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Inu-Yasha (犬夜叉): A Feudal Fairy Tale
Volume 1 Art
(Picture found on Google Images)
-Spoilers-
I discovered my very first manga when I was 12 years old. Math class hadn't started yet and I didn't really have anyone to talk to, so I was just sitting sideways in my chair with the connected desk, my feet propped up on the metal basket hanging down to hold my school books. My assigned seat was over on the far end of the rows of desks, so I was facing the wall. The only person I was remotely close to as a friend was Cody, who sat behind me in the seating chart but was currently hanging out with his friend at the front of the row. We had been best friends in second grade, but over the years we had drifted apart, as the girls and boys in my school district tended to. It wasn't until high school that clubs brought everyone back together as a whole.
As I was sitting there, I happened to look over at the pile of books Cody had with him. In middle school we usually left our backpacks in our lockers and carried the necessary books to class in a short stack with a pencil bag. Sitting on top of Cody's class books was a library book. Out of mild curiosity, I leaned in to take a closer look and found myself staring at it intently. Knowing that I needed to act quickly before the bell rang, I got Cody's attention after a few tries. He looked over at me, looking confused and a little annoyed as to why I decided to interrupt his conversation, but consented that I could pick up the book before ignoring me again.
I bent down and snatched the book off the pile. There were many reasons why I was immediately fascinated by it, and almost all of them had to do with the art on the cover. The book was a thin, tall paperback featuring two illustrated characters: a girl with black hair in a sailor costume with a surprised look and a person with long white hair, fluffy pink clothes, and pointy animal ears. As a great lover of fantasy, I wanted to know everything about these two people. I also wanted to know why they were drawn in such an interesting way with such huge eyes. The name of the book was Inu-Yasha: A Feudal Fairy Tale. More specifically, it seemed to be volume one in a series of books. It looked like a comic book when I flipped through it, yet it was the size of a novel. To me, this fact was mystifying and mind-blowing. I lamented putting the book back by Cody's desk as the bell rang and math class began.
At that time, I had seen Japanese anime shows like Sailor Moon on TV, but I had no idea that there were books connected to shows like that or a name for the big-eyed, colorful art style. Since Inu-Yasha had its own style and color palette, I did not link it back to anything like Dragon Ball Z. Instead, I became completely obsessed with getting my hands on the book again because it was something new, foreign, and exciting. It was a library book, so I began asking Cody every day during math class if he had returned it yet. For several days, the answer was always a bemused "no," until finally he grudgingly told me that yes, he had finished it and put it in the book drop.
That day after school, I was on a mission. Neither of my parents were home, so I was in charge when I walked in the door. I commanded my little sister, who was only younger by two years, that we were walking to the library right that minute. At first she was confused and wanted to know why, but I insisted that there was a book I must have and that she must come with me to fetch it. Despite her indignant comments, she came along without a struggle. The library was located next door to the post office in the downtown, just four blocks from our home, and looked a bit like a stone house and a castle had a baby. We walked up the steps to the front door and, rather than go down to the basement where the children's story books and novels were kept, we went up a few stairs to the main room where the front desk was. I walked up and asked the young woman sitting there where I could find "In-You-Yah-Shaw." At first she looked at me very strangely and I had to spell it out so she could look it up on the computer. I felt very nervous until she got up and said to follow her.
Just as we had never experienced the world of anime beyond catching an episode on Cartoon Network now and then, my sister and I had never explored the main floor of the library before. Usually our mother would deposit us downstairs and do her own browsing separately. There was one time when we needed an oversize book, which was kept upstairs, and we followed our mother and the librarian through the main room with its high ceilings, up a metal staircase, and through the bookshelves set up on the improvised second floor made of metal and glass flooring you could almost see through. As a child, it was very surreal. Now, the young library worker took us past the computers and over by the fireplace where there was a long, low bookshelf labeled "Young Adult Fiction." Sitting on top of the shelf was a little cardboard construction holding a short arm's length of graphic novels, including the one I wanted. I thanked the woman and turned to the books. Little did I know that by exploring the small comic book selection, my sister and I were inadvertently exposed to an older reading level. We eventually began to spend a lot of time browsing the young adult section.
Once I had the two available volumes of Inu-Yasha in my hands, I marched my sister back out the door and back home after checking it out with my personal library card. When we got back home, I went straight to a favorite chair by the window and blew through those two volumes by the end of the afternoon. In time I learned that these graphic novels were (A) called graphic novels and not just comic books, and (B) that they, along with their art style, could also be referred to as manga. Unfortunately, I had only watched one Japanese film in all my life and so could not pronounce the names properly for years, but reading Inu-Yasha sparked something in me that ended up driving various important decisions in my life, including my language learning preferences, my college major, and my study abroad choices. Rumiko Takahashi's most famous story inspired me to do many things I may never have otherwise done.
