Katanagatari

Katanagatari: A

Katanagatari (a Japanese portmanteau, combining the word "sword" with the latter character of the word for "story") is the second anime series I've seen based off the writing of of Nisio Isin.  The other is Bakemonogatari (Ghostory, another portmanteau, though it has nothing to do with Katanagatari), and both I have found to be absolutely exemplary stories in terms of characterization, pacing, crafting, and combining humor and drama.

The first thing a viewer of Katanagatari will notice is the uniquely simple and extraordinarily stylized animation style.  The animation and backgrounds are exceptionally flat and cell-shaded in appearance, which gives a mythic tone appropriate to a story set in Shogunate Japan.  The second interesting factor about the series is slightly more subtle: the series is provided in 12 1-hour (with commercials, realistically 50 minutes of animation) episodes, making its format extremely unusual.  Originally the series was 12 chapters, one released each month, and corresponding to Togame and Shichika's travels in that month, the animated version aired three years later but used the same format: one episode per month, covering the main character's activities for that month.

The plot is easily summarized: "A strategist in the service of the Shogun named Togame convinces the swordless swordsman Yasuri Shichika to fall in love with her so that she can collect twelve legendary swords, the Perfected Deviant Blades of Shikizaki Kiki."  If you noticed that there are twelve Deviant Blades and twelve episodes, give yourself a cookie: the couple obtain one sword in each episode, and indeed, each episode is named for the sword that they will deal with in that episode, usually via Shichika fighting the sword's current owner.

It sounds like a forgettable and formulaic shonen action series.  It isn't.  It is an emotional tale of conflict, manipulation, lies, deceit, betrayal, loyalty and fate.  It is also incredibly bloody, with merely a handful of named characters surviving to the end of the story, and many of them not surviving the episode they are introduced.  Despite this, their deaths are rarely brushed over or ignored, the characters discuss the fact that they are killing people and react reasonably and accordingly (or the lack of reaction is treated as a sign of insanity, in one case).  It is an extremely grown-up story with an extremely juvenile premise, and so it appeals to a lot of nerds like myself.

Beautifully animated, creatively written, lovingly portrayed and heartbreakingly brutal, Katanagatari is a tale of swords: what it means to possess them, use them, and, ultimately, be them.