Bamboo Blade is basically a sports anime. Sports anime are ones that focus on a sport or activity through which a main protagonist, with a cohort of friends providing plenty of back stories to explore, works on improving in that sport over time with lots of drama and conflict to make things interesting. Generally, I tend to like these types of anime because they get pretty technical about the sport or activity the story revolves around. This one in particular is about kendo, Japanese sword fighting.
A group of students try desperately to put together a viable kendo club at their school, and their dead beat teacher, who used to be a kendo champion, only finally gets motivated to help them become competitive when he’s offered free sushi meals for a year if they win. Overall, the story is pretty tame and fun, good for someone who just wants generally light-hearted comedy and drama. And happily, really minimal on the sexist objectification of women. Thank goodness. Definitely good to watch.
