2 Episode Taste Test: Katanagatari (Sword Story)

There is a spa­cious fifty minutes to each epis­ode of Katanagatari — enough time for sweep­ing, epic tales befit­ting of the pecu­liar art style and set­ting within feudal Japan. Dis­ap­point­ing then that each epis­ode has enough con­tent for ten minutes which is writ­ten for twenty four then stretched tor­tur­ously out to fifty. Util­ising every pos­sible means to extend and pro­tract res­ults in great swathes of time ded­ic­ated to cease­less banter between the two prot­ag­on­ists. The script may be sharp enough to pre­vent abject bore­dom and the char­ac­ters just shy of cari­ca­tures, but like the recent Bake­monogatari, this isn’t enough to hide defi­cien­cies in key areas such as storyline and pacing.

“this is one of the purest inter­pret­a­tions of what some view as the anime ethos”

Based upon a light novel series, Katanagatari fol­lows the reclus­ive martial-artist Shichika Yas­uri and the white haired strategist Togame as they search for twelve legendary swords forged by the mas­ter crafts­man Shikizaki Kiki. After trav­el­ling to the island where Shichika has stayed all of his life, Togame explains her pre­dic­a­ment and man­ages to enlist his help after one of the twelve sword’s cur­rent own­ers attacked, endan­ger­ing both her life and that of Shichika’s sis­ter. Jour­ney­ing to Kyoto then to Inaba (now Tot­tori Pre­fec­ture) they track down the second sword, wiel­ded by an proud swords­man still cling­ing to his ancestor’s leg­acy. Des­pite Shichika’s naiv­ete, he and Togame begin to bond through their tribu­la­tions and a reti­cent respect for each other’s role and spe­ci­al­it­ies is born.

In the two epis­odes presen­ted so far the script is both the series’ greatest and most det­ri­mental aspect. The second epis­ode has the two prot­ag­on­ists wan­der­ing a bleak and fea­ture­less province, dis­cuss­ing the pos­sib­il­it­ies of a catch­phrase for Shichika’s upcom­ing battles for close to eight debil­it­at­ing minutes. The dia­logue may show a sly self-knowingness, subtly pok­ing estab­lished genre tropes but it is undone when the most tedi­ous of them are exploited: exten­ded soli­lo­quies dur­ing fight scenes and attacks thick with gran­di­ose names are but two of the most shame­less examples. An odd jux­ta­pos­i­tion then: com­pet­ent dis­course with a pleas­ant tempo set against a genre that relies on runtime extend­ing slop­pi­ness. Many minutes are spent watch­ing only talk­ing heads fol­lowed by lengthy and drab fights which should oth­er­wise burst with expectation.

With only a trite fetch quest as the plot, other ele­ments are thrown into sharp relief. The aes­thet­ics are ini­tially jar­ring, mov­ing away from detailed eyes and more accom­plished shad­ing to a more straight­for­ward and styl­ised look. After two epis­odes it is clear that this is one of the purest inter­pret­a­tions of what some view as the anime ethos — exag­ger­a­tion and abstrac­tion — fit­ting with the cal­li­graphic back­grounds fea­tured in the open­ing. Although unique, the style could just as eas­ily double up as a cost sav­ing short­cut, espe­cially blatant when the screen is filled with a mono­tone face and uncom­plic­ated eyes. Asym­met­ric cos­tumes and smart col­our use help mat­ters but anim­a­tion is an evid­ent after­thought with only the brief spurts of action show­ing any kind of flare.

Katanagatari appeals to a demo­graphic uncon­cerned with tri­vi­al­it­ies such as plot, pacing and invent­ive­ness; instead it provides the min­imum required to ebb away fifty minutes. How little pas­sion the series has is its most cru­cial fail­ing. Sim­il­arly tar­geted shows such as Fairy Tail match their deriv­at­ive nature with enthu­si­asm, this is a blood­less, pon­der­ous show that sur­vives because of its occa­sion­ally smart script. Whether the remainder of the series will bear bet­ter fruit is uncer­tain given the rel­at­ively fresh stu­dio pro­du­cing it and the seasoned dir­ector at the helm, for the first pair of epis­odes though, it squanders its gen­er­ous runtime and seasoned voice act­ors. At half the run­ning time, each epis­ode would be tol­er­able and even verge on the enter­tain­ing, instead this is a tepid and unin­spir­ing open­ing to a series afforded lux­ur­ies befit­ting a more cre­at­ive source mater­ial. ¶