REVIEW: Rurouni Kenshin "Three in One" Omnibus (manga, vol. 1) by Nobuhiro Watsuki, translated by Kenichiro Yagi

Rurouni Kenshin is a historical action series. I bought this volume used.

Review:

Kaoru is on the hunt for Hitokiri Battousai, the infamous assassin who opposed the Tokugawa shogunate and killed countless men before vanishing after the start of the Meiji era, when she meets a humble rurouni named Himura Kenshin. She tells Kenshin that she's trying to clear the name of her family dojo - Hitokiri Battousai claims to use her family's sword-fighting style when he commits murder, and this lie is ruining the dojo's reputation. Kenshin happens to know that "Hitokiri Battousai" is lying about more than just that...because he's the real Hitokiri Battousai, determined to live out the rest of his days without killing anyone else.

This omnibus volume includes volumes 1-3 of the series, introducing Kaoru, Yahiko, Sanosuke, and Megumi. It ends with Kenshin, Sanosuke, and Yahiko beginning a mission to rescue Megumi from Takeda Kanryu, which will involve going up against Shinomori Aoshi and his followers, the Oniwabanshu.

REVIEW: Rurouni Kenshin, Part 1: Origins (live action movie)

Rurouni Kenshin, Part 1: Origins is a live action adaptation of the Rurouni Kenshin manga. Although it says "Part 1," rest assured, it doesn't end in a cliffhanger.

Review:

I'll start this review off by answering a question: Do I plan on buying and watching Part 2? The answer is “yes.”

Okay, now for the details. As far as my Rurouni Kenshin background goes, I've read the entire manga, although long enough ago that I've forgotten a lot, I've seen the first season of the original TV series and most of the second season, and I've read one related light novel. I'm definitely a fan of this franchise, but I had concerns about how well it might work as a live action movie. Happily, I thought it worked out pretty well.

The characters and general story were all faithful to the original. Of them all, I most enjoyed Kenshin. Other than a few moments during the last big battle with Jin'e, I felt that Takeru Satoh did a wonderful job portraying him. The box art image of Emi Takei as Kaoru worried me because she was only recognizable as the character by a process of elimination (I knew the woman in the corner was definitely Megumi). However, in the movie itself she was great and really brought the character to life, although I had forgotten how ridiculously and sometimes painfully naive Kaoru could be. Seriously, fighting Jin'e with a wooden sword? Yu Aoi as Megumi, Yosuke Eguchi as Saito, and Munetaka Aoki as Sanosuke were also pretty good, although they didn't fit my mental images of the original characters as well.

Rurouni Kenshin: Voyage to the Moon World (book) original concept by Nobuhiro Watsuki, written by Kaoru Shizuka, translated by Cindy Yamauchi & Mark Giambruno

Voyage to the Moon World features stories starring characters from Nobuhiro Watsuki's manga, Rurouni Kenshin. The English translation was published by Viz Media.

I'm opting not to include any read-alikes or watch-alikes for this one.

Review:

This was one of my used bookstore finds. Although you wouldn't guess it from the description on the back of the book, this is actually a collection of two stories. The first is “Voyage to the Moon World,” the one that gave the book its title. The second is “Sanosuke and Nishiki-e.”

“Voyage to the Moon World”

Sekihara Tae, one of the daughters of the owner of Akabeko, a beef-pot restaurant, visits the Kamiya Kasshin-ryu dojo with a request: help one of the restaurant's regular customers find a book that was stolen from him.

Okuma Daigoro had arrived at the restaurant with a copy of Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon. After his meal, he decided to help out at the restaurant for a bit, and that's when the book was stolen. Daigoro doesn't know why someone took it – maybe they planned to translate it into Japanese and sell it, or maybe someone thought its ideas about traveling to the moon had merit – but he does know that his sensei will kick him out if he doesn't get it back. Kenshin and the others agree to help him.

As usual, I'm behind on my posting

Currently, I'm reading The Inventor's Companion by Ariel Tachna (m/m steampunk romance) and watching the second season of Rurouni Kenshin (historical action anime TV series). I'm mostly enjoying Tachna's book, but one of the main characters, Gabriel, occasionally makes me want to throttle him. Also, I'm a third of the way through the book, and the only sex scene is of the "my eyes, my eyes!" sort - it does not feature the book's romantic couple and is unpleasant, so I wish it had been less graphic. I've only finished one disc of the second season of Rurouni Kenshin, but it's going strong so far. However, the first season also started out strong and got less enjoyable as it progressed. I hope that won't happen with this season.