Alternative Volume 1 Art
(Picture found on Google Images)
Since seventh grade, I have learned a lot about Inu-Yasha as a series as well as manga and anime as a genre. One thing I noticed pretty early on was that most of it comes from Japan, so the names, language, and culture differences take some getting used to. Next, I found that the covers for these stories do not always stay the same. For Inu-Yasha, this is especially true, and I think that is because it went from being borderline experimental to being a big international hit. The cover I saw when I was twelve is a rare one with beautiful art and coloring as well as composition. It features the large title Inu-Yasha (spelled with a hyphen in the middle) as well as a banner that says "a feudal fairy tale." (I will explain the significance of all this to the plot later.) In subsequent versions of the cover, you instead see the girl falling, the white-haired person more clearly looking like a boy due to his dark red clothes, and an ominous centipede creature in the background. The title also changed to just InuYasha (with no hyphen) while being given a makeover. Now it is red and silver with claw marks and a miniature version of the character leaping above it. And that is not the only variation on this new, exciting title logo. This is important because I think it is symptomatic of the changes the series underwent over time as it gained an anime, international popularity, and more merchandise while the story was not even finished. None of this is unusual exactly, but it seems to me that the original focus and feel of the manga was lost when the popularity and marketing hit. Here, I want to talk about why I loved Inu-Yasha so much in the beginning and why it makes me so sad now.
One of the revamped logos
(Picture found on Google Images)
Rumiko Takahashi was a big manga name even before Inu-Yasha was written, although I don't think she had gained an international status yet. Her other big works were Urusei Yatsura (a bizarre romance involving mythology-inspired aliens who come to invade Earth), Maison Ikkoku (the story of a young man living in an apartment complex with an attractive superintendent), and Ranma 1/2 (martial arts madness with lots of magic and humor mixed in). Each of these stories were long running. Maison Ikkoku went for 15 volumes, while Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2 went for over 30 each. They each have an anime counterpart and wide appeal and popularity. Inu-Yasha, however, hit new levels when the anime reached American audiences through Cartoon Network's Adult Swim time. The reason I mentioned that the story and cover art struck me as somewhat experimental is that Takahashi was previously known for romance and zany humor. A borderline horror story about reincarnation, demons, and the bloody world of feudal era Japan seems out of place, although not out of genre. Based on Takahashi's blending of Japanese and other Asian mythologies and folktales into her other stories, namely Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2, she has always been interested in writing about and drawing creatures of myth and legend. It is not a stretch to think that she might want to play around with the traditionally dark nature of these creatures in ways she was unable to in her previously humorous stories. And since she had become known for being kooky, who knew if her horror-adventure would be met with open arms?
(Note: Japan has fallen into feudal warfare multiple times in history, always after a government structure falls apart and lords pop up across the land to rule domains and battle for power, land, and wealth. Unification is generally achieved after many years, or multiple centuries, when a single lord manages to conquer all the others and put a new ruling government in place.)
The story starts with Kagome, a fourteen-year-old girl who lives her mother, grandfather, and little brother next to the Shinto shrine their family runs. On the grounds are a cursed well house as well as an ancient, sacred tree. There is also a story that has been passed down through the generations about something called the Jewel of Four Souls that possessed great power. Kagome does not care about any of it, focusing instead on her wonderful school life and high grades. One day she and her brother are looking for their cat in the well house when suddenly a terrifying, half dead centipede demon bursts out of the well and drags her down into the darkness (see picture below). By the time she hits the bottom, the monster is gone and she emerges from the well to see that rather than the well house and her family's shrine, she is surrounded by forest. Nearby is the huge ancient tree where a sleeping boy with long white hair and dog's ears has been trapped by an enchanted arrow.
Kagome being dragged down into the cursed well in chapter one
(Picture found on MangaHere.com)
The villagers who live by the forest discover Kagome while she is examining the impossible boy and bring her back to their old priestess Kaede. After seeing Kagome and hearing her story, Kaede concludes that she is the reincarnation of her dead older sister Kikyō, who was a powerful priestess tasked with purifying the Jewel of Four Souls that Kagome's grandfather told her about. When the centipede demon appears in the village, completely revived, Kagome leads it to the forest where Inu-Yasha, the mysterious boy, is. It is revealed that Inu-Yasha tried to steal the Jewel of Four Souls from Kikyō back when Kaede was a child. Kikyo shot him with an enchanted arrow, trapping him against the ancient tree, and soon after dying from wounds she sustained during the attack. The centipede demon bites Kagome in the side, pulling the Jewel of Four Souls out of her, essentially proving that Kikyō successfully took the Jewel with her to the grave and into the next life. Inu-Yasha convinces her to release him, since she is the only person with the power to pull the arrow from his chest, and he defeats the centipede demon. Then he goes after Kagome, trying to get the Jewel, but Kaede puts an enchanted necklace on him that Kagome can suppress him with using a single word. In a moment of panic, she chooses the word "sit."
Within the first volume, another demon steals the Jewel and, in the process of shooting it with an arrow and getting it back, Kagome accidentally smashes it into countless shards that scatter across the land. The priestess Kaede convinces them that they need to work together to gather the shards, and most of the series focuses on this problem, as well as the issue with Kagome and Inu-Yasha's turbulent relationship. Kagome is a strong-willed, modern girl who prefers the comforts of her world despite being desperately worried for the safety of the people in the feudal age living among the demons (although sometimes demons appear in her time as well). Inu-Yasha has previously been revealed to be only a half-demon, with a powerful dog demon father and human mother. He is terribly bitter about being sealed away by Kagome's previous incarnation Kikyo and still hopes to obtain the Jewel of Four Souls in order to become a full demon. The two of them quickly begin to work as a good team, despite their differences.
