Katanagatari

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Sword Story

Japanese: 刀語

More titles

Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 12

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jan 26, 2010 to Dec 11, 2010

Premiered: Winter 2010

Broadcast: Tuesdays at 01:10 (JST)

Producers: Aniplex, Lantis, Kodansha, Movic, Fuji TV

Licensors: NIS America, Inc.

Studios: White Fox

Source: Light novel

Genres: Action, Adventure, Romance

Themes: Historical, Martial Arts

Duration: 50 min. per ep.

Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity)

Statistics

Score: 8.31¹ (scored by 214,500 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #248²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #389

Members: 561,539

Favorites: 10,957

Available At

Official Site

@katanagatari

Resources

AniDB

ANN

Synopsis

In an Edo-era Japan lush with a variety of sword-fighting styles, Shichika Yasuri practices the most unique one: Kyotouryuu, a technique in which the user's own body is wielded as a blade. The enigmatic seventh head of the Kyotouryuu school, Shichika lives quietly in exile with his sister Nanami until one day—the wildly ambitious strategist Togame barges into their lives.

Togame brazenly requests that Shichika help in her mission to collect twelve unique swords, known as the "Deviant Blades," for the shogunate. Shichika accepts, interested in the girl herself rather than petty politics, and thus sets out on a journey. Standing in their way are the fierce wielders of these legendary weapons as well as other power-hungry entities who seek to thwart Togame's objective. In order to prevail against their enemies, the duo must become an unbreakable team as they forge ahead on a path of uncertainty and peril.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Katanagatari is a complete adaptation of Nisio Isin's light novel series of the same title with each episode adapting 1 volume. The anime was released monthly, mimicking the release style of the original novels.

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Related Anime

Adaptation:

Katanagatari

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Yasuri, Shichika

Main

Hosoya, Yoshimasa
Japanese

Togame

Main

Tamura, Yukari
Japanese

Yasuri, Nanami

Supporting

Nakahara, Mai
Japanese

Hitei

Supporting

Tomatsu, Haruka
Japanese

Souda, Emonzaemon

Supporting

Koyama, Rikiya
Japanese

Higaki, Rinne

Supporting

Itou, Miyako
Japanese

Tsuruga, Meisai

Supporting

Yuuya, Atsuko
Japanese

Maniwa, Pengin

Supporting

Hirohashi, Ryou
Japanese

Maniwa, Houou

Supporting

Okiayu, Ryoutarou
Japanese

Itezora, Konayuki

Supporting

Hidaka, Rina
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Iwasa, Gaku

Producer

Toba, Yousuke

Producer

Hariu, Masayuki

Producer

Motonaga, Keitarou

Director

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Opening Theme

	"Hakushi Kassai Uta Awase (拍手喝采歌合)" by supercell (noitaminA rebroadcast)
	1: "Meiya Kadenrou (冥夜花伝廊)" by Minami Kuribayashi (eps 1-7)
	2: "Katana to Saya (刀と鞘)" by ALI PROJECT (eps 8-12)

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Ending Theme

	"Koto no Ha (言ノ葉)" by Piko (noitaminA rebroadcast)
	1: "Tasogare no Gekka (誰そ彼の月華)" by Yousei Teikoku
	2: "Refulgence" by Shoujobyo
	3: "Senbonsenyo no Hamariuta (千本千女の刃毬唄)" by Hata Aki
	4: "Kyomu no Hana (虚無の華)" by kukui
	5: "Ai to Makoto (愛と誠)" by Tamura Yukari
	6: "Yuki no Onna (雪ノ女)" by ALI PROJECT
	7: "Mayoigo Sagashi (迷い子さがし)" by Nakahara Mai
	8: "Karakuri Nemuri Dan (からくり眠り談)" by Nomiko
	9: "Akashi (証)" by Annabel
	10: "Ina, to Hime wa Subete wo Katarazu (否、と姫は全てを語らず)" by Tomatsu Haruka
	11: "Bourei-tachi yo Yabou no Hate ni Nemure (亡霊達よ野望の果てに眠れ)" by Faylan
	12: "Toki Sude ni Hajimari wo Kizamu (時すでに始まりを刻む)" by Kuribayashi Minami

