Samura, Hiroaki

Manji is an infamous swordsman in feudal Japan who is known as the "Hundred Man Killer," as he has killed one hundred innocent men. However, there is something far more frightening than his ominous reputation: the fact that he is immortal. This is the handiwork of eight-hundred-year-old nun Yaobikuni, who placed bloodworms capable of healing almost any wound in Manji's body. 

To atone for his crimes, Manji resolves to kill one thousand evil men. Yaobikuni agrees to this proposal, saying that if he succeeds, she will undo his curse of immortality. Soon after this promise, Manji meets Rin Asano, a 16-year-old girl who requests Manji's assistance in killing those who slaughtered her parents.

Initially reluctant, Manji refuses Rin's desperate plea. However, owing to her evident lack of strength, Manji changes his mind and agrees to protect Rin for four years. With this partnership set in stone, the two embark on a perilous journey of bloodshed, vengeance, and redemption, each to fulfill their own life's cause.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Mugen no Juunin

Blade of the Immortal

無限の住人

Yamaguchi, Takayuki

Nanjou, Norio

The sadistic daimyo Tadanaga Tokugawa has decreed Japan's first martial arts competition with real swords, appalling even the most loyal of his retainers. However, when the spectators realize that the first match pits the one-armed Gennosuke Fujiki against the blind and lame Seigen Irako, even those with the most forceful objections declare the match to be a farce and the combatants' deformities an affront to their station.

Most of the attendees are unaware of the deep-seated hatred Gennosuke and Seigen hold for each other, which stems from their struggle to become the heir to the insane samurai Kogan Iwamoto, leader of the notorious Kogan-ryuu dojo. Their once-cordial rivalry for Kogan-ryuu and the hand of Kogan's daughter Mie quickly turns violent when one of the young warriors angers the master, causing a chain of events that eventually leads to their severe injuries.

Shigurui chronicles the decisions that led Gennosuke and Seigen to this desperate point, as well as the many lives ruined by the brutality of samurai culture.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Shigurui

シグルイ

Shinohara, Chie

A seemingly ordinary modern day teenager, Yuri, is suddenly whisked away to the Hittite empire in ancient Anatolia, where an ambitious queen wants the girl for a blood sacrifice in order to murder all heirs but her son, thus seizing control of the throne. Luckily, the timely intervention of Prince Kail saves Yuri from the queen's grasp. Kail promises to send Yuri back to her home, but the queen's persistent schemes to kill them both, plus their growing feelings for each other, keep those plans delayed.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Included one-shot:
Volume 28: Orontes Renka

Sora wa Akai Kawa no Hotori

Red River

天は赤い河のほとり

Inoue, Takehiko

Yoshikawa, Eiji

In 16th-century Japan, Shinmen Takezou is a wild, rough young man in both his appearance and his actions. His aggressive nature has won him the collective reproach and fear of his village, leading him and his best friend, Matahachi Honiden, to run away in search of something grander than provincial life. The pair enlist in the Toyotomi army, yearning for glory—but when the Toyotomi suffer a crushing defeat at the hands of the Tokugawa Clan at the Battle of Sekigahara, the friends barely make it out alive.

After the two are separated, Shinmen returns home on a self-appointed mission to notify the Hon'iden family of Matahachi's survival. He instead finds himself a wanted criminal, framed for his friend's supposed murder based on his history of violence. Upon being captured, he is strung up on a tree and left to die. An itinerant monk, the distinguished Takuan Soho, takes pity on the "devil child," secretly freeing Shinmen and christening him with a new name to avoid pursuit by the authorities: Musashi Miyamoto.

Vagabond is the fictitious retelling of the life of one of Japan's most renowned swordsmen, the "Sword Saint" Musashi Miyamoto—his rise from a swordsman with no desire other than to become "Invincible Under the Heavens" to an enlightened warrior who slowly learns of the importance of close friends, self-reflection, and life itself.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Vagabond

バガボンド

Yamada, Yoshihiro

It was the Sengoku-era, when the warlords usurped each other. There was a man whose soul was overtaken by the ways of tea and material greed, as he worked his way up toward greater power and status. His name was Sasuke Furuta, a subordinate warrior of Nobunaga Oda. With his world broadened by Nobunaga the Genius, and his spiritual insight learned from Senno Soueki the Master of Tea, Sasuke drove the road to hyouge. To live or not to live. For the power of the art. That is the question!

(Source: Kodansha)

Hyouge Mono

へうげもの

Watsuki, Nobuhiro

Ten years have passed since the end of Bakumatsu, an era of war that saw the uprising of citizens against the Tokugawa shogunate. The revolutionaries wanted to create a time of peace, and a thriving country free from oppression. The new age of Meiji has come, but peace has not yet been achieved. Swords are banned but people are still murdered in the streets. Orphans of war veterans are left with nowhere to go, while the government seems content to just line their pockets with money.

One wandering samurai, Kenshin Himura, still works to make sure the values he fought for are worth the lives spent to bring about the new era. Once known as Hitokiri Battousai, he was feared as the most ruthless killer of all the revolutionaries. Now haunted by guilt, Kenshin has sworn never to kill again in atonement for the lives he took, and he may never know peace until killing is a thing of the past.

