Vagabond has its moments of greatness, but is ultimately a frustrating manga because of its inconsistent and stagnant characters, as well as pacing problems in the last 1/3. While it has the potential to be a masterpiece, it never reaches that level.

The story of Vagabond is simple, following the (stylized retelling) life of famous historic samurai Miyamoto Musashi, and later also his arch-rival Sasaki Kojiro. The art is amazing, one of the best in all manga. The worldbuilding, helped by the gorgeous art, is also immersive, as you really feel like you’re in samurai era Japan with a cast of individuals who are historically realistic.

If you like reading manga with lots of gore and fighting or just a badass main character, then Vagabond is perfect for you, since that’s where it shines. But, it also tries to do more, exploring the motivation for why various characters dedicate their life to becoming stronger. In the first half this is done very well. We see sword fighting portrayed as an art form whose meaning is given by the fact that its practitioners put their lives on the line. We also see Musashi confronted by characters who question his callousness towards taking life, and his own struggle with what it means to be the strongest.

My main problem with Vagabond is that it goes nowhere with these themes and they eventually become repetitive. Furthermore, Inoue tries hard to give Musashi a soft/philosophical side, but doesn’t reconcile this with the fact that, well, he doesn’t value human life. You can’t realistically have empathy if you also kill people without a second thought, and the fact that you like carving wood statues doesn’t change my mind.

The side characters, other than Matahachi who is very amusing, are two dimensional. The “romance” is pretty bad, as it consists solely of sexual tension with a useless love interest.

The plot varies in quality. Several earlier arcs are extremely good (Inshun, Yoshioka, Kojiro growing up), to the point where if the manga only had those parts it would be 10/10, but it starts to really go downhill around chapter 260. The first 2/3 is definitely worth a read, and it’s a shame that the manga is on hiatus as the current arc seems like it will be good.

Overall, I found Vagabond to be interesting enough to hook me, but rather frustrating because of the mix of good and bad qualities.