Story: 10/10
Brilliant, masterfully written story. There are many disparate plot threads that are built up over the course of the whole manga, weaving closer together until they all finally come to a close in an epic finale. While this is a revenge story, it is absolutely not your typical "good guy hunts bad guy" affair, there were points were I genuinely did not know who I was rooting for. This is character driven story telling at it's peak, where the consequences of the character's actions have cascading effects that set the next arc of the plot into motion. And there certainly are consequences as the manga doesn't pull punches, you will see characters will be permanently damaged and maimed, physically and mentally. This lends a real weight to the decisions characters make. You will be on the edge of your seat at times. While there are some complaints I have, namely some pacing issues, it absolutly doesn't detract form the story enough to make this anything less than a 10/10.
Art: 9/10
Great art. Very detailed, I especially loved the snowy winter during the last arc, it felt very natural and never cartoony. The panels flow naturally from one to the other, making this a pleasure to read. The fight scenes are gorgeously drawn and well choreographed. However, sometimes I felt like there was simply too much going on in a panel to understand what was happening, which really took me out of the fight scenes. The character designs manage to be distinct while still looking like real people (except one or two), which is important as there is a lot of reoccurring characters.
If you're reading the Dark Horse Comics English translation then just know that the panels are cut and pasted (with minor redrawing) to fit the western norm of reading left-to-right. DHC has done a good job however so it really doesn't detract from the experience.
Characters: 10/10
All the characters are well-written and believable. Each has a realistic personality and a motivation behind there actions, which drives the plot forward. I never felt like someone had to act out of character just to get things moving. Despite the horrendous acts some characters commit it never feel like they're being evil for the sake of it but they have an actual goal in mind (except for one but he's a good character in a different way). This is not to say everyone is likeable, frankly almost everyone important to the story is a terrible person, but they are believable. This is critical to setting up the tragic "Beware the Cycle of Revenge" message it delivers. It was genuinely tense to see fights because I could decide who to root for, even the antagonists have sympathetic (or at least understandable) goals. A core strength of this author is his character building skills, slowly developing multiple characters through the course of the manga. While many manga struggle to develop characters other than the protagonists, this one has a large cast of characters that grows as the manga does. This really works to make you feel sympathetic to each side of the multi-sided conflict. As others have said, this manga is built on it's characters and that is a strong foundation indeed.
Overall: 10/10
What else is there to say? This is a masterpiece of the samurai manga genre, with it's complex plot and well-written characters. If you can stand gore and extreme violence, I would absolutly recommend this.
Good
• Really great fight scenes. They're tense and you never know who will win (or who you want to win)
• Complex, plot comprised of multiple interwoven subplots
• Complex characters
• Shifting alliances as circumstances change
• Makes use of different panel formats when beneficial (e.g. a 4koma like style but 4 panels in a column for a series of fast attacks and dodges)
• Enough lighter chapters and comedy relief that it never feel too gloomy or tough to read
Bad
• Occasionally hard to follow fight scenes
• Sometimes it feel like it's trying too hard to be dark and edgy with the gore and sexual violence
• Every female character suffers from damsel-in-distress syndrome. Even the supposed bad-asses
• Initially the story has a pacing problem, feeling very "villain of the week" but this the real story soon takes centre stage
Extra Subjective
•Initially, stylised splash pages are used to end fight scenes but this quickly stops, to the betterment of the manga in my opinion. The art is great but they felt like they were posters and not panels of a manga and there use gave an uncharacteristic cartoony feel to other-wise dramatic chapters
