Katanagatari – 09

I am so glad Katanagatari still has episodes like this on offer.  The past few months I’ve been whining that I’m getting bored and wanted stuff to start happening in this series…….well not much happened to move the plot on this month, but in terms of entertainment and advancing Togame & Shichika’s relationship; this episode rocked!  So many awesome Togame faces, it was like the anime staff decided that his episode was their moment to show off every facet of Togame’s quicksilver personality; and I enjoyed every mood swing she threw Shichika’s way 😀

So this months Deviant Blade is Outou Nokogiri a wooden practice sword unaffected with the usual ‘poison’, which is currently being held by the extremely straight-laced Kiguchi Zaki, head of the Shinou Issou sword school in a shougi obsessed town.  The only snag is that Kiguchi is so straight-laced and militant about the rule and fair play, that her school has no students, and she refuses to fight Shichika unless he takes up a sword and puts on armour – rendering our Kyoutoryou specialist so completely useless that he looses in one strike!

Kiguchi then offers to train Shichika in her sword style so that they can have a rematch on more even ground, so Shichika heads to her dojo to attempt to pick up the Shinou Issou sword style.  It was fecking hilarious to see how uncoordinated and inept Shichika is the moment a sword is placed in his hands.  He can’t get the kendo stances right, can’t grip the sword correctly to swing and just basically looks completely out of his element.  It’s quite strange how utterly incapable Shichika is of learning a sword style; I know that its been said repeatedly that since Kyoutouryou turns the user into a sword, Shichika can not hope to wield another sword – the style is completely incompatible with using weapons.  However you’d think that since Shichika is basically starting from scratch and not applying any of his Kyoutoryou teachings to the Shinou Issou style and is being quite enthusiastic about learning, that he’d have a bit more skill.  As is pointed out in the episode, it’s almost like the Kyoutouryou specialist is cursed to be unable to wield a weapon outside of his own body.

Of course all that stuff about learning the sword is just background for the main point of this episode – Togame’s jealousy and realisation about the depth of her feelings for Shichika.  The cliché’s used here were pretty standard stuff involving Shichika and Kiguchi in compromising positions and Togame coincidently turning up at the perfect moment to see it (and completely get the wrong end of the stick!).  Still even if the situations were cliché, it was well worth it to see Togame’s many and varied reactions.

Togame spends most of this episode alone, agonising over her relationship with Shichika and over analysing (and completely misinterpreting) his relationship with Kiguchi.  Togame’s dizzying tempest of emotions flung at Shichika whenever he gets back from the dojo and tries to chat about his day with Kiguchi, understandably completely bewilders the poor fella who isn’t very good with emotions at the best of times!  I loved the way Togame could go from temper tantrum child to sultry seductress via teary jilted lover at the flick of a switch – her mercurial personality has always been one of the main draws of this series.

Togame also outdid herself with this month’s scheme to help Shichika win his rematch against Kiguchi.  Essentially telling him to fluke a win and driving any snippets of actual sword training out of his mind with a kiss – its only taken 9 fecking episodes!  These two have been a pretty solid couple for months now, but it’s still very satisfying to have an actual on-screen kiss.

Of course Togame has more up her sleeve and after soundly beating Kiguchi in yet another round of shougi, she proceeds to distract the poor girl by playing a mental game of shougi during her rematch with Shichika, allowing him to take advantage and win.  Not the most honest ways of winning, but Shichika wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance at winning with kendo without cheating!  The scene also serves to highlight once again that Togame for all her childish jealous antics, is a force to be reckoned with in regards to strategy and intelligence.  Although she often resorts to petty methods, Togame does have a very quick mind; you can see why the sword hunt was left to her.

The rest of the episode was focused on the remaining trio of Maniwani and their picking up of Dokutou Mekki, the Deviant Blade with the strongest poison.  Seems that Houou has replaced his chopped off arm with the arm of dead otter maniwani, but he’s having difficulty perfecting otter maniwani’s tracking ninpou.  The maniwani trio quickly becomes a duo when Hitai’s ninja butler turns up and kills off the bird lady maniwani using the twin gun Deviant Blades that Hitai had in her room.

So with three months to go we already know who holds two of the remaining three blades; the Maniwani have one and Hitei has one.  Shichika and Togame are off to Togame’s hometown next month to go after Seitou Hakari which should shed some light on Togame’s past.  I’m very interested to see just what this series has planned for its finale.