Here’s another certified anime/manga classic: Rurouni Kenshin. Released by Sony for the Western market as Samurai X, the series tells the story of an assassin named Himura Kenshin, who was known as the Battōsai (romanized as Battōsai in the English manga and as Battousai in the English anime, it is translated as the nickname the manslayer). Kenshin later grieves for all the lives he’s taken, and has vowed that he will never kill again.
The series was and first appeared as a pair of separate short stories (both are titled Rurouni: Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story) published in 1992 and 1993 in the manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump Special. In 1994, Watsuki created a final ongoing version that was published in Shonen Jump until its conclusion in 1999, which the various anime series are based from. In 2000, it was followed up by Yahiko no Sakabatō (“Yahiko’s Reversed-Edge Sword”). The manga consists of 28 tankōbon volumes (Yahiko no Sakabatō was never compiled). The storyline of Kenshin is divided into three storyline arcs: Tokyo, Kyoto, and the Jinchū (a made-up word, which could be translated as the revenge of the man) arc. The Jinchū arc was not animated, save for the parts about Kenshin’s background which formed one of the OVAs released.
There are four animated Rurouni Kenshin series. “Rurouni” is a neologism created from the verb “ru,” meaning “to wander,” and “ronin,” meaning “masterless samurai.” A rough translation of the title would be “Kenshin the Wandering Samurai.” This became the English title of the first story arc.