Review of Katanagatari

No spoilers, or summaries in this review, just an opinion-based, general discussion. (I'm not sure if this would be considered a spoiler so I will pre-warn that I will give my opinion on the ending without spoiling what happens) I'm not usually into historical, martial arts kind of anime, but this one caught my eye because I saw a clip of a fighting scene that gave me enough chills to want to give it a chance. The unique art style and twisted execution certainly never failed to keep my attention, but then the ending happened and it was like a slap in my face that completely spunme in the other direction.

Let me just say that this anime has a pretty basic storyline, the protagonist meets someone who interrupts his daily, meaningless life and together they decide to go on a journey which lead them to follow their true destiny. If that was all there was to this anime then it wouldn't have gotten so many high reviews. The plot is what brings this story to life, the chain of events that take place, the character development, the journey itself. This anime is heavy on dialogue and it is a bit much sometimes, but I found that the communication between the characters added to its abstract nature. Nothing that took place really made sense in the usual way yet the characters all seemed to understand each other regardless and I could feel myself making sense of it too.

But then the ending came crashing down! It took away all meaning there could have been to all of these events and the character development was completely thrown back in the water. It was like being a spectator to a world that one day disappeared before my very eyes!!

Overall, this anime is a corrupted gem so watch it at your own peril :'(