This is where I need to state a strong opinion I have about the series: the stories up through about volume 20 are very enjoyable, but after that and on up to volume 56 they become progressively slow moving until the anticlimactic end. To explain, I will start with a brief summary of the early volumes to showcase what story points I enjoyed, then I will explain how the rest of the series does not hold up, as well as why I feel that way.
Name Notes:
Kagome = "Caw-Go-May"
Inu-Yasha = "Ee-New-Yah-Shaw"
Kikyō - "Kee-Kyoh"
Kaede - "Caw-Eh-Day"
Volume 1
The cursed well near Kagome's family's shrine was once used as a dumping ground for demon carcasses. By standing near the cursed well in present day, Kagome inadvertently brings a centipede demon back to life due to having great power within her (priestess power as well as the Jewel of Four Souls). The half-dead creature drags her into the well, which is a pathway into the past. With the help of the half-demon Inu-Yasha, multiple demons trying to obtain the Jewel are defeated. Each demon has terrifying powers such as manipulation of the dead. Up until now, Kagome has not fully understood that the well is what allows her to pass through time and a demon trying to kill her for the Jewel shards knocks her into, accidentally sending her home. Inu-Yasha goes searching for her, and arrives at her family's shrine in the present day to bring her back to defeat the monsters after them, convincing her once and for all that the whole thing was not a dream. From here on out, her family accepts Inu-Yasha being around and calls the school with excuses and illnesses for when she is not there.
A crow demon inhabiting the dead body of the leader of a bandit gang
(Picture found on MangaHere.com)
Volume 2
Inu-Yasha's older half-brother, who is a full demon, comes to attack him in order to take the magical pearl hidden in his eye. Sesshōmaru knows of a powerful sword made from their father's dog demon fang, and opens the door to the world of spirits to get it. Unfortunately for him, the sword can only be wielded by a demon with some human in him, meaning that the sword was left behind specifically for Inu-Yasha. Using it, our heroes cut off Sesshōmaru's arm so that he flees. Our leading man spends a lot of time throughout the series mastering the various abilities of the sword. During the battle with Sesshōmaru and others, we see time and again that Kagome has a special power that allows her to see otherworldly things and survive situations that would kill other humans.
A human-like demon lady using dead people's hair as puppet strings
Sesshōmaru's humanoid form
Sesshōmaru's true dog demon form
(Pictures found on MangaHere.com)
Volume 3
On the hunt for the shards of the Jewel, Kagome and Inu-Yasha encounter a frog demon who possessed the body of a lord in order to bring young women into the castle and steal their life essence. We learn that Inu-Yasha is not entirely heartless and will listen to Kagome when it comes to trying to save people after demon possession. We also learn that Inu-Yasha and Kagome seem to be the only ones able to travel using the cursed well. By this time, Kagome is becoming as adept at archery as Kikyo was. Later, while Kagome is visiting home, a cursed Nō opera mask begins terrorizing her city in search of more Jewel shards like the one embedded in its forehead. It collects dead bodies to become stronger until Inu-Yasha manages to slice the mask in half while it is trying to take Kagome's body over.
The frog demon inhabiting the body of a lord and trapping the lord's wife
The Flesh-Eating Mask chasing after Kagome
(Pictures found on MangaHere.com)
Volume 4
A pair of demon brothers with lightning powers have several shards of the Jewel and want more. With the help of a little orphaned fox demon named Shippō with illusion powers, they manage to kill one brother, then the other. Back home for a break after the intense battle, Kagome encounters a little girl who turns out to be a vengeful ghost. She is accompanied by the Tatari-Mokke, a guiding demon that takes the spirits of children either to the next world using its flute, or to hell using chains. We learn from Myōga, an old flee demon who once knew Inu-Yasha's father and helps with the quest for the Jewel shards now and then, that they have until Tatari-Mokke opens its eyes fully to save the girl. Kagome is able to remind the dead girl that she did not hate her mother, but loved her, before she is dragged down into hell.
Myōga the flee demon, who was once loyal to Inu-Yasha's father
(Picture found on Google Images)
The older of the lightning demon brothers overreacting dangerously
The Tatari-Mokke ready to take the child to hell after she has shown all her hate
(Pictures found on MangaHere.com)
Volume 5
While traveling around trying to learn about any possible Jewel shards, Inu-Yasha seems unusually irritable. They come across a temple that seems to be having demon trouble, only to discover that the priest himself is a spider demon after the Jewel shards. As night falls and the new moon rises, Inu-Yasha's white hair turns black and he transforms into a full-blooded human until the sun rises. He shows a lot of bravery while in his human form, despite trying to hide it from Kagome all this time, and defeats the demon with his father's sword upon changing back into a demon.
