What makes a manga great is the characters in it, that is of the utmost importance, how much they affect each other and the things they do to achieve each's own goal affects a story or a whole manga, greatly. That's just my opinion though.

Blade of The Immortal manages to bring characters that actually mean something to someone else or even everybody else in the story. Just like in real life, some people matter, some people hardly matter to you... yet they may just mean the world to others. It's pretty rare nowadays to find a manga with a decent storyline... what more with mangas that really doesn't entertain me at all. I'm not trying to make enemies or to be arrogant but mangas like Love Hina, X-Clamp,Angel Sanctuary (forgive me, I have to stereotype and state popular mangas that I don't think are actually outstanding enough despite their legions of fans) and similiar mangas are just not good enough.

Some or perhaps a lot of manga try hard to be deep in storyline, then they tend to go all dramatic, like X-Clamp. The whole end of the world thing is boring and overused. BoTI manages to be deep in plot and avoid the whole "if-i-dont-do-this-then-the-world-ends" syndromme. BoTI's storyline revolves around the lives of the characters and there is no clear-cut bad gays, perhaps for a few characters who are just psychos. Everyone made their choice out of personal dreams, sometimes resorting to things they themselves hate. I don't know how to write this review explicitly enough without giving spoilers. But if you're looking for a fresh plot, Blade of The Immortal is the definite choice.

If you're a fan of eye candies, Blade of The Immortal, yet again, satisfies. One of the best art around, without any doubt. Hiroaki Samura's style is distinctive and again, avoid the whole hype of having characters that are all pretty and elegant. Everybody look like something you stumble upon on the streets, some look like those pretty faces you walk past in the crowd, some look like the freakier ones who make you wonder, "what are they doing here?" and the great thing is that, except for the main character himself, everybody else is someone who might actually have lived. Why is this so? because the main character is an immortal, to a certain extent.

Reading the manga is like watching a samurai movie masterpiece, it's incredible.