our own Store above.
Desert Punk Volume 2
In the post apocalyptic wastelands that remain after a huge disaster on the planet Earth, most of the population has been wiped out. With only the few people who remain living in deserts and ruins trying to forge out a new life with what little they have, it doesn’t take long before people try and make money in and way that they can. Although greenery might be a thing of the past, the ruthless thrill of money making is a strong as ever.
We find our anti-hero after a series of unfortunate events in Volume 1 trying to restore his battered reputation. Desert Punk was once the very best missionary that money could buy, but unfortunately for him a number of bad jobs has left that once shining reputation in tatters. To try and get some cash together to try and repay his lost jobs, Desert Punk takes on an easy job – looking after villagers. This episode is a vague and frankly somewhat poor attempt at a parody of The Magnificent Seven and the Seven Samurai rolled into one. Although this would’ve been better if it had not tried to pay homage to these over done stories.
Fortunately the successive episodes take the rest of this volume to better places. Kanta is forced to take on an apprentice, although he would rather of had an older women with plenty of cleavage for him to admire. His apprentice is actually the apprentice of the sniper who tried to kill him in an earlier episode. Fortunately for this apprentice, she is a clever being and blackmails Kanta into accepting her by what she’ll look like when she grows up. Of course this superficial attitude is not something that a parent may want to promote to their children, but in all fairness a good parent wouldn’t be letting their young children watch this type of show.
Desert Punk then kicks the humour up a gear with the next episode. Kanta and his lovely apprentice Taiko are tasked with trying to clear a cursed rock from a prominent businessman’s land. This rock has claimed the life of many-a-missionary in the past and to reclaim his once amazing reputation Kanta is determined that he will be the one to rid this businessman of this irritating cursed rock. Throughout this episode Kanta has vision of what he would love to happen and also a couple of nightmares as well. These crude dreams are well placed and are in direct contrast to the horror that Taiko is experiencing from her rational mindset.
Desert Punk Volume 2 is certainly a release of two halves. The first half of this DVD is a step away from what one might expect from the action packed first volume. Of course, the second volume of any anime is a hard one, just like that second novel is often scrutinised far more harshly than the first. However, in this case the first two episodes really do take Desert Punk in a direction that’s not necessarily where the second half was taking it.
The voice acting remains as consistent in English and it does in Japanese and although there are a few generic moments from some of the supporting cast, the main cast do a great job in English and they match the Japanese voice cast brilliantly. The animation remains as smooth and consistent as before and the washed out colours are no longer present. One big qualm is with sound quality though, be prepared to turn the volume button right up as it’s a very quiet release.
The first half of this DVD was droll, with the entire Seven Samurai plot; it makes the show feel tired and old. Of course the Seven Samurai legend is amazing, but it’s been done to death and with a basic premise (world destruction after an implied nuclear war) that’s also clichéd and overused the actual content of the show needs to be not only well above average, but delivered brilliantly to merely be passable. This is something the first two episodes do not do under any circumstance.
Fortunately the latter two episodes turn the entire DVD around and take Desert Punk back in the direction that is expected from Gonzo. They are action packed, humour inserted and appropriate and often random moments and a script quality that’s not paying homage or taking overused plots and working them into something nearly new. If it had not been for these two episodes, many would not continue with this series.
» Final Score
6
From what was a great first volume, the second volume of Desert Punk is unfortunately a bit of a let down. The last two episodes are very good, but do not make up for the first two mediocre episodes.
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
As with most weeks, the UK is gifted with a new set of anime releases, normally on a Monday. This Monday is no exception to that rule and this week we’ve got three different titles and four titles in total. The four DVDs are:
- Guyver The Complete Collection
- Blue Dragon Volume 5 and 6
- Gurren Lagann Volume 2
- Gurren Lagann Volume 2 Limited Edition
As always these can be purchased through all good retail outlets.
Daphne in the Brilliant Blue Volume 6
The polar icecaps have melted, the world is a very different place and the new earth has recently celebrated its anniversary of the ascent from the depths of the ocean. With this ascent comes secrets, secrets and lies that have been told to the entire world and they are constantly being hidden by the Ocean Agency. Finally the story starts to really come into it’s own with Volume 6 for Daphne in the Brilliant Blue and our heroes, the girls from the Nereids Agency are one step closer to discovering what this secret is and the mystery that surrounds Maia’s dreams.
After Maia successfully landed the airship, even though she had next to no experience convinced the Ocean Agency into allowing her to take her exams again; however, Maia’s dreams have been so persistent that she’s starting to lose perspective. She manages to fail her Ocean Agency exams by deleting all of her answers instead of submitting them. She also manages to get Shizuka injured by her lack of attention and Rena ends up sacking her due to this huge error. As a result, Maia is homeless and jobless and is attacked on the street just to top it off. Fortunately her friend Millie and the mysterious grey haired man successfully attempt to rescue her from almost certain death.
The grey haired man is vital in keeping this story flowing and Maia speaking with him and this attack really is the turning point in this volume and keeps everything moving forward at record pace. With Maia’s memory returning to her at full speed, there are those who would rather her memory stays forgotten, as she is the only person who remembers the truth. As Maia remembers more the Ocean Agency become twitchy and arrest Maia and attempt to do a memory wipe, but not before the Nereids team come along to rescue her and take her to where she needs to go. Fortunately the team run into their old rivals who help them along the way.
It’s quite clear that Daphne in the Brilliant Blue is a series of two halves. The first three volumes, although entertaining, are clear fanservice with good humour but no real extended plotlines and using as many of the typical clichés and problems that we are used to seeing. From Volume 4 onwards, Daphne in the Brilliant Blue becomes an entirely different show; it uses extended plotlines with character development, interwoven plotlines and a twist that is amazing.
Upon reviewing the entire series it’s clear that from the very start the creators knew exactly where the series was going and although the first few volumes are somewhat droll it’s the clichés and the throwaway points that derive from these clichés that cause a lot of what happens in the final show to occur. The very fact that all of the lose points are tied up in the final episodes is impressive, what’s more impressive is that none of these knots feel forced and weak. Everything falls nicely into place and this “run of the mill” anime really manages to hit an emotional punch with the final episodes.
A fair amount of the final episodes are shot underwater, and throughout the entire series the background scenes have all been visually stunning, and even in the deepest, darkest parts of the sea the mountain ranges of the sea and the ocean are easily spotted apart and the various depths which could easily be poorly done are crafted amazingly. The character art may be a little lacklustre, with some of the characters almost feeling like they are identical.
The voice acting in itself is top notch in this volume, although some of the castings still feel off in comparison to the Japanese volume, and the “Big Brother” sequences are just as painful as always the emotion conveyed in the voices are clear.
With next to no features throughout the entire show, we are then hit with two extra episodes that each run at 24 minutes a piece to keep the show flowing along for just a little longer.
» Final Score
9
Volume 6 of Daphne in the Brilliant Blue manages to capture the emotion of a lost memory, the elation of remembering it and then the utter horror of what these memories mean to Maia and the world. Daphne in the Brilliant Blue ends on a high leaving you wanting more.
