Manga / Bamboo Blade

"Some fight for honor. They fight for sushi."

Note: This is not a trope about the shinai, a bamboo practice sword used in Kendo practice (See Nerf Arm or Wooden Katanas Are Even Better for that). You will, however see quite a few of them in this series.

Bamboo Blade is a manga written by Masahiro Totsuka and illustrated by Aguri Igarashi, which was serialized in the seinen magazine Young Gangan from 2004 to 2010 and compiled into 14 volumes. A 26-episode anime adaptation aired from 2007 to 2008.

Kendo instructor Toraji "Kojirou" Ishida was down on his luck. Stuck in Perpetual Poverty, he could barely make ends meet. Then there was a ray of hope. If he could assemble a team of female kendo students to defeat his old friend's team, he'd get free food for a year. Now he just has to find the team. Find it he does, in the form of Tamaki, a young prodigy. The rest of the team is equally eccentric. So begins Bamboo Blade, a surprisingly well-done kendo anime mixed with Day in the Life moments to create something greatly entertaining. The characters sell the show.

There is a Spinoff with all-new characters, Bamboo Blade B (which ran from 2008 to 2013) and a sequel Spinoff, Bamboo Blade C (which began in 2013 and is ongoing).

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This series contains examples of:

• The Ace: Erina, who seems to be innately good at everything she does.

• Alpha Bitch: Konishi and her three underclassmen. There was a rumor going around that they would often sabotage her opponents, such as putting thumbtacks in the opponent's shoes, or doing other things to keep them from fighting. While Konishi doesn't seem to be the mastermind behind it, she nevertheless seems to unofficially approve of the things the girls did since it often helps in her matches. Unfortunately for her, those tactics don't work against Tama-chan, and Tama-chan probably unleashed more rage than usual because of Konishi's underhandedness. Konishi's spirit definitely seems to be broken after her fight with Tama.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: In the manga, Tama-chan's dad wastes no time busting out the photo album when her friends visit the dojo. Tama's silent pleading crosses the line into Woobie territory. Then he goes for the home video of her in the bath...
• Art Evolution: Present in the manga. The lines become thinner and details better drawn. Tamaki in particular becomes less angular and cuter.
• Art Shift: One of the side chapters has Dan come out of Super-Deformed mode for one panel in a particularly badass moment of Hot Bloodedness.
• Ascended Fanboy: Rin and Tama both get to participate in the Blade Braver movie. They then get into an unscripted fight, but from the looks of the Distant Finale, it got cut from the film (along with Tama's line being redubbed due to her flubbing it).
• Badass Adorable: Tamaki-chan, Tamaki-chan, Tamaki-chan. Squee!! I'm Taking Her Home With Me!! She also counts as a Cute Bruiser and Even the Girls Want Her. During one episode, an opposing kendo squad squees and begs to fight her not to try to beat her but so that they can experience getting hit by her which is played up as very... euphoric. Ahem.

• Battle Aura: Miyamiya's black one and Tama's heroic red one, most noticeably. The former gets a lampshade, as it comes complete with spooky laughter. It gets lampshaded a number of times during the series. She also comes in snake/dominatrix mode as seen when convincing Azumi to join the team; the force of her speech actually causes an seemingly audible explosion.
  "Am I crazy, or was she covered in a black cloud?"
• Berserk Button: Konishi seems to press Tama-chan's after it seemed she was trying to help the latter, but then kept gloating about Tama's ankle injury. She totally deserved the fury Tama unleashed on her afterwards.

