Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi

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This is your typical anime story line.

Wimpy boy gets beat up.
Wimpy boy gets saved by a strong person.
Wimpy boy trains to get stronger!

It sounds boring and normal but the crazy thing is that it's not.
I watched the anime and then I continued on to the manga (because I had no choice).

If you are a guy you will love the artwork in this manga. This has to be one of the funnest things you can ever read. Inspirational and action packed, this anime will get you pumped.
...
And oh jeez oh my, the artwork is wonderful...

There is a kind of holistic quality to this on-going manga that makes it worth the read. I was surprised to see that no one had reviewed it yet. I'll keep this short and to the point without delving much into the story.

Perhaps this is your usual martial arts manga, but it is also so much more. The story is about a talentless, downtrodden boy who works towards developing his martial arts skills through sheer hard work and will - much like Naruto. Along his journey his enemies become his friends and together they wage war against a greater evil - ... again, we've heard this before - what makes it special is the delivery and the characters.

Through humor and hyperbole the masters who teach young Kenichi are made into caricatures and parodies of older martial art manga characters that we're so fond of, like "Hokuto no Ken" for instance. The various individual supporting characters have also been given much thought and characters who you thought were gone come back to play the part of an important piece in a larger puzzle. With every chapter, with every fight sequence we learn about the characters and what makes them human, sometimes even evil is compassionate. It is a very optimistic manga.

With all the action and adventure, there is also a darker, more sinister and intriguing story that rears its head in the latter stages of the manga. The constant cliffhangers at the end of every chapter are so gripping that they can be called annoying!

The artwork is not extraordinary, but takes a back seat to the story and characters - which is the primary driving force of this series.

This wonderful blend of action, adventure, humor, martial arts, intrigue comes together in a very feel good package. If blood, gore, death and evil is your thing, this is probably not for you. Naruto fans will enjoy it, and I highly recommend it to fans of martial arts manga and anime like "Kenshin", "Shura no Toki", "Bleach" et al.

I also recommend the TV series which visualizes the first 100 or so chapters of the series.

Kenichi is your average protagonist.
Gets beat up
Gets a master
Gets OP as fk
Beats up everyone
Good shit.
But it's a 500+ chapter manga and I get that alot of people might not have the time to experience it fully but I'd say it's worth the read. It's like Naruto,you have to grow with it. Everyone remembers Naruto,right? It's not THAT good of a series but because we grew with him,he's like our childhood hero like Goku. Kenichi is somewhat the same as us. Plain old ordinary human. None of that chakra BS. Kenichi has to go through trials after trials that'll test his love for Miu and ... that's what I love about him. He never gives up even if he was nearly killed. He kept on going and tries his hardest. He isn't gifted like his peers so he has to go through hellish training to become someone great and can't we apply that to us in real life as well? We need to never give up and keep working even though we REALLY want to give up because at the end,it'll be all worth it. That's why I love Kenichi so much that I'll read it 3 times.

Another martial art manga? Maybe so, but History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi has something special that makes you want to know more and more.
(...You will regret after reading the last chapiter simply because you'll have to wait another week for the next one)

"Fighting for the people I love", another cliché but trust me, this manga won't dissapoint you one bit.

Comedy, action, romance, drama - This manga has everything you need.

(No major spoils)
It begins like in most martial art manga where the protagonist is extremely weak but unlike most protagonists, Kenichi has 0 talent for martial art and will have to work much more than anyone.
He's a ... big coward ('I'm not running away, this is a strategy retreat!!!") but he will learn how to deal with it thanks to his desire to protect the people he cares about (Especially Miu).

I appreciate the romantic side of the manga very much, the relationship between the Miu and Kenichi is slowly developping but it's obviously there.
Usually I hate Shonens for the mere fact that they forget to add some "love spice" into the mix, this one is different!
NB: Even if there is some romance in it, this is FAR from being a shojo.

Also unlike Naruto, Kenichi learns far more techniques, I got tired of that God damn Rasengan and Shadow clowns (see what I did there?)

The author doesn't forget about his characters and will developpe every single one. (*cough* unlike Bleach *cough*)

The art is very well done and the comedy is present in every single chapiter.

Conclusion:
If you're a fan of martial art, good romantic comedy and/or shonens in general, not reading this manga is a blasphemy.

