Ruroni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan is a work of fiction written in the 90s and published in the weekly magazine weekly shonen jump and currently has a sequel that is published monthly in the monthly magazine jump square from the same publisher (shueisha).
This first season adapts up to chapter 57 of the manga and a one-shot or chapter zero of the reboot manga Rurouni Kenshin: Tokuhitsu-ban, the manga contains 3 main story arcs (leaving aside Hokkaido-hen) and they are Tokyo-hen, Kyoto -hen and Jinchuu-hen.
The story is located at the end of the 19th century, specifically at the end of the Edo period (Bakumatsu) and the beginning of the Meiji era approximately in the years 1864-1878 in Japan, it focuses on our protagonist Kenshin Himura (his name is made up of two ideograms "ken", which is a sword and "shin", which means heart) in his past he was one of the greatest hitmen and swordsmen who participated in the Meiji revolution/restoration in favor of the emperor's side and against the Tokugawa shogunate, earning the nickname from "hitokiri battosai" based on kawakami gensai one of the "four Hitokiri of Bakumatsu".
In the present, see the first episode, the protagonist seems to have left that past behind and takes a pacifist attitude, avoiding the use of violence as much as possible and as an unbreakable rule never to take a life again, under the concept of weapons and kenjutsu. Kaoru, the first character who has contact with the protagonist, preaches that these concepts serve to protect people while the bad character random number 1 (Gohei Hiruma) from the first episode contradicts said philosophy with a real one of "a sword is a weapon, kenjutsu It is the art of killing" while Kenshin agrees with the bad guy Random No. 1, emphasizing that Kaoru's ideology is simple childhood fantasies, but despite that he wants to believe in it.
Basically, Kenshin takes refuge in a lie that he shares with Kaoru, not because he is a deluded or childish person at 28 years old, but because this ideology conveniently coincides with his path of redemption in the face of the crimes committed in his past. The initial message of the work is quite interesting since it is not very common to the typical self-improvement messages that are very common in the demographic.
The Tokyo arc is made up of self-concluding/episodic chapters and small arcs as we saw in this first season, Tokyo is undoubtedly the weakest arc since at all times only characters are presented and almost never any conclusion or conclusion is reached. The few conclusions feel wasted and lazy, giving the feeling that the work has no direction or is erratic, however in retrospect this feeling disappears since almost all the concepts and characters presented in this section of the story have relevance in the main arcs. of the work (kyoto and jinchuu).
The work has a large number of characters but the most notable are Kenshin among the protagonists and Saito if we talk about the antagonists, the rest is shown little but with a way to go such as Sanosuke, Yahiko, Aoshi and to a lesser extent Kaoru and Megumi, the antagonists are where Tokyo weakest but without a doubt the worst is Raijuta where clearly his influence is minimal along with Spiral but at least the latter has a small evolution in his personality.
The adaptation strives to show the historical and social context, taking into account at that time the country experienced a strong westernization and modernization after the Edo period where it was characterized by its accentuated isolation from the rest of the world, living a long middle age, it is important that the script highlight these concepts since many of the stories presented are related to this change, see the displacement of the samurai by a small army and a modern police, as well as removing kenjutsu from the center with an uncertain future for the time or how the ancient arts warriors of the country are nothing against modern firearms cough cough gatling, the treatment of opium that was a problem for the eastern countries of that time and how politicians ordered each other to be murdered resulting in internal purges between former comrades of the restoration.
Finally, the adapted one-shot seemed like a success to me since it gives the context of why Kenshin makes the decision to stop wandering in order to heal his emotional wound using the taste of tea as a metaphor and as a contrast to what happens in the last chapter. it's from the season.
I must clarify that this review is purely from the narrative point, taking this into account to close this first season it is a kind of prologue that tries to consolidate among so many things (social, political, ideological and historical) the redemption of a person and how the crimes of his past affect himself and the people around him, for better or worse, to enter the first main stage, which is Kyoto.
The arc alone in the manga does not go beyond 7/10 but this new adaptation enriched the script and adjusted some things such as improving the background of jine, the oniwabanshu, spiral, the mini tsunan arc and the arc of raijuta, that's why from my point of view the adaptation deserves an 8/10 as a final grade.
