This is a hard manga to review. Some of the story arcs are incredible but the overall story just isn't satisfying .To revenge or not revenge isn't enough to keep things interesting. This really becomes apparent at the end when you have "epic" battles that seem to have no purpose and it plays out like a hundred other manga before it.

In my opinion this manga really shines when it gets dark. Body mutilation and torture combined with the incredible artwork really makes this stand out. There is a constant fear of characters being caught and tortured which is great.

I have mixed feelings about this manga. I picked it up, not knowing what to expect, but I found the story interesting and addicting. For some reason, it really reminded me of Samurai Deeper Kyo, so I continued reading. I continued reading even when I questioned some of the content in the story; some of it is just so violent and nasty that I found myself revolted, but intrigued.

The art isn't bad. I actually like it, except that some of the scenes are a little shocking to me. But reading this manga practically prepared me for every other mature seinen I've read since. I mean, there are plenty of other gory mangas out there and the few that I've delved in are nothing compared to this one.

This manga isn't bad. It's actually quite good. But the maturity level of this manga is a lot higher than your average shounen. That's why it's seinen. I did enjoy reading through parts of this series, but I'll probably never be able to pick up this manga-ka's other works, especially Bradherley no Basha.

The art is really something. I love the way Samura-sensei frames the deathblows with Japanese style ornaments and flowers. It's really gorgeous. If I could afford it, I would buy the manga simply for the artwork.

Few gripes I have with the manga:
First of all, Rin is really not my kind of girl. I know she's supposed to be weak and all but I find her actions really stupid and bordering on pathetic.

Second, I don't like how Dark Horse flipped the whole thing. What's the point in cutting it all up and sticking it back in the same order? They may as well have just done it right to left like everyone else. I have spotted some inconsistencies as a result of this. And it's probably why the books cost so much.

Which bring me on to the third gripe.

I love everything in this manga and I am generally very picky. Dialogues are deep and amusing, art is unique. The story is original (in some volumes it got a little redundant). The Characters are interesting and deeply human.If you like martial arts comics this is a must read.

Volumes 13 and 14 completely put me off and I lost all interest in this one. When a mangaka contradicts all the story and character development and the only explanation he can give the reader is a globe in the head of the main char saying "I don't know why I'm doing this" that destroys the whole story for me, the previous volumes lost sense and a story based on that crap can't be good.
May be wrong and I may retake this in the future, I actually waited for it to finish to start reading it after all, but right now it's just crap in my eyes.

This manga is very good, but actually i dont like manji too much! He won all the duel so far only thx to the fact that he was immortal... but the other have always crushed him in skill
Aniway the story and the arts are great

Started out with lots of action and an overarching story with a revenge motive
nice and easy to like MC with her bodyguard
then something happened
lots of pointless characters gets thrown in our face just so that we can see them die,raped or get mamed in various fun ways
bones,flesh, clothes and armor is basically not working properly...things fly all over the place like its fruit or jelly they attack
no time is put into developing the story and making it belivable at this point
its now a splatter movie
then it just ends after some long boring speaches that as usualy makes little to no sense in a westeners ears[about as moronic as vagabonds long monologues at this point]
and
happyscans and co.s odd translations does not make it any easier

the whole last chapter is perhaps the worst of them all
should have ended with Manji walking out of edo
[so that we ourselves could fill in what happened later...now we got something that was shit instead]

Very cool. The art is good, the story is pretty cool, and the fights are also nice. But I still can't give it a full rating, the story just lacks something to the top mangas. But this is still a very good manga. Read it.

Best manga ever, Samura is my favorite mangaka.

Everything about this manga is excellent, what else is there to say?

It's perfect.

Edit2: Apparently I am wrong, and the characters are all meant to be sounding like modern street punks. They do still sound like outcasts from 80s American cop movies, but I guess that's more justified.

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So I've only read one volume so far, but ... fuck this translation. It's terrible. They're in Japan of a few hundred years ago. Why do they all sound like they're from some 80s American cop movie? 'Darling', 'pal', 'buddy' ... these are not the words that samurai use! So yeah - if there's some other translation other than the Dark Horse one, you might want to try that. I'm having a lot of trouble getting my brain around the ridiculous anachronistic speech.

Other than that, so far it shows no promise, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt - the guy wrote Bradherley's Coach, after all.

Edit:
Alright, well, that was an enjoyable way to spend an evening. The translation remains stupid throughout, but it bothered me less as it went. I'm not sure if it's meant to be as light a story as it is or whether that's also the translation's fault, but it is fairly upbeat reading. Even the rape and torture stuff didn't make any strong impact on that.

Well, anyway, I wouldn't strongly recommend it, but if you feel like samurai-wandering-around-killing-people it's probably a good choice.

... Last updated on November 2nd, 2010, 1:14am