I will give it you from the end : THIS MANGA IS AMAZING !!! Really amazing ,and to be honest , I find it much more better than other long series like Naruto and Bleach . I know you may be shocked right now , but this is my opinion , and I will supply the reasons that let me say such a thing .

First of all, the story is not that amazing , but the beginning was so simple and unique in the same time , but what let me gave it 7/10 is the comedy scenes during fights and the ... ending , I mean that there is a lot of mysterious left : what happened with Shinpaku ?What is the past of Akisame ? Could Kenchi beat Fuurinji Hayato ? What about miu's father ? How did Shigure meet Tochumaru ? and a lot of other questions .

Ok then let's talk about "Art" , I don't think anyone has problems with the fantastic drawings Matsuena Syun san gave us >>>>>>>> so directly 10 /10 .

Now : about characters :
Apachai
Akisame
Shio
Hayato
Kensei
Niijima
Tanimoto
.....................( A lot of other GREAT characters )
Mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn , Isn't it obvious ?! Only the present of such great characters is enough to give this anime 7 over 10 ! Nothing else to say so of course 10/10
Enjoyment : 10/10
so it is very simple :( 10 + 10 + 7 + 10 )/4 = 9.25

Short'n sweet folks. This is a hentai masquerading as a action manga. I didnt even think someone could write a piece of work with more fan service than Hiro Mashima. Which is an accomplishment in its own. And is the only accomplish of the series. 500+ chapters in and he has yet to surpass the woman he swears to protect. Someone whom has watches over him get his ass stomped by multiple people... people she is capable of beating, but lets him because he has something to prove.

Granted some of the Master's fights are hoss. Nothing else is memorable.

This manga is example of that writing a review before reading complete manga is a bad idea. To me, this manga is great, but i have one problem with it , at the beginning it's very good and interesting but near the end it's just mediocre and boring.

This is a martial arts manga with a little bit of romance and comedy. The story is about Kenichi Shirahama - a teenage kid who learns martial arts and being inspired by Miu Furinji to become stronger and be able to protect her. The story plot is great but later from good martial arts manga it ... becomes very dull battle manga, with very flashy fights and very pathos speeches which makes no sense at all. Same problem with characters. There are a lot of really memorable and interesting characters, but at the end author throws so many new characters which appears only in couple of frames, which makes them looks unnecessary in story.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a really good manga. It is just a little bit disappointing to me how manga changed in long period of publishing. I still will recommend this to read, just don't expect to much from it.

Review in english( i make in portuguese and i just got the text and threw in the translator).
I fell in love with the manga but the reason I'm doing this review is that I need to describe somehow what I felt when I finished the manga, warning will have spoilers, for me the manga was mt good had two great scenes but I'll start by saying the things that do not I liked the manga first a small detail that I thought was a bit of a failure kenichi defeat kanou shou (I said it would have spoilers) and he was technically the strongest of ... yomi since he was a leader and after defeating kenichi he suffers to win the rest and has to train a lot to face opponents who theoretically would be weaker but this detail up to the point of showing up because this fight was good.
Now we go to the parts that made me sad the end was very rushado and I do not know why it was that way maybe it was not already selling so much but anyway the manga seems so much that it was forced to end there, something that I found unnecessary was the creation of the armed division of yami she only helped the story get messier putting more characters for the author to deal which ended up leaving many characters loose in this story if he had just made a duel with the rest of yami vs ryanzopaku and some others masters that they had "ally" would be so much easier had everything to be good, doing this way since it was balanced both sides but with this armed division only served to unbalance the level of strength of the sides and complicate the completion of history. the author only added them to have more people fighting with weapons but in my opinion if that was why it did not have to be so many characters since it gave j Eito was all out of balance.
Another fact is that with the final fight of the protagonist was weak that could have been made with another character that had a greater rivalry despite the idea of ​​someone without talent equal to kenichi to be good I thought it ended up being poorly executed and the victory did not have as much weight, maybe the Kenichi faced somebody of the master level was interesting him giving a mitada in the end and proving that it evolved.
The relationship between Kenichi and Miu was somehow beautiful because Kenichi tried very hard to get Miu and I even understand that the author did not want to put her kissing Kenichi as soon as he saved her at some time but had to have had at least in the end a scene of the two together almost 600 chapters to have no scene, at least she kissed his face but it's not the same Kenichi deserved it.
Another thing about the final fight that was meaningless was the exchange of the side of the people of yami I did not see much sense in that and also in the pq Miu's father decided to fight the clan guy right in the end he stayed on the side of the guy all the time for later in the end he decides to fight it got too much in the sense another small detail that bothered me Miu's father owning a youthful appearance to my view he had to look a little older but that's just a detail. Another detail that was not explained because Kenichi did not have anger of the Kensei and because the Kensei has become of the evil this is something more that lacked.
In relation to the final chapter he was not bad the author gave the minimum of the relationship between Kenichi and Miu but I think he could have done the ending otherwise showing the older class might have been more interesting, or showing the evolution type the day they married Miu and Kenichi okay he even showed a picture of them but it could be like the masters crying seeing him marrying Miu the guests their friends and tals and tbm the marriage kiss between Miu and Kenichi and the old man handing Miu over to Kenichi and saying take care of her it would have been epic.
Overall I despite having found things I did not like I found things I loved, even with this everything is one of my favorite anime / manga.