• Beware the Nice Ones: You couldn't find a nicer girl than Tamaki, but when Konishi succeeds in getting Tama-chan to twist her ankle, then in their match later, forces her to put weight on it, she makes the mistake of gloating over it. Tamaki's subsequent Death Glare nearly makes Konishi step back a pace. Then Tama's Kiai surprises everyone. Konishi tries to respond, only to freeze to the spot in fear when Tama shouts a second time. K's still trying to find an opening when Tama nails her so hard with a throat strike, she's knocked off her feet. You dared to dishonour kendo with your bad attitude? You must pay.
  • Mind, for all of how much of a bitch she's been, Tama's strike had a very real chance of killing, or at the very least severely injuring Konishi, and the adults around respond every bit as seriously as one would imagine. It goes without saying that Tamaki doesn't win the competition, and in fact, is immediately disqualified (although this may possibly have also had a lot to do with her wounded ankle). Goes to show that even when you absolutely have justice on your side, in real life vengeance should only go so far.
  • Yuuji stands his ground when three big, tough looking guys were sent to beat him up. Luckily for him, his Death Glare and Bad Ass Boast with the stick scares them off.
  • According to one of the omakes, angry Kirino is truely something to be feared.
• Bifauxnen: Maya and Karen can pull this off when they're wearing their kendo uniforms, though Maya looks more thuggish than the typical Bifauxnen character.
  • Saya, of course, nearly quits the team when she misinterprets a compliment from Toraji-sensei to the effect that her height, strength and reach are comparable to a boy's.
• Bishie Sparkle: Miya-Miya is blindingly sparkling before she goes into yandere mode. Exaggerated in the manga when she hears the club might appear on TV.
  • Erina has an aura of solid bishie sparkle.
  • Tama-chan has these whenever she watches or talks about anime.

• Bolivian Army Ending: The manga ends right in the middle of Tamaki's first match with Sakaki in Hiryuki tournament.
  • It is implied that Tamaki lost against Sakaki since the sequel manga, Bamboo Blade C revealed that Sakaki's team, Banish Academy team goes all the way and won the tournament. That, and it was also mentioned in the manga that she's still undefeated after her last and only loss against Yamada one year ago.
• Bumbling Dad: Sakaki's father is dismayed and confused by his daughter's abandonment of kendo in favour of idol (singer)-worship. He resorts to seeing an honest-to-Kami Onmyōdō sorceress to exorcise the demon possessing her.
• But Now I Must Go: Though Kojirou eventually gets to keep his job, he decides to quit at the end of the year anyway after realizing he's taught the Muroe kendo team everything he can.
• Butt-Monkey: Kojirou. Though seeing as he starts out pretty selfish and much of the plot is driven by having to clean up his messes (much of the over-arching plot revolves around the team having to make a name for themselves in various tournaments so Kojirou can keep his job after getting into a fight with the neighbor of the principal's wife,) he kind of deserves it.

• Can't Catch Up: Miyamiya started kendo later than the rest, so she can't land a single hit on Tama-chan, much to her chagrin. By the twentieth episode, she still hadn't won a match and had only scored one point on Satori.
  • In Ishida's case it's made clear he's not practiced properly since his match with Ishibashi ten years ago. Miya-Miya does win a match, against Carrie in episode 25. And then their unofficial one with Carrie using two swords - played more for laughs than anything; "Such brute strength!", "No. The 'power of love'"
• The Cameo: Goro Taniguchi, director of Planetes, GUN×SWORD, and Code Geass, plays himself in one episode.

• Clingy Jealous Girl: Miya-Miya when Carrie shows up and starts smothering Dan-kun, and calling him Anderson. Carrie even threatens to "steal" Dan-kun away if she wins against Miya.
• Closet Geek: Tamaki, the highly skilled kendo fighter, sure loves anime. She even does part time work in order to save up money for a limited edition series, then unfortunately has to give it up when she realizes that her dad's birthday is up, and buys him a present instead.

• Combat Pragmatist: Ando and Konishi are both different versions; Ando breaks rules with tactics like tackling her opponent to the ground or stepping on their feet — and gets away with it by playing them off as accidents. Konishi has her Girl Posse target her opponents before a match.
• Cool Big Sis: Kirino's specifically described as an older sister to the other members of the club.
• Creator's Show Within a Show: In one episode Tamaki saves up to buy the DVD box sets of an anime based on Masahiro Totsuka's earlier manga Material Puzzle, which never got an anime adaptation in real life.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Muroe walks all over Kamasaki High's kendo team in their practice meet, winning every single match, including the match between the instructors. Then again, the whole point of the arc was more about the Kamasaki team starting to care more about kendo, as it's stated repeatedly that they could actually match, or even beat Muroe if they hadn't turned into a bunch of unmotivated slackers.

