So it's based in ancient Japan. Not sure about the era, but essentially the story is that the daimyo is retiring and to choose a successor among his many sons, he hosts a martial arts competition. One of the sons, seeks out the strongest swordmaster under the recommendation of his mother. Who is one of the lower-status concubines. Getting there, he only meets the son of said swordmaster who he recruits. The tournament goes on normally at first, the swordsman fights against a few other groups. The only one I remember for sure is a bowman who can curve his arrows. Later, his friends from the same school join him in the tournament. After that, they fight against a school of spearman in a four on four battle. Things happen but the story suddenly changes as someone uses the tournament as a shroud to stage a coup d'etat. The ringleader is actually the swordsman's father. Then we go into a training phase for the swordsman and his friends to get stronger and return to the city to stop the schemes of the father. Anyway... things happen, the Shogun get's involved by sending his assassins and army to put down the revolt. There's a lot of sword fighting. The main characters use a special kind of sword style claimed to be among the strongest. One of the characters uses this really large sword in tandem with the sword schools fire style. The main character usually sticks to the lighting style of the sword school. Names are cool but there's no magic or romance. It's about as shounen as you can get. Thank you!