More theme songs

Reviews

Jan 4, 2011

Archaeon

Recommended

Since 2006, light novel adaptations have gradually become a regular feature in anime as producers in the industry scrabble around in their attempts to find the biggest cash cow since the advent of Suzumiya Haruhi. The surprising thing is that the fallout from this has actually been a lot better for fans than one might expect, and while titles like Guin Saga, Kemono no Souja Erin, Ghost Hunt, Baccano!, Kure-nai, Rental Magica, Spice & Wolf, and NHK ni Youkoso! may not be as commercially successful as KyoAni's behemoth, they do represent a gradual shift in the industry towards creativity and originality.

Which is where Katanagatari comes ...

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Aug 22, 2013

johnvswild

Mixed Feelings

I simply cannot grasp why this anime receives so much praise.

SPOILER-FREE

White Fox adapted this from the light novel Katanagatari, and although they have the same author and a similar name, it has no connection to the Monogatari series in style, substance or story. The two main characters romp through a mythologized version of feudal Japan, neatly divided into formulaic episodes, collecting swords and killing fucking everyone they see.

Katanagatari is by no means a terrible anime, but if you look at the way it is treated, you might think it’s an absolute masterpiece, or panders to the shounen crowd excessively. Neither is true. The world and ...

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Feb 13, 2013

ktulu007

Not Recommended

Katanagatari started as a light novel series by Isin Nisio. Who's written nothing else that I'm familiar with. He wrote some novelizations for both Death Note and xxxHolic, but I'm only familiar with the originals for those two and novels based on established series tend to vary a lot in quality. The anime adaptation was handled by the relatively new White Fox studio. They were behind both the Jormungand and Steins;Gate anime, so that could be a good sign. Then again, every studio tends to do some good and some bad work so this could be the first anime they've done that I dislike. Only ... one way to find out.

The story follows a martial artist, who incorrectly refers to himself as a swordsman because this anime doesn't know what a sword is*, named Shichika. He lives with his sister in exile on an island. That ends when a woman named Togame shows up and asks Shichika to accompany her on a journey to collect twelve deviant blades. He agrees because he's fallen in love with her for no adequately explained reason. Did I mention he knows her for all of thirty minutes at that point? The story follows their journey to wade through a massive sea of exposition in order to collect the blades. This anime breaks the most important rule of story telling, show, don't tell. There's very little that happens with any bearing on the actual plot. The episodes are roughly fifty minutes long with most episodes using three minutes for the themes, eight minutes for action sequences, five minutes for plot relevant content and thirty four minutes for long stretches of exposition. I'm not even exaggerating when I say that one episode has a twenty minute stretch of dialogue that's nothing but the characters expositing over plot points. Because... showing the information in a natural way would've taken too long? One of the most inexcusable scenes happens in the middle of a fight scene. The characters just stop for more than five minutes so that one can exposit about her backstory. Then there's the narrator, whose only purpose is to waste time by telling you where they are, which they invariably mention in their exposition anyway, or to spoil what's going to happen in the next episode thereby killing any tension before it even has a chance to build. Smooth. The only real exception is the last episode, which spends most of its time with action sequences and a scene where someone, I won't spoil who, dies for fourteen and a half minutes. The worst part is that there's someone around who could've tied a tourniquet or something but prefers to spend the time crying because the first character is bleeding to death. Because.. death is more tragic if there's someone guilty of criminal negligence. The biggest issue that comes out of the whole thing is that it's boring. Stretches of dialogue can be interesting, but they barely have any actual dialogue. Most of it is incredibly stilted exposition, which isn't interesting. Then there's the romance, which never evolves beyond an attraction that comes out of nowhere. Nothing interesting is ever done with it, rather like the anime as a whole. The attempted comedy is so lacking in actual humour that it can be difficult to tell whether something is supposed to be a joke or it's just stupid. Then there's the ending, which features an anti-climax followed by abject stupidity.

