manga: Bamboo Blade Vol 1-6 + anime
Completely against character, I got into Bamboo Blade with a near-complete disregard for the proper chronology. I read volume 2 in 2009 for a review, read volumes 1 and 3 (and reread volume two) around the middle of 2010, watched the anime (knowing that it would cover events well past what I’d read) a couple months later, and only recently finally got around to reading volumes 4-6 recently. The delay had nothing to do with any dislike or neutralness to the series and everything to do with the comfort of knowing it was waiting should I encounter a particularly ragey manga that said girls couldn’t fight or be in sports or whatever. In the end, I read them before that became necessary, but that’s not the point.
The basic concept is that Kojiro, a deadbeat, perpetually broke, kendo coach with a half-formed team, is offered free sushi for a year is his girls team can beat his high school friend/rival’s girls team at a practice match. (Later, his obsessive focus on having a perfect, winning girls kendo team shifts to keeping his job. Oh, and the students, of course.) The early arc focuses on gathering the team (though the final member doesn’t show up until much later) only one of whom, Kirino, the spacey and bubbly but academically brilliant team captain, actually has an interest in being part of a kendo team. Her best friend, Saya, likes kendo but tends to go off on erratic, obsessive creative binges and of the two freshmen, the introverted kendo prodigy Tama views kendo as a chore instead of a fun hobby, and the other initial member, Miya Miya, joins because her boyfriend does, and sees the sport as a way to let out her more violent urges.
I don’t do well with sports manga-I liked both Hikaru no Go and Crimson Hero in early volumes, and didn’t stop liking them much as I could never get interested in the sports parts-but this seems to be the exception. It’s very feel good and warm and fun, but without being cutesy or cloying. The earlier parts work better in anime form than in manga form (I was actually startled reading the first volume because I remembered volume two being much better, and, well, it was) but then, it has the advantage of having a better idea of how the plotline and characters will settle down than the mangakas did starting out. Things largely play out the same between the two, though the anime adds a (fairly minor) character I like, and I don’t know yet if my favorite plotline from the anime was an anime-original, or is still to come in the manga, but in generally I find them about equally enjoyable, and while there are plenty of anime based on manga that I like, I think this is one of the few that really is as good as the manga it’s based on.