Rurouni Kenshin/Trivia

• Beam Me Up, Scotty: For fans who read fan fiction, it's an accepted phenomenon that Kaoru's favorite scent is Jasmine (and to a lesser extent, Kenshin is often associated with sandalwood, or something), even though the only character in the ENTIRE series to have a scent associated with them was Tomoe and her plum blossoms.
• Creator Backlash: Watsuki has expressed regret at creating Raijuta. He's often cited as saying that Raijuta is his least favorite character.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Twice for Kenshin in the Japanese original.
  • Yahiko, like Kenshin. In the dubs, it's case by case.
  • Soujirou in the original.
• Executive Meddling: In his original conception, Kenshin was supposed to be at least 30. But Nobuhiro Watsuki was told that "30 was too old for a primary protagonist in Shonen Jump." So, Watsuki dropped Kenshin's age to 28. (Thus keeping the concept of a more seasoned protagonist than the typical of the Shounen genre, but also making Kenshin young enough to be "acceptable".) Lampshaded in series, when Kaoru tells Kenshin he "can't possibly be 28", and Kenshin asks "Would 30 make you happier?" and Kaoru replies that it would not.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Yutaro is gonna become Pirate King!!
• Hey, It's That Guy!: The live-action film will involve Kamen Rider Den-O as Kenshin. Bonus in that Takeru Sato, the lead, recently portrayed another historical assassin, Okada Izo, in the historical drama Ryomaden (which was apparently why he was chosen in the first place).
  • More bonus points: Jin-E will be played by Koji "Kamen Rider Skull" Kikkawa.
  • Furthermore, the film itself features many alumni of the annual NHK Taiga Dramas (historical dramas of various periods of Japanese history, which include:
    • Munetaka Aoki (Tosa administrator Goto Shojiro of Ryomaden) as Sanosuke
    • Kagawa Teruyuki (Tosa ronin and future Mitsubishi founder Iwasaki Yataro of Ryomaden) as Kanryu
    • Image model Yu Aoi (Nagasaki Geisha Omoto of Ryomaden) as Megumi
    • Eguchi Yosuke (Sakamoto Ryoma from Shinsengumi!) as Saito
• Playing Against Type:
  • Shishio Makoto is voiced by Masanori Ikeda, an ex-Idol Singer from The Eighties. This is his most popular hit, "Night of Summer Side". Compare Ikeda's singing to Shishio's voice now. Huh.
  • Honjou Katamari is voiced by Junko Takeuchi. Yes, by Naruto Uzumaki and Gon Freecs.
  • Seta Soujirou is voiced by Noriko Hidaka, whose most famous role is as Akane from Ranma ½.
• Portmanteau Series Nickname: "RuroKen" for Rurouni Kenshin.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The author originally intended for Usui to be a Terminator-style manhunter, pursuing Kenshin relentlessly through darkened city streets. Instead, we got the above.
  • Henya was originally going to be introduced as a villainous character during the Kanryu arc; also, he was originally going to be in an aerial battle with Kenshin, but Watsuki changed this because he felt Kenshin would have been too strong an opponent.
  • According to Watsuki, Raijuta was originally supposed to be as imposing as he looked, but Villain Decay gradually set in.