Review of Katanagatari

The first episode is a trial by fire. If you can stick with it, you're in for a very unique anime. It's definitely not for everyone. Saying that it's dialogue heavy is not beating around the bush. You'll see a lot of positivity around this anime, that might be because most drop it by episode 1 and never look back. Even though the anime only has 12 episodes, each episode is about an hour long, so in practice, the entire series is as long as 24 normal length episodes. Each episode thus feels packed. This feature could make it's heavy use of dialogue feelunbearable.

Note: Even though each episode is an hour long, every episode has a natural break at around the 24 minute mark, where you could comfortably pause and resume later.

If you can get over the dialogue, you might actually find yourself enjoying it. I didn't find myself initially hooked by the plot, but the chemistry and character development kept me interested. The show becomes progressively more psychological towards the end, as the main characters get so much screen time together and learn about themselves. It's a character driven journey towards self-discovery with a cute romance element.

The animation is decent too, though characters mostly kind of stand still and talk a lot. Fight scenes happen in bursts, and when they do, the animation is smooth.

I like this anime but it's not for everyone. Episode 1 sucks and is an hour long. But if you are interested in a character driven romance anime (a tiny bit like Spice and Wolf) than I implore you to try and pass that first episode.

Note: you can't skip episode 1. You have to get used to the dialogue to a degree, or you'll just end up hating it.