Inuyasha – Series Review

I can’t believe finding a bunch of crystals could make for such an entertaining show.

Quite simply, Inuyasha’s main story revolves around Inuyasha and Kagome finding the Sacred Jewel shards that are scattered across a demon-infested feudal Japan. Inuyasha and Kagome meet and befriend a whole bunch of characters such as the lecherous monk Miroku, Sango a demon-slayer, and Shippo. Along the way, treachery, struggle for power, revival of a long lost love, rejection and many other story lines will gradually emerge.

Be prepared however for Inuyasha is plagued with filler episodes and episodes that just don’t progress the story in any shape or form. It seems as though I was watching monster-of-the-week type of episodes for quite some time before anything happened. There are some pretty good character development and story if you stick with it though.

Honestly, my interests in the entire Inuyasha crew died somewhere around the second season. And by the end of it all (episode 167) it seems as though they haven’t progressed that far in terms of character development from where they had started. They were pretty much the same.

The love triangle between Kikyo, Kagome, and Inuyasha just never ends. I mean every single time the love triangle just keeps popping up every time these three get a mile within each other! Finish it already! Inuyasha just doesn’t know what to do around Kikyo and Kagome becomes repressed and unsure of herself. It happens all the time. But I guess that’s just the real innocence of each character and a real sense of shyness. How cute.

Other characters such as the Sesshomaru, Rin, Kikyo, and Kohaku proved to be far more intriguing, even though at first these characters seemed to be very one-dimensional. Every time I saw them in the next-episode-previews I had a sudden urge to continue on. I don’t know about other Inuyasha fans, but the scenes with Sesshomaru and Rin are just absolute gold.

How does this stack up as a fighting anime? Well, most of the time not well, for some semi-rare occasions, it is fantastic stuff. The moment Inuyasha learns his Wind Scar (Kaze no Kizu) technique, be prepared to kill yourself, as he will use this move and variations of it all the way up to the end. Hundreds of monsters attacking that village? Use the Wind Scar! Big bad boss around? Use the Wind Scar. Can’t get through those boulders? Well how about you use that Wind Scar!

One major peeve I had with this series is quite frankly a lack of an ending. However the last episode of Inuyasha is both a blessing and curse. It’s good they did not make up an ending of their own, so for people who wish to pursue with story can do so by reading up on the manga, an option looking very attractive to me at this point of time. For those who can’t get their hands on the manga, that’s why the ending is a curse, because they’ll never know how the story continues on! I have invested many hours into watching these 167 episodes and into the characters. I really do wish to finish what I started since quite frankly they cut off at such a critical point in the story where it seems everything was just coming to a close. Well, at least I think it would have been over soon, but hell the manga can just keep going and going.

All in all, I enjoyed Inuyasha for what it was. Sure it had a massive amount of fillers and took quite some time to get going, but overall I enjoyed the characters here. Like the story, they too took a while to develop, but when they did it made for some great moments that kept me hooked.

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1. Inuyasha Manga – Volumes – 38 – 41
2. Flame of Recca – Series Review
3. Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 – 11 – Series Review
4. Xenosaga II – Review
5. Avatar : Sozin’s Comet – End