Okay people lets talk swords. What type of swords first comes to mind for you? Broadsword, falchion, rapier, claymore, katana etc? Well how about a 7 ft tall suit of armor or maybe a pair of pistols? What the hell am I talking about you say? Well obviously you have never seen the craziness that is Katanagatari. This series was just absolutely revolutionary for me people, I’ve never seen any thing like it. But rather than hearing me prattle on about it here, lets take a more in-depth look:

Story:

Our story begins at the Hida Castle in Oushuu, which is currently on fire. So yeah, I take it something is happening there. Inside we see that a single man is laying siege to the entire castle. No matter how many soldiers attempt to stop him he is slaughtering them all, bare handed. This mysterious assailant finally approaches the lord Hida Takahito’s chamber, Takahito understands there is no getting out of this alive but raises his sword to the intruder anyways. However he is crippled in a single blow, Takahito then utters a silent message before being beheaded.

Going forward about 20 years later we see a woman in a boat looking onward towards an island, the ferryman asks her what business she has on an uninhabited island, the woman replies however that it is not uninhabited; and the hero of the rebellion Mutsue Yasuri was exiled to here after the rebellion, for fear of his power. Now looking onto the island itself, we see a young man apathetically about to do his chores. However his sister shouts out to him from indoors, addressing him as Shichika. She criticizes him since it was apparently her turn to do the chores and that he is always treating her too frailly. Shichika exclaims that wasn’t his intention and that this is all for the sake of his training. But his sister insists that he should stop his practice of a combat style, Kyotouryuu, that will soon die out in his generation. Shichika is persistent though, and exclaims he just thought of a really awesome new move. Ignoring this his sister brings up the rather awkward topic that Shichika doesn’t have to remain on this island since their father was the only one who was exiled and even though she herself would not be able to make the journey he could build a boat and leave. Shichika is angered by this thought though and disregards it, before leaving to complete his chores his sister shouts out asking him to show her this new move of his sometime; Shichika looks upset by this request.

As Shichika walks through the forest thinking disdainfully on the conversation he just had, he suddenly notices foot prints on the island. Letting out a sigh at the additional work he must do now he follows them. A short distance away we see the woman from the boat drinking from a spring when Shichika approaches. After noticing each other Shichika remarks how this is the first time hes seen anyone from the mainland, also noticing she is carrying a sword; the first time seeing one of those too. Shichika speaks out saying that while he doesn’t mind visitors on the island it is absolutely forbidden to bring any sort of blade. He then proceeds to start questioning her about who she is and why shes come here; not out of the interest in knowing but rather like a check list of something needed to be done. The young woman is looking for Mutsue Yasuri, Shichika’s father. Shichika apologizes and says he has been dead for a year now. She apologizes for her rudeness but at the same time appears to be giving Shichika a run down in body, strength and even appearance. Shichika begins to apologize that he cannot fulfill her request to see his father but she interupts him saying her business is really with the current head of Kyotouryuu technique; that being Shichika. The young woman now introduces herself as Togame, which Shichika remarks is a weird name. Disgruntled for a moment by this comment, she draws her sword and says she will now initiate the test and charges straight for him. However embarrassingly, she trips over a rock half way and immediately passes out.

Shichika carries Togame back to his home where she is introduced to his sister, Nanami. Nanami is a bit off put by a guest appearing on the island, as no one has come there for over 20 years. She continues to explain that she will hold onto Togame’s sword as they are not allowed on the island. Togame then asks if this is because of Kyotouryuu, an ultimate swords technique that doesn’t use a sword at all. Nanami then asks for what purpose did she attempt to attack Shichika, explaining that she had to be sure he was the actual Kyotouryuu head. Nanami tells her that shes free to test him again but be warned she was lucky she tripped the first time and if her attack had gone through she would not be sitting there now. Togame of course declines to test the truth of this. Abruptly, Togame asks Shichika if had ever desired to rule the world, which he quickly responds with a “no”. However Togame talks on as if he had agreed, only to stop mid rant in realizing he said no. Turns out living on an island with no influence from the outside world really limits your ability to comprehend such wild subjects, as Nanami explains to her. Togame then ask if it would be alright if she talked with Shichika alone, but he denies this due to two reasons: 1. That Kyotouryuu is a technique inherited by blood, and that if his father were still alive he would of let them stay in the room as well. And 2. Shichika openly admits that he’s bad at thinking.

