Friday, February 7, 2014

Read-a-thon book 10 review: History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi vol. #11 (Manga)


Book: History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi volume #11 (chapters #90-98) by Syun Matsuena

Rating: 5 stars

Review:

I like reading this series because it's well written and it's a perfect blend of drama, humor and action. This volume featured three stories:


Chapters #90-92:

In this story, Kenichi was worried about Mizunuma, a fellow student and member of the Shinpaku Alliance (a group that the annoying Niijima started at school) after Kenichi and Miu saw him beating up another student as they were walking to school. Mizunuma used to be bullied but has now turned into a bully after taking aggressive karate lessons. After learning where the dojo was, Kenichi along with Niijima decided to check it out to see how the lessons are going.

But once they got there, Kenichi saw that the lessons were worst than he thought. The students were being taught dirty fighting techniques where they are told to win at any cost. Not liking what he was seeing, Kenichi stopped Mizunuma from taking a fatal attack on another student. But for interfering, Kenichi was forced to fight the leader of the dojo. Kenichi has no desire to fight unnecessarily but he has no way out of the situation he found himself in.

Kenichi was holding up pretty well in the fight until the dojo leader decided to play dirty but then Kenichi got some unexpected help from one of his sensei's from Ryozampaku.


Chapters #93-96:

The second story had Kenichi trying to create a signature finishing move. Unfortunately, he went to his crazy teachers (sensei) for advice however, the response and techniques he got were truly frightening. All he wanted was something simple but effective yet non-lethal but that's far from what they showed him. He finally received some good advice from the leader of the dojo which had Kenichi trying to figure out what kind of fighter he is and what would be the best technique for him. He also learned that he can't learn a technique for someone else he needed to create one for himself.

With all that going on, the last person he wanted to see again was Renka (who has a bit of a crush on him) showing up to see her father (one of the sensei at the dojo). While Renka was staying there she brought out a bit of jealousy in Miu, who although is friends with Kenichi also has a little crush on Kenichi (as well as Kenichi has a little crush on Miu).

Renka seeing how stressed Kenichi was with still no luck with coming up with a signature move, invited him to join her at the indoor water park in the city. Unbeknownst to Renka, her father invited the rest of the sensei and Miu to the same water park. So while all the sensei were all there, they decided to give Kenichi some additional training.

Kenichi got in even more training when he had to come to Miu's defense when she was being attacked by two guys, those guys had shown up to take Renka back to her uncle's dojo but Renka had lied to Miu and told her those guys were from the Mafia, so Miu tried to fight them off but had a little wardrobe malfunction which caused Kenichi to stand up for her. This was one of those rare occasions when Kenichi could protect her because Miu doesn't usually need anyone to fight for her, she is more than capable of taking care of herself.

In the end whether Kenichi realized it or not he found his signature move, he just doesn't know it yet.


Chapters #97-98:

The last story which ends with a cliffhanger, had some of the members of the gang Ragnorak starting to feel restless as well as fourth member (or the 4th Fist) Loki possible stirring up some trouble. The rest of the story had Niijima talking Kenichi into going to the underground fight club and check out what goes on there. He also told Kenichi that the 7th Fist Thor goes there to fight. Kenichi should really learn to stop listening to Niijima because nothing good every comes from listening to him.

Once, Kenichi and the rest of the Shinpaku Alliance showed up at the fight club, Kenichi wound up getting into the fight pit with Thor who is known for his combative sumo fighting technique. This ended with Kenichi after taking several hits, ready for the fight.


I think it will be interesting to see what will happen in the next volume because as skilled as Kenichi is he is no match for Thor.

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