Amatsuki

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If tl:dr : Excellent story get your hands on it and start reading.

So I start reading this manga a couple of years ago (like 2006) because I thought the art was rad. And not only does it turns out the story is also excellent, so are the themes. It's a good mix of sci-fi, fantasy and historical manga that is revealed (a lot later on) to double as a mystery\police story.

One of the things that I loved the most is that not one of the character feels superfluous. They all have a backstory to explain their motivations and why they act as they do. ... It's one of the things I love about this manga. Not one vilain is truly evil, they all try to protect what they cherish and all have reasonable utter-motive.
#aka Bonten and Tsuyukusa, the Princess or name it...
Life is just harsh in medieval Japan and everybody is tied to the choices and consequences of their acts.

I also love quite much how the author use chibi art to cut some tense situations in the manga too, and how queer some character act sometimes! And As someone else said some blanks are left in some scenes that make you wonder what certain character might be doing but it's usually discovered later on.

The only thing that KILLS me is how slow the production of this manga is.

Like serisouly 108 chapters in 13 years

Story: While hard to follow, Amatsuki has one of the best stories I've seen in a manga in ages. It starts off with a fairly ordinary premise: a boy gets trapped in another world. However, there's more to the story than just this generic, straightforward plot; questions of how Toki is trapped inside the game and what Amatsuki really IS keep you guessing throughout the story and make the whole concept of "a new world" far more intriguing than it usually is. The story is very thought-out, everything is perfectly intertwined, and there are a handful of twists I certainly didn't see coming.

The story's ... greatest weakness, I think, is that it unfolds almost like a mystery novel at times and is presented in such a way that it can be very difficult to follow at times. It will probably require you to read through it at least twice before getting a true understanding of everything that's going on. 9/10

Art: Gorgeous and detailed. Not much else to say here. 10/10

Character: The strongest point of the manga. Although Amatsuki has a pretty huge cast, almost none of the characters have gotten the short end of the stick in terms of developement. The characters all seem almost real in the way that all of them have obvious strengths, flaws, and motivations for what they do. While some people complain that there is no obvious antagonist in Amatsuki, this is one of the best parts about it: there are no stereotypically "good" or "evil" characters, just characters on different sides, all with understandable motivations and a whole lot of depth. 10/10

Enjoyment: This is where the manga is hurt the most. Amatsuki, while an excellent manga, is not for everyone. This is a manga that requires a degree of thought and effort to be able to see it for what it's really worth. If you're just looking for a manga to read for fun and enjoyment, you should probably look for something else. Not that you CAN'T just enjoy Amatsuki without thinking about it, it's just not the best manga to read if you're just looking for something fun, fast-paced, and full of action. 7/10

Overall: Good plot, amazing characters, and gorgeous art. It's sometimes hard to follow, but definitely worth the ride if you're willing to figure it out. 10/10

I have read 22ch, and I can say the begining of story was much more interesting, and more action was going on, later on it's just talks like seeing a political show, nothing much happens at all.

It all starts with an interesting idea of a wirtual world engineering somehow related to ability to travel back to history, and you get to know some of history of japan. Complicated characters' personalities are interesting, also the unfolding state of whats going on is great in the begining.

And later we have clues, that this travel to history may be related to virtual world creation technology, and thats all.. ... no action, just talks and blabering, I find it very boring so I dropped manga, yeah maybe there will be something better if the ongoing future chapters, yet It seems failed. (I mean how can they do so much not interesting talks? just normal talks, without knowing more about others persons, about the future, about plans - it leaves you in a state of monothony what I dont like)

So having a 8 (somewhat very good begining), and having pure (~4) ongoing chapters so overall: Im giving it 4.