Heart of Sword! Rurouni Kenshin! Hiten Mitusugi Ryu!!!!

From Right to Left Sanosuke, Yahiko, Kenshin, and Kaoru

   Rurouni Kesnhin was a series anyone had heard of back in  the late 90s, early 2000s. Then it made it to Toonami and even more people became fans of it. I saw parts of it here and there, mostly due to always being at work when it was on. It was okay, I preferred Dragon Ball Z or YuYu Hakusho for my fighting Shonen.Then I read the manga and it was amazing. My cousin had the first few volumes, which I quickly bought my own copies of, and rabidly anticipated each volume. The series was such a hit that Viz moved up the schedule to monthly, and I looked forward to every volume fervently. It's still one of my favorite manga series to this day.

   Rurouni Kenshin follows the story of a wandering swordsman named Kenshin Himura. He wanders into town one day and meets Kaouru Kamiya, a local dojo owner who is searching for a swordsman tarnishing her dojo's name. Kenshin saves her from this swordsman, and the two start a friendship. Kenshin however has a dark past, and vows to protect those near him with his reverse bladed sword.
Characters:
Kenshin Himura- An assassin from the Meiji restoration who fights with Hinten Mitsurugi style moves. He's 28 or, and a loner when the series begins, but grows more friendly as the series progressess.
Kaouru Kamiya- A local female dojo owner who takes a shine to Kenshin.
Sanosuke Sagara- A local fighter who also takes an itnerest in Kenshin.
Myojin Yahiko- A young Tokyo Samurai who admires Kenshin.

    As you can see, the main cast of the series is rather small, strange considering this is a Shonen Jump series. The series can easily be divided into three arcs, the first of which is referred to the Tokyo arc. We find out Kenshin is an extremely strong swordsman with a reverse blade sword who fights to protect his friends. A few people learn that he was an assassin in the past, and admire him for choosing a path of freedom as opposed to joining the government and getting fat. During this arc he meets and befirneds Kaouru, Sanosuke, and Yahiko. He also meets a rival by the name of Aoshi Shinomori, an army commander from the losing side of the war who hopes to defeat Kenshin to gain glory for his army. Kenshin struggles, but does eventually defeats him. The first arc essentially involves Kenshin fighting guys he's much stronger than, and making friends. This is changed by the appearance of Saito Hajime, one of Kenshin's strongest rivals from the past.

   Saito Hajime was the former captain of the Shinsengumi, and based on a real person! He is sent to find out Kenshin's strength, but gets caught up in the fight, and Kenshin returns to his former assassin self to trade blows. They are interupted by Okubo, a leader of Japan who has dire news for Kenshin, Shishi Maokoto, an assassin who was replaced by Kenshin and thought to be dead. In reality he was doused in flames, and returned to conquer Japan. He gathers a group of ten swords or fighters, and is commanding from Kyoto. Kenshin is forced into action by Okubo's death at the hands of Shishio's men. Keenshin leaves everyone behind, and heads to Kyoto. This is the Kyoto arc, aka everyone's favorite Kenshin arc.

       Kaoru, Yahiko, and Sanosuke, while Kenshin has been joined by Misao, a child connected to Aoshi. On the trip there, Kenshin learns of what type of control Shishio wants over Kyoto, and breaks his sword. When he finally arrives in Kyoto, Kenshin needs two things, a new sword and to find his master, and learn the final move of Hinten Mistsurugi Ryu. Naturally he does both, meets up with the gang from Tokyo and teams up with Aoshi's comrades. Aoshi has become a fighting demon, and he sides with Shishio. Aoshi's commeardes, along with Misao, Kaouru, and Yahiko protect Kyoto, while Kenshin, Saito, and Sanosuke head to Shishio's lair. Sanosuke and Saito each defeat a member of team Shishio, while Kenshin defeats Aoshi bringing him back to the light, and another one of Shishsio's men. Finally the battle against Shishio arrives, and everyone joins in, but is easily overcome by Shishio's power. Shishio is finally done in by his burned body, and inability to regulate body heat. Saito is thought to be killed in this battle.