After this, we begin learning more about Inu-Yasha and Kikyō, including the fact that they were in love before their final conflict. (No wonder Inu-Yasha had such a hard time looking at Kagome in the beginning!) Meanwhile a witch steals Kikyō's grave soil to make a new body for the dead woman. The witch discovers that Kikyō's soul is not free, but reincarnated, so she abducts Kagome to steal her soul away to revive Kikyō. This ultimately fails because the soul is too big and powerful, and Kagome pulls most of the soul back into her body. However, before that, we discover that Kikyō and Inu-Yasha do not remember events the same way. The original plan had been to use the Jewel to turn Inu-Yasha into a human so he could live his life with Kikyo. Instead, someone who looked like Inu-Yasha mortally wounded Kikyō, then took the Jewel of Four Souls, leading Kikyō to believe that Inu-Yasha betrayed her trust and love. Then, someone who looked like Kikyō attacked Inu-Yasha, leading him to believe that Kikyō had always intended to kill him rather than love him.
Being attacked by the spider demon
Inu-Yasha tries to calm Kikyo down and tell her he did not betray her
(Picture found on MangaHere.com)
Volume 6
After Kagome takes back her soul by some unknown power, we see that the half-dead Kikyō body has maintained all of Kikyō's hurt and rage surrounding Inu-Yasha. No longer willing to die the way she was in life because this incomplete version of her now desires Inu-Yasha's death, she escapes them as a vengeful spirit in a body of grave soil and bone. Afterward, our heroes continue on in search of Jewel shards, and Kagome manages to cheer Inu-Yasha up in her special way that surprises him endlessly.
With the little fox demon Shippō along for the ride, they meet Miroku, a traveling monk trying to collect the Jewel shards from demons, which includes Inu-Yasha. He is a womanizer with a strange power in his right hand akin to a black hole. He plans to suck Inu-Yasha into the abyss when Kagome throws herself in the way, forcing him to cover the hole again. He becomes their friend, rather than just another Jewel thief, and tells them of a dark demon with shape-shifting abilities called Naraku that cursed his father with the wind tunnel, which was then passed down to Miroku. Kagome and Inu-Yasha think Naraku could be the same demon that ruined Inu-Yasha and Kikyō's lives years ago.
As they travel in search of this demon, they come across a man using a Jewel shard to bring his ink paintings to life to create horrible ogres that steal away a princess at night so that he might one day paint himself a living version of her. He must kill people for their blood to make this powerful ink, making it impossible for him to paint something as pure as the beautiful princess. The man is ultimately killed while they are chasing after him when the ink becomes too powerful and absorbs him as well.
Kagome somehow regains the soul that was stolen from her
Out for revenge, Kikyo wanders the warring lands
The monk Miroku is often too cocky during battle
Miroku's wind tunnel hand
The evil painter is consumed by his own ink
(Pictures found on MangaHere.com)
Volume 7
Inu-Yasha's older brother, the dog demon Sesshōmaru, is approached by a mysterious man wearing a monkey's skin. He says that he has seen Sesshōmaru try to use the severed arms of other demons to replace his own missing limb and fail, and offers him a Jewel shard to use to keep a human arm attached without rotting away. With this human arm, he should be able to wield his and Inu-Yasha's father's sword. The stranger's condition is that Sesshōmaru kill Inu-Yasha. He introduces himself as Naraku, and Sesshōmaru accepts the Jewel shard and a human arm before going after Inu-Yasha. Additionally, Naraku sends with him a nest of venomous wasps that force Miroku to keep his wind tunnel shut, or else be poisoned to death. Sesshōmaru quickly takes the sword, showing off its true power to kill a hundred demons with one swing. Kagome's magic arrow stops Sesshōmaru from killing Inu-Yasha, gaining them time, until she is knocked out and almost killed. Inu-Yasha fights back with a vengeance and regains the sword as well as many injuries. Sesshōmaru retreats, since Inu-Yasha ripped off the human hand he needed to wield the sword, and shortly after he discovers that the arm with the Jewel shard in it is trying to consume his body. He finds Naraku to kill him for trying to trap him, only to discover it is a dummy. The wasps carry off the Jewel shard.
Meanwhile, Inu-Yasha realizes that Kagome is in real danger of dying and, after hugging her, sends her home permanently, sealing the cursed well with a fallen tree. The old priestess Kaede takes the remaining group to a cave in the same forest as the well where Kikyō once cared for a crippled bandit named Onigumo, whose dark soul they suspect may have given birth to the evil demon Naraku. Soon after, a huge wolf demon attacks, sent by Naraku. Inu-Yasha is still recovering from his fight with Sesshōmaru, and Miroku can do little due to the venomous wasps, leaving Shippō to guard the Jewel shards. In the present day, Kagome is trying to get used to normal life and go on a normal date with a boy.
