Subculture Anime Blog

Respect my friend forever, with true love.

Summary:

Tamaki tells her father where she has put the usual preparations, before leaving for her first day of training camp. Kenzaburo and his girls arrive at Ishida’s dojo later, with their usual troubles. After the girls give their respects to Ishida, Kenzaburo leaves to practice with the boys in his club. The girls find that Ishida’s team is cleaning the pool; not for practice, but because of the principal’s wife. Ishida tells the girls to wait until they are finished, but Harada insists that they will help. During the cleaning, all of the girls ignore Harada in annoyance. The two teams get reacquainted with each other while cleaning, until they are finally ready for the finishing touches. Because of a bit of trouble caused by Satori and Danjuro, too much water is released from the hose Ishida is holding. With the girls’ clothes hanging up to dry, Ishida has them start with stretches in the dojo. When Yoshikawa meets Ishida, Danjuro suggests to Yuji that the two may be getting along quite well. Kirino and Harada exchange words about their two clubs while running outside. Meanwhile, Tamaki senses something when her father comes to spy on her through the bushes a far distance away. Yuji and Danjuro insist that it was just an animal, and Tamaki’s father is angered when he finally sees Yuji. The girls finally get to practicing kendo in the afternoon, preforming much like they usually do.

Afterwards, some of the girls express their disappointment in not being able to lay any strikes on Tamaki. Kirino expresses that no one from their team can do this either, including Ishida. The girls are called to visit the bath soon after, so they all enjoy themselves in a public bath for the first time in awhile. While the girls have curry for dinner that night, Kenzaburo arrives with a gift of sushi. However, this combination does not quite work. Nishiyama cannot resist picking up the cat that wanders around school, when the rest of the girls realize that Asakawa has tried to escape. Asakawa bumps into a large figure along the way, but the rest of the group does not suspect anything when they find her lying on the ground. Yoshikawa mentions how great it was for Satori to join the kendo club, while Tamaki looks out into the distance. Tamaki’s father walks home while holding his head, relieved that his daughter seems to be having fun.

Yoko and Kirino have a contest to see who can put together her sword the fastest, which Kirino wins. Sayako prepares to play the guitar for everyone, but this ends in quick failure. The girls start a fierce pillow fight next, which even Tamaki joins with a bit of curiosity. Ishida, Danjuro, and Yuji quickly get to bed on the boys’ side of campus, and the girls do so as well not too long after. Tamaki wakes to use the bathroom, discovering that Kirino is still practicing on the roof. Kirino credits Tamaki’s entrance to the kendo club as the reason they are all able to enjoy themselves now, but Tamaki is unable to simply accept this. The next morning, Tamaki quickly gets up to watch her favorite anime. Kenzaburo’s leave while wishing the other girls good luck in the tournament some time later. When Tamaki returns home, she finds that her father has a bandage on his head. Kirino goes home to find her mother collapsed on the floor.

Preview: Ando is such a plotter.

Impression:

Wow, this is way late! I did it on purpose, really. You believe me, right? This episode was pretty awesome, and it made me remember how great Bamboo Blade is. Tamaki’s dedication towards her favorite anime was absolutely hilarious, if not a bit frightening for those around her. What a burning passion! The pool cleaning scene early in this episode reminded me a bit of Manabi Straight among other things. The dry humor was kind of hard to appreciate at times, but I laughed pretty hard at all the fanservice chances they just let slide right through throughout the episode. I bet there were a lot of people who got pissed during this episode. Seeing all of Kenzaburo’s girls again was pretty fun, but it really wasn’t much different from the last time we saw them. For some reason, I thought the training camp was going to last a few episodes. Oh well. It was fun to see the girls interacting with each other in a friendly way, rather than purely competitively. The scene towards the end with Kirino and Tamaki on the roof was really cute, and further reminded me that they are the two main drives of the show. Not gonna lie; the last scene with Kirino’s mom was a shocker! I’m sure it will all go well by the next episode though.