• Death Glare: Several characters exhibit one, but usually Tama-chan or Miya-Miya (often accompanied with a Battle Aura in her case).
• Demoted to Extra: In-universe example, both Yuuji and Dan-kun are constantly being reminded that they're not that important. They will usually point it out as well.
• Disturbed Doves: Tama-chan's kiai against Konishi scares a flock of doves out of the trees near the contest hall.
• Ditzy Genius: Kirino. Similarly-vague Dan-kun ranks second in his year... of 390 students.

• Dual Wielding:
  • Carrie outside of tournaments.
  • Dan actually tries to get Korjiro to let him do this at one point.
  • Ishibaki tries to use this in a match against Kojirou in the manga, in an attempt to look cool in front of his team. He quickly gets hit, and then starts the match over with one sword after realizing that losing while Dual Wielding just makes you look like twice the loser.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Miya-Miya has them when Reimi is around her too long and constantly taking pictures.
• Dumb Blonde: Subverted. Kirino may be a ditz but she's ranked 20th in her year.

• Early-Bird Cameo: Satori passes by the Dojo in the first 5 minutes of the first episode. She then has a couple more cameos (and even does a next episode preview) before her formal introduction.
• Eyes Always Shut: Konishi, before she reveals her true self. Dan-kun also counts, and is just as scary when he opens his eyes.
• Fangirl: Tamaki and anime. See Episode 11 for the sparkly proof.
• The Fake Cutie: The idol Ryoko Toda. One of her manager's duties is to let her beat him, brutally, every time she gets upset so she doesn't hurt herself or her image tearing apart dressing rooms and other people. She isn't throwing weak shots either, he's just enough of a tank to take it. When she's not doing this she's a perfectly calm and polite young woman.
  • Though she settles down a little more once she gains a newfound respect for Erina, who kept showing her up and getting her that pissed off to begin with.
• Fisher King: Sakaki starting to get her drive to practice kendo back is marked by all the Black Duran posters in her Room Full of Crazy starting to fall off the walls.
• Furo Scene: Subverted in Episode 15: wherein fanboy expectations are built up by its title, only to have 3 shots of shampoo bottles appear in the actual episode without any of the expected Fanservice.
  • This is remedied in the DVD specials, albeit still with lots of censor steam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PSYtiuFJIc