Miroku encounters the venomous wasps for the first time
Sesshōmaru wields his father's sword with a stolen human hand
Kagome hopes to stop the half-brothers from fighting
Sesshōmaru rips off the human arm, seeing Naraku's trap
(Pictures found on MangaHere.com)
Volume 8
Shippō brings the Jewel shards to the ruined well and Kagome senses them, and they allow her to cross back to the past. She hugs Inu-Yasha as soon as she sees him, saying that she wanted to see him and wanted him to come get her. He is shocked to know she missed him and she gets mad at him for not trying to get her back. Everyone else looks on, waiting for them to make up. Meanwhile, Naraku lays eyes on Kagome for the first time and, when they corner him, he explains that as the crippled bandit Onigumo his lust for Kikyō drove him to invite a hoard of demons to take over his body and become something new. He then made Kikyō and Inu-Yasha think that they had each tried to kill the other, but failed to take the Jewel of Four Souls for himself as he planned and Kikyō died with it. He then disappears into a toxic miasma, while Kagome frees the wolf demon from the Jewel shard slowly killing him. Before Kagome returns to the the present day, Inu-Yasha admits that he does like having her around.
This happy revelation is marred by the fact that Kikyō is revealed to be alive and well, sustained by the souls of dead people. The team is hunting soul-stealing demons and find out that they have been working for a priestess who a witness says looks just like Kagome. Inu-Yasha is immediately moody, and Kagome feels annoyed by this. (Clearly, a crush is forming.) While they are chasing a soul-stealing demon, Kagome loses the group since she is the only one able to run through Kikyō's protective force field. Kikyō traps Kagome, making her invisible, and lures Inu-Yasha to her. This forces Kagome to listen to their whole conversation about how he never stopped thinking about her and does not find her half-dead body disgusting. She kisses him, much to Kagome's dismay, and puts him in a trance to drag him down to hell. Kagome is so angry that she breaks free and Inu-Yasha wakes up to save her from the soul-stealing demons when he hears her voice. Kikyō leaves, asking if Kagome is more important to Inu-Yasha and promising that her kiss was not a lie. Devastated, Kagome returns to the cursed well to go home. Meanwhile, Kikyō visits her sister Kaede, the now old priestess, who tells her about Naraku. Then Kikyō comments that Inu-Yasha has become more gentle since meeting Kagome, and she feels bitter about the fact that she was not the one who got to melt his heart. At the end, Kagome decides to forgive Inu-Yasha after he says that he truly does not see her as Kikyō's replacement, although he feels strongly about her while also not being able to forget his history with Kikyō, as well as the role he played her death.
Our heroes are attacked by a wolf demon being controlled by Naraku
Kikyō and her soul-stealing demons
(Picture found on MangaHere.com)
Volume 9
Kagome, Inu-Yasha, Miroku, and Shippō come across a mysterious mountain with trees that grow talking heads rather than peaches. The wise man of the mountain turns out to be an evil man wielding a Jewel shard who kills people seeking wisdom for food. Having lost track of time, Inu-Yasha tries to face the huge man on the evening of the new moon and turns into a human in the midst of battle. At the same time, the others are caught in a spell that shrinks them for food storage and soon after Kagome finds herself in a soup pot in the middle of a kitchen run by demons. Inu-Yasha has been trapped by thorny vines, which Miroku helps him escape from. (He always pushes himself too hard when he's human, forgetting that his body is more delicate.) Having taken Kagome's Jewel shards, the monstrous man has become nearly indestructible. They stumble across a flower with an old man's face, who is the true wise man, and he makes Kagome a bow and arrow for her to magically shoot the enemy with, freeing the Jewel shards. Inu-Yasha knocks the monster out the window and they tumble down the cliff. Luckily, Inu-Yasha lands in a tree and survives until morning to turn back into a half-demon.
Away from our heroes, we see the life of Sango, a young woman whose village is dedicated to making powerful weapons and training great hunters to kill demons. She and her little brother Kohaku accompany their father on a mission. At first it seems successful, then suddenly her little brother attacks and kills all the grownups. She sees that the lord who brought them there is actually a spider demon and Kohaku has a tiny spider on his neck controlling him. She is mortally wounded by her brother as she runs to kill the demon, who is then killed by the lord's son. Before dying, Kohaku sees the terrible things he has done. At first, Sango is buried alongside her father, brother, and fellows but crawls her way out of the grave. Briefly we see that our heroes have come across the village of demon hunters, which has been massacred by an army of demons, killing everyone. Sango, who is being nursed by the castle staff, overhears the new lord (who looks a lot like Naraku) talking about a demon named Inu-Yasha being spotted near her now murdered village. She insists on going after him.
The peach tree growing heads at the foot of the mountain
The "wise man" pursuing his fleeing student
Sango realizes that her father and friends are dead at her little brother's hands
Sango turns her back to kill the demon, only to be attacked by her little brother
(Pictures found on MangaHere.com)
Volume 10
While Naraku in his monkey skin robe accompanies the nearly dead Sango back to her village, our heroes are being shown around by the ever knowledgeable Myōga, the flee demon, after burying the massacred people. Near the village of demon hunters, who make great weapons out of demon bones and shells, Myōga shows them a cave that is said to be where the Jewel of Four Souls was born. Inside is a terrifying mummified mass of demon bodies and what looks like a human woman. Soon after, Naraku gives Sango a Jewel shard to block her pain and she attacks our heroes at full strength. The battles goes on for a while, as Naraku has brought is venomous wasps, until Sango collapses from her painless injuries. Her pet demon cat Kirara helps Miroku chase after Naraku while Myōga, known in the demon hunter village, tells Sango what is going on after she wakes up. Naraku gets away again, although this time it was clearly a puppet working for the lord Sango met previously, and Sango tells them about the mummy in the cave.