Now in the 11th year of Meiji, Kenshin stumbles upon Kaoru Kamiya, owner and head instructor of a small dojo being threatened to close its doors. The police force is powerless to stop the string of murders done in the name of her dojo by a man claiming to be the famous Battousai. Kenshin's wanderings pause for now as he joins Kaoru to clear both their names. But how long can he stay before his past catches up to him?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Included one-shot:
Volume 28: Meteor Strike

Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan

Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story

るろうに剣心 -明治剣客浪漫譚-

Yoshinaga, Fumi

In Edo period Japan (1603 to 1868), a strange new disease called the Redface Pox has begun to prey on the country's men. Within eighty years of the first outbreak, the male population has fallen to a quarter of the total female population. Women have taken on all the roles traditionally granted to men, even that of the Shogun. The men, precious providers of life, are carefully protected and the most beautiful of the men are sent to serve in the Shogun's Inner Chambers.

(Source: VIZ Media)

Oooku

Oooku: The Inner Chambers

大奥

Koike, Kazuo

Kojima, Goseki

In a prison world, there are few good stories, and this is the world of Kubikiri Asa, the beheader and master samurai under the Shogun. It's a world full of vengeance, greed, and violence. A world of depravity and sin. One man can set things straight if he can keep his wits. This is a story of extreme proportions, of sword study thick in tradition and with grim purpose, of blood rivers, agonizing screams, bondage, torture, and the evil prevalent in human failure. Drafted by the confirmed masters of the international medium of manga, Samurai Executioner is a shocking combination of darkness and fire, fine lines, and a fine man in the face of human decline.

(Source: Dark Horse)

Kubikiri Asa

Samurai Executioner

首斬り朝

Matsumoto, Taiyou

Eifuku, Issei

Although the rounin Souichirou Senou quickly discovers that most of his new neighbors in the Katagi Apartments do not trust him, his childlike wonder at the world around him allows him to strike up a friendship with the carpenter's son, Kankichi. With Kankichi's help, Souichirou begins to establish a life in Edo's tenements and exchanges his longtime sword Kunifusa for a bamboo blade, due to his newfound desire to refrain from violence.

Unfortunately for Souichirou, avoiding conflict in Edo is not always possible. Before long, Souichirou finds himself stalked by the brutal assassin Shinnosuke Kikuchi, who delights in butchering anyone caught between him and his target. Each time Souichirou must step forward to defend himself or the people of the tenements, he reawakens the intense bloodlust of his younger days and resurrects memories he would much rather forget.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Takemitsuzamurai

Takemitsu Zamurai

竹光侍

Miura, Kentarou

Studio Gaga

Guts, a former mercenary now known as the Black Swordsman, is out for revenge. After a tumultuous childhood, he finally finds someone he respects and believes he can trust, only to have everything fall apart when this person takes away everything important to Guts for the purpose of fulfilling his own desires. Now marked for death, Guts becomes condemned to a fate in which he is relentlessly pursued by demonic beings.

Setting out on a dreadful quest riddled with misfortune, Guts, armed with a massive sword and monstrous strength, will let nothing stop him, not even death itself, until he is finally able to take the head of the one who stripped him—and his loved one—of their humanity.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Included one-shot:
Volume 14: Berserk: The Prototype

Berserk

ベルセルク

Yukimura, Makoto

Thorfinn, son of one of the Vikings' greatest warriors, is among the finest fighters in the merry band of mercenaries run by the cunning Askeladd, an impressive feat for a person his age. However, Thorfinn is not part of the group for the plunder it entails—instead, for having caused his family great tragedy, the boy has vowed to kill Askeladd in a fair duel. Not yet skilled enough to defeat him, but unable to abandon his vengeance, Thorfinn spends his boyhood with the mercenary crew, honing his skills on the battlefield among the war-loving Danes, where killing is just another pleasure of life.

One day, when Askeladd receives word that Danish prince Canute has been taken hostage, he hatches an ambitious plot—one that will decide the next King of England and drastically alter the lives of Thorfinn, Canute, and himself. Set in 11th-century Europe, Vinland Saga tells a bloody epic in an era where violence, madness, and injustice are inescapable, providing a paradise for the battle-crazed and utter hell for the rest who live in it.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Included one-shots:
Volume 23: Sayounara ga Chikai node (For Our Farewell Is Near)
Volume 25: "Assassin's Creed Valhalla" Collab Bangai-hen (Assassin's Creed x Vinland Saga)

Vinland Saga

ヴィンランド・サガ

Arakawa, Hiromu

Alchemists are knowledgeable and naturally talented individuals who can manipulate and modify matter due to their art. Yet despite the wide range of possibilities, alchemy is not as all-powerful as most would believe. Human transmutation is strictly forbidden, and whoever attempts it risks severe consequences. Even so, siblings Edward and Alphonse Elric decide to ignore this great taboo and bring their mother back to life. Unfortunately, not only do they fail in resurrecting her, they also pay an extremely high price for their arrogance: Edward loses his left leg and Alphonse his entire body. Furthermore, Edward also gives up his right arm in order to seal his brother's soul into a suit of armor.

Years later, the young alchemists travel across the country looking for the Philosopher's Stone, in the hopes of recovering their old bodies with its power. However, their quest for the fated stone also leads them to unravel far darker secrets than they could ever imagine.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Fullmetal Alchemist

鋼の錬金術師

Azumi

12 Manga Like Azumi