Em português.
Me apaixonei pelo manga mas o motivo pelo qual estou fazendo essa review é que preciso descrever de alguma forma oque eu senti quando terminei o manga, aviso terá spoilers, para mim o manga foi mt bom teve duas cenas ótimas porem começarei falando as coisas que não gostei no manga primeiro um pequeno detalhe que achei que foi um pouco uma falha kenichi derrota kanou shou(eu disse que teria spoilers) e ele técnicamente era o mais forte da yomi ja que era lider e depois de kenichi derrotalo ele sofre para ganhar do restante e tem que treinar muito para enfrentar oponentes que teoricamente seriam mais fraco mas esse detalhe até da para relevar até porque essa luta foi boa, mas uma falha que vi em Kenichi ao derrotar o Kanou Shou ja no começo é que isso fez com que ele perdesse o maior vilão porque depois disso ele não acha nenhum grande rival igual a Kanou Shou .
Agora iremos para as partes que mais fiquei triste o final foi muito rushado e eu nao sei o pq q foi dessa forma possivelmente ja nao estava vendendo tanto mas de qualquer forma o manga parece muito que ele foi obrigado a acabar ali, uma coisa que achei desnecessária foi a criação da divisão armada da yami ela só ajudou a história ficar mais bagunçada colocando mais personagens para o autor lidar oque acabou deixando muitos personagens soltos nessa história se ele apenas tivesse feito um duelo com o restante da yami vs o ryanzopaku e alguns outros mestres que eles tinham "aliado" seria tão mais facil tinha tudo para ser bom, fazendo desse jeito ja que estava equilibrado ambos os lados mas com essa divisão armada só serviu para desbalancear o nivel de força dos lados e complicar a finalização da historia.Talvez o autor só tenha os acrescentado para ter mais pessoas lutando com armas mas na minha opinião se foi por isso não precisava ser tantos personagens ja que desse jeito ficou tudo desbalanceado.
Outro fato é que com a luta final do protagonista foi fraca que poderia ter sido feita com outro personagem que tivesse uma maior rivalidade apesar da idéia de alguem sem talento igual ao kenichi até ser boa achei que acabou sendo mal executada e a vitória não teve tanto peso, talvez o Kenichi enfrentado alguem do nivel mestre fosse interessante ele dando uma mitada no final e provando que evoluiu.
O relacionamento entre o Kenichi e a Miu era de certa forma bonito porque o Kenichi se esforçou muito para conseguir a Miu e eu até entendo que o autor não quis coloca-la beijando o Kenichi assim que a salvasse em alguma vez mas tinha que ter tido pelo menos no final uma cena dos dois juntos quase 600 capitulos para não ter nenhuma cena, pelo menos ela deu um beijo no rosto dele mas não é a mesma coisa o Kenichi merecia isso.
Outra coisa sobre a luta final que foi sem sentido foi a troca del lado do pessoal da yami eu não vi muito sentido naquilo e tambem no pq o pai da Miu decidiu lutar contra o cara do clã justo no final ele ficou do lado do cara o tempo todo para depois no final ele decidir lutar isso ficou muito no sense outro pequeno detalhe que me incomodou o pai do Miu possuir uma aparencia jovem ao meu ver ele tinha que aparentar um pouco mais velho mas isso é só um detalhe. Outro detalhe que não foi explicado porque o Kenichi não tinha raiva do Kensei e porque o Kensei se tornou do mal essa é mais uma coisa que faltou.
Em relação ao capitulo final ele não estava ruim o autor entregou o minimo da relação entre Kenichi e Miu mas acho que ele poderia ter feito o final de outra maneira mostrando a turma mais velha talvez teria sido mais interessante, ou mostrando a evoluçao tipo o dia que se casaram Miu e Kenichi tudo bem que ele até mostrou uma foto deles mas poderia ser tipo que os mestres chorando vendo ele se casando com a Miu os convidados os amigos deles e tals e tbm o beijo do casamento entre Miu e Kenichi e o ancião entregando a Miu para o Kenichi e dizendo cuide bem dela isso teria sido épico.
No geral eu apesar de ter encontrado coisas que eu não gostei eu encontrei coisas que eu amei, mesmo com isso tudo é um dos meus animes/mangás favoritos.