  The final arc of the Kenshin manga is the Jinchu or revenge arc. It was never adapted into an anime sadly, because it is a great arc. After Kyoto, Kenshin seems changed, he's friendlier to Yahiko, and begins a relationship with Kaouru. We finally get the whole story on Kenshin's past, his scar, and their new enemy. Keshin left his master at a young age to fight for the new area, despite being in his early teens. Kenshin received part of his scar  from a young man to be married to a woman named Tomoe. Keshin soon meets this Tomoe and they fall in love. This was a plot by the enemy to create a weakness in Kenshin, but she did truly fall in love with him. She is kidnapped, and killed in a fight while Kenshin tries to save her. She drops her knife in the battle, and creates Kenshin's X shaped scare.

       The new enemy is Yukishiro Enishi, her younger brother who blames Kenshin for everything. He creates a team to fight Kenshin, and after they are defeated he defeats Kenshin. One of Enishi's fallen comrades revives, and during this he kills Kaoru, leaving Kenshin broken. Kenshin heads to the swordsman's graveyard, while Aoshi and Misao arrive in Tokyo with Tomoe's diary, which details that she loves Kenshin. Aoshi thinks something is up, and digs up Kaoru's body, finding out it's a fake. The team wants to tell Kenshin, but aoshi says it would be pointless. Kenshin finally revives when Yahiko is in danger, and they all head off to fight Kaoru.  Kenshin defeats Enishi, and marries Kaouru. The two of them have a son, and a grown Yahiko receives Kenshin's reverse blade sword.

   The Kenshin manga is a Shonen series done right for numerous reasons. It's largely based on historic people and events, while managing to make them fun and interesting. Kenshin and his enemies use amazing sword techniques, and Kenshin himself is an ex-assasin! How cool is that? All of Kenshin's rivals are interesting people with distinct personalities (something most Shonen Jump series fail at terribly). It even has romance done right, inspired by the author's love of Shoujo manga. Kenshin is older than most protagonists too at 28 years old, so I believe this skewed his audience a bit older. Kenshin is a believable character, he wants to protect people, and in his past fought to help his comrades. The Kenshin Manga is a solid 10/10 to me, so how about its spin offs and derivatives ?

The live action Kenshin is great, easily the best live action anime or manga adaption I've ever seen. Not saying much, that means its better than the mediocre Death Note Adaption and the awful Gantz one. It is great, they translated the story and the characters perfectly, and I'm anticipating the sequels. It's based off the Tokyo arc and mainly follows the Opium arc with Megumi and Kanryu, but with Aoshi and his Oniwabanshu removed. They merged Jin-E in as the end boss too.The accompanying manga created for this, Rurouni Kenshin Restoration is mediocre at best. It's similar to the movie, except Kanryu hires Sanosuke, Saito, and a few more of Kenshin's rogues to go after him The manga follwos Kenshin defeating them, Saito being on Kenshin's side the whoel time, and finally Kenshin defeating Jin-E. This manga is like being kicked in the balls because I adored the original, and this falls short by a grand canyon length.

     The Kenshin anime is an okay adaption, at least while it covered the manga. It shoe horned in some filler and children for whatever reason, but faithfully adapted the majority of it. That is til the last third had no material and dealt with Kenshin fighting Germans and Chritians. This lead to it being canceled before they could adapt the Jinchuu arc however. There's also plenty of OVAs, which are all awful. The new Kyoto ones are the Kyoto arc, 10 volumes of manga crammed into roughly two hours. Needless to say it's fucking brutally awful. The Samurai X ovas as they were called were terrible, they were dark, depressing, and awful. They were nothing like kenshin. I watched them once and hated them. all I remember is Kenshin and Kaouru died from some disease that looked like it was ripped from Princess Monoke. It was dark, depressing and the art style was hideous. For some reason people claim to love them,  and I have no idea why. Now here's the numbers.

Manga: 10/10
Live Action Film: 8/10
Restoration Manga: 5/10
Anime:7/10
OVAs Kill it with Fire/10