Shinto philosophy states that each creature or plant has four souls: (1) valor, (2) harmony, (3) miracles, (4) love. If these elements fall out of balance, the whole soul becomes tainted, while a perfectly balanced soul is pure. Midoriko was a priestess long ago who was powerful enough to purify 10 demons at once, and therefore was greatly hated. A man who lusted after her invited the angry demons to possess him and create a new, horrible demon, just as the bandit Onigumo did. Midoriko fought that demon until she was nearly dead, then absorbed its soul into hers and expelled it all, creating the Jewel of Four Souls. The battling souls inside are what make the Jewel good or evil, depending on the will of the user. Kikyō was a powerful priestess given the Jewel in order to purify it after the demon hunters found it horribly tainted in the body of a huge demon.
Sango's friend and pet Kirara, a sometimes tiny, sometimes huge flying cat demon
(Picture found on Google Images)
The mummy made from the battle between the demons and Midoriko
The mummy of the man who started the battle for Midoriko's life
Volume 11
Starting in volume 10, the team battles a demon claiming to be a water god that has been demanding the nearby villagers send their children to him as sacrifices. The village leader acts as though he will send his own child to stop the natural disasters that keep happening, but it turns out to be a decoy; his own son goes to Inu-Yasha and friends to pay them to free everyone from the god's tyranny. The fake god lives in a palace in the lake, where he wields the powerful Amakoi Halberd. When Inu-Yasha gets washed away, Kagome buys them all some time with one of her magical arrows. Meawhile, Sango and Miroku find the real water goddess, shrunken down and held prisoner. During the battle the Halberd is juggled around and the fake god turns back into a giant snake, until finally the goddess gets her weapon back and puts everything in order.
Miroku pursues an attractive woman who turns out to be a giant mantis demon and the edge of his wind tunnel is cut when he absorbs it. He returns to the temple where he grew up so that his old mentor, a drunken monk named Mushin, can help it heal. Miroku's father died when his wind tunnel blew out of control, and any damage to the edges of the tunnel bring Miroku's death closer if the wounds are not sealed. While he is drugged for the surgery, Mushin is taken over by a puppet master demon who controls him with demonic grub worms. He goes to kill Miroku, but luckily the younger monk is still awake. His raccoon demon friend helps him escape, then fetches the rest of the team who had gone off to chase another of Naraku's diversion puppets. A whole army of demons swarms the temple. While forcing Miroku to keep his wind tunnel shut, Inu-Yasha haphazardly discovers the trick to killing a hundred demons with one swing of his father's sword.
Miroku's wound is healed a bit, and they move on. Suddenly, Naraku appears with the reanimated corpse of Sango's little brother Kohaku there to attack them. In desperation, Sango agrees to steal Inu-Yasha's sword in exchange for Kohaku.
Inu-Yasha battles the snake demon pretending to be the water god
The wind tunnel death of Miroku's father back when he was a child
Volume 12
Inu-Yasha, Miroku, Shippō, and Kagome follow Sango and fight Naraku. For once they are seeing the real Naraku, and he attacks them with wasps, hair, and miasma until Kagome's purification arrow blows up almost all of his body, which surprises him. He is taken away by his Kohaku puppet, and the team welcomes Sango back because they knew she only stole the sword to save her only family.
Inu-Yasha and Kagome follow stories of people dying in the mountains while Sango heals from the battle with Naraku. They find a large, ugly half-demon living with his human mother who Kagome is certain is not the culprit. She stays with the demon while Inu-Yasha looks for the real bad guy, who he eventually finds. The half-demon, who is normally very shy, tears the evil demon apart to save Kagome. They leave the village knowing that the villagers will no longer attack him, instead appreciating his strength.
The good half-demon in the mountains
(Picture found on MangaHere.com)
There are more good stories beyond volume 12, but they begin to feel more and more repetitive. There are interesting monsters, but the main story barely moves forward. Sango and Miroku have a romance that blossoms over time, although they mostly agree to wait until the bad times are over to be together. We see Naraku's various attempts to get a stronger body by making demons fight to death, a wolf demon chief named Kōga who falls in love with Kagome and chases Naraku for the Jewel shards, Sango's younger brother kept alive and free of the memory of killing his kinfolk by the shards, a band of 7 evil brothers who each use a different terrible weapons (poison, chain sword, canon, etc.), Naraku's powerful "children" Kana and Kagura, and a bat demon lord whose father killed him due to his love for a human woman, leaving behind a half-demon girl with strong magic.
Kagura, one of Naraku's children who wields great wind powers
Kanna, one of Naraku's children who keeps a soul-stealing mirror
Shiori, the child of a human woman and a bat demon
(Picture found on Google Images)
While all of these stories are enjoyable, anything that has to do with Naraku always goes the same way and takes a long time: our heroes defeat his guardians (or at least get them to retreat temporarily) and Naraku either turns out to be a puppet or gets away. It becomes as predictable as Scooby-Doo. That is not necessarily a bad thing, since I really like Scooby-Doo, but not all series can handle that sort of repeat story. It is usually better suited to the TV screen, with shows like Sailor Moon focused on entertaining younger audiences that want to see the different bad guys go down each episode with little clues each time as to who the real evil boss is. With a story like Inu-Yasha, once all the main characters have been introduced, you begin to get tired of just waiting for the Naraku attack. The days of wondering who the big boss was have passed; you know and you want to know why the characters are still wandering through the labyrinth trying to reach him. And I will cover some other important reasons why I dislike where the story goes a little later.
