Warning: Major Spoiler In this Section!!!
The main character of this series is Himura Kenshin, who was a rurouni around the 1870's in the beginning of the Meji Era in Japan. A rurouni is a "wandering samurai", and that's basically the title of this series. He was once an Ishinshishi that killed so many people Kenshin's original name was Shinta, and his parents died in a cholera epidemic whyen he was about 8 years old. Kenshin was bought by a slave trader a year later. But bandits attacked and killed him, three sisters sacrificed themselves in order to save Kenshin. When the bandits were about to kill Kenshin, Hiko Seijuurou appeared and saved him. Hiko took Kenshin in as a student to learn Hitenmitsurugiryu (a sword fighting technique) and changed his name from Shinta to Kenshin meaning "heart of a sword."
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Kenshin went under training to become a master swordsman, with his talent and Hiko's teachings Kenshin almost mastered the whole technique. Hiko wanted Kenshin to stay isolated from the world around him, but Kenshin wanted to help people and questioned Hiko. Hiko explained that if Kenshin participates in political affairs, Japan would be in a bigger mess. But as more clans and people rose to overthrow the government, Kenshin wants to join and departs Hiko. For the new era to be established the old era must be overthrown and destroyed. Kenshin was the guard of disorder when he took the job of an assassin. He was given names of people that he had to kill during the night. And he had to do that without mercy, and it later gave him the title of Hitokiri Battousai meaning "shadow killer" or "sword weilding killer."
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10 years later when the Bakumatsu No Douran ended, Kenshin vowed never to kill people again, He became a ruouni and traveled around Japan to save people's lives. He carries a sakabatou (a reverse bladed sword) which was a katana with the blunt side where the sharp side should be. He stops at Tokyo when he met a girl named Kaoru...and that's where the story begins...
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I'll stop from this point so that you can watch the series without being spoiled...but for those that really want to know the story and haven't watched the series...I'll post up parts of the storyline or a more detailed part of the OVA's...I'll even have manga translations of it once I get the time to do that~!
"...if there can be a 'new era' that will allow people to live peacefully in return for taking lives that fall victim to my blood-stained sword...then I will kill..."              -Kenshin (from let it burn)
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