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Anime is a medium of entertainment that distinguishes itself with its unique style and overstated stories incorporated with a comprehensive list of genres and tropes. And one trope that is highly used up in anime and saturated profoundly in any action series is the swordfight trope.
Swordfights are one of the coolest tropes in any medium and have a history that can be dated back to the Medieval and Renaissance eras. It is extremely sad and incredible to watch a swordfight between two or more people concluded with the hack and slash approach that would lead to dismemberment or death.
While sometimes overused, swordfights in anime are still among the most thematically versatile tropes in the medium, providing some of the most high-quality action that fans can’t get enough of. If you’re looking for a good swordfight anime to watch, worry not. Here’s the list of best sword fighting anime you should watch right now.
Table of Contents
Best Sword Fighting Anime
01. Blade of the Immortal
Buy/Stream On: Amazon Prime Video
Manji is a skilled samurai and an immortal who cannot be killed by anything except for a rare poison. His immortality is a curse he got when he killed 100 innocent people. He learns that to remove this curse, he must kill 1000 evil men.
On his quest to end his agelessness, he meets a young girl named Rin who wants to take revenge on a group of master swordsmen who ruthlessly killed her parents. The series follows Rin and Manji’s travels through bloodshed, revenge, and salvation.
02. Dororo
Buy/Stream On: Amazon Prime Video
In exchange for saving his dying land, Samurai lord Daigo Kagemitsu formed a pact with demons. Twelve demons accept his prayers and grant him the power to increase lands’ wealth and prosperity. In return, each demon took one part from Daigo’s newborn son and was left off on a riverbank to die.
Fortunately, a passing man took the baby and decided to raise him. As the kid started growing, he learns that he can regain his organs by killing demons. The man gives him prosthetic limbs and weapons to fight against these demons. On his journey, he meets Dororo, an orphan who befriends him and assists him in regaining his body.
03. Shigurui: Death Frenzy
Buy/Stream On: Funimation
During daimyo Tokugawa Tadanaga’s rule in 1629, a stage was set in the castle by the daimyo’s orders to a deadly tournament with real swords instead of wooden swords. In which 21 contestants participated.
The story revolves around Fujiki Gennosuke, a young man with an amputated left arm, who competes against a blind swordsman called Iraku Seigen and reveals two fighters’ history that happened seven years prior.
04. Samurai Champloo
Buy/Stream On: Funimation
Fuu is a young girl working as a waitress in a tea shop. When a samurai group was harassing her, two mysterious master swordsmen named Mugen and Jin save her. After saving Fuu, Mugen, who saw Jin as a worthy opponent, begin fighting him.
Accidentally, they end up destroying the entire shop and unintentionally killed the local magistrate’s son. For this crime, they are to be executed. However, Fuu secretly rescues Mugen and Jin from their execution and asks them to help her find the samurai who smells sunflowers.
05. Sword of the Stranger
Buy/Stream On: Funimation, Amazon Prime Video
Kotaro is a young orphan who, with his companion dog Tobimaru, is on the run from his pursuers from the Ming Dynasty. A prophecy has surmised Kotaro to be the child whose blood is required as a secret ingredient to immortality.
One day, while hiding in a small temple, he meets a skilled ronin known only as Nanashi, who has sworn to keep his sword sheathed. Kotaro offers to hire Nanashi for protection. Nanashi reluctantly accepts the offer to protect them and help the two reach their destination.
06. Basilisk
Buy/Stream On: Funimation
Shogunate Ieyasu Tokugawa ends a century-old war between the Iga and Kouga ninja clans. When the heirs of the two clans, Gennosuke and Iga, decide to marry after falling in love, the rivalry between the clan once again reignites. However, with Ieyasu’s two grandsons fighting to be the next shogunate, there was no one to resolve the fight between the clans.
To make the matter worse, the two grandsons suggest a batter royal between the two clans, with each clan representing one of the potential shogunate heirs. The grandsons also declare that the winner receives a favor for the 1000 year from the next shogunate. Now the two lovers must decide whether to choose their clan or their future with each other.
07. Berserk
Buy/Stream On: Unknown
Guts is a young mercenary who was born from the hanged corpse of his mother. Since his birth, the battlefield was Guts only means of survival. Guts spent most of his adolescence moving from one warzone to another, scraping to make enough to get by.
One day Guts comes across a mercenary troop, the Band of the Hawk. After losing to Griffith, the troop’s leader, Guts, gets recruited into the troop. With these newfound allies, Guts soon begins to climb the ladders and makes a name for him. However, a shadow awaits for him in the dark that will soon bring a new storm in his life.
08. Drifters
Buy/Stream On: Funimation
Toyohisa Shimazu manages to rearguard while his troop retreats during the Battle of Sekigahara. With his wounds and bleeding, Toyohisa suddenly finds himself in a white room filled with doors and a man named Murasaki waiting for him.
Murasaki then transports Toyohisa to another world as a Drifter. In the new world, Toyohisa discovers fantastical creatures and sub-human species. He even meets warriors from his world that were gone missing. After learning about the new world, Murasaki finds the purpose for his summoning in this new world.
09. Samurai 7
Buy/Stream On: Funimation
In an alternate universe, Earth was always in conflict due to wars between samurais that use mechanized bodies. However, after a long time, the war came to an end. The new emperor received help from small factions of high-class merchants who began to rule the world in the shadows.
For the merchants, profit was everything, so bandits and jobless samurais often pillaged villages to help merchants. One year, before harvest season, Kanna Village’s head decided to hire samurais to protect their village. With a stroke of luck, the village receives help from a ragtag team of samurais, and they began preparing for an epic battle against the bandits and the merchant masters.
10. Rurouni Kenshin
Buy/Stream On: Crunchyroll, VRV, Funimation
A legendary assassin known as Hitokiri Battousai lived during the Bakumatsu era. Battousai was undefeatable and feared as a ruthless killer. However, he vanished without leaving any clue. Since his disappearance and peaceful ten years, the world has forgotten Battousai except for the war veterans.
Battousai now lives a peaceful life as a wandering swordsman and goes by the name Kenshin Himura. Kenshin has adopted a cheerful personality and a strong will to never kill again. When he discovers that a con man is threatening a dojo using his old name, Kenshin decides to help the Dojo owner. From here begins his new life as he temporarily ceases his travels and settles down at the dojo.
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