Short version: if you enjoyed a post and don’t want to comment, click the Spiffy Button to let me know.
Feedback from people on the internet is hard; I can monitor hits and visits and bounces and loading times until the heat death of the universe and I still wouldn’t know whether the people visiting my site enjoy my content. Comments are often cited as a good indicator of blog interaction, some would say that a blog starts when its comments do, but especially with anime blogs (which I guess given the volume of content on the subject I’ve produced, mine falls into) comments tend to be about the subject (episode, series, movie etc.) rather than about what has been written. Just check out any well frequented anime blog (RandomC, The Cart Driver, Metanorn et. al.) for examples.
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Bamboo Blade seems, upon first glance, a very ambivalent series at least in its introductory episodes. It never seems to know whether to settle in as a light-hearted school drama with kendo or a straight-faced kendo drama with school fluff (or a kendo face school with light fluff drama). On the one hand is the irredeemable captain who's only current goal is to win a bet and subsequently obtain free food for a year, and on the other is a sadistic and despicable antagonist whose callous disregard for fair-play and sanity is cause for discomfort. The twenty six episode series could swing either way however if the series retains its indecisiveness, it may very well even out at wearisome.
it is hard to shake the feeling that this is simply a by-the-numbers seinen show that is willing to run its course
Bamboo Blade eschews common first episode clichés by maintaining a languid and predictable pace that carries over to the subsequent two. Favouring character development over ground-breaking story, the first episodes have yet to introduce all the members of the five girl kendo team; instead there are solid introductions to the eclectic group. The characters are neatly skewed from their apparent archetypes: the quiet introvert harbours a naive and childish sense of justice ordinarily championed by sentai characters; the supposedly prim and proper looker of the group is girlfriend to the most unlikely of boys and has a mean vigilante streak to her; while the enigmatic fourth member seems interminably insane. The most tiresome of characters, a blonde firecracker, is thankfully the one also given the least attention while instead the cookie-cutter teacher (whose likeness to Yuuichi Tate from Mai-HiME is uncanny) is left to propel events along.
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