Rurouni Kenshin, Vol. 1 (VIZBIG Edition) (1)

FREAKING love Rurouni Kenshin Am very happy to have this! I really love how it has all the three cover arts in the back. And In the first couple pages in the front are colored.

This book is amazing folks! If you are a manga/anime fan and you haven't picked this up do yourself a favor and read it! In fact even if you aren't into these kind of books pick this up anyway because if this won't have you hooked on manga then I don't know what will.. The author, Watsuki, has a knack for combining exciting action, hilarious situations, and extremely powerful prose to create something that isn't quite action, comedy or romance but instead a wonderful blend of emotions, colorful characters and intriguing situations that make up a great story. To add to an already great recipe Kenshin also has many historical anecdotes on the Meiji period in Japan with background on the conflicts and personages which lend inspiration to the story and provide an additional depth to it. I found myself laughing out loud at the silly antics of characters, smiling at the sweet and simple romance, and crying at the bitter sad parts. It's funny how a few simple words and pictures on a page can do that, but that's the power of manga! All that coupled with the great value of the VizBig Edition makes this an excellent choice.

Warning: SPOILERS!!!! There are several things I like about the VizBig edition. One is that it's big. It's a large sized book, which really shows the artwork and the loving care that Nobuhiro Watsuki put into the drawings of the various characters. It's also a three-in-one, so you get Kenshin's meeting with Kaoru and you go all the way to Kenshin, Sanosuke, and Yahiko's attack on Kanryuu's mansion. It's printed on good quality paper, and while it is a paperback, the covers are very heavy paper, with a beautiful full-color portrait of Kenshin on the cover, an interesting black and white and red picture of him on the spine, and a drawing of Kaoru in black and white and pink on the back. There is a table of contents in the beginning, along with a full cast of characters who make their appearance in this edition. Each character has their picture and a short description. You also get notes from Watsuki. He has a page on each character's "Secret Life" in which he talks about inspirations for the character and real historical people they were based on. In this volume, you get the secret lives of Kenshin, Kaoru, Sanosuke and his beloved captain Sozo Sagara, and several villains. The volume starts with a chapter in full color, and there is a bonus chapter of one of Kenshin's first appearances, before Rurouni Kenshin really got off the ground. The volume has a glossary at the end of the Meiji Restoration and includes many terms in the manga, and concludes with a brief description of what's coming in the next volume.

This was best action packed I have ever read. What also makes it great is that the books are collected in VizBig books. There is a total of 28 single volumes and each VizBig book collects three volumes; in other words, there are 9 VIzBig books (volume 9 collects 4 books). I suggest purchasing the VizBigs. If you enjoy reading Shonen manga like Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, One Piece, and others, you should add this in your collection. This also collects Nobuhiro Watsuki's character notes, color pages, and his special one shot, and side story. If like Watsuki's work, check out his reboot version of the story Rurouni Kenshin: Restoration, Gun Blaze West, and Buso Renkin. This manga is rated T+ due to blood violence, language, drugs and alcohol, suggestive themes, and violence on women. *WARNING* If you plan on watching the anime first and read the manga later, it follows the same story but the director made some modifications (such as adding filler and characters) and left out the other half of the series. It is better to read the story and see the action on the anime.

Out of Print as of writing (may 15th 2018). Fantastic series, Vizbig editions are always a treat with nice quality paper, 1 or 2 chapters in color per book and a nice condensed way to collect some of the longer manga series. Art is clean crisp and easy to follow combat. Fun characters and despite it being about a samurai called "The Man Slayer" this series is family friendly as it isn't gory and is about him redeeming himself by vowing to never take another life and fighting with a reversed blade sword after the atrocities he had seen and committed in the war. I would like to give a special acknowledgment to Seattle Goodwill, who sold it used "good" condition for 11 shipped (not the OoP prices some are asking) and it honestly looks "Like new" as any dmg (maybe a corner isnt 100% straight) is from it merely existing as a book for years. I am extremely happy with my order as they had quick turn around and shipped it out same business day. Would buy from them again :]

I was looking for a manga about samurais. I'm glad I decided to try this one out. It's awesome! I really like the art. In some manga that I've purchased the fight scenes are sometimes hard to make out and are a little confusing. But in this one they are very detailed and you can tell what's going on. It is also very funny. I love the character Kenshin. He's kind of a goof but he's really cool too. His goofy-ness doesn't over power his coolness (kind of like Vash in Trigun, although Vash is pretty cool too). I like that in this edition they have some extra stories at the end of the book. I am definitely going to purchase the rest of this series. I recommend it to anyone looking for a cool/funny samurai manga.

