Rekka no Honoo

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Japanese: 烈火の炎

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 33

Chapters: 330

Status: Finished

Published: Mar 22, 1995 to Oct 30, 2002

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Romance

Demographic: Shounen

Serialization: Shounen Sunday

Authors: Anzai, Nobuyuki (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.70¹ (scored by 7,355 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #1814²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #1394

Members: 16,213

Favorites: 352

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7.70

Ranked #1814Popularity #1394Members 16,213

MangaShounen SundayAnzai, Nobuyuki (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /33

Chapters: /330

Flame of Recca

Vol. 1
$6.99

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Synopsis

Often considered untrustworthy, Japanese ninja were in fact unwaveringly loyal to their masters. But in modern-day Japan, high school student and self-proclaimed ninja Rekka Hanabishi finds it difficult to carry on their legacy, that is, until he saves a cute girl named Yanagi Sakoshita from a group of delinquents.

In the aftermath of the event, Rekka deems Yanagi worthy of being his master, swearing to protect her. As a sign of their trust, the two reveal their most valuable secrets to each other: Yanagi can quickly heal wounds, while Rekka can create fire with just a snap of his fingers. However, their dazzling exchange does not go unnoticed as a mysterious woman called Kage Houshi appears. She somehow knows about their powers and threatens them, claiming Rekka must be returned, for he is the only one who can kill her.

The pair hold their ground, but before things can escalate any further, Kage Houshi calmly leaves. Thinking the crisis is over, Rekka and Yanagi continue their daily lives, unaware that they are about to be dragged into a centuries-long ninja conspiracy with the lives of their friends and their own on the line.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Rekka no Honoo was published in English as Flame of Recca by VIZ Media from July 30, 2003 to November 10, 2009.

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Characters

Hanabishi, Rekka

Main

Mikagami, Tokiya

Main

Kurei

Main

Kirisawa, Fuuko

Main

Koganei, Kaoru

Main

Sakoshita, Yanagi

Main

Ishijima, Domon

Main

Kagerou

Main

Joker

Supporting

Tsukishiro

Supporting

Reviews

Apr 2, 2023

hexashadow13

Recommended

tl;dr: Very generic but solid old school battle shounen.

Flame of Recca is a manga that ran from 1995 to 2002 that strongly embodies a lot of shounen tropes and structures that came into being during that era. It’s a very typical shounen, but it’s good shounen. The core of it is ancient objects known as Madogu that give their wielders supernatural powers, the vast majority of time these wielders using them to fight each other. There’s an overarching plot that involves ninjas, time travel, reincarnation, and an evil mega organization centered around making its head immortal, but for the most part it just felt like ... window dressing to provide some structure for the battles and character beats which were what really matters. As such, the manga is incredibly simplistic with very little in terms of major twists or variety to its plot threads, but that in and of itself makes it charming in a way. It’s a manga you can enjoy just going with the flow on without having to think about it at all.

The introductory arc involves the protagonist, Recca, getting into smaller fights with the rest of the core fighters, beating them, and them all joining him when the first major conflict emerges. The main cast also includes a healer girl, Yanagi, who can’t fight and thus generally serves as a damsel in distress that the rest of the cast has to protect or rescue. The motivations of the cast are thus generally incredibly simplistic, they just want to save their friend. Each of the main cast has background beyond that and some semblance of character and relationship arcs, but they felt pretty weak. There’s not a lot of substance to them and thus the cast ends up coming out pretty flat. Still, most of them can be pretty amusing so it’s enough to get the reader at least somewhat invested in the cast so what are supposed to be heavy emotional beats can land at least somewhat well.

There are a lot of side characters as well and though the vast majority have very little presence beyond the part, they’re relevant in, the manga does often briefly just throw them in again here and there for the hell of it. There’s very little substance but seeing the same characters repeatedly does make it easier to follow along and stay invested. The main exception to the lack of substance would be Kurei, who serves as the first major villain and then as a sort of side villain I guess but not really, and those who surround him. The actions of him and his group during the later portions of the manga don’t actually make a lot of sense, but he and his allies have a pretty strong presence centered around rule of cool so they’re pretty interesting nevertheless. Kurei also has the most depth of any character in the manga, though that still isn’t all that much. And this is a shounen battle manga full of karma houdinis from beginning to end so it’s pretty easy to ignore the villainry.

And finally, the action is pretty great. The power set has a good variety to it and the match ups between the powers of the characters fighting results in some pretty great battles. And while the characters in a general sense don’t have a lot to them, the moment-to-moment interactions during battles were pretty strong as well which once again came down to good match ups. The plot sometimes has to get incredibly forced in order to produce those match ups, especially in the final arc where it felt like half the battles were completely pointless in the grand scheme of things. Still, the way each member of the main cast continued to grow battle to battle while showing off new abilities, the way battles flowed and were framed, the pretty fast but not too fast pacing, and the general sense of impact and weight to the hits made the battles pretty satisfying and fun nevertheless.

The art I think was pretty good in terms of showing off the action, but was pretty lacking beyond that. The character designs were in general pretty dull I feel and outside of the action the framing and such wasn’t all that great either. The art quality was also pretty high for action related elements, but in general much lower for anything outside that. The cover art I also thought was mostly pretty bad.