tl;dr: A very long but high quality battle shounen with somewhat of a weak supporting cast and a rushed ending.

This manga is about Kenichi, a boy who after being bullied tries to overcome his weak self by joining a dojo. However, as luck would have it the dojo he ends up joining is Ryozanpaku. This dojo is unique in that it isn’t dedicated to a particular type of martial arts, rather each of six masters that inhabit the dojo practice completely different styles. The only thing that the masters have in common is that they’re absurdly strong. It turns out that Kenichi has absolutely no ... talent for martial arts of any style. However, he has the genuine desire to get stronger and the willpower to push himself beyond his limits to do so. And thus, all six masters of Ryozanpaku agree to take Kenichi as their disciple.

As is the case with a lot of shounen manga, this manga starts off small scale but grows tremendously in scale as it progresses. I think this takes it farther than most though, with the only shounen I can think of with a similar level of progression being Air Gear. It starts off with Kenichi simply using martial arts to stand his ground against bullies. This catches the attention of the most prominent gang in the town, Ragnarok, who he then ends up having to face off against. And then an even bigger gang. And as things keep going, suddenly Kenichi is fighting with the fate of modern civilization on the line.

Despite that, this manga actually does a pretty good job at power scaling. This is because it keeps two very distinct tiers of combatants, master and disciple level. While Kenichi certainly does get stronger over the course of the manga, he remains a disciple to the end. And thus, over the course of the manga he fights stronger and stronger disciples. These disciple fights are the only fights in the early parts of the manga, but as the manga progresses there are more and more fights between masters, and by the final arc it has both tiers in equal. Master fights are at a completely different level from those of Kenichi and also have a completely different flow to them. While disciple fights are about showing the results of training and growth, the master fights are about crazy super human combat spectacles. The manga having both allowed the overarching plot to grow massively in scale while giving Kenichi’s growth arc breathing room to be well written. The two tiers being intermixed also helped with variety, thus allowing the manga to flow better which helped with pacing. Add in that there’s also a lot of good comedy and that the mangaka knows when it’s time to wrap up arcs and move on, and you get a manga that was pretty interesting all the way through, which is impressive considering that it’s 61 volumes long.

That’s not to say there weren’t issues. The manga did a pretty good job with the members of Ryozanpaku, by which I mean Kenichi, Miu, and the six masters. Kenichi’s and Miu’s relationship development was slower than I would have liked, but all in all was solid enough. Both of them have decent character growth, and Miu and the six masters all get pretty well fleshed out backgrounds as well. The side characters unfortunately were handled nowhere near as well. The issue seemed to be that it was trying too hard to keep characters relevant long past when they stopped fitting into the story well. There were characters like Nijima, Hermit, Sieg, and Renka that were cool all the way through, but a lot of Kenichi’s ‘party’ felt like it had no place taking part in the conflicts they ended up in, such as Takeda, Ukita, Freya or Valkyrie. There were lots of colorful and more interesting characters introduced after them that the focus would have been better spent on. The manga also seems to suffer the standard issue of villains being forgiven or redeemed too easily, but I suppose that’s par for the course and this manga is better than most shounen I would say.

The biggest issue with this manga was definitely the ending though. The final three volumes are rushed to the point that it’s hard to appreciate any of what it’s trying to do. It tried to wrap up a whole bunch of plot threads while also trying to give a lot of characters their moment to shine, and in the end, it just ends up as a mess. Characters behave in ways that feel incredibly inconsistent, and as a result a lot of the plot feels pretty forced. The pacing is also terrible. The epilogue is good in terms of what it shows the ending is, but at the same time it goes through it so quickly, especially the most important parts, that it’s not all that satisfying. In the end while I was satisfied with the manga overall, I was pretty disappointed with the ending.

