The first volume of Steel Fist Riku establishes that Riku's a teenage girl, living with her sensei/adoptive father, Rokuhara. Rokuhara was once a powerful martial artist working for a local big shot, and has trained Riku in his style, but Riku also has the ability to turn her left arm like unto a thing of, er, steel. I'm not sure if it's just coated in metal, or if it's metal inside and out, but it's a thing she can do.
While Riku and Roku ostensibly run a movie star photo shop (where you buy pics of your favorite movie stars), they're both willing to be "troubleshooters" for a price, and that's where series creator Jyutaroh Nishino makes a lot of the action happen. In the first chapter, Riku agrees to help the local butcher when loan sharks try to make him pay more than he agreed. In the last two chapters, she helps locate a mother's missing son, then helps him get free of a gang he regrets joining.
Both stories involve a lot of punching and fighting beastmen, as this world has various "demihumans". Nishino doesn't explain beyond the fact they exist and everyone knows they exist, and they seem capable of living and working with regular humans. Riku considers herself a demihuman, actually. The loan shark's right hand man is a pigman with hair like the tuft on an onion, the gang leader is a tigerman or something, but all his men are regular joes.
Nishino's varies the presentation of the fighting to keep things visually interesting. He may use one panel of two characters exchanging a series of lightning-fast strikes, switch to a close-up on their faces for reaction, then shift to a series of panels each focused on hits actually landing. In among all that, there might be a long-range view panel of one or both characters leaping and flipping about, trying to get position or escape being hit. The fights don't feel static that way, and Nishino doesn't drag them out overly long, preferring to break them up with humor or otherwise lighter scenes.
Riku is a standard shonen protagonist in a lot of ways. Cheerful, a bit hot-tempered. Quick to make friends and come to others' aid. Likes to eat and likes to fight. Following the protag lineage of Goku, like Monkey D. Luffy or Naruto or whoever. The inherited "steel fist" even gives her a mysterious origin. I'm sure there are plenty, but I don't know too many protagonists of shonen manga/anime in that vein who are girls. There are "tomboy" characters, but I'm more used to them being part of an ensemble in one of those Tenchi Muyo-style "harem" series.
There is, as you can guess from the panel up top, a lot of boob humor and references, mostly with regards to Roku, who is roundly mocked by the story, and roundhouse kicked by Riku, for his behavior. Nishino tries to make it fit into the story, as the main plot involves Roku forcing a rematch with an old friend of his from his days working for that big shot, by abducting the daughter of the current boss. We learn Roku lost his chance to lead that army when he lost a fighting tournament to a woman showing a lot of cleavage. Because that's the weakness, complete with the geyser-like nosebleeds, he's been trying to overcome ever since. By watching, as Riku puts it, 'big boob videos everyday.'
When Roku won't turn away from this path, Riku has to fight him. For her, it's as much about learning what she is to Roku, daughter or student. If Roku keeps going, he'll destroy the life they built here, and if he's willing to do that, then how little does he care about her? The fight is maybe 15 pages, but Nishino breaks it up into phases. Initially Riku seems outmatched and Roku's harsh in his assessment of her skill. This forces her to take a certain step she's been dreading, which allows her to fight at her full potential (which Nishino did foreshadow in the flashback to Roku's loss). This produces a brief comedy interlude, but also forces Roku to face his weakness if he's really determined to keep going on this path. Then it's back to fighting until it's done.
I'm not ecstatic about Roku having the same reaction to the girl he raised from a near-infant having noticeable breasts (covered by a shirt) that he does to a full-grown woman wearing a leather catsuit with the zipper halfway down, but Nishino always makes it a problem with Roku, not Riku.
I haven't had the greatest luck with manga I've tried for the first time this year, but Steel Fist Riku was one I really enjoyed.
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