Its hero is a former assassin turned wanderer, his sword now symbolically reversed to demonstrate how he's sworn off killing. Fuji TelevisionĮasily the best-known and most widely-loved of samurai anime, Kenshin is actually set after the end of Japan's samurai era - in the Meiji period of the 1870s, during Japan's early years of modernization. (The designs are all actually patterned directly after the illustrations in the original novel, courtesy of illustrator take.) If you're looking for something genuinely offbeat, begin here. Also, instead of the stylized gritty realism that's usually used for visually depicting these sorts of stories (see Blade of the Immortal for more on that score), the whole thing's been visualized in a pop-art style reminiscent of Western graphics designers Seymour Chwast or Milton Glaser. The story's adapted from prolific Japanese pop novelist Nisioisin's novel cycle of the same name and grows from a mere frivolity into something wider and deeper. Most everything about Katanagatari is experimental, but in a good way: the experiment almost unilaterally pays off. And the swords they find more often than not aren't swords as we've come to know them. Neither of the two heroes wields a weapon: for one, her weapon is her mind for the other, it's his body.

In the details, most everything about Katanagatari is unusual. In the abstract, this is your standard quest story: a mismatched pair of adventurers go on a search for twelve swords of legend. © NISIOISIN, Kodansha / Katanagatari Committee. The show makes a valiant attempt to preserve both Samura's trademark art styles and does capture some of the original's mordant black humor, but it's best if not compared too closely to the original and just enjoyed on its own as a darkly stylish samurai-themed revenge story. Hiroaki Samura's original comic is regarded as being one of the best in print in any language or genre, which makes it a tough act to follow. (Just because he can't be killed doesn't mean he can't be hurt, which makes this particular brand of immortality a mixed bag.) When he's enlisted by the waifish Rin to help her seek revenge on her father's murderer, at first he's indifferent - but then he learns his opponent might be just the battle he's been looking for his whole life. Scarred swordsman Manji is virtually unkillable thanks to a curse placed on him by a mysterious old hag: he must slay one thousand evil men before he can once again have the privilege of dying.

Japan top anime 2017