Rurouni Kenshin
Japanese manga series
Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story (Japanese: るろうに剣心 -明治剣客浪漫譚-, Hepburn: Rurōni Kenshin -Meiji Kenkaku Roman Tan-) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Nobuhiro Watsuki. The story begins in 1878, the 11th year of the Meiji era in Japan, and follows a former assassin of the Bakumatsu, known as Hitokiri Battosai. After his work against the bakufu, he becomes Himura Kenshin, a wandering swordsman who protects the people of Japan with a vow never to take another life. Watsuki wrote the series based on his desire to make a shōnen manga series different from others published at the time, with Kenshin being a former assassin and the story taking a more serious tone as it progressed.
Rurouni Kenshin was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from April 1994 to September 1999. Its chapters were collected in 28 tankōbon volumes; it was later republished in a 22-volume kanzenban edition and a 14-volume bunkoban edition. The manga was adapted into an anime television series, produced by SPE Visual Works and animated by Studio Gallop and later by Studio Deen, aired from January 1996 to September 1998. In addition to an animated feature film, Rurouni Kenshin: The Motion Picture, two series of original video animations (OVAs) were also produced; Rurouni Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal, which adapted stories from the manga that were not featured in the anime, and Rurouni Kenshin: Reflection, a sequel to the manga. In 2017, Watsuki began publishing a direct sequel, Rurouni Kenshin: The Hokkaido Arc, in Jump Square. A second anime television series adaptation by Liden Films premiered in July 2023.
The public source identifies “Rurouni Kenshin” as japanese manga series. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Rurouni, Kenshin and Japanese.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rurouni Kenshin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.