Then you have the characters. First you have Shichika himself, who calls himself a sword because he formed a club with Gundam 00's Setsuna for people who think they're inanimate objects. He has very little in terms of personality. He's pretty much defined by being stupid, hitting things and falling for random strangers. He's your typical big dumb hero character. Then you've got Togame, one of those characters who's supposed to be clever but never acts clever or demonstrates any intelligence whatsoever. She can be recognised by yelling a lot, falling over, blushing and hitting Shichika while yelling "cheerio." She's a pretty typical tsundere character, except with fewer dimensions. There aren't any interesting characters in this. They just fill their role, spout exposition and then stay stagnant or die. The worst part of it is that they try to have tragic moments, but they've never given you any reason to care about any of the characters so they just fail.

Now for the art. I actually have a few positive things to say about it. The first is that there are some really nicely drawn backgrounds. The second is that the weapons, whether they're actually swords or not, are nicely designed, mostly. Now back to giving discredit where discredit is due. The character designs in this are horrible. The eyes are just off and convey no emotion other than dull surprise, and they show up in spite of being covered by hair on several occasions. The noses appear when the characters are in profile and vanish entirely when they're shown head on. White Fox does know that noses have depth, right? The characters really do look like badly made plastic dolls. The sad thing is that they try to have fan-service by giving Togame the occasional bum shot. Yeah, this art style doesn't work for that. The animation in this is frequently lazy. There are several cases where they just hold on the same image for no reason. The fight scenes are exceptionally bad. The characters are drawn so they're almost never actually coming into contact with one another and there's one fight scene where they play the same animation three times in a row.

The music is another thing that I'm going to give some actual praise to. The music is well done. It could've made it in a decent anime. Then there's the voice acting. This is another anime where no one seems to be trying. I know that several of the major seiyu can act. Tamura Yukari, Tomatsu Haruka, Okiayu Ryotaro and several others are skilled at their craft but none of them seem to be putting any effort into their performances. Although, to be fair, there are very few people who could sound natural while delivering all of that exposition.

The yuri factor is a 1/10. This has no yuri.

The final rating for Katanagatari is a 2/10. There's a pretty clear lack of effort on the parts of everyone involved. The story is mostly told through tedious exposition. Character development is absent. The fight scenes, and most of the art in general, are just poorly done and none of the seiyu seem to be trying. In the end, Katanagatari is by far the most boring anime I've ever seen and the few scenes that kind of work aren't worth sitting through the exposition for.

* They refer to Kunai as shuriken and every weapon, from guns to an android, as swords. They even refer to some non-weapons, like a suit of armour, as swords.

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Recent News

NIS America Licenses Katanagatari and Arakawa Under the Bridge

According to their official website, NIS America announced their licenses for Katanagatari and Arakawa Under the Bridge. Both series will be released in a Blu-ray Di...read more

Apr 15, 2011 8:38 PM by Naruleach | Discuss (41 comments)

Internal Data of Katanagatari Leaked [Update Jan 7]

On January 5th, a large amount of the production material of Katanagatari was leaked to the file sharing. The data includes the character designs, the draft storyboa...read more

Jan 5, 2010 12:07 AM by dtshyk | Discuss (43 comments)

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END SPOILERS - I’ve Never Witnessed Such Epic Implosion deaf_amish_guy - Jun 6, 2020	10 replies	by Nesquikscope »» Mar 31, 1:16 AM
Poll: Katanagatari Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) removed-user - Feb 8, 2010	180 replies	by ariharan_ars »» Feb 3, 10:31 AM
Poll: Katanagatari Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) stevewiess01 - Dec 10, 2010	631 replies	by I_LIKE_ANIME_SO »» Jan 3, 9:06 AM
Poll: Katanagatari Episode 4 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Hana-kei - Apr 16, 2010	419 replies	by watsym »» Aug 13, 2023 10:05 AM
Poll: Katanagatari Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) removed-user - Jan 25, 2010	333 replies	by Dumb »» Jul 30, 2023 5:55 AM

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Katanagatari

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Yasuri, Shichika

Togame

Yasuri, Nanami

Hitei

Souda, Emonzaemon

Higaki, Rinne

Tsuruga, Meisai

Maniwa, Pengin

Maniwa, Houou

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Synopsis

Background

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Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

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Ending Theme

Reviews

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