This review will contain minor spoilers since you can't really discuss a show without them.

Katanagatari is lot different than usual Nisio experience, ditching the seemingly uneventful life sprinkled with a few oddities type of tale, Nisio writes a full fledged adventure story that may or may not strike with the fans of the former. I'll go over certain aspects of the show that make it good and some that could've made it even better but sadly didn't make the cut.

Let's Go on an Adventure

Katanagatari's plot while may seem confusing in the first episode is much simpler to follow than Nisio's other works. In fact it's so simple that it doesn't deviate much from the basic synopsis of the show. Togame is a strategian (like tactician for tactics) under the direct command of the Shogun and her task is to collect the 12 Deviant Blades made by master swordsmith Shikizaki Kiki. For this, she employs the help of Shichika who lived on an isolated island and throughout their journey we see them tour basically the entire country and grow as a person. Very sweet but can be boring and predictable at times. Once the second half starts throwing in some more plot points it becomes a bit more interesting. Shichika being overly strong makes me lose interest a bit and I'm still salty about him not showing the fight against Japan's strongest. All of Nisio's works have a theme around them and this time it's History. It's significance, it's alteration, it's falsification, it's legibility. But the way it's presented makes it feel like it's an afterthought. You don't even get to know about it until around EP10 and even then it gets very little attention. What could've been a very good overarching theme and reveal instead just becomes a small plot point to wrap up the ending (which to its credit was pretty satisfactory).

The Oddball Characters

The cast, just like always, is the show's strong point. The dialogue sadly though isn't as intriguing or engaging as other Nisio works, nor does it really flow from topic to topic that well. That might partly be due to Shichika's inexperience with the outside world and his plain personality. In place of good dialogue we get to see the eccentricities of new characters each episode which make the non-fighting scenes good. Togame makes episodes like the one where she gets jealous of Zanki Kiguchi an absolute delight to watch but also makes episodes like the desert one pretty boring.

Take's character designs are still amazing. Each character perfectly blends in with the theme of their episode and their environment. Even if you get bored of the conversation between characters the visually appealing designs can still make you keep watching. The 12 sword bearers' motives are usually simple and glanced over for only a short time, yet you can empathize with them. But once in a while you get characters like Meisai who engage you to an even greater extent and the show spends more time exploring their situation and thought process, which makes for a neat balance between the two types of sword bearers.

But there are certain problems with this cast as well. The Maniwa Corps for instance were whimsical the first time around but they were frankly inconsequential. Shicika was so strong (or maybe they were too weak) that they didn't even serve as stepping stones for his growth. Their only point in the episode was to get eradicated by one of the main cast members. Giving them more screen time might have been good but they were just so uninteresting that I don't even know if that would have helped.

OST, Backgrounds and the Rest

The OST is also Katanagatari's strong point. Blending in each scene well while also feeling suitable for the present situation and characters it elevates fights to a greater level. My personal favourite being Bem! Bem! Bem! , especially when paired with the HouHou fight. The backgrounds are fairly normal, except for some scenes but they make the characters stand out more which is good given how charming they look. The animation is also good and fight scenes are short, flashy and easy to follow.

Cheerio!

Katanagatari is a nice and fun watch if you're looking for some action and interesting and good looking cast but a better allocation of screen time to the cast, a slightly bigger focus on the overarching theme and a bit more of a focus on the sword bearers each episode could've made it a lot better. I'm not giving it a score, it left me happy and satisfied and that's enough for me so I'll put 70 as a provisional one. PS Princess Hitei best character (ending spoiler).