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clarks_dad's review against another edition
5.0
Let me start by saying, I like anime (sometimes), but have never been able to get into manga (even for series or other adaptations that I've enjoyed like Berserk or Hunter x Hunter). I've kinda given up on trying to read the source material for stuff that I like. I always start with good intentions and never end up making it to the finish line, as much as I'd like to (again, especially for series' that were never properly finished in other forms - like Hunter x Hunter). It always irks me that I'm missing part of or the ending to a story, but most of my anime-watching days are behind me. I try new things now and again, but always find them formulaic and disappointing.
When I was in college there was a bootleg anime rental joint across from the community college I attended in Pasadena. I forget the name of it now, but it was always the highlight of my week to go in and rent something new and watch it at midnight (in the pre-file sharing, pre-Toonami days) on my little vcr/tv combo in my room. I would usually just pick up series that the owner recommended and he had a good track record. I tore through shows likeVision of Escaflowne and Flame of Recca like nobody's business and at the peak of my interest, I discovered Kenshin and it changed everything. I changed my major from physics to history. I started studying Japanese. The Bakumatsu period and the history of pre-modern Japan became an all-encompassing obsession. I loved the television series and when I watched the prequel Tsuioku-hen original video animation with it's dark and serious tonal shift, I was beyond hooked. I can clearly recall the sense of frisson I felt watching that adaptation in particular. Everything from the somber and ghostly music to the muted, painting-like imagery made my spine tingle and goosebumps break out no matter how many times I watched it. I loved it because of the contrast with the main series. It made the story even more tragic and I'm so glad the owner of that store made me wait to watch it last. The bookcase behind me is overflowing with books on Japanese history that I bought in the decade or so after watching my first episode of Kenshin at around nineteen years old. To say that the series was formative on my life is an understatement. And then life changes. You go through different phases. You get older and your imagination dies a little, as does the excitement you once felt at discovering something new and unexpected. You forget your roots.
I hadn't seen the show in twenty years - and then on a quarantine-boredom-inspired-lark I decided to indulge myself and get an HBO Max subscription two weeks ago. I'd watched everything I wanted to watch on Netflix, tried reading a half dozen books I'd been looking forward to, and played pretty much every game in my Steam library and was feeling rather unfulfilled. Much to my surprise, HBO had the full original Rurouni Kenshin series. About a week ago, I decided to watch the first episode, just to see how terribly it had aged (as pretty much every other thing I enjoyed from my early life has aged), and about four hours later realized I was pretty much through the first major story arc already. No cringe. No embarrassment at the taste of my younger self. To my surprise, I found it just as engaging as I had the last time I watched it twenty years ago. I'd seen the films on Netflix in passing and had no desire to watch them. Film adaptations of anime shows just always look horribly bad to me and I had no desire to see one of my favorite franchises go through that process, but other than that it's the first time I think I've even thought about the series in over a decade. I devoured all the canon episodes through the Kyoto Arc and watched the prequel OVA just as I'd done two decades ago and just loved the experience. It's been the first show or bit of entertainment that's genuinely held my attention since this quarantine nightmare began. Out of curiosity I did some googling. I remember the second OVA that attempted to tie things off not being very good and in my searches discovered that the series...IS STILL ONGOING.
I'd never read anything about the Jinchu arc (so that, in and of itself is going to be a treat) and now I discover there's a whole new story (the Hokkaido Arc) and I found that I simply had to know how this story ends. So here I am, like a twenty year old again, stoked to be reading Kenshin and revisiting some of my favorite fictional characters and my favorite historical period of all time and it's energized me like nothing else has in a number of years.
I'm starting with Volume 18 of the manga - the end of the Kyoto Arc to pick up where the anime series (in all practicality) let off. Kenshin and the gang return to the Kamiya dojo in Tokyo after defeating Shishio Makoto and the Juppongatana, preventing them from causing a descent into a second, even bloodier revolution. Kenshin has been changed by the experience. Forced to confront his past and his legacy directly for the first time in over a decade, he's found that he's a changed man. He's more open and willing to let people into his life, probably for the first time since the death of his wife Tomoe, at his own hands at the peak of the revolution. The peace of mind that accompanies this reckoning is to be short-lived. Kenshin's brother-in-law, Yukishiro Enishi, has returned from a self-imposed exile in Shanghai to launch a revenge plot designed to make Kenshin suffer as he has suffered since the death of his sister. To do so, he intends to punish Kenshin's new friends and adopted family in Tokyo, realizing that Kenshin is all too eager to accept punishment for himself.
I'm still not a huge fan of the manga format, to be honest. I feel like the pacing is choppier than in an animated series or even in western style comic books or novelizations, but I have to admit that this one scratches the itch. The overarching redemption arc is tightly knit through the entirety of the story and Enishi's return literally a volume removed from Kenshin departing Kyoto and visiting the grave of his deceased wife for the first time since her death feels karmic rather than overly coincidental. It also shows that more must be done to atone for his crimes than renouncing killing and fighting a second revolution against dark forces trying to overthrow the new established order. It's more mature and less shonen and borders on the philosophical and as an older man now, I view the entire story differently. I take new lessons from it and a new appreciation for its construction. Excited to read the source material for Tsuioku-hen in the next volume as it's one of my favorite stories of all time.