The art of the manga is fantastic, especially the color art. It started off a bit rough, but improved tremendously. Character designs and framing are also excellent. The scanlation involves a lot of different groups, which I suppose shouldn’t be surprising considering how long it is. Thus, the quality of the translation, and the quality of the scans, ranges from good to awful. Still, all in all even the bad quality parts weren’t too difficult to push through.

Well, the story is kind of simple but still attractive, the protagonist of this series starts being a weak guy who's being bullied in school, to the point that he may even die there. He knows a girl there whose granpa is the leader of a dojo in which the gratest masters on history gather and later on they take the protagonist as a disciple.

This is not the usual manga where the hero is fighting and then for some memories of his past he goes berserk and destroy the enemy in a few seconds. In fact, something he learns is to never go berserk. He's ... not the typical "gifted kid" who doesn't need to train and just fights a couple times to get big improvements, in this story the hero really puts a huge effort in training and learning techniques, you can see closely his improvement as the story develops.

In general, there are very good fights, an "all time comedy" even in the death matches, pretty good character development (there are a lot of characters in this series and increases in every arc), nice strategies (which usually make this kind of stories more attractive), nice artwork (at the beggining is not good but it gets better the more the story advances).

The only reason i give the story a 9 rather than 10, is because it's a little simple, yet it's full of unexpected scenarios and even being like this it's original. I say is kind of simple, but it's not like all of those "standard" shounen manga stories which always go in a loop (beat some guys, then they find the mastermind, fight him, when everyone is defeated the hero goes berserk with the power of friendship and defeats the boss, a couple filler chapters, then someone evil shows up, and the the story repeats).

And unlike most of the fighting series in which everything starts as "normal" fights and then everything ends in dragon-ball-z-like-fights with everyone using beams, and destroying complete buildings or even mountains with one attack, this series shows you the real secrets behind the techniques, of course the fighters are over human capacities, but the really astounding ones are the master class fighters, and even they have limits...I guess XD

Well, just to end this, you'll probably like this manga, this one got a nice mix of -almost- everything you'll expect for a story, I'm still halfway (260 chapters read of a total of 450 chapters) but i can say, this is one of the best series of its kind. totally recommended.

Okay. If you like the typical loser gets beat up but learns martial arts to protect his love ones kind of manga this is the perfect manga for you. The art is really good and the characters they introduced - Kenichi Sensei's was really good each which has their own backstory being fleshed out a few chapters during the manga, one thing that really never get going ironically was the main character Kenichi story, I mean he grows stronger and more confidence and his abilities in martial arts did improve but he was never really developed as a character.

Overall , I really enjoyed the ... art and it was really enjoyable but the ending was a bit rushed and it was sad to hear the author's interest in Kenichi kinda grew dim thats why the ending was rushed and frankly quite disappointing .

A very entertaining manga with a good combination of character development, villains, as well as the background story of each of the characters.

The various styles of martial art were very well thought out or portrayed. The art is very much enjoyable, much better than its anime counter part(which failed miserably in expressing the same humor). Each villain has his/her own story, whether it's hardship or a sad past, made the manga all the more entertaining to read. The mentors of Kenichi however does not carry the aura and the necessary presence that masters should have. They are always relaxed and acting childish, which brings down ... the overall image. I know it's a manga intended for humor but it just doesn't suit my taste to have masters of martial arts acting as so.

they only thing i can say about this manga is that i read 500 chapters in less than a week cause it is so good that i couldn't stop reading it. so yes just grab it a read it! you won't regret it at all! the art is so cool and mature. and the chracters all of them are great and have a cool roll in the manga.

This manga has a very basic story, the protagonist merely wants the strength to protect everyone important to him. Now, the way that he is going towards making this a reality is the best part of this manga. Kenichi meets Miu, a martial artist. She introduces him to her dojo, where he meets her masters. All of the masters have a very different personality, making it full of lulz. If you read this manga, and you didn't laugh, you must be dead or have no soul. The art style is pretty awesome and I fully enjoyed reading this. Slight nudity, so if you can't take ... the occasional nipple, read it anyway.