• The Glomp: Poor Tama-chan gets double-glomped by Kirino and Saya in episode 7. And again in episode 25.
• Gonk: Dan-kun to a lesser extent, and Reimi's mother.
  • There's also the girl that Saya and Kirino initially mistook for Satori, who basically looked like a gigantic middle-aged crossdressing man with a schoolgirl's voice.
• Harsh Word Impact: A Harsh Word Laser Beam, courtesy of Black Miya.
• Heroic BSoD: Tama-chan goes through one in episode 23, which causes Kirino to suffer one as well in the next episode. Both recover at the end of episode 24.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every anime episode is titled with "X and Y". Manga chapters are generally titled with 'Character Name And <His Or Her> X'.
• Invincible Hero: For the first half of the show or more, the only one to give Tamaki any trouble at all is Ishibashi-sensei.
• Jerk Jock: Toyama, who before the events of the series bullied all the other kendo team members so badly that everyone quit, except for Kirano and Saya.
• Karma Houdini: A lot of the Kendo team's antagonists. Toyama is outright abusive, causing all the previous members to quit except Kirano and Saya, but no disaplinary action is ever taken against him. Konishi and her Girl Posse cheat to win matches by injuring Tama's ankle. the only punishment she gets is losing one point against Tama, who at no point exposes Konishi's poor sportsmanship, allowing her team to win. Reimi relentlessly stalks Miyamiya and sends goons to attack Yuji, yet for some reason, Miyamiya never does anything about it.
• Kavorka Man: Dan. He takes it on himself to dispense pearls of wisdom concerning women to Yuuji and Toraji-sensei, who are predictably upset.
• Kendo Team Captain: Kirino, officially.
  • And Dan in the distant finale.
• Kiai: Tama-chan uses one durring the title card, every episode.
• Lame Pun Reaction: Everyone is stopped in their tracks by the awfulness of one of Satori's puns.
• Large Ham: Saya, especially when she's in drama queen mode.
• Last Episode, New Character: At the end of the ending credits, even. Given that Rin took her place, one wonders how Sakaki Ura will fit into the anime continuity...
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Famous director Goro Taniguchi plays himself in the anime, replacing a lawyer un-friendly cameo by Hayao Miyazaki in the manga.
• A Lesson in Defeat: Toraji thinks that Tama-chan needs this.
• Male Gaze: Used consistently throughout. A very obvious example is the beginning of episode 11; Saya and Kirino discuss their potential fifth squad member, while the camera focuses exclusively on their breasts and thighs. However, it's implied that it was because Kirino was jealous of Saya's bust size (as she folds her arms to accentuate them)
• Meaningful Name: It's subtle, but Miya-Miya's name (the same sound repeating, as if to represent duality) is symbolic of her being a two-faced person whose driving conflict is whether she sees herself as being more like her "old", delinquent persona or like the "cute" persona she presents around Dan.
• Missing Mom: Tamaki's deceased mother, a kendo practitioner — which is a plot point.
• Mood Whiplash: The end of episode 15 compared with the rest of the episode.
• Morality Chain: Dan. Whenever he's not around, Miya-Miya's Yandere tendencies surface.
• Mundane Made Awesome: In the manga, Giving Someone the Pointer Finger. Scholarship Point-Making BEEAAAAM! Also occurs in the anime with even more theatrics. Even Miya Miya is somewhat amazed at her ability and that Satori will now do whatever she wants.
• Noble Womans Laugh: Kirino does one after revealing her plot to cause Azuma to reignite her interest in kendo. She also puts a fan over her mouth as well.
• Nose Bleed: Reimi suffers them around Miya-Miya.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: "Miya-Miya" is only a persona Miyako takes on when her boyfriend's around — she's really a sarcastic delinquent.
  • Coupled with Willfully Weak, Erina practically emits these tropes. That is, until Tama-chan forced her out of it and brought her back which resulted in Tama's loss.
• Official Couple: Dan and Miya-Miya.
• Oh, Crap!: Konishi's face is priceless. You did make Tama-chan angry.
  • Happens in the anime as well. Tama's fury essentially caused Konishi to suffer a Villainous BSoD.

• One of the Kids: Toraji-Sensei, whose childishness makes you wonder how he got his job in the first place.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Shinaider to the Bravers in the Show Within a Show, Blade Braver.
• Only Six Faces: Five or so new characters introduced since the end of the anime, aside from the side characters. Telling them apart is difficult.
• Otaku: Tamaki and Rin, both on the subject of Blade Braver.
  • In a broader sense, every main character can be seen as a kendo-otaku. Miyako actually convinces (read as: bullies) Satori into rejoining the kendo team by saying, "If you're going to be a loser anyway, be a kendo-obsessed loser!"
  • Sakaki Ura and her idol obsession. Creepy.
• Out of Focus: The main cast of all people end up getting pushed to the side for a while at the start of the Burning Dash arc while the manga focuses primarily on the other girls who'll be participating.
  • Dan and Yuuji regularly lament that they're always pushed out of the spotlight in favor of the girls.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Yuuji Nakata qualifies for this, as being The One Guy isn't sad enough. It's clear that he has remarkable skills and discipline in Kendo, is one of the strongest students in the dojo as the few fights he has been in ended with him beating the opponent with little to no effort, but this show/manga is mainly about cute female kendo practitioners and their everyday life. In the end Yuuji is more of a possible love interest for Tama than anything else.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: During the first practice match, Tamaki is asked to leave and return, pretending to be a different student. Despite Toraji's obvious Blatant Lies, Kenzaburo and his students see right through the disguise. He even calls them out on it after her second match.
• Post-Episode Trailer: Chibi versions of the characters deliver a short skit, followed by the next episode's title. Quite fun to watch.
  • FOOOOREVEEEEEEEER!!!
• The Power of Love: Miya-Miya uses this against Carrie during their unofficial duel in the penultimate episode, complete with Gratuitous English.
• Promoted Fangirl: An In-Universe example. Tama and Rin both end up with speaking roles on the set of the newest Blade Braver movie, and also completely derail the script.
• Psycho for Hire: Miyako's main reason for kendo is that she enjoys inflicting pain on people. Amusingly enough, she seems determined to kill Toyama, who also fits the bill as a Psycho for Hire who really likes inflicting pain. Some time, we might see who is the better Psycho.

