a wanderer named Kenshin, who used to be called Hitokiri Battousai during the Japanese civil war. His tale is about redemption of his past and all his murders by helping those in trouble with his reverse-blade sword, the sakabato. Kenshin has spent ten years traveling Japan as a rurouni in search of redemption, carrying a sakabatō with the vow to never kill again following his service in the Bakumatsu as an assassin for the Imperialist cause. In 1878, he arrives in Tokyo.