I finish books and DVDs faster than I write about them. Right now, here's what's waiting to be written about, not counting the manga volumes I finished and decided I'd write about after a future re-read.

• The Iron Duke (book) by Meljean Brook - This steampunk adventure had a lot of moments and details that confused me. I enjoyed it anyway, although Rhys is not everyone's cup of tea. Rhys and Mina reminded me a bit of J.D. Robb's Eve and Roarke, and I found the world Brook built to be really interesting. I plan on reading more by Brook and hunting down her other stories set in this world.
• Mike: A Public School Story (audio book) by P.G. Wodehouse - This is, I think, the very first British school story I've ever read/listened to, unless you count the Harry Potter books. I didn't know what I was getting myself into. Because I know nothing about cricket, the only reason I finished this was because I was listening to it.
• Rabbit Man, Tiger Man (manga, vol. 1) by Akira Honma - Not for the kiddies, because it contains on-the-page sex, but also not very explicit. I'm still not sure what I think about this one. It had its amusing and cute moments, but am I rooting for the romance? I don't know. I'm also worried that, despite its humor, it's gearing up for a tragic ending.
• A Princess of Mars (e-book) by Edgar Rice Burroughs - I think I might have enjoyed this more in audio form. At times, this book was a bit like an ethnography of Mars. I eventually realized that what really annoyed me about it was its severe lack of dialogue. It does have dialogue, but only rarely.

Hopefully I'll write more about all of these before the weekend is over, but now you have the gist of what I'm going to write. Maybe I'll do short, quick write-ups like this more often...

Rurouni Kenshin, Season 1 (anime TV series)

This first season is 27 episodes long.

I hate how the disc labels were done - each disc has a title ("The Legendary Swordsman," "False Prophet," etc.), but no clear numbering stating the order in which the discs should be watched. While there is some tiny product numbering ("RKDVD-2002", "RKDVD-2003"), I would have preferred larger, clearer numbers along with the disc titles.

Synopsis:

I can't remember if the exact year is given, but this series takes place sometime during the beginning of the Meiji era. During the Bakumatsu era (just prior to the Meiji era), Kenshin was "Battousai the Manslayer," a legendary Imperialist assassin. After the war, Kenshin becomes a wandering swordsman. Determined never to kill again, he wields a reverse-blade sword (a sword with the cutting edge on the wrong side).

Kenshin ends up living with Kaoru, an instructor in the Kamiya Kasshin style (she only uses a wooden sword, and her goal is to protect rather than to kill). The two of them are later joined by a boy named Yahiko, who becomes one of Kaoru's students, and Sanosuke, a (former) fighter-for-hire and a former member of the Sekihoutai, a group that was used and slaughtered by the Imperialists. Megumi, a doctor, also occasionally spends time with the group.

The beginning of this first season introduces the main characters and explains a bit about their pasts. Megumi's introduction to the series also includes Aoshi's first appearance and several battles with the rest of the Oniwaban group. Other episodes include: Yahiko protecting a pretty girl from a bunch of thugs who are trying to use her; a girl who has a circus/festival act as a human cannon ball; a person from Sanosuke's past; a Manslayer who tries to use Kaoru against Kenshin in order to force him to become Battousai the Manslayer again; an attempted train robbery; a greedy faith healer trying to destroy Megumi's credibility and get rich off the townspeople; Kenshin getting captured by a female pirate; and probably more I've already forgotten.

Review:

I loved the manga this anime was based on and was curious to see how I would like this story in anime form. I wish I were able to reread the manga while watching the anime (I only own one or two of the later volumes of the manga), because I suspect that this first season included quite a few stories, such as the one one with the cannon girl and the pirate girl whose episodes ended the season, that were never in the original series. Either that, or I just never noticed how lame some of the earlier Rurouni Kenshin chapters were.

I thought this season was at its best when it focused more on Kenshin or Sanosuke, particularly when they fought opponents who reminded them that their painful pasts were still a part of them. I also liked the episodes in which Kenshin and the others had to face opponents with crazy techniques for which supposedly logical explanations were given. The Oniwaban group contains several good examples of this sort of opponent, such as the guy who used optical illusions to make his arms appear shorter and the guy who breathed fire with the aid of a bag of oil in his belly. I enjoyed the episodes involving the Oniwaban group, the Manslayer who could freeze weaker opponents in place with his gaze, and the friend from Sanosuke's past. In general, I also liked the episodes in which each of the main characters were introduced.