Title: Kekkaishi
OM Rank: 7
Categories: action, adventure, anime, shounen, supernatural

Author: Tanabe Yellow

Artist: Tanabe Yellow

Chapters: 244 - ongoing - irregular

Link: http://www.onemanga.com/Kekkaishi/

Summary:

By night, junior high student Yoshimori Sumimura is a "kekkaishi"--a demon-hunter who specializes in creating magical barriers around his prey. By day, Yoshimori's got some other demons to battle: an addiction to sweets and a seriously crotchety grandfather! Yoshimori's pretty 16-year-old neighbor and childhood friend, Tokine Yukimura, is also a kekkaishi, but their families are feuding over who is the true practitioner of the art.

***

Welcome, welcome, one and all. This is possibly the greatest shounen manga you will ever read.

Currently scanlated to chapter 240+, this is the perfect blend of death, destruction, morality, and romance in a shounen.

Frankly, if you don't like it you fall under the casual!retard jurisdiction.

This manga starts off slowly, but if you're a fan of Naruto or Bleach or both, you'll love this tale. The protagonist Yoshimori is pretty much the epitome of shounen leads, without the angst and indifference that plagues most young heroes. Expect real character growth and independence!

I'd equate this manga to One Piece, but only in the sense that the initial world shown to us readers is simply a fraction of the Kekkaishi world as a whole.


Enjoy!

 

Howdy's right, this is a surprisingly good manga and it does get really interesting later on. I haven't read all the latest chapters, but I devoured this over the Christmas break and remember getting past the part where the girl kills the god and gets arrested so they have to break her out.

I should catch up on it...

 

I think we had a bit of this discussion already in this thread;

http://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=12388

My opinion of it hasn't really changed, although I still haven't gotten to reading the one hundred so chapters past where I stopped at. To be honest, there are a lot of series that I'd rather read so I really can't muster the interest. Most of them are seinen so I can't really debate your qualification, but a few of them are shounen as well so I personally think it a bit of an exaggeration to suggest that it would be the best.

Although, your words sting, Howdy.

 

It starts off slow, as I've said.

But honestly, the pace is seriously picking up, and I can't imagine folks actually becoming bored with it at this point.

Things are happening, and they're important not only to Masamori, but Yoshimori through him. Frankly, Masamori seems to have peaked in power at this point and is clearly not at top tier strength. I expect Mother to show up sooner rather than later, and Yoshimori to take a greater role in current happenings.

The thing I like most about this manga is that the main character's introduction to the real conflict is gradual and somewhat believable, along with his growth as a character. That's something that many shounen are lacking.

All of the pertinent chapters are out, so those who "lose interest" seem to me to simply be lazy. It's not like it takes that much effort to skim through a few more chapters to see the plot pick back up.

I can understand folks who don't like it from the get-go, but frankly there's a lot going on here and if you simply don't like it that's your own issue, as it's better than most of what you could read.

The end.

 

See, the thing it is is that while I agree that many shounen lack believable development, is that there are more than just Kekkaishi that don't. And of those few, there are many that don't have a slow plot and, in my opinion, have character development that's much more clear than what Kekkaishi has. While, yes, the main character does change over time, a lot of the change seemed to me, if my memory serves, superficial. There's nothing that really forces him to drastically question his ideals, which are barely even outlined, and it seems as if the few that really challenge him are either cast aside to be addressed later or are given some sort of staggered answer.

The slow development isn't even given an artistic justification, which is another problem I have with the series; there's doesn't seem to be a lot of point behind it. While it is at times entertaining, at others I'm just sort of wondering what the author is trying to say. While I understand that looking to manga for art isn't the greatest of ideas, I like works that have enough substance so that I can at least think, "Huh. I've never thought of it that way before." With Kekkaishi, it seems like I'm just turning off and trying to get through the story.

Not only that, but no work of prose, let alone a medium designed primarily as entertainment, should make the reader work to get through it. Even with classics, the level of interest throughout the work is fairly consistent. There should not be a massive period where you need to force yourself to read the story in order to get through it. Like I said, there are other stories with just as much development and background as Kekkaishi but avoid all of the entanglements. I'm not lazy for not continuing to read if I'm bored. That's entirely the fault of the author.

I will admit that my tastes may be different, but the primary reason that I don't like it is that it just isn't very good. It's a fairly mediocre series that redeems itself slightly through an elaborate plot and reasonable characters. Better than the other things that I could read isn't quite a qualification for best, considering how terrible a lot of manga is, and there are many that I would consider significantly better than it.

Since examples are probably desirable for the sake of continued debate, though will probably only serve to be attacked, sticking to series of roughly the same scope and popularity, two that I would consider significantly better off of the top of my head are Hikaru no Go and Rurouni Kenshin. Both of those have similarly interesting characters and development, fairly and highly elaborate plots, respectively, and, most importantly, never lose their pace. Both of them have some elements that make the reader think or question, and Hikaru no Go even has to overcome the crutch of being about a board game rather than the supernatural. Both of those are also finished, one of which is definitely shorter than Kekkaishi and the other probably, so some level of succinctness can be expected as well. A series which is probably more questionable would be Yakitate!! Japan, which not only includes all of the elements I mentioned above, is also generally informative as well as funny. While it is a bit over the top, it is intended to be a comedy, and doesn't really sacrifice too much for it. Another just off of the top of my head is Shion no Ou, which even has the same air of mystery and, again, is engaging despite its premise. Series currently running that I would consider better are Bakuman, Psyren, which are even in Jump, and Saijou no Meii (I like this author). Bakuman is a bit insipid and a bit slow, and is probably the one I like least of the three, but still has a fairly engaging plot, interesting premise and characters, and pretty good development. Psyren sacrifices in the area of character development, but instead has a blistering and elaborate plot. Saijou no Meii is just generally amazing, with all of the advantages of Yakitate!! Japan and a more serious premise. The only problem I can see is if it begins to go seriously downhill from now, which I doubt will happen. And this is completely ignoring seinen, the genre I would normally default to.

