Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi

(minor spoiler alert)

this is a story about a boy who is constantly bullied, he learned martial arts from 5 masters after meeting miu, who is also his love interest. This is manga basically tells his story from being a zero to a hero in a 1 year period. this manga starts of well, but after a while, it becomes very dull and in my personal opinion, very childish, it had a lot of potential but my expectations crumbled halfway reading the manga, though i was hoping it to get better because a lot of reviews were giving it a really good score but after 584 chapters, nothing changed. the author keep on recycling the same concept for the mc to win the important matches, in which he is very durable and can stand a punch, he just keeps on getting up again no matter how many times the enemies kick his ass, and in the end, he comes up with something to defeat them. this process repeats itself so many time, even till the ending of this series. the fan service is also way overboard, i understand the concpet of this manga whereby comedy is almost constantly there even in tense battles but it gets to ridiculous points, and ironically, it contradicts the plot and characters of this manga, where almost ALL the bad protagonists eventually turns into good guys in some random plot twist, even the baddest of the bad guys is actually good in a way, which is somewhat ridiculous, some even turned into good guys in the heat of the battle. another thing which i cringe is that the fact NONE actually dies in this manga, combine these 2 and we get a manga actually meant for children, but then the ecchi factor is too strong for them so i guess this is either for really childish adults or kids who haven't discovered hentai, lol.

The characters, almost all of the characters didn't get developed enough. same goes for all their relationships. kenichi like miu in the beginning, miu hints that she also has mutual feelings for him, it goes on like that until the end, i really hoped for something more. all the other characters also mostly have the same fate. one thing i really need to commend, is nijima, he makes this manga so much more likeable with the comedy that he brings but his screen time gets drastically reduced after 2/3rds of the manga.

Overall, i think this is a pretty enjoyable manga if you just want to chill reading but just don't expect such a deep plot. the plot is so simple and predictable even a child could figure it out. The only thing it was lacking for me, was probably a hint of DRAMA to make it appeal more to the adult audience.

This manga is example of that writing a review before reading complete manga is a bad idea. To me, this manga is great, but i have one problem with it , at the beginning it's very good and interesting but near the end it's just mediocre and boring.

This is a martial arts manga with a little bit of romance and comedy. The story is about Kenichi Shirahama - a teenage kid who learns martial arts and being inspired by Miu Furinji to become stronger and be able to protect her. The story plot is great but later from good martial arts manga it becomes very dull battle manga, with very flashy fights and very pathos speeches which makes no sense at all. Same problem with characters. There are a lot of really memorable and interesting characters, but at the end author throws so many new characters which appears only in couple of frames, which makes them looks unnecessary in story.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a really good manga. It is just a little bit disappointing to me how manga changed in long period of publishing. I still will recommend this to read, just don't expect to much from it.

I will give it you from the end : THIS MANGA IS AMAZING !!! Really amazing ,and to be honest , I find it much more better than other long series like Naruto and Bleach . I know you may be shocked right now , but this is my opinion , and I will supply the reasons that let me say such a thing .

First of all, the story is not that amazing , but the beginning was so simple and unique in the same time , but what let me gave it 7/10 is the comedy scenes during fights and the ending , I mean that there is a lot of mysterious left : what happened with Shinpaku ?What is the past of Akisame ? Could Kenchi beat Fuurinji Hayato ? What about miu's father ? How did Shigure meet Tochumaru ? and a lot of other questions .

Ok then let's talk about "Art" , I don't think anyone has problems with the fantastic drawings Matsuena Syun san gave us >>>>>>>> so directly 10 /10 .

