Kaina: Surugajou Gozen-Jiai

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Kaina Kaina: Surugajou Gozen-Jiai takes inspiration / borrows from the historical light novel 駿河城御前試合 (Surugajougozenjiai).

After reading Shigurui I think this was interesting to read, however Fujiki and Irako are barely show only at the beginning and the end. Shigurui sets up that time period pretty well if you don't know anything about it. I have not read the original light novel but comparing this to Shigurui, this one is not fantasy based in any way. Shigurui has fantasy elements and adds it's own twists to the story while Kaina is seems to be a pure retelling of some parts of the original light novel. Real ... people from Japanese history such Tokugawa Tadanaga and Yusuke are featured, etc.

The art style is very realistic, there is no favoritism, everybody looks exactly like how they would look and dress in that time period. It's high quality and I had a really easy time reading everything.

The volumes themselves seem to have an over-arching theme, for how short it is you do kind of get interested in what happens next and you don't feel like you need to devote a lot of time to see the outcome which is nice to read after reading some long mangas. The characters are memorable and I never felt like any part was a waste of time or really boring to read.

It's high quality and the art style is pretty cool and realistic compared to Shigurui which is very fantasy-esque, but it would be kind of odd to randomly pick this up out of nowhere if you haven't at least read Shigurui (not that it's necessary or anything), as this manga is based off the historical light novel 駿河城御前試合 (Surugajougozenjiai), going in blind not knowing at least a little about the time period and who people like Tokugawa were at least will make the manga seem like a random string of stories from history, but that could be cool too I guess.

Overall I would say if you have some interest in that specific time period or want to get into Japanese history this is a pretty cool manga, if you are reading it in Japanese it can be pretty difficult in terms of words but anyways, definitely won't be a waste of time for anyone to read regardless of anything I said previously, its pretty short and well written, and the art is unique and realistic.