Manga Recommendation of the Week – Vagabond

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Welcome back to our weekly manga recommendation series. We have officially been doing this series for a month now. I hope you have been enjoying this series. As I have said before too, I don’t read the manga as much so I am always open to recommendations!

But, hey we got something I have actually I have read this week. We are talking about Vagabond the manga recommendation of this week. It is a really cool manga and I will give you plenty of reasons to check it out. Before we begin keep in mind that this is a recommendation and not a review so I won’t be pointing out the negatives.

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Introduction

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So Vagabond is a relatively old manga. It started publishing on 17th September 1998. It is written and illustrated by Inoue Takehito. It is on hiatus sadly right now, I hope it is back soon. It blends a little bit of fact and a bit of fiction and tells the life story of the legendary swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi.

We will get into the details about the art and the plot in a little bit. But, you should have heard Miyamoto Musashi’s name at least once or twice. He is praised by many as the greatest swordsman who ever lived. There are so many awesome stories from his life. I definitely recommend that you check out his actual life history too since it is really interesting.

But, let’s get into the details about Vagabond.

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Art

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Vagabond has really good art. I mean it looks really good. The details and the shading are clear. The fight scenes look really nice and the art really suits the seinen theme of the manga. It has that serious kind of vibe which makes sense of course. Let me put a panel from the manga here for you to see it.

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Plot

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As I said earlier, Vagabond presents a blend of actual history and some fiction. It is set in the 1600s after the battle of Sekigahara. It tells the origins and the life story of the legendary Miyamoto Musashi. His life was very interesting in actual history too so a little bit of fiction adds to the fun.

Vagabond is easily one of the best Historical – seinen anime. For me personally, it has a tie with Vinland Saga for the first place in the historical genre. As you’d expect from a story of that time, Vagabond has a dark side to it and there is also a fair bit of politics involved in it.

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Characters

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We have a lot of good characters in Vagabond like Sasaki Kojirou, Inshun, Jisai, etc. but Musashi himself takes the cake. His growth is such a joy to watch. He learns from very simple things. His attitude towards others is also something unique. He brings out the best in some people, while he just pisses others off.

Throughout the story, Musashi grows in more than one way. With his sword skills, his personality grows too. Even if not everything is related to the sword, in some way it is. Musashi has such a good character. I feel like the real-life legend would also have thought like this.

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Why you should read Vagabond?

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Here are some quick pointers for you

• Great art
• Awesome story
• You may learn some history
• Amazing fights
• Musashi himself

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Conclusion

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That is all I have for now. Leave your thoughts and recommendations down in the comments. As always, stay tuned for more content, and do not forget to check out our art section. With that said, I will take my leave here. See ya!

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