Nah, the basic story is that Manji is cursed to be immortal - any wound will heal. He has to kill 1000 evil men for the curse to be lifted. In comes Rin, a 16-year-old girl whose family was killed by kenshi (swordsmen) of the Itto-ryu, a sword school led by Anotsu Kagehisa, who is trying to make a name for it and thus challenging other sword schools and killing their masters (there's a bit more about that, too, but that's in a later book). She's out for revenge, but really kind of sucks at swordsmanship and gets pointed Manji's way.
Samura-sensei is really really good at setting up characters to seem one way, and then letting you into their heads and their histories and making you have sympathy for them. There's a few who are JUST FUCKING PSYCHO, but most of the "bad" characters are multifaceted. Rin could be a really annoying sidekick, but he handles her well. She's not a natural kenshi, but it's not played for laughs, and the scenes where she's a helpless victim don't play her as an idiot. And Samura also considers the consequences of Manji being effectively unkillable: Manji is getting sloppy as he fights.
I highly recommend it. It's not deadly serious: there's humor to leaven it. And lots of character interaction, too, of the understated sort that Saiyuki's good at.
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sub_divided, it looks like we've hit Anime News Network with the Samurai Zombie thing.
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Nah, the basic story is that Manji is cursed to be immortal - any wound will heal. He has to kill 1000 evil men for the curse to be lifted. In comes Rin, a 16-year-old girl whose family was killed by kenshi (swordsmen) of the Itto-ryu, a sword school led by Anotsu Kagehisa, who is trying to make a name for it and thus challenging other sword schools and killing their masters (there's a bit more about that, too, but that's in a later book). She's out for revenge, but really kind of sucks at swordsmanship and gets pointed Manji's way.
Samura-sensei is really really good at setting up characters to seem one way, and then letting you into their heads and their histories and making you have sympathy for them. There's a few who are JUST FUCKING PSYCHO, but most of the "bad" characters are multifaceted. Rin could be a really annoying sidekick, but he handles her well. She's not a natural kenshi, but it's not played for laughs, and the scenes where she's a helpless victim don't play her as an idiot. And Samura also considers the consequences of Manji being effectively unkillable: Manji is getting sloppy as he fights.
I highly recommend it. It's not deadly serious: there's humor to leaven it. And lots of character interaction, too, of the understated sort that Saiyuki's good at.