I could probably find more, but it's probably going to be more along the same lines. Kekkaishi is fair, but it has a lot of flaws which aren't there in other series, and I don't think that it can be recommended as anywhere near the best. Or even better than most alternatives. Worth reading? Probably, but not much more than that.

 

I like that this doesn't suffer from character bloat and don't mind too much that their power is pretty repetitive. Putting stuff in boxes ftw. I actually like for a shounen lead he isn't fucking crazy about fighting strong people like Goku and Ichigo. Jesus.

 

Superb manga. The english translations are a little subpar towards the end, but even the early ones done by scanlation and binktopia aren't that good.

Still, the characters are excellent, the tension between Tokine and Yoshimori and then Yoshimori and his elder brother are all very well portrayed. I was a bit dissapointed with how ridiculously OP Yoshimori's mother was, I mean taking a god class spirit and kicking it about for the lulz?

The Kekkaishi is also among the cooler types of power I have seen in a manga. The plot continues to steam along nicely, I have about 40 more chapters to read before I am fully caught up.

 

Hey, while we're at it, does anyone like Claymore?

 

Claymore is excellent. Although I don't really like what they have done since the time skip arc it still proves to be very interesting. The hunter killer zombie Claymores are fucking cool though and alice and beth are pretty leet as well.

 

(from tiers Awesome --> Lame; where brackets indicate large gap in quality; conveniently I've only listed manga on onemanga. 2.5+ Is readable)

Vinland Saga 4.9/5
Berserk 4.8/5
Planetes 4.65/5
Angel Densetsu 4.5/5
<insert some stuff I've forgotten about by now>
Vagabond (errs a lot, awesome beginning) 4/5
HxH (may as well be discontinued) 3.75/5
Kekkaishi 3.7/5
Mx0 (discontinued) 3.6/5
Death Note (complete) 3.4/5
Holyland 3.4/5
Akumetsu (sadly is actually incomplete, it all isn't scanlated yet; imagine "American Bank Bailout" meets "Death Note") 3.3/5
NHK (complete) 3.2/5
Mirai Nikki 3.15/5
Claymore 3.1/5
<stuff I've probably forgotten about>
Kannagi 2.7/5
School Rumble 2.7/5
Veritas 2.5/5
Gantz 2.4/5
xxxHolic 2.4/5
Aiki (Not really that good, but it scores higher overall than the following) 2.2/5
One-Piece (I liked it from 200-300, but I just can't get back into it) 2/5
Bleach (Never really liked it) 2/5
FMA (Manga is loopy) 1.8/5
Soul Eater 1.5/5
<lots of things I've forgotten about>
Naruto (masochism) -3/5
Negima (masochism and underage harem) -4/5


Claymore is the kind of thing I'd prefer to read when I wish there was more Berserk.

I reccomend everyone have at least tried all the above manga, since they're probably the most mainstream for English people.

I don't really care for Soul Eater. Not sure why there's a big following: it reads like a trainwreck from the very beginning. Same sort of goes for FMA. Vertias isn't bad if you compare it to other shounen, it's similar to Mx0.

Kekkaishi's pretty high on my list, though it's much easier to read it in chunks than it is to read it chapter by chapter.

 

Would definitely recommend Kekkaishi for anyone looking for a good, ongoing shounen. It reads (at least the onemange scanlation) fairly well for anyone looking at venturing into manga too.

Chime?: I was so disappointed when Akumetsu and Mx0 were disconinued. Both were definitely some of the more promising manga I've.

 

Kekkaishi updated.

I like how such a simple item as the mechanical pencil Yoshimori gave to Hiura played a role again. Ougi Shichiro was pretty hypocritical with his 'excessive power' talk. Doesn't slicing up a large part of a school in one hit count as excessive?

What will Yoshimori's landlord be? I almost expect it to be something Tokine related.

 

40 essays to mark by Monday morning or read new Kekkashi, tis a difficult decision, I can just about account for jumping on DLP from time to time, pushing it to read manga...

 

The end of the latest chapter was epic.

I wish all of the leads in the manga I follow would say hardcore shit like that.

 

Chime mate, thanks for that excellent list, had a bunch of manga I haven't read or heard about on it. I just finished Angel Densetsu, superb. I'm probably going to spend the next couple weeks going through that list and reading what I haven't already.

 

I just saw some bits of the anime. It looks cheaply made and consequently awful (52 eps).

 

'K.

We're talking about the manga.

 

The anime is not really that bad, but since they ended it on the kokubourou arc, and there is no alternate ending to the manga I won't bother to watch it.

Akumetsu is repetitive and too self-righteous. After reading up to chapter 16 I found that it has nothing more than non-sensical violence. I like action like the next guy, but I found myself skimming pages looking for text with meaning aside from "do your job" and groveling.
As far as recomendations go, I haven't read that much manga, but I've really enjoyed Liar Game and Until Death do us part. The latter one doesn't really involve fluff or even romance as its name betrays it.

Checking out Chime??'s list now.

 

I've been in this thread and expressed my thoughts on the manga in depth. I thought I would mention a brief on the anime since it's related and may be off interest to people here but I don't imagine there's enough to devote a thread on it. It's not like I jumped in here blindfolded so your response is stupid.

You get off on being a dick. Go eat one.

 

Whoever mentioned reading it by volume was totally right. I'm following this week to week and simply feeling annoyed as the pace is excruciating. I hate to say this but even Naruto doesn't feel as dragged out (or is that because the tension's been released with Pain?).