Kaze Hikaru

Kaze Hikaru
Cover of the twentieth Japanese volume of Kaze Hikaru, published by Shogakukan on June 26, 2006
風光る
Genre	Action, Historical
Manga
Written by	Taeko Watanabe
Published by	Shogakukan
English publisher	NA Viz Media
Demographic	Josei
Magazine	Flowers
English magazine	NA Shojo Beat
Original run	1997 – present
Volumes	39 (List of volumes)

Kaze Hikaru (Japanese: 風光る^?, lit. "Shining Wind") is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Taeko Watanabe. Set in the bakumatsu period, the series follows Tominaga Sei, a young girl who poses as a boy named Kamiya Seizaburo so she can join the Mibu-Roshi (Special Police; later known as the Shinsengumi). She befriends her sensei, Okita Sōji, who discovers her secret.

The series has been published in Japan by Shogakukan since 1997. In North America, the manga is published by Viz Media in its Shojo Beat magazine from July 2005 to September 2006. The series received the Shogakukan Manga Award for the shōjo demographic in 2003. It has been well received by manga critics, who praised its historical background, art and characters. It has sold 6 million copies and has been named among the best-selling weekly manga several times.

Kaze Hikaru takes place in the 1860s—in the Japanese historical period known as bakumatsu—and revolves around a girl named Tominaga Sei who joins the Mibu-Roshi (Special Police; later known as the Shinsengumi). She disguises herself as a boy by shaving her hair and joins the group using the name Kamiya Seizaburo (神谷清三郎, Kamiya Seizaburō^?). Her primary goal is to seek revenge against the Chōshū clan, who are responsible for the murder of her brother and father. Over the course of the series, Sei realizes that she has found a new family within the Shinsengumi troupe.