Flame of Recca

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I decided to make a topic specifically for this manga since I'm really getting into it now.

I'm about 40 or so chapters in right now, and its getting progressively more and more interesting. Its about all of the tropes and cliches that you would expect in a shonen, but like the best of the old-school shonen series, it has solid writing to back it all up (at least so far). I don't think most people here would particularly care for it (except for Desensitized who already read the whole thing and says he likes it), but for me its great to finally get into another classic shonen series that I never read before.

Actually, like most great classics in the genre, it does a very good job of masking its age in most regards. The art-style is clearly a product of the 90's if you've read enough manga to tell the difference in the tone and art of different periods in time in the industry, but everything else about it up to this point feels at least on par with the best of what most modern shonen can offer, and in all honesty its probably better on the whole, and I'm still at a really early part in the series.

Like Naruto, its heavy on "ninja" themes (though I use the word ninja lightly since it deals more with magic and mysticism and kind of just uses the ninja name because it sounds cool), but unlike Naruto its characters aren't a total mess and it can balance out good humor with good story-telling and some fairly well-done dramatic scenes from time to time.

So, yeah, I'm pretty impressed with this manga, so far. It doesn't even start out that slow like most shonen series do (even the classics), and its already gotten into interesting plot points. I can't wait to read more of it.

[Spark Of Spirit]

The weird part for me was how the early chapters almost felt like 80s style shonen. It starts off simplistically then grows in scope as it goes along, and my favorite part (I hope this isn't spoilery) is that the entire manga is a single solitary story. There are no arcs with different main antagonists, or crazy power levels, and its all based on the characters. Character fights are based on the character's mastery of their abilities, and not on pure physical dominance.

You can see the Yu Yu Hakusho influence (in a good way), which is definitely a breath of fresh air with all of the simplistic DBZ clones we get nowadays.

I'd recommend reading MAR afterward for one specific character that crosses over with the FoR manga and ties up the last loose end. MAR is pretty generic and isn't very good, but the one character is enough to slog through it, IMO.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I remember back on TV.com there was this one user who loved the Flame of Recca manga but said that he couldn't believe that MAR (which was of much lower quality) was by the same author. The anime looked pretty generic from what I could tell.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Yeah, it's pretty generic. Standard Saturday morning cartoon affair, really. Other than the one character crossing over, there's nothing really worth noting that you haven't seen one million times before.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm on the tournament arc of Flame of Recca, and I really wouldn't say that it doesn't have separate arcs, because it does, but I'm guessing what you mean is that it doesn't change any central villains and the overall plot is still the same throughout, which I also think is pretty cool if that's the case.

Anyways, Mikagami's fight was OK and there was a hint of Kurama-like strategy in there but its nowhere really close to the level of strategy that we'd really get from Kurama, but at least the fight was short (and I really do appreciate how each fight so far has mostly only been a chapter in length at most, with just a couple of exceptions so far).

That said, so far (well, where I'm at, anyways), the author at this point in time of having written the manga doesn't seem to have quite had the level of talent that Togashi or Toriyama had for making really interesting and engaging fights, but I think he's slowly showing signs of getting better and better at it as the story progresses and as he gains more experience with the manga. Admittedly I can't help but compare this tournament to the Dark Tournament arc from YYH so maybe I might be judging it a little bit too hard, but then again I think its a fair comparison and while its not bad it does feel a little less quality than the previous arc where they went to rescue Yanagi, but I'm sure the story will get more interesting again over time.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I'm on the tournament arc of Flame of Recca, and I really wouldn't say that it doesn't have separate arcs, because it does, but I'm guessing what you mean is that it doesn't change any central villains and the overall plot is still the same throughout, which I also think is pretty cool if that's the case.

There are different parts to the story, yes. But it's all a part of one long story. No defeating Frieza and learning about androids or anything. I like it that way, it makes it just feel like one solid story.

Mikagami has a cool head, but he isn't really a strategist. You'll see what I mean later.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I really liked that whole revelation about Kurei and his adopted mother. It really shows you that he's not a 1-dimensional bad guy at all and it makes his evil side all the more intriguing since you know (or at least the story implies so far) that he's not pure evil or anything like that as he was previously set up to be. This manga is shaping up to be better and better in terms of building up its characters and really fleshing them out. In that regard, it feels way ahead of its time, but I suppose that's why its considered a classic shonen series (albeit a very forgotten on, unfortunately, since it never gets discussed nearly as much as other classics in the genre).

