RUROUNI KENSHIN REVIEW

               Rurouni Kenshin is the infamous "Hitokiri Battousai". He got this name during the upheaval before the Meiji Restoration, when his fighting skills were unsurpassed. What his reputation as Battousai doesn't include is his very short height and slightly feminine voice, which often makes his opponents underestimate him. After the start of Meiji in the 1800s, he gave up his assassin ways and became a "Rurouni" or wanderer, helping people to atone for all the people he had killed. He carries a "sakabatou" (a sword with the blade reversed) because he has vowed to himself never to kill again and uses the sword technique called "Hitenmitsuryugiryuu" (uhhh how to pronounce that no one knows)

       Well Kenshin 1878, 11 years after the demise of the Tokugawa Dynasty and the establishment of the peaceful Meiji Era. One night, Kenshin happens to be wandering through downtown Tokyo. However he is surprisingly pursued by a girl called "Kamiya Kaoru" who accuses him of being the "Hitokiri Battousai" who had defamed her school's reputation by rampaging throughout the town and taking countless innocent lives, using her school's name. Kenshin is puzzled, of course. Attempting to make things clear, he shows Kaoru his reverse blade and explains that it cannot be used to kill people. Kaoru, after judging from Kenshin's clumsy behavior, decides that Kenshin is not the cold-blooded killer "Battousai" after all. Suddenly a big masked man is running through an alley and is pursued by multiple police officers. But the police are defenseless against the skilled masked swordsman. Having caught sight of the escaping culprit, Kaoru immediately confronts the masked man who, surprisingly, claims himself as the "Battousai". However, Kaoru is no match against him. When the masked man is ready to make his last strike to finish off Kaoru, a shadow appears quickly and saves her from the fatal attack. The rescuer turns out to be "the vagabond," Kenshin, whom she met a second ago. To show her appreciation of his heroic act, Kaoru offers Kenshin to stay in her dojo for the night. The bewildered Kenshin, who is concerned about Miss Kaoru's wound, reluctantly accepts. And thus Rurouni Kenshin -- Meiji Kenkaku Romantan begins...

          5 out of 5 great series I recommend it to everyone

Character Bio

Hitokiri Battousai 

During the Meiji war Kenshin was called the Battousai a mysterious lethal assassin.

(the only episodes depicting him as the Battoussai are the 4 Ova's or mini series)            

Himura Kenshin:
Age 28 (but doesn't look it at all).  Kenshin has a very gentle and polite nature with a strong sense of right and wrong.  However, this nature could be a mask for his violent Hitokiri nature which seems to resurface whenever he is faced with a tough opponent or other extreme circumstances. In these instances he seems almost superhuman in his fighting ability, almost as if he were a different person.

Kamiya Kaoru:
Age 17, she is the head of the Kamiyakasshinryuu, a sword school which has a philosophy of using the sword for protection, not killing. She can be very nice and has a generous nature, but is quick-tempered. Her two students are Yahiko and Yutarou. She has no brothers or sisters, or parents and was apparently living by herself before Kenshin arrived. She forms an attachment to Kenshin because with him at the doujou she is not alone and often worries that Kenshin will abruptly leave without telling her, since during one of their first encounters he had told her that he was a wanderer and bound to just go wherever he happened to. She is a terrible cook, which she has been told by Sanosuke and Yahiko although Kenshin doesn't seem to mind her cooking. 

Sagara Sanosuke:
Age 19, he is one of the two remaining members of the Sekihoutai, a group of civilians that was massacred by the Meiji government as scapegoats. Afterwards, Sano became notorious for getting into fights and also for the huge "zanbatou" he carried around before Kenshin sliced it. After his fight with Kenshin he looked up to and admired him because Kenshin reminded him of his leader, Sagara Souzou. Sano now uses only his fists to fight but is still very strong. He also still wears his shirt with the "Bad" kanji on it to remind him of the past. Although he does have his own place, he is often over at Kaoru's hanging out with everyone or else he is at Akabeko, where he often finds a way to leave without paying.

Myoujin Yahiko:
Age 10, he is about as quick-tempered as Kaoru. He used to be a small-time pickpocket before he ran into Kenshin and tried to steal his wallet. Yahiko is an orphan from a Tokyo samurai family, who was forced to pick pockets to pay off his parents debt to a gang (the debt turned out to have been made up by the gang). Kenshin set him up with Kaoru to learn how to become strong and refused to teach his own sword technique to Yahiko, claiming there is no need to learn how to kill.