• Recurring Extra: Much like Trigun, a cat appears at least once in every episode.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Averted with the friendly, likable Kirino.
• The Resenter: Ryoko loathes Erina for constantly beating her at every competition they attempt and making her look like a fool. Though it's mainly because Erina appears to be innately good at everything while Ryoko has to work herself to the bone to be at least half as good. Though she starts respecting her after witnessing her match with Sakaki and finding out about her history with kendo.
• The Rival: Rin to Tamaki, Carrie to Miya-Miya. In the manga Sakaki Ura seems to be getting set up for this role over Rin.
  • In the last volume of the manga Erina requests Tama to become Sakaki's rival because she needs one to keep interested in Kendo and Tama is just about perfect for the role.
• Rival Dojos: Ishibashi-sensei and the Machido High girls serve this function to the Muroe team, but their second appearance has them attending a training camp (read: having a sleepover) with Toraji-sensei's girls.
• Room Full of Crazy: Ura Sakaki's room, which is covered floor-to-ceiling with pictures of Junya Takigawa, the idol who plays Black Duran.
• Rubber Face: Happens quite a few times with Tamaki.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: The old hag who uses her position as the superintendent's next-door neighbor to pursue her vendetta with Toraji-sensei.
• Save Our Club: At the start of the series, Kirino was the only member who regularly showed up to practice.
• Say My Name: Constantly, complete with Love Bubbles. Although the occasional variation does creep in.
  • "Miya-Miya!"
  • "Dan-kun!"
  • "Miya-Miya!"
  • "Anderson!"
  • "Anderson?"
  • "Carrie?"
• Sentai: Not just Blade Braver; Toraji assigns the girls team colors early on. Tama is Red, Saya is Blue, Kirino is Yellow, Satori is Green, and Miyamiya is Pink/Black.
• Sequel Hook: The last shot of the anime shows Tamaki and a long-haired girl turning their heads toward each other. The unknown girl is Sakaki Ura from the manga, who is fated to fight Tamaki some day soon.
• Show Within a Show: Chouken Sentai Blade Braver^note Despite the similarity of its name, it has nothing to do with Kamen Rider Blade('s first theme song). and its spinoff, Super Space Squad Cosmo Thirteen. There's a few others, like Material Puzzle and Magross, as well.
  • Big Bad: Death Armor
  • Humongous Mecha: Braver Robo
  • Noble Demon: Shinaider
    • He also has an "only I can defeat you" attitude towards the hero — one episode shows several instances of him saving the team before he invokes this trope almost word for word as he dies.
  • Punny Name: Shinaider. It sounds a lot like 'Schneider', but he uses shinai. Geddit?
    • 'Schneider' is a relatively common name in German speaking countries, similar in origin and meaning as the English surname 'Taylor'. However, the name derives from the German word 'Schneiden' which means 'to cut' (as in cutting cloth). Thus his name may also mean 'Cutter'.
  • Fourth Ranger: Silver Braver AKA Shinaider.
  • The Movie: Tamaki gets to be an extra.
    • Which features a Distaff Counterpart to Shinaider, who ends up getting killed, which facilitates his resurrection and Heel–Face Turn.
  • Blade Braver is just part of a massive Super Sentai/Kamen Rider-ish series, the latest one, Black Duran, playing an equally prominent role in the manga.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Danny and Miya-Miya.
• Skilled, but Naive: Tamaki is an absolute prodigy when it comes to swordplay, but is hopelessly naive in other situations.
• Sleep Cute: Happens with Tamaki and Rin in episode 21.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Satori, subverted by the fact that her glasses are fake. She thinks wearing glasses will make her smarter...
