It's 1878 in Japan, 11 years after the Meiji Restoration, and most of the revolutionaries have become just as corrupt as the government they once opposed. "Weakening" foreign influences have become ever stronger, and samurai have lost many of their past rights. Kenshin Himura, former member of the revolutionary Isshin Shishi group, is a reformed assassin who now uses a reverse-bladed sword to avoid ever killing again. He falls for the beautiful Kaoru Kamiya, the impoverished daughter of a swordmaster whose school has fallen on hard times in the modern age.