A classic shonen genre that brings the audience to be accustomed to all sorts of martial arts and Kenichi's growth. The story shows his growth as a martial artist and as a guy with more confidence as he continues to train. I liked the series because it goes over a lot of moral issues through fighting. Though it may appear to be a combat type of series, it's not really just fighting each episode. There's a great deal of humor and a bit of drama. Each episode is really refreshing and I didn't find it very repetitive since this is a very long series. Though shonen, History's Greatest Disciple has a great deal of fan service with female characters making it also ecchi. It's not too much, but I'm not too bothered by it since the overall story was satisfying.

The animation was well done and fairly consistent. Sometimes they use stills to take up time and dramatic dialogue to take up a bit of screen time. However the animated action scenes aren't too shabby though I wouldn't say the series is action heavy. It's more instructional most of the time taking the viewer through the basics of various martial arts. The voice acting was very good and it brought many characters to life defining their individual martial arts style. It was unfortunate that the voices for Furinji Miu and Furinji Hayato had changed in the OVA due to the deaths of the voice actors. The new voices however don't disappoint as they try their best to sound as similar as possible. I do recommend this series to viewers of many ages. I think we shouldn't miss this original shonen series. (show less)

pros
+ great characters
+ ecchi doesn't override the story
+ well thought-out but easy-to-follow story
cons
- sometimes ridiculous dialogue
- animation doesn't quite go beyond decent
- incomplete

conclusion: well worth your time if you want a highschool/martial arts based anime with a decent storyline. works with well thought-out characters; the storyline is easy to follow, well thought-out, and doesn't open too many plot holes; and when there's ecchi, it doesn't take over the story... for the most part. on the downside, the dialogue, as well as it usually works, is quite ridiculous at times, and the animation doesn't go beyond fine. also, the story is incomplete, and goes much further in the manga. the anime is good for what it is, but i'd strongly recommend taking up the manga if you like the anime at all.

peace. (show less)

Finally got through watching this entire anime and was actually impressed at how entertaining it was.

The story is easy to follow, a student Kenichi was bullied all his life so he meets a girl that shows him a place where he becomes a disciple and trains in 5 different styles of fighting so he can protect the people from being bullied.
You have some great characters, the alien, the boxers, dairy cow. Then of course there are the masters who have lots of moments where you are laughing and saying wtf.
The dialogue is where i thought it got somewhat weird at times. For the most part it was fine, but Kenichi and his principals were somewhat ridiculous. "I don't hit women" "take off your glasses, I want to do this right." Things like that was pretty retarded, but overall it had good dialogue that provides laughter, inspiration, and so on.
Animation was good, it was watch you would expect from an action style anime.
Overall was a pretty good anime, though alittle longer with 50 episodes was worth giving a shot. (show less)