Danzaien is acutally an Aioi Ninpou known as Namagoroshi, it is the same thing as Emonzaemons', they can use their arms to cut anything, decapitate, etc.

Entou Jyuu really just are normal guns, and Emonzaemon uses his Ninpou combind with the fire in the guns and uses them like Daggers in a way.

The review of Katanagatari by The Nihon Review is up:

[NHRV] Katanagatari

Anyone else here believes that Togame would've actually killed Shikichi if her plan succeeded?

The song is called sword summit. its from sengoku basara i believe.

I m pretty sure togame would have killed Shichika at the end. It would certainly make sense in her overall plan to avenge her family and also she had her crossed eye show up when she said that, so she meant every word she said. besides it was during her final moments of her life she had no reason to lie if she truly loved Shichika.

indeed, that is the one part of her character that I found the most believable. Even if it was said on a whim, I would still believe it

Edit: and did she actually fall for him? or, did he fall for her? Two beasts traveling together, sensual nonsenses sprout sometimes I guess?

Thanks a lot, it's from here. ;)
So i will hear this. ^^

I think it could have gone either way. I'm sure she's thought about it, but I think that, had she lived, it's possible she'd have found excuse after excuse to put it off.


She damn well had a reason - to try and set Shichika free. And I'm not so sure about the meaning of the cross eye. And even if she was sincere when she said it, it doesn't mean she'd have gone through with it when the time came.



(Really, now that I think about it, I'm more intrigued with why she bothered with the swords at all. It was supposed to be a mean to gain an audience with the shogun and, I suppose, assassinate him. But seeing how it went down... Couldn't she have just pointed Shichika at the bastard and let him go to town?)

I believe it, well somewhat, I mean since she is all about her calculations and everything is a pawn to her, she probably would have, but if Mutsue never killed Hida, I think she wouldn't since there is no grudge there! Despite her "love" for Shichika. She also did say she severed any close connections she had. :eyespin:

I think a better question is would she have been able to kill Shichika?

And I'm not talking about emotions getting in the way or anything like that. I mean, Togame is like a twig that can easily be snapped in half. I wonder how she would've gone about it. My personal first guess would be ye ol poison. Seems easy and to the point. She could just slip it into his green tea when he's not looking, and munch on her dango all innocently as he takes his final drink... of DEATH! Muahahahahaha!

Second guess... Catch him with his guard down (like during sex or something? LOL) and stab him through the heart? But Shichika's rock-hard abs might be unaffected by that. :3

Punch him in da face! lol. She could probably like attempt to shove him off a cliff while he is standing over the edge. :heh:

^^Despite the pointlessness of the question, I'm obliged to say, that she would definitely kill him, and then angst about it for the rest of the episode (which thankfully was never made) :heh:

Shichika did say he would have taken his own life if she had asked him to, though I honestly don't think that would have been the way she would have gone about it.

Well, it's not a pointless question. Just something to spark up people's imagination, is all. XP It's for fun.

As for her telling Shichika to kill himself, I agree. I dunno the exact reason, though. Maybe it's because... that just doesn't really seem like Togame's style? And hiring a hitman is totally out of the question; Shichika would just obliterate them. :heh:

I am pretty sure Togame could have came up with some plan using the swords to defeat him, especially if she was using Entou Jyu :heh:.

Animation - Absolutely poor DBZ esque actions scenes. It's called Anime for a reason, if you want to have an extended picture book then that's fine but it isn't an acceptable quality for a show in 2010. The visual style itself was interesting, but in the end its the moving scenes that make it anime.

Story - The main problem with this show is not the story itself which when written on paper is actually quite original, and interesting. The execution however, cannot have such kind words belles on it. There is just too much DAMN TALKING! I don't mind shows which are fleshed out and talky, but this show took it to the extreme. In the last episode it takes Togame 10 solid minutes of pure talking for her to die. A quarter of the damn episode just for her dying words.

Add this to the fact that the animators made NO changes to her dying face, so we spend 10 minutes watching a pretty much static image until she dies. Togame's face has no detail, no change, there is no way for you to look at her face and say this is the face of a dying girl. This same situation is repeated many times (basic animation + excessive talking) that it;' hard not to call this animation by that feared word, boring.

The dialogue itself varies in quality, with some of it being mind numbingly boring, and some being very, very good. The only constant however is that it is all very excessive, all of the dialogue could've being greatly reduced to the show's great benefit, and we would have greatly appreciated it.

Can't think of anything else right now to say - Blah.

Katanagatari - A great story which due to some bad decisions failed to be a cut above the rest.

8/10 - watch if you like dialogue and have time.

I just read the last few chapters of book 12 and whether the anime or book was better is debatable.
First of all of course the book gave a bit more information and the anime took some liberties in terms of changing some things up.
One big thing I noticed was that the last part of Emon and Shichika's fight actually WASN'T written in the book and the anime people actually create that part themselves. (The same as the preview for episode 4.)

Well thats retarded. Emonzaemon doesn't need to needlessly fight. DAMN BASTARDS SHOULD HAVE STUCK 100% TO THE BOOK EVEN IF IT IS "BORING". Sorry hard rage moment. White Fox did a good job imo.

Nono, I think you misunderstood what I meant. They did indeed fight but it's just that it wasn't written. In the book the description ended when Emon said Danzai Entou and Shichika said Kyoutouryuu ultimate move. The next two minutes of epic battle wasn't shown in the novel.

So the only type of shows that should be made into anime are shounen :confused:

I think, that the main reason Katanagatari gave the impression that it had excessive amounts of dialogues, was the duration of each episode. Compare with Bakemonogatari, which also had a lot of dialogue, but clocking at half the time, it rarely felt tiring.

Well, I think that a lot of people watched this show expecting chambara or shounen, but they were either utterly disappointed or finally converted ;)

It wouldn't really be too hard for her to kill him. Remember, he trusted her completely... poison would have worked just fine.