This series gets better and better! I love the inclusion of colorized pages and the notes from the author! I feel like I am along for the ride as the series is getting released because of the notes, and it's really a unique experience to have with a series that at this point is quite old. Im already on the 5th VizBig book (volume 13,14,15 of the series) and I can't set it down!

bought as a gift i have no review.. the person that it was givted to loved it

Set 150 years ago, Japan has just come out of a terrible civil war and is trying to take itself in a new direction. But there are many people who are all to willing to hold on to the fuedal past. Kenshin is a vagabond, he played an important part in the civil war as the rebels Hitokiri, an assassin of sorts. But now armed with a reverse blade he is trying to make ammends for his past. This takes in the opening story of Kenshin through to what could be considered the first major storyline and first major rival to Kenshin. Rurouni Kenshin is a classic manga series. Originally published in Shounen Jump between 1995 to 1999, it was a beautifully drawn and well told story, that to many westerners, had not been told before. Set in the transition period between the end of the shogun to the role it played in becoming a world power again. Many of the characters portrayed in this series are based on real historical characters (but being an action series at heart some are much further away from the truth than others). This book itself is the first in hopefully a long line of new collections from Viz Communications. This is the first book in the Vizbig line. There are several differences to the originally published version by Viz. First is the size. It is somewhat larger in size than your standard manga collection. It is more the size of a DVD case. Also the paper quality is much better than the original imprint. Then there is the fact that this actually collects together the first three volumes. This means the collection will be complete in about 9 volumes. The most important addition is the re-instatement of the colour pages. In the original Shonen Jump runs, each comic would get a chance to have some of the pages shown in colour. The first thing to warn you of though, is don't expect to see the same sort of quality that you would see in a marvel or dc comic. These are good old fashioned 8 colour pages. In this first volume there is only about 15 pages of color (some in the first story and then reprints of the original covers without any logo or text on it). All in all this is an excellent start to the new line, either if you are an existing fan or just looking for something different then this is well worth a look.

Trois en un!!! J'avais envie depuis longtemps mais pas trop d'espace dans ma bibliothèque, donc comme ça c'est parfait! Et le format est nikel!!

A fan of the series, love the convenience of the multiple volume editions

I'm a new Rurouni Kenshin fan and I discovered it when I saw the trailer for the second (Kyoto Fire) live action movie which is going to be release in august - and looks amazing I might add. Anyway I then decided to watch the first movie and from there I wanted to know the original material so I started watching the anime(I'm at episode 38) and started reading the manga. The result of this is that Rurouni Kenshin has become my fav anime and manga of all time(along with Fate/Zero). So needless to say that I adore the manga. I love Nobuhiro's art and it actually get's better the farther in you're in the story not that it's bad to begin with. The art is really charming and does a great job at making the comody moments all the more fun and also suits the more serious parts of the story and the battles look amazing. Okay on to the book itself. The book contains the first three volumes of the manga along with two special chapters and aditional stuff like The Secret Life of Characters where Nobuhiro Watsuki explains how the different characters came to be, colered images in the back(usually 3), a whole chapter in color(which is kind of mean, because then you don't want the beautiful colors to stop!), and a glossary of the restoration which is quite good to help you see the whole political picture of the story if you're not so familiar with Japan's story in that period to begin with. The story in general has a great blend of action, comedy, and a bit of romance to keep almost everyone entertained with a great set of characters that I adore as Kenshin himself, Sanosuke, Megumi, Kaoru to name a few! This book is mostly "just" the introduction to all the main characters, but still a nice and fun introduction with a good amoun of homour and action to keep your attention. The book is rather large with over 500 pages and weighs about 1 kg. It's not that big of a problem and I probably just lack muscles in my arms, but it can get rather heavy to hold the book so it easier to read it with something like a table to help take some of the weight off your arms - but still it's not a "real" problem. All in all if your a manga fan or new to manga in generel then you should really give this legend of a manga a chance especially when you get them in so good quallity for a nice price in the Vizbig edition - btw the paper is also a really good quality!

Already knew Rurouni Kenshin from the anime, however the Manga version really stands out from the anime. Great art. Every character is well designed and action scenes come out of the book. The story is very good, and this edition comes with very nice insights from the author about the lifes of the characters that you would never know just by watching the anime. The edition is of very good quality. First few pages are coloured which is lovely! A must buy to every fan of Hitokiri Battousai!!!!