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Jan 11, 2015

Beobachter

Recommended

Flame of Recca is what I'd call a comfort food of shonen combat manga, with the closest comparison I can think of to be Yoshihiro Togashi's Yuuyu Hakusho. There's nothing particularly original in it, but it's still well-executed enough to potentially be really enjoyable.

Every shonen combat manga needs a cool conceit, and for Recca it's ninja. The titular main character Recca Hanabishi is a ninja superfan to the extent that he's trying to live the ninja lifestyle in modern era, which in his mind necessitates looking for a master to serve. Said master ends up being Yanagi Sakoshita, a timid girl he bonded ... over their mutual secret power; Recca can conjure flame from his hand, and Yanagi can heal wounds. There's also an extinct ninja clan who played an important role in the backstory, but as a whole, don't really expect anything resembling authentic ninja experience from FoR. Instead of kunai, shuriken, and stealthing around, you'd be seeing a lot more of superpowered people, superpowered weapons (made by the aforementioned ninja clan), underground assassin group, underground tournament, genetic abominations, time travel shenanigan, etc. You know, the good ol' tropes that I and (presumably) you love.

FoR pretty much nailed the characters. I like Nobuyuki Anzai's design, as he is equally capable in drawing appealing characters who are easy on the eyes, cute chibi-fied effect, AND things that literally looked like they just crawled out from Hell itself (the latter would be increasingly prominent toward the end of series, as Anzai's art gets darker and more detailed). Personality-wise, the main cast is based on types that you've probably seen before; Recca is the hot-blooded leader, Yanagi is the pure-hearted girl and designated damsel in distress, Tokiya is the icy rival, Fuuko is the tomboyish action girl, and Domon is the boneheaded brawler. Thing is, this group has a genuinely strong dynamics and even if their character arcs might be very predictable, they're well-fleshed enough to invoke some emotional investment whether they're struggling against an opponent, trying to master their weapon/skill, or simply bantering with each other. The same thing also applies to the antagonists and supporting characters, to the extent that even a high number of one-and-done mooks has decent amount of personality and backstory. Impressively, while the cast of allies, enemies, and enemies turned allies (if you enjoy this particular trope, you're definitely in for a treat) steadily grows, it never gets out of control and neither does the main spotlight stray too much from the core group of characters; something that other combat series with bloated cast often don't get to say (*coughbleachcough*).

The plot structure is very straightforward: more or less, it consisted of an obligatory introduction arc, a tournament arc, and three dungeon arcs (one before the tournament, two afterward). By 'dungeon arc', I mostly refer to a particular set-up where our heroes have to advance through a series of one-on-one and occasional tag fights before they reached the big bad guy waiting at the end of a certain labyrinthine structure. Again, there's nothing imaginative or realistic about those (*you have to think the bad guys would've had way more success by just ganging up on our heroes from the start instead of going through all the trouble of setting up a video game-y set of challenges), but they're ultimately just an excuse to showcase the individual battles. It's a good thing then that Anzai's battle scenes are arguably where the series shined the most, as they're well-paced, easy to follow, and feature cool & varied abilities, weapons, and resolutions. The tournament arc (*an aspect most similar to Yuuyu Hakusho, due to the team-based nature), which takes up slightly more than one-third of the entire story, deserves particular mention for being one of the most exciting tournament arcs I've ever read.

I may have nostalgic bias considering it is one of my favorites during my formative years, but I strongly recommend Flame of Recca to those looking for a fun, balanced combat series that doesn't take an eternity to finish. Consider the final grade to be more like an 8 if you're a genre fan who doesn't mind familiar character archetypes and plotting, or a 6 if you're not.

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Dec 20, 2025

xShiningxMoonx

Mixed Feelings

7.5/10
+Contains strong genre ingredients: imaginative lore, a likeable hero, a great supporting cast, and a sweet romance
+Enjoyable action sequences that move plot at good pace; gorgeous artwork
-Various character and story beats underdeveloped; focuses too much on action and filler
-Simplistic storytelling may not suit all tastes

Reading Flame of Recca sparks feelings of a more innocent time. The life of teenage Recca Hanabishi undergoes a transformative change after awakening to a mysterious power following an encounter with an evil witch and his idol, Yanagi Sakoshita. This classic battle shonen greatly captures what’s so enjoyable about the superhero genre. With a fiery but heart-of-gold protagonist, a ...

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Poll: Flame of Recca Chapter 329 Discussion Haicel - May 17, 2010	2 replies	by LotteGiants »» Jan 21, 2025 10:06 PM
Poll: Rekka no Honoo Chapter 328 Discussion LotteGiants - Jan 21, 2025	0 replies	by LotteGiants »» Jan 21, 2025 7:59 PM
Poll: Rekka no Honoo Chapter 314 Discussion LotteGiants - Jan 21, 2025	0 replies	by LotteGiants »» Jan 21, 2025 7:20 PM
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Poll: Rekka no Honoo Chapter 304 Discussion LotteGiants - Jan 20, 2025	0 replies	by LotteGiants »» Jan 20, 2025 10:52 PM

Rekka no Honoo
Flame of Recca
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