I have to say it again but WOW... another fascinating performance by Nakahara Mai, again proving why she's like up there in talent. She's got the whole pristine calmness and yet terrifying intensity shtick down to an art form, bringing out the entire existential dilemma of Nanami.

Too bad it was her time.

Edit - Upon further thought to call her a sociopath might be incorrect and grossly unfair.

Mmm, i dunno what to think about the fact the Nanami just want to die an "ordinary death" (Interpretation from Togame Mazui Translation), i mean if she just want to die ordinary she could just live her life and wait till she died from age, illness etc. or even worst case suicide. But no she wanted to die by the hands of Shichika and more like in warrior way fight to death?...

Btw Nanami is my most favorite character in Katanagatari. Loli+unmatched strenght=epic(not to mention half/full psycho)!!!

I love the scene when Nanami seiryuu said "BE quiet!" it was just fantastic!!!

Uh... She is by no means loli.
She's twenty seven and spouts a couple o' nice B to C cups.

I don't know how you define loli with that.

Oh god, episode 7 was as amazing as I thought it would be. I'm a little confused about Nanami though: she stated she learned all those techniques and took possession of Bita to weaken herself and prolong her life a little longer, if that's the case, then why did she want Shichika to kill her so badly? It sounds a bit contradictory.

Katanagatari has always reminded me a lot of Oboro Muramasa, so I was very happy they included a reference in this ep. I'm surprised I'm the first to mention it.

That scene killed me. Nanami ;_;

I couldn't agree more. Nakahara Mai's performance in this episode was simply fantastic. Moreover, she's got such a heavenly voice... I could listen to her soothing voice for hours. She needs to sing more.

The only reference i think you could be talking about is the side scrolling, though i wouldn't really call it a Muramasa reference seeing as though the game wasn't the first to do that.

Or was there something else i missed?

That's the scene I was talking about. It's not just the side scrolling, there was an exclamation mark popping up at some point, the sound accompanying it was pretty much exactly the same as in the game. I don't think it's a coincidence.

Two things it would seem:

1. She finds herself a living contradiction: She's a combat prodigy yet her body cannot tolerate it, she has the ability to kill anyone she wants but fighting itself kills her. She cannot essentially fulfill her purpose for being born because fulfilling it will also end her life. Her existence is tied to a purpose she cannot fulfill. Thus, her existential dilemma.

2. She also seems to find being killed by a family member a form of love after being rejected by her father who promised to kill her.

With that, she believed that the only way to fulfill her purpose in life is to be able to both live it and die from it, that is, to kill and be killed in mortal combat. By that, only Shichika had the realistic chance of ever killing her.

I've come across such things in past games, though then again it could very well be a reference. Personally i just don't see why it would be, though who knows. :p

So I think it's safe to assume that

My take is that when Nanami was given the chance to actually get outside and learn new techniques to weaken herself, she was actually naive to think it would be a life worth having. Perhaps she might have also thought that Shichika killing their father for her sake wouldn't have been in vain either. But as she said when she fought Shichika, it was naive to think that and she realised that death was really her only option soon enough.

That makes sense. Now that I think about it, her contradiction even showed up in her speech in this episode, she was often wondering whether something was good or bad.

And I don't see why it wouldn't be :p
It's impossible to tell if it's truly a reference or not either way, unless the staff itself outright says it.

That's also what I assumed. He was already scared of her when she was but a child, so if he found out Nanami secretly learned Kyotouryuu, I guess he would attempt to kill right away.

Edit:

It seems she wanted Shichika to kill her along though. The very reason she started hunting the swords was so that Shichika would have to fight her.

This would be also assuming that he wanted to protect Nanami, which I don't think this guy had the thoughts to (whether he didn't notice that his dad wants to kill her or he just didn't care enough) because I had always consider him to be a bit of a broken human I would say?

Broken or not, he always seemed to care about his sister.

It really was a good episode, but the implied tragedy was not as powerful as I thought it was going to be. Maybe in the novels it's probably elaborated more, but with the whirlwind of information about character we either never see, or only know of through five minutes of burning castle storming it's hard to elicit the emotion the dircetor wants us to. This actually is kind of similar to Lebronathon, well actually no, because I wasn't repulsed by the lack of "impact" with the death of nanami, then the betrayal of Lebron. I feel that as a character Nanmi's real lack of inclusion in the entire 7 episodes of the anime really didn't help us connect to their family dynamic, the actual dynamic between the groomed heir apparent and the child cast aside. Also I assume that the mother/father drama was meant to appeal to us in the filial manner, but it came off as foreboding of a fate unescapable by the family not in a tragic sense, but more so in a moronically stupid sense. Still overall it was a good episode, but I did really feel like Nanami's character was really wasted, and the build up to it was not as intense and the resolution was not nearly as poignant as it could have been.

And Nanami cared about her brother. They were both broken to some extent, but they loved each other.

:T_T::T_T::T_T::T_T::T_T::T_T::T_T:

I knew it was coming, but... Nanami! :T_T::T_T::T_T::T_T:

Also, what did that damn Akutou Bita do to her chest?

Symptoms include popping veins and gaping black holes.
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You know, as tragic as it was, Shichika got over it pretty well. It's too bad Nanami sorta messed up her last words. :p

Pretty good episode and ed song.

I like Togame's new look.

I have to agree with Nosauz. The end did have a pretty large impact to me, but I really do feel like it was a little forced and rushed, and drawing out her appearances and showing their relationship would've made for a much stronger ending.

That being said, it was still really sad. Nanami's the reason I started watching after the first episode.

As far as I can tell Nanami's strength is like a poison her body and like she said in order to weaken herself, she needed to copy other people's inferior moves. With that being said Nanami could tell that her body is giving in and when the 3 Maniwani attacked her, the battles actually took a lot out of her and she could tell her life just got even shorter. She wanted to die by Shichika's hands, as for why I really don't know.