Reluctantly Togame agrees to let her stay under the promise of confidentiality. Togame then asks if Shichika has heard of Shikizaki Kiki, and you guessed it he hasn’t. As you probably also guessed Togame acts like he has at first, once again stopping mid sentence in shock. However Nanami interjects saying he was a famous sword smith from the Sengoku era. Letting out a sigh, Togame explains that he wasn’t bound by any lord or country and indiscriminately passed out his 1,000 swords to 25 countries in the warring states era. His swords supported many factions throughout the wars giving them strength to win. Then explaining that ultimately the faction who amassed the most of his swords ultimately won and unified the country through war. Shichika remarks how childish this seemed; maybe hes not that dumb.

Togame then explains that soon from the orders of the previous shogun to collect all 1,000 of Shikizaki’s swords under the guise of collecting them to build a great Buddha statue. Eventually he had collected over 100,000 swords, but ultimately gave up near the end. This confuses Shichika, surely being the Shogun he had the power to collect them all; but Togame tells him its is not that simple. Among the 1,000 creations of Shikizaki Kiki are 12 unique swords that were the true purpose in his craft: Kanna, Namakura, Tsurugi, Hari, Yoroi, Kanazuchi, Bita, Kanzashi, Nokogiri, Hakari, Mekki, and Jyuu. Saying that anyone who collected all 12 of Shikizaki Kiki’s deviant blades could easily rebel the Shogunate.

So that brings us to the point of Togame’s arrival, she is here to ask Shichika under orders from the current Shogunate to retrieve all 12 swords. Shichika is very apathetic in her situation though, why doesn’t she simply hire someone to find them? Well Togame explains that they already tried using Ninjas from the Maniwa tribe to find the swords, but they betrayed them and took them for their own. He then asks then why not swordsmen who work for honor? She again says they sent out on of the Shoguns most trusted swordsmen and he even succeeded in getting what was perceived as the most difficult blade to acquire, but he too betrayed them as the swords have a strong poisonous aura that cloud the mind of those who possess them. So now she has turned Kyotouryuu, a combat style that has no use of swords. However Shichika is still reluctant to help as it would be too much of a hassle to leave the island. But Togame anticipated this, boldly declaring that since people who work for money and honor are out of the question that the only answer left is working out of love. She then exclaims that Shichika should fall for her.

Obviously there’s some tension in the room now, but more than you’re thinking. As out of nowhere an array of shuriken pierced through the home and in another unexpected upset, Nanami pushes both Shichika and Togame out of the way.

However instead of being worried from an unexpected attack, rather comically, Shichika jumps up with a new found vigor exclaiming how dare someone destroy the house his father built; and chases off the assailant to the beach. Meanwhile Togame realizes she has been followed by one of the Maniwa ninja, but she does not know how. Nanami simply asks how she got to the island and after hearing she was brought by a ferryman Togame embarrassingly realizes her blunder. Now on the beach, Shichika has the ninja cornered. However the ninja boasts how he actually trapped him, in that standard bad guy way. Although Shichika is really just blown away by how many visitors came to the island in one day. But the ninja ignores his woes, and introducs himself as Maniwa Koumori one of the 12 Maniwa heads.

After a little back and forth, Koumori readies his attack; in an unexpected way. He takes his hand and plunges it down into his own throat, thereby retrieving one of the 12 deviant blades, Kanna.

But Shichika is less impressed by the sword than he is disturbed by the ninja’s body, so he asks if the sword is so valuable why does he keep it there. In an answer you would expect from a crazily paranoid person he explains that’s precisely why he keeps it inside himself to protect it from others; this would be the poison Togame was talking about. Suddenly Koumori charges in with a thrust but Shichika unfazed by this goes into a rather awkward stance and grabs the sword from behind his back.

Koumori is shocked by this and pulls away but its really Shichika who is more shocked when he notices something is off about that sword. Shichika explains that technique he used wasn’t meant to catch his enemy’s attack but instead break their sword in half. After hearing this Koumori breaks out into hysterical laughter. Koumori explains that Shikizaki Kiki has been known to dabble in the occult with his sword smithing and that the focus (power) of this sword is that it will never break.

Well hearing this Shichika just takes that as a challenge and is now determined to break that sword. However Togame then rushes in saying that she needs that sword and he absolutely cannot break it. Still confused why he should care, Togame explains the great wealth the sword is worth and much to her disgust Koumori agrees. After this statement we learn it was Koumori who betrayed Togame’s trust by stealing the first sword. Angry now Togame asks that Shichika retrieve the sword from Koumori, however by now Koumori has grown bored of the talk and put Kanna back inside of him. With that he begins to bloat up and expels another array of shuriken from inside his body. After the attack clears Shichika notices that Koumori has taken Togame.

