Soujiro’s Seta’s life is the most saddest and depressing story-line throughout Rurouni Kenshin. Before saying anything let me review the other sad stories: Kenshin, Yahiko, Sano, Megumi, and somewhat on Kaoru. It is evident that between all these cases that Kenshin’s is that saddest, as he was orphaned, and his guardians were killed protecting him. Yahiko is also an orphan, but he did not experience as much violence as Kenshin did and Sanosuke became a gangster after Sagara’s death, which, although violent, did not plague him by regrets or unnecessary deaths. Megumi, of course, only had some doctor connection with opium, while Kaoru had a dead father.<\/p>\n
Now that I have touched upon those points, let’s get to Soujiro. Soujiro’s story-line is the most sad and depressing one of all. Firstly, Soujiro, unlike Kenshin, is an illegitimate orphan, meaning he was rejected from society in the very beginning. Kenshin was not repelled from society, he was sold off, but he made new friends, and had some respect. Kenshin also managed to have loving guardians (even if it was for a short while), while Soujiro grew up in an unhappy environment. Soujirou never found love EVER, he was both mentally and physically abused. Mentally because he could never show his true feelings, which can easily be compared to kenshin’s cross-shaped scar, teaching Kenshin to be quiet about his past. Kenshin’s scar, however, was a sign of hate and love both, showing that Kenshin, unlike Soujirou, was loved. In Soujirou’s case Shishio Makoto did not love him, he used him to fight and spread his message of “Blood of the weak and food for the strong.” Soujiro never found love in this as from the very beginning, Shishio did not help him but made him “become strong” on his own (ie. giving him the katana to fend on his own). Even though Kenshin’s protectors died, he met Hiko shortly afterwards, who taught him to love again, followed by Tomoe. Hiko gave Kenshin something to look up to and gave him an occupation, teaching Kenshin the basis of Samurai. Due to this, Kenshin was never confused in his ways, he knew he was killing, and justified it for the new era.<\/p>\n
Soujirou, on the other hand, was confused between believing in his conscience or Shishio’s philosophy. He never showed his emotions, and by god, the kid laughed in the face of death but cried when he killed his relatives. Thus meaning that from the very beginning he didn’t know which path to follow. Soujirou, like Kenshin, had a past that was haunting him, except his past was a bit worse because unlike Kenshin, it was not clear to him. Kenshin knew his past and his reasons, while Soujirou did not, and could not understand reasoning. He always hid his feelings, and although Kenshin did this too, he was able to open up to his friends, while Soujirou could not open up to anyone because the very people around him were the ones he questioned. Kenshin also had a reason of keeping quiet about his past, but Soujirou’s past was based on a flimsy factor; that Shishio had “saved” him, when in fact, Shishio would have easily left Soujirou to die. Soujiro was left on his own to take care of his problems, while in Kenshin’s case, Hiko stepped in and took the burden off his hands. If Soujiro had not succeeded, Shishio would have left him to die, as he believed Soujiro was weak.<\/p>\n
Soujiro’s lack of emotion was a very sad and scary aspect. Kenshin barely showed what was on his heart, but his Kenki and emotions always went along with his fights and talks. Although he acted very innocent most of the time, Kenshin could easily turn serious and give off Kenki in a battle. Soujirou looked the same throughout the whole series, no one could ever tell what he was thinking. Kenshin was the same way to an extent, but Soujiro was thoroughly hidden.<\/p>\n
Kenshin’s most depressing story-line was that he accidentally killed his own wife, Tomoe. Although this is very emotional and sentimental, it cannot even compare to Soujirou. Soujirou never knew love, and this is what made it depressing. Although Kenshin had killed Tomoe, he did realize and make his promise to stop murdering after the war was over. Kenshin still had his memories of Tomoe and and although it was sad to loose her, it would have been sadder if he had not loved at all. He had a purpose to his being, to his life, and later on, this guided him to Kaoru. While, all the while, Soujirou had no purpose at all, he acted like a robot, had no one to talk to or share his feelings, and never had anyone since his birth. Though this would mean that Soujirou never knew the pain, I’m sure that Soujirou, if we looked at him longer, would feel an impenetrable pain later on for all of his murderous acts. Even if Soujirou never loved a person, that would be even worse, because pain without any reminder of love is not balanced, and only pain is left. Kenshin had that pain, but he eased it with Kaoru, with his wondering, and basically his whole time with his people. If Kenshin did not know what pain was, he would never realize happiness, and vice versa. Since Soujirou did not, or could not know any love, he will have a more difficult time adapting, and even so, it is evident that he realizes that love exists. This makes it worse because he knows what it is, and he feels the lack of it, this is what makes him question Kenshin’s battle. Soujirou is found saying “Why did you not save me?” meaning that he wanted to be loved, and the fact that he wasn’t, made him what he was and he had no emotional output to put all of those feelings.<\/p>\n
To get to the point, the saddest story was of Soujiro. He had a story-line that was both unique and interesting, like Kenshin’s. Yet his went beyond the regular expectations. Kenshin himself was surprised, and he knew that something “really bad” happened to Soujiro, as he related to Sanosuke. Soujiro was also the most hard to beat enemy that Kenshin faced. I read it in a poll manga.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Soujiro’s Seta’s life is the most saddest and depressing story-line throughout Rurouni Kenshin. Before saying anything let me review the other sad stories: Kenshin, Yahiko, Sano, Megumi, and somewhat on Kaoru. It is evident that between all these cases that Kenshin’s is that saddest, as he was orphaned, and his guardians were killed protecting him. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":97,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-98","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/afl.hakumei.org\/ruroken\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/afl.hakumei.org\/ruroken\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/afl.hakumei.org\/ruroken\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afl.hakumei.org\/ruroken\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afl.hakumei.org\/ruroken\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/afl.hakumei.org\/ruroken\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afl.hakumei.org\/ruroken\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/97"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/afl.hakumei.org\/ruroken\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}