Katanagatari 11

The next to last episode of katanagatari is great.

Togame and Shichika manage to retrieve the 11th deviant blade and to speak to Shikizaki Kiki (the maker of the deviant blades himself) who reveals openly to Shichika he is the 13th and complete blade. Emonzaemon takes the stage in this episode. He confronts the two remaining heads of the Maniwa ninja using Entou Jyu (the guns-sword) and is forced to retreat. When Penguin throws the Dokuto Mekki to Houou thinking of helping him the big wrting "That was a mistake" appearing was really a nice way to stress even more the turning point of the episode. Houou gets possessed by the memories of Shikizaki who later reveals his ninpou to be the ability to absorb other peole parts and memories, something which caused his fall to him. The legendary swordsmith attacks Penguin leaving him almost dead on the road where he is later found by Togame and Shichika. They take care of him and leave him in a inn where he fully recovers. In the latest episodes Shichika's humanization lead to always less cruel actions from him, opposite to the first episode where he was acting like a soulless killing machine, like a sword infact. That's why I was a little unprepared to the slaughter of Penguin from Emonzaemon. Penguin ninpou, called Unmei Kuzushi, is revealed to be some sort of "huge luck" for which any projectile would miss him, a real pain for the Entou Jyu of Emonzaemon. However, he manages to kill him nontheless and without any form of pity. It is hinted throughout the episode that Emonzaemon (who's real name is not yet known, it might be revealed in the last episode maybe...) and Houou had known since young and had learned the techniques of each other. Emonzaemon is holding a grudge with the Maniwa ninja, though, which is connected with the destruction of his Aioi clan. Maybe more revelations will come on the mistery of Emonzaemon, hopefully we will at least see his face...

The evolution of the relation between Togame and Shichika continues. Now that they can see the end of their journey Togame makes the move and asks Shichika if he will stay with her after the end. They might go on another journey to draw a detailed map of Japan (not a bad idea indeed, since they already visited basically all of it). Of course, she does it in a very cute way. Shichika accepts and the two move on to meet the 11th blade owner.

The "fight for the sword" in this episode was short and it looked like Shikizaki was only really testing the outcome of his work. With the end of this fight all the 12 Maniwa ninja heads were eliminated, one month in advance on the schedule.

But the real interesting part was the dialogue that preceded it. Shikizaki makes some quite big revelations:

• he was a "soothseer" and he realized the deviant blades with techniques he had seen in the future
• his aim and the aim of his family (all soothseers) was to change history

The creation of the deviant blades (including Kyotouryuu) was done to modify the future he has seen and overthrow the shogunate. So, the rebellion of Togame's father was caused by his plan. Moreover, the sacrifice of Togame's father was done to preserve history. A big revelation indeed. This changes the focus of Togame's "vengeance" towards Shikizaki and, possibly, his descendants.

If princess Hitei is Shikizaki's descendant she will also have the same foretelling ability!! That can be used to explain many things and to get to a very nice finale.

Kyotouryouu becomes perfected at the last minute of this episode... Did Shikizaki foresee also this or maybe it was the princess plan? Was all the journey a necessary step to complete the 13th blade? Not through the fights with the other 12 blades, but through the affection he would develop for Togame. After all, it could very well have been all a scheming of princess Hitei...

I am looking forward to see the last episode (10th of December) of this really deserving anime. This project is particular, not because of the number of episodes, but because of the longer then usual timescale. The lenght of each episode allows to explore many more details than you can with just 20 minutes and the longer time between episodes allows to avoid rushing and diminished animation quality. The animation and the drawings were consistently superb during all the show. But I don't want to make an anticipated review, I will wait for the conclusion for that :D

This is the hand of Shikizaki Kiki, reminds something?

Princes Hitei truly is direct :O

A man of few words

Very few words

"That was a mistake", so true