Wanted to discuss some of my criticisms of the Rurouni Kenshin manga since I finished reading the series recently

First of all I wanna say that there were definitely things I liked about the series, namely Kenshin's character and how well he stuck true to his ideals throughout the course of the series, despite them being challenged by the narrative multiple times

The problems with RK generally stem from the other characters who I find to be quite lacking in engagement and don't offer very much nuance in their respective arcs. Almost all the characters stay the same over the series, which from their introduction to conclusion leaves a -

strong sense of "what was the point?" to the reader. While it is an action series, and the characters get "stronger" by what they go through, there is very little introspection at any point during the story for the reader to recognize developments either mentally or emotionally

This is frustrating because it starts to work against RK being 259 chapters long, and drags a lot. When the narrative stakes start running high in the later arcs such as Kyoto, the character integration into the different subplots feels uninteresting and is counterproductive to -

said stakes because you simply have no reason to care about what they are facing, because while it may make sense within the narrative it's not going to make a difference toward how you view the respective character. This waters down the resolution of not just the sub plots but -

also the overarching narrative behind each of the main arcs. Feeding into these problems is also the issue of antagonists. Aside from Shishio, I didn't find any of the antagonists to be memorable at all, and this mainly stems from their often boring introductions and -

insipid motivations. Most antagonists in the series feel like small time thugs that are part of a larger group when they simply have no reason to be. Groups should exist for the purposes of having collective dynamics at play in the narrative, not just because a bunch of baddies -

are cool. Many of these characters feel like cannon fodder and also bring in one of the more frustrating parts of RK, which is the amount of goofy stuff that is introduced. There's guys with wingsuits, giant men 5x the size of normal men, people with double length limbs, etc.

RK presents itself as a Meiji Swordsman story and it ends up being so far from that because of these things. The tension of a battle is lost completely when you see stuff you'd expect from One Piece in a historical series. If you're expecting a proper samurai story, it -

betrays that expectation to a frustrating degree. This is a problem that exists in every arc of the series. Kyoto's nation-threatening narrative feels like a monster of the week shounen romp that doesn't realize the stakes it sets out to enforce. In the end it feels hollow.

Jinchu's vendetta narrative is jumping all over the place from action to SoL with with no coherence, and the Enishi's motivations are so fickle that you have little reason to take him seriously. Even the seemingly shattering writing choices end up being cop outs to artificially -

push forward one character or another. Don't wanna go on too long but in the end it feels like there's very little substance to any of the events and while it has some parts which I really enjoyed, the equal amounts of uninteresting portions just sours the experience too much