When I was young, my sister and I collected the Inu-Yasha books almost as soon as we started reading them. While visiting our grandparents, we found books 3 through 12 at the half price bookstore. They were the large, colorful versions the Viz graphic novel company put out in English before they re-branded all of their books to have a yellow and black color scheme. They were also taller, making the manga panels bigger. We began keeping track of when the next volume was published in America and buying it, even though each one cost about ten dollars and we could read them in under an hour. It was our first manga love and we felt loyal to it. However, around volume 27, we agreed to stop purchasing them altogether. The chapters had never been very long, but less and less seemed to be accomplished in them. In high school I tried watching the Inu-Yasha anime out of curiosity, but I did not enjoy the adapted art style or the pacing. Rumiko Takahashi's art, especially in the faces, has a certain geometric look to it that I have never thought translated well into animation.
To just talk about these many chapters of the manga, there are many plot points that sound interesting, some of which I mentioned earlier. For example, Kagome realizes around volume 18 that she is in love with Inu-Yasha and wants to be near him even if he does not love her back. One would hope this would set up a long, tangled love story. Another example is that Naraku begins experimenting and birthing "children" in an attempt to rid himself of the last little bit of him that is human. We learn that he wants the Jewel of Four Souls for the same reason Inu-Yasha did: to become a full demon. He also still harbors feelings of some kind for Kikyō that keeps him from killing that enemy. Unfortunately, all of the really juicy plot points take ages to happen. Our heroes go on wild goose chases, see bits of Kikyō now and then, and get involved in demon fights that lack the same energy and creativity that they had in the early books. When they are exciting, there is still quite a bit of filler and the certainty that Naraku is pulling string somewhere. The story of the 7 bandit brothers is so long I would need to buy many volumes to keep it on the shelf for when I want to flip through it.
It was not until after I graduated college that I decided to read the entire manga from beginning to end. And, unfortunately, I remember almost none of it because it all blurred together after a certain point.
What stood out to me while reading volumes 30 through 56 was the fall of the characters. Even back when I was 12, I had an idea of where the story was going based on the ideas planted in the first few volumes, and even if my predictions turned out to be 100% correct I was excited to see those moments happen. I felt similarly while watching the Disney movie Coco. My sister and I agreed that even though we knew exactly what was going to happen, we wanted it to happen so badly that we were engaged throughout the entire movie. Reading Inu-Yasha all the way through, however, had no such payoff.
This decline in character arcs is most dramatically clear with the main heroine Kagome. For a long time she is the character of focus, the one with mysterious powers who we know the most about. We, the readers, learn things about the other characters mainly because Kagome has learned them. She struggles with wanting good grades and a life in the present day while also wanting to help people in the past. She moves back and forth fairly frequently to see her family and school friends between battles and trying to save the world with her new friends. Eventually her entire school life seems completely sabotaged by her deep involvement with the feudal era, and I am sad to say that this is not really addressed. It is hard to say if she drops out of school permanently or how her family feels about it. I think that is where her character decline really begins as her personal struggles take a backseat to the adventures, when previously Kagome's feelings were a major concern for the reader. Without going searching through 50 volumes, I can't tell you when she definitively stops attending school or returning home. One could argue that she gets too busy to worry about that, but earlier volumes were good about showing slow, quiet moments of worry.
A lot of things about Kagome begin to come to a standstill. Her bright and energetic personality starts to lose its depth. In fact, you can see the lack of care being put into many characters over time. With Kagome, her constant decision to wear her school uniform may be a style choice as well as a tool to make illustrating simpler for the drawing team, but it really makes the first few volumes stand out as special since that was when Kagome was still taking the time to change her clothes or spending enough time at home for us to see her in her pajamas. She wore the uniform as a symbol of defiance, determined to be herself despite the feudal world she was forced to live in. By volume 30, however, it's just silly and impractical. Early on I interpreted Kagome's uniform as the visual representation of her desire to be a normal school girl. By the end, it is just easier for the drawing team, is iconic, and is the one thing that clearly differentiates her from Kikyo in appearance.
In my story summary above of the first 12 volumes, I tried to mention those times that Kagome shows an odd amount of power separate from the power she inherited from Kikyō. Her magical arrows that purify demonic evil with a single touch and her ability to steal back the soul from Kikyō, who was assumed to be stronger than her, point to an inner power that we have not learned about yet. Similarly, one of Naraku's "children" tries to suck out her soul and trap it in a magic mirror, but it is too large to be absorbed. Something about Kagome is special, so much so that it surprises Kaede, Kikyō, Sesshōmaru, Naraku, and many others. Her strong will also surprises them, like when she literally jumped into danger to stop Miroku from destroying an entire village with his wind tunnel. Everything points to the fact that Kagome is unusual and possibly more pure than Kikyō ever was.
