Ourou
King Of Wolves

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If your any fan of Kentarou Miura (of Berserk fame) or Buronson (Fist of the North Star) or, like me, both of them. You'll undoubtedly be so utterly excited to read this that you can barely contain yourself. Like me >_>

Putting them together on a story/art collaboration is just a set up to have a manga full of huuuuge muscled manly men beat each other to death. It was. Every male character in this manga is big, well built, and even sometimes a little ugly as real men are.

Since it was so short, you can't expect much complexity from the story, and you won't ... get much either. But there are a few plot twists that go on near the end that are fairly interesting. If your into history, at least.

or that one time Kentaro Miura and Buronson made an Isekai manga in which a Japanese kendo champion from the 1980s travelled back to 13th century China and became one of Genghis Khan's generals

I decided to read this before embarking on the Berserk manga not only because it chronologically precedes Miura's more famous work, but also because it's an instance of a master and his student working together in a single creation. I just finished reading Hokuto no Ken and having acquainted myself with the Buronson style of storytelling, it was so interesting to see it through the visual style of his (for lack of ... a better word) successor. This is, undoubtedly, a Buronson story, but it looks and feels like a Miura manga

Buronson loves his duels, even in moments of warfare and moving armies, he can only write characters into facing off against singular rivals. This is apparent as the kendo master protagonist only faces off against the Mongolian Generals as the armies stand behind them. I don't know much about Berserk but I imagine Miura personally escapes this narrative trap in his own story. But in this work, Miura does contribute with the extreme and maximalist effect of the bloody stand offs between these characters. This is definitely something that he learned from Buronson, but here he does it in his own way, and it becomes clear the moment you realize all duels are fought with large blades, while in Hokuto no Ken, it was always fist fights.

Another large Buronson theme is the imposition of an ancient destiny onto the characters. While in HnK this appears through the constellations, the bloodlines, and the esoteric martial arts, in here it is different, in that the destiny that the protagonist needs to fulfill is that of time itself. As a time traveller, he must maintain the order of history in order to not permanently alter the future (which was once the present). The way the story concludes this is in a way that Buronson also loves: by stating in a very cathartic way that maybe you can (not) change your destiny

Fun work. Works as a neat gesture of an autheur "passing the torch" to another autheur. Let's see what the future holds

"King of Wolves", also known as "Ourou" in japanese, is a manga by Buronson (of Hokuto no Ken fame) and Kentaro Miura (of Berserk fame). As a fan of both authors, I had to read this manga and felt like writing a short review. Bear in mind that this review comes from the perspective of a fan of both Buronson and Miura.

Story - 6/10
First off, since this manga is really short, you cannot really expect much from the story. The story follows Iba, who is the no. 1 kendo (the japanese equivalent of fencing) master in Japan, as he travels back in time into the ... 13th century. There, he has to use his swordsmanship skills to survive in the Mongol Empire. I have to say that this manga combines history and fiction in a nice way. The action scenes are also very good (as you'd expect from two authors who specialize in action manga). There are also a couple of small twists along the way, so the manga doesn't feel dull.

Art - 8/10
Since this manga is drawn by Kentaro Miura, the art obviously resembles that of the early Berserk chapters. The details are good, especially in the action scenes.

Character - 6/10
Since the manga is quite short, you cannot expect much character development from it. The characters are pretty standard, and, even though the development is minimal, it is handled well by the authors.

Enjoyment - 7/10
Overall, this was an enjoyable manga. Even though the story was short, it was an enjoyable one, although inferior to some of the other more famous works of the two authors. I would advise not having very high expectations from it though.