Rurouni Kenshin, Vol. 24

With Enishi's Jinchu to be complete he has to"break" Kenshin. To do that he has to "kill" Kaoru and when kenshin ses her lifeless body he breaks down and retreats to the fallen village. No matter what his friends do to cure his depression nothing works. You wonder if he will just die and forget what he was striving for.(sorry if im spoiling this) When i saw kaoru dead I seriously had tears in my eyes and I was wondering where the book was going to go w/o kaoru. But im glad enishi didnt kill her and just took to an island. Now eveybody is going to try and save Kaoru while they hope kenshin finds the "truth" he's been looking for. I hate how all of the books end by ending on a cliffhanger and it drives you crazy to find out what happens next in the story. I ahte that it has to end ONLY 4 BOOKS OFF!!!!!!!!! I dont want it to end, i mean you want to be happily ever after for kaoru and kenshin its just to good to end. Personally i think this is the best manga ever written and ive read plenty of them. This just has a great story plot and awesome characters.

Kenshin's battle with Enishi comes to a tragic conclusion. Unable to accept the outcome, Kenshin retreats to the Fallen Village to await death. When the others find him, he is completely broken. When they ask him to rise and take Enishi on again, he says he is tired and asks them to leave him alone so he can "rest in peace". While in the Fallen Village, Kenshin is befriended by a mysterious old man, known simply as Geezer. Is he just a crazy old coot, or is there something more to him? This volume also marks the reunion of the Oniwabanshuu and the Kenshin-gumi as Aoshi and Misao come to Tokyo to lend a hand. Is it too late? Will Kenshin's heart remain shattered forever or will he somehow find a way to pick up the peaces?

When last we left our heroes/heroines, Enishi, the long-lost brother of Kenshin's first wife was stalking towards Kaoru, Kenshin's second/current love, with a murderous gleam in his eyes... in the aftermath, all that's left is a body, eyes glazed over in death... it is enough to send Kenshin over the edge of despair and the rest of the Kenshin-gumi into grief and mourning... Say it isn't so... Kaoru dead? Perhaps Kenshin truly is doomed to a life of perdition. All I can say is, while the cliffhanger and it's elements are predictable, it is no less disturbing to continue to see Kenshin in his fugue despite the efforts of all concerned (save for the anti-social Saitoh, of course). Aoshi and Misao show up, too late to stop the events at the Kamiya dojo, of course, but not too late to investigate the circumstances surrounding Kaoru's murder, a task Misao and Yahiko take to with a passion and Aoshi takes with quiet deliberation. The art is just as crisp as it has been over nearly the entire run (allowances made for the series' introductory style developing into it's permanent form). The few drawbacks of this volume tend to be in plot and flow, as new characters are introduced rather haphazardly and old characters tend to regress to their former patterns of behavior without any real insight into their psyche... just a matter of convenience, I suppose, so the reader doesn't get bogged down by introspective flashbacks and whatnot that such delving would entail... and we do get a little, such as in Enishi's case, but the volume as a whole is just a long bridge between the important event early in the book and the TRUE fallout from it to come in the next volumes.