Inuyasha

	Original run	1996-2008
	Volumes	56
	Read	56/56,official Finnish translation
	Publisher	Egmont
	Author	Rumiko Takahashi
	Review date	October 19, 2014

(Originally posted on an anime/manga tumblr.)

Inuyasha tells of the ordinary schoolgirl Kagome who ends up in feudal Japan that is populated by yookai and learns that she’s not so ordinary after all. She joins forces with a half-yookai boy Inuyasha to gather the pieces of a magical jewel that powers up bad yookai. Inuyasha hates humans and initially wants the jewel for himself to turn himself into a full yookai, but unsurprisingly he mellows out and a budding romance starts to form. Bad thing is that Kagome is the reincarnation of Inuyasha’s ex, who also hangs around with dubious motives. Love triangle drama, gathering allies, battles against a miscellaneous collection of enemies and a long line of irrelevant characters-of-the week ensues.

Inuyasha totally shouldn’t belong on list of “anime and manga that are actually good on some level” because of how many flaws it has, but let’s focus on the positives.

Inuyasha was the first series that made me seriously fangirl over it so it still has a special place in my heart. I was around 13 and to me it was the first story of its kind, and as embarrassing it is to admit, I remember thinking of how unique and deep it was. Somehow the fact that each of the main characters had their own back story and a different reason for wanting to kill the bad guy was new and interesting to me (I don’t remember what I had been reading until then if this was enough to warrant a status as something revolutionary). Also, Inuyasha’s dilemma that as a half-yookai he was ostracised by both yookai and humans so he had to create his own place by force was something I hadn’t heard in any story before so it was probably the most impressive and groundbreaking thing about the series to me. I remember watching and reading the part where he tells of his past many, many times.

Inuyasha’s different forms and the changes they brought in his personality also impressed me a lot. “Superpowered evil side” is probably pretty common in especially shounen action, but this was the first time I saw it so Inuyasha going into full beast mode because of his yookai blood was new and exciting to me. And the full human form he is forced to take once a month was even better. It’s always interesting to see when a character is forced to show their weak and vulnerable side and learn to trust others. I also like the basic idea of his romantic plot where he had to decide whether to stay with his old love or live with the new one, but since things went back and forth with that for dozens of volumes it quickly wore out its welcome.

I also liked many of the other characters. I remembered that Kagome was a lot more incompetent and useless, but upon rereading the first volumes I thought she was a lot better than what her reputation made me think and that she did reasonably well for an average high schooler struck in the middle of fighting superpowered monsters. I also liked Kikyo a lot more than on my first read, although since I only read the first 16 volumes she hadn’t gotten too annoying yet. My favourite turned out to be Inuyasha’s older half-brother Sesshoumaru, who got increasingly more mascots to babysit in his group as the series goes on.

Inuyasha hanging out in the modern Japan with Kagome’s family was one of the highlights of the series for me and I wish the time travel aspect had been used more. I also liked the small moments where the group used the stuff Kagome brought with her, such as the handful of panels where Inuyasha uses a flashlight. I don’t know why it is, but I find it incredibly funny to think up the obligatory scenarios where Kagome has had to explain him how it works.

I like Takahashi’s art a lot. It’s pretty simple and most of the characters have the same face, but she draws great silly faces. Kagome’s lack of alternative clothes does bother me a lot though, I’m obsessed with fictive characters’ wardrobes so Kagome always going around in the same school uniform bore me out quickly.

Recently I’ve noticed that one of my favourite themes in fiction is when lonely people find their place in each other. Ultimately Inuyasha focuses way too much on fights against the villains of the week, but I believe that the fact that in the beginning the focus was on the friendships within our main group was one of the main reasons that made me like the series so much.

To be fair I never finished the series. Or I read the final chapters when they came out after having dropped the series ages ago, but I have very little recollection of what happened outside the epilogue. I doubt skipping over a half of the story mattered too much though, the heroes probably regained parts of the jewel, lost it to a bad guy, destroyed bad guy’s minions and got some of the jewel back, bad guy made new minions and stole the jewel again, and so on.

But anyway, on the whole the series is pretty bad because of the streeeeeeeeeeetching of the story (56 volumes was way too much), but I guess it did play a large role in getting me really into anime so I have to give it credit for that. Also, rereading the first 16 volumes I own for this review was super fun and the beginning of the story was so much better than I remembered.

Final judgement 1.5/3