• Stance System: Variation: the use of the ascension stance is a plot point. Tamaki's mother used to use it; when Toriajou switches to it in his match with Tamaki, she's so distracted by the sight, she loses.
  • In the manga, Koujiro recommends it to Saya, to make use of her height and strength.
• Stalker with a Crush: Reimi. And in recent chapters, Sakaki Ura.
  • In fact, the whole reason the latter quit kendo was she thought the actor who played Black Duran was sending her secret messages that he doesn't like girls who practice kendo.
• Stepford Smiler: Kirino doesn't have much to angst about, but when her mom passes out due to overexertion and the kendo team is at risk of being shut down, it's revealed that she breaks out the Type A routine when things like this happen (usually when she gets sick.)
• Super-Deformed: To emphasize their upbeat and extremely immature personalities, Kirino-Senpai and Saya spend over half their screentime in this form, with Tama-Chan occasionally doing so to accentuate her already adorable innocence.
  • Also, as a possible form of Painting the Medium, Dan is permanently in Super-Deformed state as a source of his Gonkiness. He is even called deformed in-series, and requires special equipment because of it.
  • The one time Dan isn't in super-deformed mode, the manga has to point out that it actually is him.
• Title Drop: Saya wears a shirt that says "Bamboo Blade" at one point in the anime. It's also dropped during the training camp episode. Neither occurrences have any significance.
• Tournament Arc: Several tournaments throughout the series.
• Took a Level in Badass: In preparation for his match against Ishibaki, Kojirou gets back to training and manages to regain enough of his prior kendo skills to effortlessly beat him (then again, Ishibaki was distracted with trying to look cool in front of his team.)
  • The epilogue for the manga shows the whole Muroe team having taken a level, pitting them against the Burnish Academy team with Miya-Miya and Azuma winning their matches, while Tamaki's match with Sakaki is left unresolved.
• Tranquil Fury: Tama-chan most of the time. Kirino does this when her mother was hospitalized, and then inadvertently fell out of it when her brother shouted to her before her fight that their mother was going to be okay after all.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Except for not being married, Dan and Miya-Miya clearly qualify.
• Unknown Rival: Ryoko Toda towards Erina Sawamiya, through and through. Genius Ditz Erina consistently thrashes Ryoko in anything athletic, but when Erina mentions that she's never tried kendo... well, you can see where this is going.
• Valley Girl: The dub turns Carrie into one, her heavy use of slang terms preserving the language barrier between her and Miya Miya since they're both speaking English.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Miya-Miya towards Dan-kun usually.
• Wham Episode: Episode 23.
• Yandere: Miya-Miya and Sakaki Ura. To a far lesser extent, Danny; when the sensai tries to push Miya-Miya harder than Danny feels is necessary, Danny cracks open his eyes and we see the exact same evil aura that Miya-Miya gets. It's entirely possible that both, ironically, are hiding their sociopathic tendencies from each other.
• Your Head Asplode: Tamaki does this to a training dummy that looks like Kojirou with a head strike, complete with Delayed Explosion. They point out that it's a bad omen, which Ishida-sensei tries to brush off, as he's likely to lose his job because a run-in with the Gonk lady at the supermarket who happens to be neighbors with his school superintendent's wife.

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