Dan-kun and Miya-Miya are jogging in P.E. and fooling around (No, not that kind of fooling around) when she notices a welt on his arm inflicted by Toyama. Dan-kun shrugs it off and continues on his way, but Miya-Miya thinks differently as we get the first glimpse of her evil side.

Kojiro-sensei orders the kendo team to come in the next day during lunch for additional practice with Miya being singled out as the member most in need of this training. He then takes the members to the kendo shop to order the equipment they need. The shop owner pressures Kojiro to let him come in once in a while to train the new members. As an aside to Nakata, Kojiro explains that the old man is a seasoned instructor that terrorized the club and its members when he was previously invited. The old man further attempts to persuade Kojiro for an opportunity to “train” his students until Tama interrupts him. He backs off because Tama actually superior to him in kendo (i.e. He’s whipped).

Kojiro and Nakata help Dan and Miya-Miya pick out their shinai. Kojiro reminisces about his high school days and friendship with his senpai. Miya-Miya picks up a wooden bokken and the others seem to feel her killing instinct. They move on to looking at the armor as they pig out on the old man’s red bean mochi. Kojiro thanks Tama properly for making the shop owner back off. She immediately replies that she did it in the name of justice.

Kojiro talks to his senpai on the phone to hammer out the details of the match and their wager. Kojiro is told that he will have to give up his most treasured possession if he loses the bet. The senpai informs Kojiro that the latter will have to give up his kendo trophy should he lose the match. Kojiro digs the old trophy out of the closet and remembers back to the day that he bested his senpai in a tournament for it. It quickly becomes apparent that the senpai has been obsessing over the trophy ever since that day. All of the girls receive faxes for their training regimes. Kirino receives an unusual text message from Sayako apparently with a suicide threat.

We now meet the overdramatic Sayako who cuts up a bunch of documents that I assume to be a letter of rejection or something. She yells and then storms out of her room to ride off on her bicycle, all the while screaming that she is a genius. Kirino tosses her cell phone on the bed and disregards the text message due to Sayako’s extremely random nature. At school the next day, Miya-Miya hides as the delinquent Toyama and his friend walk by. Evil Miya comes out as she plots her revenge. Dan and Nakata arrive to drag her along to the kendo club to pick up their equipment. Kojiro asks that the students give the payment to him as soon as they can, and they are more than skeptical of his intentions. Kirino asks why Tama bought new gear when she already has her own set. Tama explains that she wanted to be part of the group and also to celebrate joining her first club and making new friends.

Kojiro is quick to assign sentai colors to the team. Tama is ecstatic when she assumes leadership duty as red, Kirino becomes Yellow, Miya is assigned to pink, Sayako is Blue, and the next girl member shall be Green. Dan is quick to point out that only the girls get a color. Kojiro tells the guys that they will essentially be on the sidelines to cheer the girls on. Miya decides to skip out on practice early with the excuse that she has to go to work. She secretly goes back to the kendo shop to buy the bokken and ambush Toyama by the riverside. As she hears the pair approach she steps out with her bokken to challenge them. Suddenly Sayako runs into Miya at full speed on her bike, causing them to tumble down the hill. Toyama and his friend walk away as if nothing happened. Evil Miya tosses the bike into the river and then shoves Sayako in as well. The episode ends with a shot of Evil Miya looking very pissed off.

I like where this show is going. Miya seemed like such a sweet girl, but who would have guessed that she has an evil alter-ego? If you read the manga then don’t answer that rhetorical question. Sayako seems like she’ll be the staple ditzy girl and will no doubt add another dynamic that the team needs. Evil Miya looks like she’ll have some good fights coming up. Houko Kuwashima does both of the sides of Miya’s role very well. Here’s to the next episode. It should be a fun one.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 9:42 pm and is filed under Anime, Bamboo Blade.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.