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 action are so ridiculous and clichéd that you might be forgiven for thinking it is simply a parody. If Katanagatari deserves any praise (which indeed it does), it is for managing a certain level of uniqueness. However, uniqueness alone is not enough to carry a series.
STORY 4/10
This is a twelve episode anime about collecting twelve swords. As such, you may begin to notice a pattern that the anime follows. In case you can’t I can spell it out for you: find the sword, find the wielder of the sword, get ready to kill sword wielder, fight scene, kill sword wielder, take sword. Fortunately, Katanagatari is not so obtuse as to staunchly follow this formula for every episode, but it can get pretty tedious at times; sometimes the biggest surprise an episode will shock you with is how few people die.
That’s right, none of the characters have any qualms about killing even friendly characters, resulting in one of the highest body counts per episode I’ve seen in anime. Not that it is necessarily a bad thing, but Katanagatari just makes it annoying; out of a cast of dozens of characters, you can count on one hand those alive at the end. There is even a set of twelve characters who exist for no purpose other than dying violent deaths as soon as they’ve received their quota of characterization.
This “quota of characterization” brings me to another annoying habit of this show: a naruto-esqe need to explain every technique and move of every character. Announcing attacks beforehand already makes the action scenes a little silly, and very few characters indeed do not at least once give a lecture on their fighting style, magical moves or weapons, usually in the middle of a fight. This highlights the more prevalent flaw of excessive dialogue. For an “action” show there is not nearly enough action. A lot of this does contribute to the story and characters, but some of it makes me wonder if it wasn’t just to fill up their 50 minute time slot.
I feel that the ending deserves special attention. Jarring would be an understatement, a better description would be “feels like it’s from a different show.” All of the characters in the final episode have their personalities nearly reversed, and events transpire that makes the rest of the series relatively meaningless. It feels terribly contrived and without spoiling too much, it is a massive disappointment.
ANIMATION 3/10
The art in this show is unique. Opinions on the character designs will be very subjective; they are certainly atypical of anime. Over the course of the series they will likely grow on the viewers. Backgrounds are colorful and charming. The art really does not fit the story and setting but some will love it.
The real weakness of this show’s art is the animation. It starts out passable, but as it goes on you can almost see a counter on the screen as White Fox’s budget for this show drops. Fight scenes are the only part that gets any special attention as the show goes on, and even their quality drops over time. It starts out fairly pretty but increases in still frames, simple designs and reused animation become more obvious. If I did not know they spent a month on each episode I would say it looks rushed. Overall this extreme inconsistency leads to some parts looking quite attractive and others looking really awful.
SOUND 6/10
The music in Katanagatari is pretty lackluster, but often fits very well with the show. The music definitely contributes to the mood of scenes. The voice actors complement the show far worse. Tamura Yukari does a brilliant job as Togame. Unfortunately other characters generally deliver their lines with all the emotion of reading a string of numbers with a director over their shoulder shouting “sound angry for this scene!” The sound effects really shine.
CHARACTER 5/10
The characters are the point of Katanagatari. Whether you like the show are not, everyone will agree that the action, story and everything else are secondary to the character development. Unfortunately, this means the show puts incredible effort into one area that ultimately falls flat on its face. The only good thing I can say about the characters is they are not stereotypes.
The side characters are particularly unimpressive. They are incredibly shallow and most are killed off as soon as they receive just enough development to elicit an emotional reaction from the lowest common denominator. I also can't count the number of "Japan's strongest" that come out of the woodwork.
Togame, Shichika and their relationship are the real focus of the show. Throughout the show they slowly develop from a largely superficial relationship into one of real trust between partners. Finally, at nobody’s surprise, romantic love blossoms between the two. Unfortunately, the circumstances surrounding this make it unsatisfactory. And it happens during the final episode, which I have mentioned involves everyone acting tremendously out of character.
Although their interactions are very strong, Togame and Shichika themselves are rather weak characters. Shichika especially is quite the Gary Stu, with a lot of forced development. “Why does he fall for Togame in minutes?” Because he does. “Why does he suddenly get way stronger?” Because he does. “Why is he unable to use a sword?” Because it makes a convenient plot device. This sort of thing is constant.
One last problem that bugs me particularly is that Katanagatari succumbs to temptation and commits one of the cardinal sins of anime character development: “cHAIRacter development.” This is changing hair style, especially cutting a female’s hair short, to demonstrate character development. It is usually done when the character is so weak that a superficial change is required to show growth. It was completely unnecessary and just annoying.
ENJOYMENT 6/10
It isn’t hard to get caught up in Katanagatari. If you can overlook some flaws then there isn’t any reason you can’t enjoy watching it. The ending is lousy, but the ride to get there can be pretty fun at times.
CONCLUSION
The art and focus on characters make this show unique, but uneven animation, disappointing characters and the ending cause this show to fail at being what it wanted so desperately to be: special.
