is a Japanese

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...

series written by

Toshiki Inoue is a Japanese screenwriter from Saitama Prefecture. He is known for his work on anime and tokusatsu dramas and films. He is the son of , who himself was a screenwriter for tokusatsu dramas. He is also a manga author, and has written both ''Meb ...

with original character design by

Keita Amemiya is a prolific Japanese character designer and director from Urayasu, Chiba. Amemiya is known for his distinctive fantasy designs and directorial style. Biography After graduation from the Asagaya College of Art and Design, he joined the Den ...

and scenario by Wosamu Kine. The first twelve episodes ("Part I") of an

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

adaption titled ''Sword Gai: The Animation'' were released on

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...

worldwide on March 23, 2018. Part II was released on July 30, 2018.

Plot

Gai is a young man who became an apprentice under a blacksmith named Amon, who found him as newborn holding on to a legendary cursed katana called "Shiryū" that drove his mother into committing suicide rather than let its bloodlust to consume her. The katana is revealed to be one of many cursed weapons that turn the user into a thrall to embody their murderous impulses, the Chrystalis gradually losing their humanity while becoming armored monsters called Busoma. After Gai lost his right arm when a ceremony to quell Shiryū goes awry, Amon forged the sword into a prosthetic limb for Gai. Becoming a chrysalis with the ability to fuse with his weapon, Gai clings on to his humanity while facing the Busoma seeking to exterminate humanity.

Characters

; : :User of Demonic Sword Shiryu. ; : :User of Chakram. ; : :Daughter of Amon Ogata. ; : :Adoptive father of Gai. ;Kigetsu : ; : :User of Fallgon Sword. ; : :User of Azoth Sword. ;Mina Haraya : ; : ; : :Administrator of the Shoshidai. ;Midoriko : :A Underground Idol and User of Flanberge Sword. ;Yasuko Tanaka : :User of Gallon's Hammer. ;Issei Ariga : :User of Nebestigma. ;Arnys : ;Shin Matoba : ;Kazuma Matoba : ;Rie Matoba : ;Kuromaru : ;Kagatsuka : ;Himiko : :Leader of the Gabi. ;Kazumo : ; : ;Hakim : ;Tatsumi : ;Kiyomi :

Media

Manga

It began serialization in Hero's Inc.'s ''seinen'' manga magazine ''Hero's'' in 2012 and has been collected into six ''

tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or ...

'' volumes. A sequel series known as was released in 2016 and ended in 2019.

Anime

adaptation originally developed by DLE and Fields was scheduled to air in April 2016, but it was delayed indefinitely until

streamed the series worldwide on March 23, 2018. Tomohito Naka directed the series while Takahiro Ikezoe served as the chief director, Inoue himself wrote the scripts,

Atsuko Nakajima is a Japanese animator, character designer, and illustrator. She is married to anime director and animator Tomohiro Hirata, with whom she also collaborated in the ''Trinity Blood'' anime (in which Nakajima was character designer and Hirata was ...

designed the characters, Toshiki Kameyama was the sound designer, and Kotaro Nakagawa composed the music. ''Sword Gai: The Animation'' was animated by LandQ Studios. The opening theme song is by Yūto Uemura.

Sentai Filmworks Sentai Filmworks, LLC or just Sentai, is an American entertainment company owned by AMC Networks. Located in Houston, the company specializes in the dubbing and distribution of Japanese animation and Asian cinema. Its post-production arm is S ...

will release the series on

home video Home video is prerecorded media sold or rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD, Blu-ray and streaming me ...

Season 1

Season 2

References

External links

* *
''Sword Gai: The Animation''
on

{{Netflix original animated series and films 2018 anime ONAs Anime series based on manga Dark fantasy anime and manga Japanese-language Netflix original programming Netflix original anime Seinen manga Shogakukan manga