Blade of the Immortal
Before becoming an official manga author, Masashi Kishimoto decided he should try creating a Chanbara manga since "Weekly Shōnen Jump" had not published a title from that genre. However, during his years of college, Kishimoto started reading Hiroaki Samura's "Blade of the Immortal" and "Rurouni Kenshin" which used the said genre. Kishimoto recalls having never been surprised by manga ever since reading "Akira" and found that he still was not able to compete against them.