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, known as Kenshin Himura in the English-language anime dubs, is a fictional character and protagonist of the ''Rurouni Kenshin'' manga created by Nobuhiro Watsuki. When creating Kenshin, Watsuki designed him to be the physical opposite of Hiko Seijūrō, a character that appears in Watsuki's first one-shot manga, "Crescent Moon in the Warring States"; a character with the same name appears in ''Rurouni Kenshin'' as Kenshin's swordsmanship teacher. Kenshin's story is set in a fictional version of Japan during the Meiji period. Kenshin is a former legendary assassin known as (rendered as ''Battousai the Manslayer'' in the Media Blasters English anime dub,〔 as ''Battousai: The Slasher'' in the Sony English dub,〔"(Samurai X A Killer Without Mercy )." Sci Fi. August 8, 2007. Retrieved on July 22, 2009.〕 and as ''The Unsheather'' on the Japanese ''kanzenban'' covers), more properly named . At the end of the Bakumatsu, he becomes a wandering samurai, now wielding a , a katana that has the cutting edge on the inwardly curved side of the sword, thus being nearly incapable of killing. Kenshin wanders the countryside of Japan offering protection and aid to those in need, as atonement for the murders he once committed as an assassin. In Tokyo, he meets a young woman named Kamiya Kaoru, who invites him to live in her dojo despite learning about Kenshin's past. Throughout the series, Kenshin begins to establish lifelong relationships with many people, including ex-enemies, while dealing with his fair share of enemies, new and old. Kenshin's character was well received by fans, with his holding the top spot in all reader popularity polls for the series. Critics of the series praised his personality, though some complained about his development during the original video animation (OVA) series, which differs from the manga. A variety of collectibles based around Kenshin have been created, including figurines, key chains, plushies, and replicas of his ''sakabatō'' sword. ==Creation and conception== Watsuki discovered and used the story of Kawakami Gensai, a executed by the Meiji Government. According to Watsuki, when he found that Kawakami maintained a duty to his dead comrades, he decided to create the title character. Since Watsuki's debut work contained a tall, black-haired man in "showy" armor, the creator wanted to make a character "completely opposite" to the debut character and the new character ended up "coming out like a girl." According to Watsuki, he used "no real motif" when creating Kenshin and placed a cross-shaped scar when "not knowing what else to do." During the development of the pilot chapter of the series, ''Rurouni, Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story'', Watsuki and his editor argued over Kenshin's speech patterns; they settled for a "slangy" pattern. For the final version of the first ''Romantic Story'', Watsuki adjusted the dialogue; in his view, he made Kenshin sound "more as I prefer him now." Watsuki added Kenshin's trademark "oro" as a placeholder to be an expression of the English speech disfluency "huh". Watsuki notes that he was surprised at how much it caught on, and how much he ended up having Kenshin use the sound during the series. Watsuki also planned to make Kenshin older than 30 years old; his editor commented that it was strange that the main character of a manga for teenagers was so old, so he made Kenshin 28 years old. At the end of the series, Kenshin appears with short hair. Initially, Watsuki had planned to make his hair shorter before the end, however, he found this to be similar to the character Multi from ''To Heart''. Watsuki based most of Kenshin's abilities on a real swordsman of the Tokugawa period named Matsubayashi Henyasai, who was skilled in acrobatic techniques. During his fight against Shishio Makoto's army, Kenshin is given a new sword with a sheath made of wood. Watsuki decided to redesign the sword to make it look as the first one Kenshin had in the series, though it is more difficult to draw. In the first ''Rurouni Kenshin'' ''kanzenban'', published in Japan in July 2006, Watsuki included a draft page featuring a redesign of Kenshin's character. To make his X-shaped scar more notable, Watsuki made it long enough to cross his nose. Kenshin's hair is tied in two tails, which are flowing to make him look younger, but shorter, to be less androgynous. Watsuki also added a ''Habaki'' to Kenshin's sword to make it easier to draw by simplifying its structure, while also emphasizing strength. Kenshin's ''hitokiri'' look was also redesigned slightly, by making his clothes more damaged and giving him Yukishiro Tomoe's neck scarf. In the anime adaptation of ''Rurouni Kenshin'', Watsuki's designs were combined with the voice talents of Mayo Suzukaze, a voice actress. In producing the English dub version of the series, Media Blasters considered following suit, with Mona Marshall considered as a finalist for voicing Kenshin. Richard Hayworth eventually was selected for the role, giving Kenshin's character a more masculine voice in the English adaptation. Additionally, Marshall was selected to voice the younger Kenshin during flashback scenes. Clark Cheng, writer of the Media Blasters dub script, said that localizing Kenshin's unusual speech was a difficult process. His use of "de gozaru" and "oro" were not only character trademarks that indicated Kenshin's state of mind, but important elements to the story. However, neither is directly translatable to English, and in the end the company chose to replace "de gozaru" with "that I did," "that I am," or "that I do." Kenshin's signature "oro" was replaced with "huah" to simulate it being a "funny sound" that had no real meaning. Daryl Surat of ''Otaku USA'' said that the grammar in Kenshin's dialogue in the Media Blasters dub and subtitles resemble the grammar in the dialogue of Yoda, a character in ''Star Wars''.〔Surat, Daryl. "Heart of Steel." ''Otaku USA''. Volume 4, Number 1. August 2010. 36.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Himura Kenshin」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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