Mightiest Disciple Kenichi is just one of those great mangas that once you start reading you can't stop. It basically consists of the main character, a loser, shirahama Kenichi (nicknamed=weak legs) wanting to become strong because he meets a girl he likes and wants to protect her aswell as wanting to enforce his own ideals (which are very manly ideals for someone as wimpy as him).

What stands out most is Kenichi's growth under the tutelage of insanely powerful masters that sadistically torture him nearly killing him every day to make him strong; his strongest talent is being able to get beaten up really well.

The humour ... in this is great and throughout the story, though it may be slow, the romance has picked up and developed.

All the characters are unique and entertaining and you will love them all as there's certainly a little bit of something for everyone's tastes.

If you enjoyed The Breaker than you'll love this one.

Overall grade = 9

Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi could have been easily a 9/10 for me, but sadly I had to give only 7/10.
We follow the story of Kenichi, who is a weakling at first but want to become stronger in order to be able to protect the people around him. Therefore there is a lot of training in his life. His masters make the training hell for him, but enjoyable for the readers. Kenichi eventually finds himself in dire situations, where he need to fight stronger and stronger opponents. So basically Kenichi's story is a generic shounen manga with a little humour in it. But what ... makes it good?
Characters:
Kenichi is a talentless martial artist, which is rare for this kind of stories. The people around him, all of them have interesting personalities and well-written backstories. Kenichi and also his friends are all have something to live for. For Kenichi is to protect Miu, for other characters is to be the strongest, or just make all the fat people around the world proud of themselves, no matter what, they try to achieve that goal. What I personally really liked, is the masters. I think I can say they are the best masters I have seen so far, they train Kenichi really hard, it can be called almost a torture, but they do this because they care about him. Al of the masters train Kenichi in a different way, and not just in a physical way. Even the reader can learn a lot from this masters philosophy. Kenichi's friends are also well written, most of them were enemies before, but this makes them even more loveable, and the story even better.
Art:
It is not astonishing, or the best I have ever seen, but it is decent. What deserves a special compliment is the fight scenes. The fights are well drawn and organized, easy to follow whats happening. There are a good amount of details in the characters, past and mid-fight injuries are nicely drawn. You can see Kenichi's body development throughout the manga, he slowly becomes more and more buffed. For comedic release there are a good amount of times when the characters are drawn in a minimal comedic way, it represents the lightheartedness of the situations really good.
Humour:
Most of the jokes come from the fact that Kenichi is talentless, but we can find small funny gags here and there in a great number. It is more of a fighting manga than a comedy manga, but it is still a good portion of it, and I have to say that there were a good amount of times when it made me laugh.

So what was bad in Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi?
My biggest problem in this manga was the overdone fanservice and the asspulled story.
Fanservice:
Dont'get me wrong, I don't mind fanservice at all, a little naked time here and there is ok, but this manga had too much. At the beginning of the story there was little to none fan service, but somewhere in the middle of the story something changed, and it became like 60% fanservice, which is too much. And when I am saying 60%, I mean there are chapters(not just one), where female characters fighting literally naked. At the end of the story I knew at the beginning of a fight, if there is at least one female character, she will be stripped down at the end of the fight. I wouldn't mind it at all if it wasn't forced. Instead of a good story, the author tried to keep the readers with fanservice.
The second half of the Story:
Same as with the fanservice. At the first half of the manga, the story was good and interesting. Kenichi was developing, becoming stronger, and getting in more and more dangerous situations. The fights were good and interesting. New, unique and interesting characters kept popping up. But somewhere in the middle, maybe somewhere between 200 and 300, something went wrong. The story itself started to get worse and worse. At the last arcs, the story had so many asspulls, it was almost unpleasant to read. I read it because it still had its good moments, but with the bad writing and the too much fanservice, it became bad. I guess the author put all his efforts to make fanservice, and he had no time\energy left to actually think about the story. Kenichi could have been so much more.
Ending:
It has an ending, so it is officially finished, which is better than a sudden stop, but it was a bit rushed, and there are some questions which remain unanswered.

+1 (little spoiler): I don't want to consider it as a bad thing in this manga, it is more like a generic problem, but the romance in this story is unsatisfying. We get our MC to run after a girl through almost 600 chapters, and we get nearly nothing. We know they have feelings, but there is basically no development. There are a couple good moments, but that is all we got.

Overall:
With its flaws, Kenichi is still a manga worth reading, especially the first half. If you want to stop at the point where it is still good, stop after the D of D.