Now : about characters :
Apachai
Akisame
Shio
Hayato
Kensei
Niijima
Tanimoto
.....................( A lot of other GREAT characters )
Mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn , Isn't it obvious ?! Only the present of such great characters is enough to give this anime 7 over 10 ! Nothing else to say so of course 10/10
Enjoyment : 10/10
so it is very simple :( 10 + 10 + 7 + 10 )/4 = 9.25

Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi could have been easily a 9/10 for me, but sadly I had to give only 7/10.
We follow the story of Kenichi, who is a weakling at first but want to become stronger in order to be able to protect the people around him. Therefore there is a lot of training in his life. His masters make the training hell for him, but enjoyable for the readers. Kenichi eventually finds himself in dire situations, where he need to fight stronger and stronger opponents. So basically Kenichi's story is a generic shounen manga with a little humour in it. But what makes it good?
Characters:
Kenichi is a talentless martial artist, which is rare for this kind of stories. The people around him, all of them have interesting personalities and well-written backstories. Kenichi and also his friends are all have something to live for. For Kenichi is to protect Miu, for other characters is to be the strongest, or just make all the fat people around the world proud of themselves, no matter what, they try to achieve that goal. What I personally really liked, is the masters. I think I can say they are the best masters I have seen so far, they train Kenichi really hard, it can be called almost a torture, but they do this because they care about him. Al of the masters train Kenichi in a different way, and not just in a physical way. Even the reader can learn a lot from this masters philosophy. Kenichi's friends are also well written, most of them were enemies before, but this makes them even more loveable, and the story even better.
Art:
It is not astonishing, or the best I have ever seen, but it is decent. What deserves a special compliment is the fight scenes. The fights are well drawn and organized, easy to follow whats happening. There are a good amount of details in the characters, past and mid-fight injuries are nicely drawn. You can see Kenichi's body development throughout the manga, he slowly becomes more and more buffed. For comedic release there are a good amount of times when the characters are drawn in a minimal comedic way, it represents the lightheartedness of the situations really good.
Humour:
Most of the jokes come from the fact that Kenichi is talentless, but we can find small funny gags here and there in a great number. It is more of a fighting manga than a comedy manga, but it is still a good portion of it, and I have to say that there were a good amount of times when it made me laugh.

So what was bad in Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi?
My biggest problem in this manga was the overdone fanservice and the asspulled story.
Fanservice:
Dont'get me wrong, I don't mind fanservice at all, a little naked time here and there is ok, but this manga had too much. At the beginning of the story there was little to none fan service, but somewhere in the middle of the story something changed, and it became like 60% fanservice, which is too much. And when I am saying 60%, I mean there are chapters(not just one), where female characters fighting literally naked. At the end of the story I knew at the beginning of a fight, if there is at least one female character, she will be stripped down at the end of the fight. I wouldn't mind it at all if it wasn't forced. Instead of a good story, the author tried to keep the readers with fanservice.
The second half of the Story:
Same as with the fanservice. At the first half of the manga, the story was good and interesting. Kenichi was developing, becoming stronger, and getting in more and more dangerous situations. The fights were good and interesting. New, unique and interesting characters kept popping up. But somewhere in the middle, maybe somewhere between 200 and 300, something went wrong. The story itself started to get worse and worse. At the last arcs, the story had so many asspulls, it was almost unpleasant to read. I read it because it still had its good moments, but with the bad writing and the too much fanservice, it became bad. I guess the author put all his efforts to make fanservice, and he had no timeenergy left to actually think about the story. Kenichi could have been so much more.
Ending:
It has an ending, so it is officially finished, which is better than a sudden stop, but it was a bit rushed, and there are some questions which remain unanswered.

+1 (little spoiler): I don't want to consider it as a bad thing in this manga, it is more like a generic problem, but the romance in this story is unsatisfying. We get our MC to run after a girl through almost 600 chapters, and we get nearly nothing. We know they have feelings, but there is basically no development. There are a couple good moments, but that is all we got.

Overall:
With its flaws, Kenichi is still a manga worth reading, especially the first half. If you want to stop at the point where it is still good, stop after the D of D.

A very entertaining manga with a good combination of character development, villains, as well as the background story of each of the characters.