It would really be cool if it got a proper anime adaptation from start to finish. I have a feeling that if it had an adaptation now it would actually be pretty successful and it could become pretty popular because its definitely leaps and bounds ahead of most modern shonen running today, from what I've read so far.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Yeah, I would love a proper anime. It really is too bad they totally botched it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I just finished reading the tournament arc. It was REALLY long (seriously, I think its almost twice as long as the DT arc was in the YYH manga, altogether) but still pretty good overall. My only gripe is that towards the end they pulled that Deus Ex Machina stuff and had Recca gain a lot of skill and power in almost no time at all. I felt that doing that was a really cheap plot device, but other than that the final fight itself was really well-done and I came out enjoying the arc on the whole, though I do feel that it dragged out at times.

I do hear that the story improves from this point on, though (much like how YYH got even better after the DT arc with its Chapter Black arc), so it might manage to work its way up from being generally good into the status of being great if it does keep getting better as it goes along.

As or the fights, I think that Mikagami's fight with Kai was the most interesting one. I liked how it wasn't as cliche as most shonen authors would treat such a fight; the whole angsty-revenge driven kid would usually be more stupid, obnoxious, and unlikable than how Mikagami was in his fight. I liked how he threw in a twist in which Kai actually ended up defeating Mikagami and Mikagami calmed his mind and realized that Kai didn't really kill his sister and was only trying to provoke him, and Kai actually warned Mikagami not to follow the same path that he had gone down unless he wanted to suffer like him, and before dying also threw in one more twist by revealing that their master had killed his sister, which really must have mind-fucked Mikagami, but it'll be interesting to see further developments on that part of the plot and with Mikagami's character as we learn more about that stuff later on.

[Spark Of Spirit]

That's where the anime ends, even though it botches a lot of stuff up to it.

But the manga just gets better from this point on.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Hmmmm....Despite what you said, this series does still follow an arc-system and at least has a new group of villains introduced with the new arc, even if they may end up being minor in the grand scheme of things.

Interestingly enough, I'm really most interested to see what happened with Kurei. I doubt that he's really dead (that'd be a horrible ending or his character arc), and I want to see how he'll react now that he has "supposedly" lost his adopted mother, which is thus another loss to add to his list. He'll probably be even more driven for Revenge, except now Mori will be his main target if he comes back and the dumb-ass won't even have a scapegoat this time around if he really did kill his mom for real.

So far I think Kurei is the most interesting character in the series. The main good guys are fun and all, but most of them are all pretty formulaic and predictable, with Mikagami probably being the most interesting of the main 5 fighters.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm currently 174 chapters into the manga. Eh, to be honest, ever since the tournament ended this current arc has been quite slow and boring. The last interesting development was with Kurei going back into his evil ways, except now he has the mindset to hunt down Mori for vengeance rather than Recca (of course I'm sure he may still have some resentment for Recca, but Mori definitely seems like his main target now). However, this whole ordeal with the Hokage trying to find and destroy the Tendo Jigoku so far has bee pretty formulaic and slow-paced, and I can't help but find myself bored by the new enemies and fights so far. That said I'm sure the story picks up eventually, but right now I'm kind of trudging through it at snails pace since its not too interesting as of right now.

[Hime]

I think I finished reading the manga months ago, it was really good story.

Though I might need time to find the anime.

This kinda reminds me of Naruto in certain angle.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, after taking a long break from it, I finally started re-reading the manga. I finished the Tendou Jigoku arc which IMO was pretty boring, but I liked how it didn't end with the bad guy getting slaughtered but rather had him escape thereby introducing a 2nd main bad guy into the series. As Recca himself said, that makes things turn into a 3-way battle, with him, Kurei, and the Tendou Jigoku all being enemies of one another. I think that's a really cool idea and makes for some potential interesting occurrences in future events of this manga which I have yet to read. Also, while I'd normally slap my palm to my face after seeing the villain stubbornly go back to being all dark and brooding, I actually like that Kurei is still like that but in his own way, and for his character it kind of makes sense because he aside from past tragedies and all that other generic stuff, he also has that Hokage-like pride that drives him. Its more like now he just really wants to defeat Recca and restore his own sort of self-honor (in his mind), rather than just being evil for no good reason and only wanting to kill Recca simply because he's the hero and opposes him. You can see this by how he prioritizes what he does. He could have fought and tried to kill Recca after they both escaped from the underground caves after the Tendou Jigoku arc but left him because he wanted to hunt Mori Kouran (the only real true villain of the series, so far, IMO) and take him out before he gathered too much power for himself, rather than just blindly go after Recca simply because he hates him. That makes for a more interesting anti-hero sort of character than how most shonen would handle it, IMO.