And here is where the real problems arise. Kikyō was a pure person, but lived a lonely life serving others. She had hoped to become a normal woman when Inu-Yasha became a fully human man and spend the rest of her life with him. Tragically, the pair of them were fooled by the newly spawned creature Naraku and Kikyō died believing that Inu-Yasha betrayed her, dooming her to a loveless death. When Kikyō's soul is ripped out of Kagome, we see that Kikyō's personality remains, but that it has been tainted by the ugly memory of her death. She is a ghost of the pure woman she was in life. This is especially true when Kagome somehow takes back most of their soul, leaving behind only the worst parts clinging to revenge and half-life. The partial Kikyō flees before the festering rage inside her can be returned to the whole to be forgotten to time. Now, she is no longer properly alive, requiring recently dead souls to feed her fake body. Since we have previously learned that souls can pass on in some way, I think we can safely assume that this is an evil practice.
Over the course of this very long series, the characters' attitudes towards Kikyō begin to change until Kagome actually states that Kikyō is no longer the evil spirit she once was. There is no explanation for why this dark Kikyō with only part of a soul is now being treated like the original Kikyō. It is never suggested that something makes her good again; this version of Kikyō has demonstrated kindness and mercy towards children even while doing evil deeds. For some unknown reason, the characters simply accept that this partial Kikyō still being maintained by dead souls is no one's enemy. Eventually, the reason for this becomes clear.
Inu-Yasha never chooses Kagome over Kikyō. In fact, there is a dramatic change somewhere in the story where the focus moves from being on Kagome's unconditional love for Inu-Yasha, whose feelings are not entirely known, to Inu-Yasha's undying love for Kikyō. There is a second, simultaneous change in the story's attitude towards Kagome's powers as well: they stop being interesting, important, or capable of making a difference. During the first third of the series, Kagome demonstrates more and more that she is powerful and has an impossibly large soul. At no point does she give any of this soul to anyone, including Kikyō, outside of the one rage-filled piece that fuels the dead Kikyō that is walking around. As the series draws to a close, her powers have almost no effect on the final battles. Instead, Kikyō and Inu-Yasha's powers do all the heavy lifting.
Not everyone wants stories like this to be all about romance, and not all characters need to end up with someone at all. While this may be true, a big part of Kagome's character becomes about her unconditional love for Inu-Yasha by the time volume 30 rolls around. Her unique contribution to events is fading, so she begins to feel something like a side character with too much focus on her. She gets no big reveal moment, no big victory over the bad guy, no big contribution to the ending. Kagome mostly gets to watch from the sidelines as Inu-Yasha and Kikyō basically proclaim their love for each other as Kikyō dies in his arms. Personally, I feel like this is a conversation that would have been better had between Inu-Yasha and the larger, true soul inside Kagome. How did an evil spirit born of a priestess's frustration and hate become the main love interest for the title character without anything in particular other than the passage of time happening to change her? She is still reliant on those dead souls who may or may not have deserved to get consumed.
I feel that the story of Inu-Yasha would have been much better if Kagome's character had continued to be the most important. After spending so much time in the beginning getting us to care about her, all our hopes and dreams for her are crushed by the end. We stop getting to see her connections in the present day. We never get to learn why she is powerful, or just how powerful she is. We never get to see Inu-Yasha accept the fact that Kikyō is dead, save for the part born out of hate for a crime he did not commit. We never hear him say that he chooses Kagome over the memory of a woman he loved in the past. During the epilogue, it is still unclear as to whether Kagome and Inu-Yasha become a couple at all. The only big changes are that they are no longer chasing after Naraku, Sesshōmaru hangs around sometimes after learning to be friends with humans, and Kagome now wears a traditional priestess outfit as a symbol of her devotion to this time period. Although her brother says to his friend that his sister moved away to be with her "husband," it feels like that was more the family's interpretation than the truth. The conversation Kagome and Inu-Yasha end on is also more about Inu-Yasha's lingering anxiety regarding Kikyō than it is about anything else. After 56 volumes of Inu-Yasha being preoccupied with another woman, Kagome continues to act like a tolerant girlfriend, which makes Inu-Yasha worried he will upset her, than a patient best friend. It feels like Kagome is still in deeply love with him while he is still thinking about Kikyō and trying to hide it from her. Their comfort with each other feels a bit cheap because of this. She seems stuck in the friend zone when she could have just become his companion, not a pining woman.
Inu-Yasha is a great horror-fantasy-comedy-romance-adventure...for a while. It made a huge difference in my life, and that is why I am so sad to say that it took me more than 10 years to get around to finishing it. Rumiko Takahashi's work will always hold a very special place in my heart. However, I feel that her series were usually spread too thin due to popularity and I can't help but wonder if some of her creative freedom was taken from her along the way since the plot seems to go so differently from where it started. I will always love the early volumes for the monsters, magic, blood and gore, relationships, humor, characters, and hope.
Kagome and her family are surprised to see Inu-Yasha during dinner, especially since Kagome was trying to figure out if it was all a dream
(Picture found on MangaHere.com)
