Who's the greatest swordsman? (Gamaran recommendation)

Gama Kurogane



Iori Sengoku

I've always enjoyed stories about samurai and ninjas growing up, things like Ninja Scroll, Samurai Champloo and even Afro Samurai have always stood out to me, so ive always been looking for a manga series that grasp me in that same way. Gamaran essentially captures whats makes samurai/ninja anime so good and puts it on paper without losing quality, and it also breaks many traditions that most series fall into.

The story follows Gama Kurogane, who is the son of a legendary swordsman Jinsuke Kurogane, an atrocious man who truly lives by the sword, killing off his own trusted students and at his dojo, leaving his son Gama at the dojo with the survivors he deemed "too weak to kill". The story is pretty typical in my opinion, but that doesn't mean its not good, its actually a very fun, the story starts when the son of the Daimyo, Naoyoshi Washitzu who ventures to find the strongest martial arts dojo in the country. Hearing the tales of Jinsuke, he seeks the dojo he originally belonged to which was the Ogame School, betting that it could definitely be the strongest dojo. When he gets there he meets Gama and his henchmen eventually start a fight with him. Long story short Naoyoshi is the son of the daimyo who has like 43 kids but he is the runt among them all since his mother was just a mere commoner. The Daimyo is having a tournament to find his successor so his kids have to find a school to to be their sponsor for a martial arts tournament alled the grand tournament, eventually he convinces Gama and the Ogame to enlist on his behalf. Eventually it leads up to Ogame school and the martial arts alliance againsts the Muhou School, a new school of the most powerful martial artist in the country all under the control of Jinsuke Kurogane.

1. The number one thing i enjoy about Gamaran is the fact that since it IS fuedal Japan, there is a TON of variety, most of the opponents use different weapons, mutliple fighting styles and techniques and live by difference mantras. Hardly anyone in this series is the same as the other, even when the characters are family members hey're completely different .

2. Character development is one of those things that are highly important to me when i find a series, Gama does not develope too fast throughout the series either, this series does not suffer from the "main character losing to an opponent, learn one new thing and all of a sudden totally overwhelm the same opponent within a week". A lot of time passes in the series and the characters that have overwhelmed him in the past aren't so easily beat, hes has to learn several new techniques, master his own movements and mentally grow before he even encounters them again. This doesnt just apply to Gama alone either, all of the characters in the story are constantly developing, hitting walls and finding ways to break them down, and it's not done very quickly either.

3. Probably more important than anything else in the Gamaran is the fighting, when it comes down to if if the fights are boring/too predictable in a fighting manga its just not gonna hold up. There isn't much build up for some of the fights in Gamaran, but the intensity of the fights are at an all time high the whole way through, each one getting that much more intense, the amount of suspense that goes into these clashing blades really pulls you in. Alot of the fights are so fluid and intense that even though i was reading them, it felt like I was actually WATCHING an anime or like i was fully pulled in to a fight happening right before my eyes. Gamaran certainly one of those mangas that would be immensely popular if there was an anime to go with it, the fights are really the bread and butter of this series.



shinnojou

Ichinose