How would i do this?

[Joes Pizza]

How would I make this guy.

I picture him as a Japanese guy wielding a katana. He'd do the whole shirtless with tattoos all accross his chest and back.

I'd want him to have the cool effects that you see in most anime.

This includes the stand-still for a second with a dash that hits all enemies in front of him, The crazy stuff you might see in an old-school martial arts movie, etc...
Those cool effects that I am just not sure I could get by playing a straight fighter.

Is this a combo of classes? Is it a straight class with magic items? Not too sure.

I have a lot more to add, but it's very late/early and will edit some of the extra stuff in after I sleep.

[DonDuckie]

Monk - Ex. Weap. Prof.(katana) ... whirlwind attack feat tree, or power attack, cleave, great cleave...

optimal? no.
fun? if you want it to be.

[TGMaxMaxer]

Kenasi Magus. Dex and int to AC, free prof/weapon focus with Katana, and all the Iajitsu type effects, and if you talk to your GM and use the tattoo items instead (taking the same amount of slots so they're not free).

Spells like bladed dash, (a full move in a line and a massive strike somewhere along it), channeling touch spells thru the weapon.

[blackbloodtroll]

Sword Saint Samurai.

What books are available?

What Races are available?

[Joes Pizza]

Tattoo items? Is this a thing? (Edit: Is this an effect like the tattoo guy from Elektra? or... what do the Tatts do? I thought it'd be cool just to have them, Are you saying I can get some other benefit besides looking badass?)

And to the best of my knowledge anything is available...

[TGMaxMaxer]

We always allow items to be made into tattoos for flavor purposes, provided they cost the same price as the original items and take up a body slot just like the normal item.

There is also the Tattoo magic option.

[Kolokotroni]

Best choice for this sort of thing that I know of is the 3.5 tome of battle sword sage. The manuevers can get very animeish, and the sword sage has the most dramatic of them I think.

If you are pathfinder only, I think the kensai magus is your best bet and then just choose the spells that are closest to what you want, but the real way to acheive this is with the sword sage.

[blackbloodtroll]

Well, Cleric/Qinggong Monk is another option.

Be a Cleric of Shizuru, and nab the Crusader's Flurry feat.

You will be able to use the Katana during Flurry, and later use Ki to use the Whirlwind Attack feat.

[Joes Pizza]

Ok, I found out a lot more information about the campaign and players etc.

It looks like we will have a 3-4 person party that will be traveling a lot. This will occur over land or on the ocean, it's up to us to decide as this will be more of a sandbox type of adventure.

We have a bard and a cleric.

I looked up the tatoo magic stuff and I love it.
I also looked up bladed dash and that looks great as it fits.

This character will focus on getting craft tattoos and go for the cool caster's tattoos for still and silent spells.

I do like the hexcrafter as a prestige class, but am not sure if that is martial enough for a 3-4 person party.

The thing I am also not sure about is how to build this guy without resorting to the standard shocking grasp trick. I like the idea of having a weapon that has the shock property, but do not want to be a one-trick pony.

Also, for race, I was thinking Sylph. It's not optimal, but I love the idea of having a flying without wings character.
Even a Human with the racial heritage feat would work.

Am I trying to do to much?

Should I just take a ranger and call it good? Rangers get full Bab and still get some good buffing spells.

Any thoughts or opinions would be helpful. Also any builds would be great.

Also, i was thinking of having this guy come from the Tian region. Making him a full Japanese character would rock.

[TGMaxMaxer]

You need to talk to your prospective GM. The lack of armor on the magus type character will be a godsend in a ship-type setting, giving you a lot of mobility and not causing you any problems if you have to swim.

If you're looking at bard/cleric/x in a 3 man party, your GM can't just pull random entries out of the Bestiary to throw at you, because some will be a cakewalk, and others will be TPKs waiting to happen.

You just won't have the hitpoints/AC of a pure fighter, so he just has to know not to treat you like a "tank".

That said, if your GM knows how to actually look at the party and find enemies that balance, or has a lot of humanoid enemies, a magus is a fine frontline damage build.

Hexcrafter loses Spell recall, but is my personal favorite archetype. If you want to stick with your original idea, a completely unarmored type Fighter, look at the Kensai/Bladebound archetypes for the traditional anime type sword tricks.

An intelligent bonded sword that gets stronger as you gain levels, being able to take fighter feats, a few less spells than a traditional magus, but pearls of power are fairly cheap, as are wands of many of the most common spells.

For the Anime style feel, a Tiefling might be appropriate as well, then you can also pick up a feat for natural armor +2, and energy resistances. Samsaran are "humans" and their bonus racial ability allows you to add spells from one arcane list to your Magus list, so they would be usable with spellstrike/spell combat, so you could get some nice things from witch/bard/sorc that magus normally don't get. It's a small list though, based on your int at creation, no adds for later stat boosts.

What kinda stats, rolled or point buy? That matters as well, to see if you can afford the loss of spells. If rolled, Human might be your best bet if you can get 3 good scores, without any major low stats.