Katanagatari

I think this is the first time I'm mentioning Anime here, but I just finished this up and wanted to give my thoughts.

The main characters, Togame on the left, Shichika on the right.
Note that Shichika is actually twice the size of Togame.

Katanagatari, a story about 24-year-old Shichika Yasuri (for the sake of being an English speaker, it'll be first name, last name for this review rather than Eastern ways), a tall man who is the 7th generation of a family who practices Kyotouryuu, or No Sword Style. He lives on an island with his sister Nanami, sheltered away from the world and therefore never truly interacting with anyone. 

Suddenly one day, a woman who is slightly younger than Shichika comes to the island, a woman by the name of Togame, who seeks 12 powerful swords that a great swordsmith has made, seeking the practioner of Kyotouryuu (a style that is actually meant to combat swords) to help her. Not wanting to have people collect them for her for greed or power, she decides that the only way for her to get a reliable right hand man is another solution entirely; love. When she orders Shichika to fall for her, he considers her offer of leaving the island and exploring the world unknown to him, agreeing and saying he fell for her despite the fact he doesn't actually know what that means. Thus starts the adventure of the two getting the 12 swords.

Shichika's actually pretty damn tall, being twice the height of Togame.
Also Togame shows her catchphrase/running gag of punching Shichika and yelling "Cheerio!"

 The characters are very charming. Shichika is a character that starts off as a blank slate, with no real emotions and not acting in a very humanly way, but as he moves on in the story and spends time with Togame, he comes to get more emotional and even develops a proper personality. Togame is a character that is rather proud and arrogant, but she also realizes her limitations and does become more and more delightful to have around as the series goes on. What's even better is that the two become closer and closer as the series goes on, which does mean that there's a hint of romance in this more action focused shonen. The two are just a delight to see together, and their relationship is playful and a little intimate.

Even the villains are enjoyable. While the beginning ones are nothing to bat an eye at, each one feels very human soon after, and you can't help but feel sorry for them. Even the ones that you begin to really hate have traits that make them not completely unlikeable. It's always a nice twist to sympathize with villains, and that's what Nisio Isin, the creator of Katagatari excels at. As a writer myself, I feel as though that this is a good example to follow, allowing the characters to flourish and grow during the story and through their actions rather than just throwing it all out on the table.

What's rather strange however is the swords themselves. There are 12 swords that the characters collect, but half of them aren't even truly swords. One sword is a suit of armor, another is literally one thousand swords. While it's strange, it does give an explanation for some of the later ones, and it makes wanting to see which swords you'll see next that much more exciting.

"Sir, how the hell did you make a robot while trying to make a sword?"
"That's not even as weird as the time I tried to make a sword and ended up making 1,000 of them."

Another thing that I should make note of is that each character has unique eyes. This is something that I myself have been doing with my series, but to see it in action is very enjoyable. Most of the eyes do feel meaningful, whether it's Shicika's normal black average eyes that reflect his rather beginning dull self or Togame's mischievous eyes, each has a level of importance to them.
The art is splendid, throwing away a typical anime style for a rather unique style. The characters themselves stand out and the backgrounds are nice and colorful. The designs are great even if they are a little crazy at times.

If I have one complaint, I would argue that there is a huge amount of talking. Seriously, half the characters feel like they could be quoting full pages from books at certain times. While I can give this a pass because it's fine later on, it did put me off a little bit in the beginning episode if only because the villain there never shuts up. It comes to the point that you're happy to see Shichika beat the crap out of him.

I won't spoil the ending, but know this; it has quite a few twists thrown in and definitely wraps up everything better than expected. I will keep this part ambiguous for the sake of not ruining anything.

Overall, while Katanagatari isn't the most well known anime, it's still a great watch. Each episode is roughly 50 minutes long (minus about 4-5 minutes of opening/credits), and with 12 episodes, that's about the average length for an anime to run on. Katanagatari is definitely an anime worth your time, and your heart.

Oh, and I feel like I should at least mention this; thanks Google image search for these images. The images come from various sites. The series itself is written by Nision Isin, illustrated by Take, and published by Kodansha.