The various styles of martial art were very well thought out or portrayed. The art is very much enjoyable, much better than its anime counter part(which failed miserably in expressing the same humor). Each villain has his/her own story, whether it's hardship or a sad past, made the manga all the more entertaining to read. The mentors of Kenichi however does not carry the aura and the necessary presence that masters should have. They are always relaxed and acting childish, which brings down the overall image. I know it's a manga intended for humor but it just doesn't suit my taste to have masters of martial arts acting as so.

Mightiest Disciple Kenichi is just one of those great mangas that once you start reading you can't stop. It basically consists of the main character, a loser, shirahama Kenichi (nicknamed=weak legs) wanting to become strong because he meets a girl he likes and wants to protect her aswell as wanting to enforce his own ideals (which are very manly ideals for someone as wimpy as him).

What stands out most is Kenichi's growth under the tutelage of insanely powerful masters that sadistically torture him nearly killing him every day to make him strong; his strongest talent is being able to get beaten up really well.

The humour in this is great and throughout the story, though it may be slow, the romance has picked up and developed.

All the characters are unique and entertaining and you will love them all as there's certainly a little bit of something for everyone's tastes.

If you enjoyed The Breaker than you'll love this one.

Overall grade = 9

Well, the story is kind of simple but still attractive, the protagonist of this series starts being a weak guy who's being bullied in school, to the point that he may even die there. He knows a girl there whose granpa is the leader of a dojo in which the gratest masters on history gather and later on they take the protagonist as a disciple.

This is not the usual manga where the hero is fighting and then for some memories of his past he goes berserk and destroy the enemy in a few seconds. In fact, something he learns is to never go berserk. He's not the typical "gifted kid" who doesn't need to train and just fights a couple times to get big improvements, in this story the hero really puts a huge effort in training and learning techniques, you can see closely his improvement as the story develops.

In general, there are very good fights, an "all time comedy" even in the death matches, pretty good character development (there are a lot of characters in this series and increases in every arc), nice strategies (which usually make this kind of stories more attractive), nice artwork (at the beggining is not good but it gets better the more the story advances).

The only reason i give the story a 9 rather than 10, is because it's a little simple, yet it's full of unexpected scenarios and even being like this it's original. I say is kind of simple, but it's not like all of those "standard" shounen manga stories which always go in a loop (beat some guys, then they find the mastermind, fight him, when everyone is defeated the hero goes berserk with the power of friendship and defeats the boss, a couple filler chapters, then someone evil shows up, and the the story repeats).

And unlike most of the fighting series in which everything starts as "normal" fights and then everything ends in dragon-ball-z-like-fights with everyone using beams, and destroying complete buildings or even mountains with one attack, this series shows you the real secrets behind the techniques, of course the fighters are over human capacities, but the really astounding ones are the master class fighters, and even they have limits...I guess XD

Well, just to end this, you'll probably like this manga, this one got a nice mix of -almost- everything you'll expect for a story, I'm still halfway (260 chapters read of a total of 450 chapters) but i can say, this is one of the best series of its kind. totally recommended.

This is an "old" manga, 15 this year, I believe the story has held up extremely well. Again this is like Breaker(a pre-Breaker by 5 years) a young boy who gets picked on, and whom gets stronger to defeat all(most) of his enemies, a very normal shonen style manga. Now spoilers.

~SPOILERS~

Other then that his crazy ass training, which made me giggle like a little girl. His meeting people who could've easily taken him out but for some reason chose to let him be, made me frustrated more than almost anything else, except for that turn around end fight(s), which by the way felt retarded and a bit contrived. But the very true end left me a bit happy, if pissed at a resolution that was not well executed nor pointed out but inferred to by pictures and that's it, which is why I guess there's a continued series but that seems to be lame; something that probably would've taken maybe 100 or so chapters to wrap up nicely without being too long or to short.

It left a bunch of questions unanswered and it did seem rushed near the end like the creator wanted to wrap it up for some reason. But I'll give credit where credits due it did avoid both "One Piece-itis"(never ending story) and "HunterXHunter-itis"(hiatus hell), but you can't shove most of what you wanted to say into ~20(25) chapters.

