1. Story spans centuries, but is tied to a story well-known to every Japanese.
2. Fascinating art, both of the settings and of the people, including super-duper ecchi.
3. Fighting + Timeless Love = perpetual suspense on behalf of the lovers.
4. A believable future, with believable villains, given the universal fear of death as a motivator of much of the world's evil.

The only thing I can say against it is that I sometimes had trouble following the battles, but that may be due to my limited experience with fighting manga.

Any guy who loves fighting manga and great sci-fi concepts should enjoy this manga.

This story lacks depth and most of the ideas have been expressed by other authors. It has nothing to do with Yoshitsune just that it borrows his name to popularize this work. The characters almost all look the same except with different hair styles. Alot of the scenes are unnecessary and just feel like fillers to me. But some of the action scenes are just amazing.



Overall, aside from the action arts, this serie is disappointing as the idea of imortality keeps changing.


Ideas are thrown in with no development or that its altered as the story progresses. Rules of imortality transformation applies differently to different characters just to fuel the story. Well I guess I'm just reading too much into this.

damn. although sometimes the artwork was a bit odd and reminiscent of capcom character designs i still liked it.
really sad that no one has scanned any of his other works.
hint frikkin hint

There are times when I thought about giving up on this manga just because it jumped around a lot.

While reading, I was always confused if it was the present or the past but I think this is really a successful part in what the mangaka was trying to portray: the confusing timelines of what MC Kuro can and cannot remember. This was a really unique part as readers are forced to accompany Kuro on what he can recall what his memories may be. Even though we may not entirely understand his relationship with Kuromitsu, we are aware that they have endured decades of suffering and as fugitives. This part was truly powerful and if focused on this part alone, i think it would have a larger impact...

The downfall for me was the later half of the manga in which Kuro is working for the Red emperor, fights against the White Empire (like a poor inspiration of Alice in Wonderland with color-alternating armies), and gain unlikely allies of clones and what not. The plot ties together and made sense eventually but I thought the clones and the Red Emperor was a twist that was incomplete. There are some brief backstory about the clones and why they are created. They play a significant part of Kuro's life, both as enemies and friends, but are left basically as such. Not to mention, the very last clone who had a very brief role (i.e. Red Emperor's clone) had a much more significant role. With this said, if the mangaka expanded on these characters and give them a lot of room for character development, it would have been a fantastic read.

My rating went from 7/10 to 4/10. I realize that there are a lot of reviews which really appreciate this manga but for the reasons above, I can't truly appreciate this manga as just a dark mystery romance when there's a really out-of-place action/shounen/syfy going on. It didn't tie entirely well but I thought this is still a generally good read and would still recommend this to any and all readers.

... Last updated on September 27th, 2020, 11:55am

I have to agree with Aikanaro, although I am much less severe. The manga has many defects, the biggest being that characters and plot are not developed enough (apart from some unnecessary fanservice). It gives you the feeling of unexpressed potentialities, it seems a series that was thought to run for more than 20 volumes, but that for a reason or another was compressed in ten.

Nevertheless, I thought that Kurozuka was a beatiful Manga. The plot was not confused in my opinion, but it requires a higher level of attention. Artwork is also outstanding, and some of the characters are deeply fascinating.

I didn't think it was very good. The first few volumes are just confusing in how they jump around, and the rest of the story when it settles down wasn't something that needed to be told. There were some interesting elements, but most of it fell into boofhead-seinen-action-story mode. There's not a lot of substance in the main part of the story - just a lot of fighting and running.

Which is a shame, because there's potential for substance. The premise has room for it, and most of the characters have potential for doing interesting things. Mostly they don't though. It's like they fight just because that's what happens in these kinds of stories.

The actual structure of the story is a bit of a mess as well. There are plot threads and characters that are introduced and then are quickly forgotten or never amount to anything. Was there any point to the loli, or was she just there because all seinen action series need one?

If you like stories about superhumans fighting each other with swords, this is for you. There's only slightly more substance than that, and none of it gets well developed.

The only thing you can think after reading this is:



Seriously though, I would recommend reading this to anyone who wants a well-written DEEP story. This is like no other manga out there, and the ending spurs many "wtf just happened!!?!?!?" moments for weeks on end. Only reason I can't see this manga as being a largely discussed one is that the art is very dark, it's not mainstream, not that I'm complaining.

i really liked it and didn't find the time skips all that hard to follow. One thing i didn't like was all the guts coming out after some body gets cut in half (witch is all the time although i guess it is realistic i don't like it) oh and there quite a bit of sex but not after i think earthier chapter 15 or 23 but other than that the art during and out of fighting scenes is awesome and everything gets explained by the end but this is in my top ten for favorites

... Last updated on September 18th, 2010, 2:51am

Wow, I was totally blown away by this story, it is so unique and thrilling that I couldn't stop reading. Don't be thrown off by the relatively low ratings, this is really a great story (and if it weren't for spiteful people who judge stories based on their biased opinions and don't read through the story completely before rating, this would be rated much higher) The artwork is well drawn, but due to the dark ambiance that the author tries to portray, some of the actions (images drawn) can be quite difficult or straining to make out, especially during some of the fighting scenes. I finished the story in about two days, only because the first day I didn't want to finish it and have nothing to do the next, but even then, it was hard not to think about it. I really loved how the story spanned over great lengths of time, it really added another dimension to the story, keeping the reader wandering what is going to happen next and really emphasizing the love between the two main characters (though in my personal opinion this author should stick to seinen and action titles since he could use work on his interpretation of love and how to really show it).This manga really kept me guessing on what was going to happen next, always moving forward, it sometimes got overwhelming. There really is a lot fit into these short 10 volumes and if you don't read carefully it is quite easy to get confused (I know I had to go back and re-read a bit to grasp some of the concepts). In my opinion, I felt that the ending came to soon. Though it was satisfying, it left me feeling like I had forgotten something, but couldn't quite figure out what. I couldn't be more pleased with the ending though, because it is probably the most hopeful and fulfilling ending that a dystopia could possibly offer, and even though I felt like I wanted more, it was probably the wisest time to end the story since this type of story could probably continue on forever. But overall the story is quite fulfilling, even for a dark, apocalyptic, dystopian world, such as this and I recommend it to anyone who is interested.

... Last updated on July 21st, 2010, 12:20pm

While there wasn't much chapters about their romance, I loved Kuro and Kuromitsu, Kuromitsu is beautiful yet mysterious character, I would have loved more about Kuro's past and Kuromitsu past, but oh well, great story hope there will be a sequal ^^