Of all the mangas I've read this is by far my favourite one with my favourite character in it (Kenshin). Although it is shounen (if i remember correctly) I personally think it is suitable for girls as well (if not more). It has everything you would want in a manga, full of action and fighting scenes, words of wisdom (I personally love it when they say very wise things you never thought about before), history (a lot of the characters in the story are based on real historical characters), humour and last but NOT the least, one of the best told love stories. I have forced a lot of people to read Kenshin and all of them end up loving it (even people who at first were not fans of manga/anime, soon thereafter became bigger fans than me). To me Kenshin represents hope and change, since this is what he is bringing to the story, even with the past he has, he is still moving forward and still "fighting" for the people.