First things first. My "reviews" system is explained on a blog entry. Which can be found through my profile.
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✦Story
Well, the usual battle shounen with ecchi jam and "wimpy" main guy. We get his growth, he will meet lot of new people as well his love interest. A lot of absolutely cool battles and superb fanservice. And all of that has also quite a satisfying humor.

I mean I seriously cannot complain much about this Manga. I felt story was absolutely blissful and straightforward with reasonable development and plot points. Our MC did grow up under hands of his overpowered masters with quirky traits. But for someone that had no talent, was simply non stop training/grinding to become stronger in order to protect those who he cares about and especially the woman he loves. Also way of martial arts is also one of his interests.

Basically, this is really well done battle shounen. Not overly complex, nor utterly simple. There is growth, new abilities, characters and so on. What else you want from battle shounen.

Now to complaints, I found some arcs, especially around the end oddly "fillerish" they felt simply out of place. Which is probably reason I lowered the score a bit. Well second issue is as always for me regarding manga. It's text and pictures, meaning I don't get that much of emotion deliverance out of it.

Oh and probably purpose of some villains confused me. For example one "final bosses" plot-line or purpose still confuses me.

✦Art
Cool characters, hot chicks, some nice fanservice and some really cool fight moments. I cannot complain.

I mean fanservice was both sides. Though obviously this is shounen Anime, which means male were pleased here more. Women with hot dresses and bodytight outfits and some other niche characters with their service'ish choice of clothing. Also some suggestive angles and awkward moments were another great fanservice points. Whilst on the other side men were also quite fanservice'y. I mean constant no shirt men, really buffed and muscular bodies, different kind of muscular or powerful bodies. Lot of alpha male stereotypes and traits in general. So I a sense lot of "sexyness" going on for the both sides.

To sum up. This Manga art was superb. Cool battles, hot characters, great fanservice moments. And since this Manga as well had great humor to it. Then some reactions/moments had as well simply priceless facial expressions and other gag moments.

✦Character

Unreal amount of characters, and so many quirky/odd ones. That part I absolutely loved. And as mentioned, for the main cast the character growth was also quite satisfying. Even bunch of side-characters got a little bit attention (some more than another). Which means even they got some backstory or flashbacks or presence even after their arc.

Probably biggest minus would be that some characters did confuse me a bit. Specifically their reasons and backstories.

✦Enjoyment & Overall
Seen anime 2 or 3 times. So now after long time finally read this manga. And it was worth a read. It's pretty straight forward battle shounen with thematic of martial arts. Also it had great humor and comedy touch to it. As well the visual appeal was superb, really cool and I did love the fanservice in this Manga. It was pretty well done and fitting and hot. But it was type of hot that was appealing or pleasing to see, but nothing too rousing. Without fan-service this Manga would been simply a bit more duller if not ruin it. (cannot comment how good was "male fanservice".. as I don't really notice or target my eyes to such stuff aside what I mentioned previously. Probably mentioned typical things. But as mentioned, it is "shounen" Manga, meaning, targeted to male)

Also some great gag moments/facial expression will have to go into my "funny stuff" folder.

And to sum it all up.
"Great straightforward battle shounen with thematic of martial arts and touch of a good fanserviice."

Okay. If you like the typical loser gets beat up but learns martial arts to protect his love ones kind of manga this is the perfect manga for you. The art is really good and the characters they introduced - Kenichi Sensei's was really good each which has their own backstory being fleshed out a few chapters during the manga, one thing that really never get going ironically was the main character Kenichi story, I mean he grows stronger and more confidence and his abilities in martial arts did improve but he was never really developed as a character.

Overall , I really enjoyed the art and it was really enjoyable but the ending was a bit rushed and it was sad to hear the author's interest in Kenichi kinda grew dim thats why the ending was rushed and frankly quite disappointing .