When I was in college there was a bootleg anime rental joint across from the community college I attended in Pasadena. I forget the name of it now, but it was always the highlight of my week to go in and rent something new and watch it at midnight (in the pre-file sharing, pre-Toonami days) on my little vcr/tv combo in my room. I would usually just pick up series that the owner recommended and he had a good track record. I tore through shows likeVision of Escaflowne and Flame of Recca like nobody's business and at the peak of my interest, I discovered Kenshin and it changed everything. I changed my major from physics to history. I started studying Japanese. The Bakumatsu period and the history of pre-modern Japan became an all-encompassing obsession. I loved the television series and when I watched the prequel Tsuioku-hen original video animation with it's dark and serious tonal shift, I was beyond hooked. I can clearly recall the sense of frisson I felt watching that adaptation in particular. Everything from the somber and ghostly music to the muted, painting-like imagery made my spine tingle and goosebumps break out no matter how many times I watched it. I loved it because of the contrast with the main series. It made the story even more tragic and I'm so glad the owner of that store made me wait to watch it last. The bookcase behind me is overflowing with books on Japanese history that I bought in the decade or so after watching my first episode of Kenshin at around nineteen years old. To say that the series was formative on my life is an understatement. And then life changes. You go through different phases. You get older and your imagination dies a little, as does the excitement you once felt at discovering something new and unexpected. You forget your roots.
I hadn't seen the show in twenty years - and then on a quarantine-boredom-inspired-lark I decided to indulge myself and get an HBO Max subscription two weeks ago. I'd watched everything I wanted to watch on Netflix, tried reading a half dozen books I'd been looking forward to, and played pretty much every game in my Steam library and was feeling rather unfulfilled. Much to my surprise, HBO had the full original Rurouni Kenshin series. About a week ago, I decided to watch the first episode, just to see how terribly it had aged (as pretty much every other thing I enjoyed from my early life has aged), and about four hours later realized I was pretty much through the first major story arc already. No cringe. No embarrassment at the taste of my younger self. To my surprise, I found it just as engaging as I had the last time I watched it twenty years ago. I'd seen the films on Netflix in passing and had no desire to watch them. Film adaptations of anime shows just always look horribly bad to me and I had no desire to see one of my favorite franchises go through that process, but other than that it's the first time I think I've even thought about the series in over a decade. I devoured all the canon episodes through the Kyoto Arc and watched the prequel OVA just as I'd done two decades ago and just loved the experience. It's been the first show or bit of entertainment that's genuinely held my attention since this quarantine nightmare began. Out of curiosity I did some googling. I remember the second OVA that attempted to tie things off not being very good and in my searches discovered that the series...IS STILL ONGOING.
I'd never read anything about the Jinchu arc (so that, in and of itself is going to be a treat) and now I discover there's a whole new story (the Hokkaido Arc) and I found that I simply had to know how this story ends. So here I am, like a twenty year old again, stoked to be reading Kenshin and revisiting some of my favorite fictional characters and my favorite historical period of all time and it's energized me like nothing else has in a number of years.
I'm starting with Volume 18 of the manga - the end of the Kyoto Arc to pick up where the anime series (in all practicality) let off. Kenshin and the gang return to the Kamiya dojo in Tokyo after defeating Shishio Makoto and the Juppongatana, preventing them from causing a descent into a second, even bloodier revolution. Kenshin has been changed by the experience. Forced to confront his past and his legacy directly for the first time in over a decade, he's found that he's a changed man. He's more open and willing to let people into his life, probably for the first time since the death of his wife Tomoe, at his own hands at the peak of the revolution. The peace of mind that accompanies this reckoning is to be short-lived. Kenshin's brother-in-law, Yukishiro Enishi, has returned from a self-imposed exile in Shanghai to launch a revenge plot designed to make Kenshin suffer as he has suffered since the death of his sister. To do so, he intends to punish Kenshin's new friends and adopted family in Tokyo, realizing that Kenshin is all too eager to accept punishment for himself.
I'm still not a huge fan of the manga format, to be honest. I feel like the pacing is choppier than in an animated series or even in western style comic books or novelizations, but I have to admit that this one scratches the itch. The overarching redemption arc is tightly knit through the entirety of the story and Enishi's return literally a volume removed from Kenshin departing Kyoto and visiting the grave of his deceased wife for the first time since her death feels karmic rather than overly coincidental. It also shows that more must be done to atone for his crimes than renouncing killing and fighting a second revolution against dark forces trying to overthrow the new established order. It's more mature and less shonen and borders on the philosophical and as an older man now, I view the entire story differently. I take new lessons from it and a new appreciation for its construction. Excited to read the source material for Tsuioku-hen in the next volume as it's one of my favorite stories of all time.
ehmannky's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
We increasingly leave the realm of physical and biological possibilities in favor of fights that are simply cool, but I liked the way that the Kyoto arc wraps up. I think it marks a really interesting turning point in the character development of all the mains, and this volume sets up the final arc really well.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Murder, Violence, and Death
puzumaki's review against another edition
3.0
New story arc! I like the flashback on Kenshin's life. I am wary about how this next arc will go, however, seeing has the last arc was SO LONG. Another bad guy line up with expected battle line up. But some good history thrown in as well. Fun way to learn about Japanese history.
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