First things first. My "reviews" system is explained on a blog entry. Which can be found through my profile.
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✦Story
Well, the usual battle shounen with ecchi jam and "wimpy" main guy. We get his growth, he will meet lot of new people as well his love interest. A lot of absolutely cool battles and superb fanservice. And all of that has also quite a satisfying humor.

I mean I seriously cannot complain much about this Manga. I felt story was absolutely blissful and straightforward with reasonable development and plot points. Our MC did grow up under hands of his overpowered masters with quirky traits. But for someone ... that had no talent, was simply non stop training/grinding to become stronger in order to protect those who he cares about and especially the woman he loves. Also way of martial arts is also one of his interests.

Basically, this is really well done battle shounen. Not overly complex, nor utterly simple. There is growth, new abilities, characters and so on. What else you want from battle shounen.

Now to complaints, I found some arcs, especially around the end oddly "fillerish" they felt simply out of place. Which is probably reason I lowered the score a bit. Well second issue is as always for me regarding manga. It's text and pictures, meaning I don't get that much of emotion deliverance out of it.

Oh and probably purpose of some villains confused me. For example one "final bosses" plot-line or purpose still confuses me.

✦Art
Cool characters, hot chicks, some nice fanservice and some really cool fight moments. I cannot complain.

I mean fanservice was both sides. Though obviously this is shounen Anime, which means male were pleased here more. Women with hot dresses and bodytight outfits and some other niche characters with their service'ish choice of clothing. Also some suggestive angles and awkward moments were another great fanservice points. Whilst on the other side men were also quite fanservice'y. I mean constant no shirt men, really buffed and muscular bodies, different kind of muscular or powerful bodies. Lot of alpha male stereotypes and traits in general. So I a sense lot of "sexyness" going on for the both sides.

To sum up. This Manga art was superb. Cool battles, hot characters, great fanservice moments. And since this Manga as well had great humor to it. Then some reactions/moments had as well simply priceless facial expressions and other gag moments.

✦Character

Unreal amount of characters, and so many quirky/odd ones. That part I absolutely loved. And as mentioned, for the main cast the character growth was also quite satisfying. Even bunch of side-characters got a little bit attention (some more than another). Which means even they got some backstory or flashbacks or presence even after their arc.

Probably biggest minus would be that some characters did confuse me a bit. Specifically their reasons and backstories.

✦Enjoyment & Overall
Seen anime 2 or 3 times. So now after long time finally read this manga. And it was worth a read. It's pretty straight forward battle shounen with thematic of martial arts. Also it had great humor and comedy touch to it. As well the visual appeal was superb, really cool and I did love the fanservice in this Manga. It was pretty well done and fitting and hot. But it was type of hot that was appealing or pleasing to see, but nothing too rousing. Without fan-service this Manga would been simply a bit more duller if not ruin it. (cannot comment how good was "male fanservice".. as I don't really notice or target my eyes to such stuff aside what I mentioned previously. Probably mentioned typical things. But as mentioned, it is "shounen" Manga, meaning, targeted to male)

Also some great gag moments/facial expression will have to go into my "funny stuff" folder.

And to sum it all up.
"Great straightforward battle shounen with thematic of martial arts and touch of a good fanserviice."

This is an "old" manga, 15 this year, I believe the story has held up extremely well. Again this is like Breaker(a pre-Breaker by 5 years) a young boy who gets picked on, and whom gets stronger to defeat all(most) of his enemies, a very normal shonen style manga. Now spoilers.

~SPOILERS~

Other then that his crazy ass training, which made me giggle like a little girl. His meeting people who could've easily taken him out but for some reason chose to let him be, made me frustrated more than almost anything else, except for that turn around end fight(s), which by the way felt retarded and ... a bit contrived. But the very true end left me a bit happy, if pissed at a resolution that was not well executed nor pointed out but inferred to by pictures and that's it, which is why I guess there's a continued series but that seems to be lame; something that probably would've taken maybe 100 or so chapters to wrap up nicely without being too long or to short.

It left a bunch of questions unanswered and it did seem rushed near the end like the creator wanted to wrap it up for some reason. But I'll give credit where credits due it did avoid both "One Piece-itis"(never ending story) and "HunterXHunter-itis"(hiatus hell), but you can't shove most of what you wanted to say into ~20(25) chapters.