Later on Togame wakes up to realize shes been taken captive by Koumori who plans to milk the information on the other swords from her. He then offers her to join the Maniwa ninjas instead, but Togame says without a second thought that she is disgusted by treachery. Koumori laughs at this saying he wasn’t serious, adding that if he knew what sort of person Togame was from the start he never would of worked with her. Suddenly Koumori starts twitching excessively to the point where he cracks his neck.

It is shown now that through ninjutsu he can transform to mimic any appearance; which he now plans to kill Shichika by disguising himself as Togame. Koumori finds Shichika and has confidence in his transformation at fooling him and as he approaches Shichika mimicking Togame’s voice he is suddenly instead greeted by a swift kick to the stomach; causing Kanna to fly out.

However Shichika being the simple thinker he is, now notices that this appears to be Togame much to Koumori’s shock. After looking over and seeing Kanna though he sees that its actually Koumori, flabbergasted, Koumori demands to know why he used such force while he was in his disguise. Shichika simply replies that this is the first time hes seen anyone’s face besides his sister’s and he can’t recognize people so quickly.

Shichika is relieved that he didn’t do that to the real Togame, but Koumori is disgusted by hearing this. He demands to know why he wants to help her without knowing who she really is, Koumori openly admits to being terrified of Togame due to her being such a manipulative woman who even tried deceiving ninjas in her scheme. Shichika of course doesn’t understand, so Koumori exclaims dramatically that this is all her attempt to gain favor by the Shogun to become his right hand, all for the sake of revenge for her late father, Hida Takahito. Shichika is shocked by this, as he should be, as Takahito was the man who was stopped in the rebellion by his own Father Mutsue Yasuri. Meaning Togame is now seeking help from the son of her father’s murderer.

Suddenly Koumori begins to twitch again, this time changing into Shichika in order to copy his physical prowess. Believing he has the edge using Kanna he jumps up to give a might slash when suddenly Kanna goes flying out of his hands. Koumori stunned and helpless is told by Shichika that Kyotouryuu swordsmen just don’t simply choose not to use swords, but rather they have no ability to use them whatsoever. Shichika then hits him with his ultimate move he just developed yesterday: Shichika Hachiretsu:

I don’t need to say that Koumori is down permanently now do I? Shichika soon finds Togame telling her that he has obtained one of the swords, which she sounds shocked by. He then explains while he has no interest in swords, or obligation to help the Shogunate, Shichika has decided to help her, because he has fallen for her. Later on before leaving the island Nanami tells Togame she’s happy she’s taking Shichika off the island even though of course Nanami cannot leave due to her frailty. Togame warns Nanami that Shichika is going to face danger on this journey, but Nanami just takes this as Togame caring for Shichika and calls her a kind person; however Togame is reluctant to accept this praise, stating she is not that kind. As Shichika and Togame sail away, Togame makes an announcement declaring there are four rules Shichika must follow on this journey: 1. Like she said before do not break the swords, protect them. 2. Protect Togame, if she dies the mission will end in vain. 3. Protect himself, she’s not saying this out of kindness but because it is impertinent to the mission that he does not die. And finally 4. To protect himself, that time was out of kindness. End of episode 1.

Characters:

Originality:

Okay so like I said before, this series was literally revolutionary to me and completely changed how I looked at anime. One aspect that I greatly admired about this show is its incredibly unique art style. Now drawing is something that really doesn’t grab my attention in animation, as there are so many similar styles so I tend not to judge a series by how well it’s drawn. Another interesting thing to note about this series is that each episode is around 50 minutes long, so even though this series is rather short with 12 episodes by doubling the average length of a typical anime you really get treated to a very conclusive show. There is one slight downside to this however, the characters tend to go in long conversations with each other, but you know this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. People have complained about this but what this really accomplishes is characterization, you’re getting to know everyone pretty well throughout these conversations; which is incredible with this series only being 12 episodes long. The thought process behind the 12 deviant blades of Shikizki Kiki is also really interesting, I mean this guy created things like a suit of armor and semi-automatic guns and called them swords in a feudal Japan setting; you may not understand why this is, but there is actually a pretty satisfying reason behind all of these strange out of time inventions. However if I had to say one bad thing about Katanagatari is that it is a very Japanese culture based show, no duh right? Well what I mean by that is there are a lot of jokes and references that anyone not familiar with Japanese culture will simply not understand and it sort of hinders the viewing experience. All in all though this is just simply a wonderful series, as proof to this statement I should mention how I rarely buy anime series on DVD but after finishing this show I had to have it. Watch Katanagatari people!

Sources:

• The series Katanagatari
• Katana to Saya by Ali Project
• Katanagatari OST