Good anime about swordplay

[Dist]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Katanagatari. Just about the most annoyingly long-winded, yet epic anime ever.

Ruroni Kenshin is not bad too, and Juuden-chan. And there is also Omamori Himari.

Both of them were already mentioned, and for the latter ones... Exactly where is the swordplay ? I havent seen these, but anidb doesn't list them under Swordplay, even on smallest weight.

I should have mentioned, that I despise ecchi, but I had no idea that someone would suggest an anime like this ...

[xxblue-blood]

Hi Dist
I like Sword of the Stranger,too.
How about SAMURAI7 ?? I love this anime.
If you don't hate robot-anime(in which robots appear), perhaps you'll like SAMURAI7.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

I'm going to go completely opposite and tell you that I don't like the OVAs that much. They're interesting in their own emo way, and gorgeously animated - but as far as I'm concerned it's wrong to associate them with Kenshin. They're completely original, produced without the permission or input of the mangaka (who has publicly denounced their content as inconsistent with his characters) and bear no true relation to the source material.

The series, by contrast, is faithful to the manga until veering off on an anime-original tangent for the last run of episodes. It's not as lavishly animated as the OVAs, but the story is plenty gritty and at it's best, among the best and most involving of any TV anime. It's a long series and naturally has its highs and lows, but it's true to the characters and in my book, that counts for a lot. And to tie it in to your OP, though Kenshin has sworn off killing he's involved in plenty of massively GAR swordplay.

Er... I've read the entire manga and seen Tsuiokuhen. The OVA is almost verbatim from the Jinchuu Arc in the manga, where Kenshin tells his nakama about Tomoe, Enishi and the events that led up to Kenshin's vow to never kill again. I don't see how Watsuki would possibly be upset about this.

The other OVA (and the film) though, yeah, are totally original derivative works and are also steaming piles of shit.

Edit: Seriously. Watch Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuiokuhen. It's vastly more awesome than the TV anime adaptation in art, coherence, production values and general badassery. The manga is great, and parts of the TV adaptation are worth watching (specifically the Kyoto Arc), but it's missing the best arc of the manga (the Jinchuu Arc) and contains an enormous amount of very low-quality filler.

[Jesushalero]

I feel i was a bit short by just leaving a list. Sword animes are kinda my thing too so i though you would appreciate a bit more explination.
Shura no toki- Yes the main char dosent have a sword but the whole anime is very well done thru 3 generations of a sword style that provides great action and many interesting concepts reguarding sword combat.
Kenshin- Though i love this series as with most that get above 54, in the end it seems really drawn out and i began to lose interest. I think that is why so many suggest the ova b/c they are short and sweet and the animation quality is top notch.
Samuria 7- great suggestion, based on the original movie 7 Samuria, also later western version The Magnificent 7. Sword play in this is top notch aswell as the animation.
Condor Hero- Been a long time since i saw this one but i remember the main focus being martial arts, mabye not even swords
Shiguiri- just saw this and have to say i loved it. Great story, focus is completely on swords and sword styles. This is a bit more serious then the rest for sure, people saw its bloody, but i wouldnt say its overtop or excessive.
berserk- the characters use swords, i wouldnt say it was the focus of the series though. Given that there is a reason everyone brings it up when you slighty metion sword animes and that is because it was a defining genre bending masterpiece. If you haven't seen it, you need to.
bleach- all about swords and power DBZ goes to heaven on crack, given that i still watch and love it.
basilisk- ugh, just downloaded this, not a sword anime, and cant seem to bring myself to watch anymore. Mabye im finally too old for pointless violence and cool special effects.
well hope that helps a bit.

Oh god and whatever you do, dont watch Tsubasa Chronicles, i wasted a couple hours of my time fast fowarding through the whole anime. I watched a couple eps when it first came out, then i forgot why i stoped watching it( i thought i just had better stuff to watch at the time). After watching the first couple eps again, i vaguely remembered the series so i started skipping ahead. upon skipping ahead i realized that this was exactly what i did when i first watched it. Sorry for the long winded expliation i think i just needed to vent about how much i dont like this anime.

[Dist]

That's maybe because Tsubasa isn't exactly a swordplay anime ? However, mind you, Tsubasa is one of my favourite animes all-time ... lol.

Ill check out the list later but Bleach ... I stopped around ep 55. Just not interesting.. I dont really mind that series drag on for hundreds of episodes but Bleach wasn't my thing. Characters weren't too interesting etc. Ichigo is fine, but Orihime annoys the shit out of me, I wish I could just go and kill her. I also didn't like Rukia, so pretty much why i dropped it.

[Dist]

Ahem.

Time to bump this thread a bit.

Looking for more suggestions again... Now, related to what has been suggested before :

Samurai Champloo - I liked this anime very much, probably one of the best I've seen in a while. Liked the story, and especially Mugen. His wild personality and top notch seiyu for the job made him really great character.

Samurai 7 - Though I dislike Mecha, since it was Samurai fighting against the Mecha I decided to check it out. Just finished it, and I liked this one alot as well. Although I don't like Mecha, the only '' mecha '' that annoyed me were the Raiden thingies, the other machines didn't feel like mecha to me.. ahaha, well I dunno how to explain it.

Kenshin - I watched first episode, and that already was hard. It was not the art, it wasn't bad at all and if it wasn't for Kenshin himself, I'd have watched the series. The '' comedy '' part of this series just didn't work, badly done.. and well, the way he spoke really annoyed me.

The other ones suggested I have downloaded or checked out but haven't watched enough to say anything about them.

I did also finish watching Seirei no Moribito .. or rather, I watched it all in one go. Though at first it seemed uninteresting as I read the description from anidb, I decided to give it go and .. Well, the story was great and all, for a change the main lead was a woman.. skilled fighter at that, and the spear fights were just epic. Too bad there weren't too many of them.

With that said, you may also suggest other anime, as long as it focuses on fighting with some weapons.. no supernatural stuff. The series might contain it but I dont want the fights itself have that.

[barcode120x]

Sword play eh? Possible Karas?

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by Dist

Kenshin - I watched first episode, and that already was hard. It was not the art, it wasn't bad at all and if it wasn't for Kenshin himself, I'd have watched the series. The '' comedy '' part of this series just didn't work, badly done.. and well, the way he spoke really annoyed me.

I'll have to repeat syn[...]'s recommendation and say that you ought to go watch Kenshin's first OVA instead (known in English as Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal). From a production standpoint it is far superior to the series, and your complaints don't apply there, fortunately. There's none of that shounen comedy idiocy or long-running-shounen-series quirks in the OVA; it tells a tragic story and it tells it seriously. Being a prequel, the story stands alone without requiring the watcher to watch the series first.

I'm not sure about your problem with Kenshin's way of speaking though. As I recall in the OVA it didn't even register, so it probably did not annoy me, but who knows.