Inuyasha

Then stage switched to showing the bone eaters well, the very same well our young Kagome the girl that was responsible for shadering the jewel of four souls. You see a tire of a bike come up followed by Kagome, she seemed to have trouble at first but finally pulls it out of the well. She stares at the scenery for a moment then get on her bike and rides making her way to the village where Kade lives the old pristess, sister of kikyo. On a rock you see the Flea demon resting claming hes been traveling non-stop for 3 days. He hears the tirs of kagome's wheels but doesnt move fast enough and is ran over. Kagome wonders what she hit but ignores it.

She comes across Inuyasha laying in a tree and she tells him to come down. But as usual he is stuborn and says no, So Kagome says Our favorite word Oswana (or comonly known as SIT!) and pulls out a first aid boxand asks to take a look. Then it shows Kade walking and talking with some village children and happen to see Kagome on top of Inuyasha tring to take off Inuyasha's shirt. Kade said something and Inuyasha got up and Kagome fell off of him. She yelled at her and said he was fine and showed her his chest telling her he heals faster than humans. Then Inuyasha said Oww and they look to see something on his chest. It was the Flea Demon we saw earlier. He was sucking on Inuyasha's blood until He smacked the Flea and said "If it ain't Myoga the flea". Myoga told the about the strong demon earlier that was looking for something and said he was apperantly looking for Inuyasha's father's grave site or Tomb. Kade asked about Inuyasha's father and Myoga told a story about him and also mentioned his Mother and Inuyasha walked out. Kagome followed behind shortly after hearing the rest of the story.And thought about how Inuyasha felt and how much he seemed to dispise his mother and she thought of how much she cared for her's.

Then the wind picked up and Inuyasha pushed Kagome to the ground and she slightly yelled at him but as cut off when he told her to be quiet. He stood up and looked at the moon and saw a carrage in the sky with a woman in it. Inuyasha froze and said "m-Mother". They saw she was bound by chains and imps surrounded her. Then out of know where a hugh demon hand comes from the clouds and grasp the carriage and shows his mothr in hand. Inuyasha jumps to attack the demon but a streak of fire comes from the shoulder, it was the imp and the unknown demon. Inuyasha looked up and said "it is you..." and he yells the name of the demon with anger "Sess-homa-ru!!!". And Sesshomaru said in a taunted voice "I've quite missed you as well...Little Brother". Kagome was in shock about that, but sesshomaru didnt wait he asked about the tomb and inuyasha refused to tell him and they began to fight. First he took care of sesshomaru's demon and gave his mother to kagome to watch. But the demon attacked and the mother save her son wtih a flower and they went to another world or as they say the border of the spirit world. His mother spoke softly and comforted him in her lap and showed him what it used to be like when she was alive before she died. Kagome woke up for she blacked out when the mother used the flower. She saw the mothers reflection in the water but she had no face and She couldn't move nor speak. Trying so hard to tell him to snap out of it the episode ends.

I thought this was one af my favorite episodes because it opened the book alittel more on Inuyasha's family. It talked about his father being the lord of the west and his mother a human princess. An also showed his full fleg demon half brother sesshomaru and how the dispise each other. It also showed alittle some thing about how Kagome is starting to feel about Inuyasha and how she wants to help him. (this review done by Faye_speigel@yahoo.com)

Last updated Wednesday, June 14 2006. Created Wednesday, June 14 2006.

I initially started watching Inuyasha when I caught it on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block. I caught the show when it was around episode 17 and it was interesting. At that time, CN only had 36-episodes and didn't want to re-run it, so I turned to fansubs to see those first episodes. I was stunned to see that there were well over 80-episodes out, so I immediately began grabbing everything. I liked what I saw. It may have been a shounen series, it was a fun one.

Considering that Takahashi-sensei has been cranking out massive fan hits going back to Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2, it is not surprising that her streak would continue. The overall story arc has the hanyou (half-human, half-youkai) Inuyasha, the girl from the "modern times" with special miko powers Kagome, the youkai-hunter Sango, the houshi (priest) Miroku, and the child youkai Shippou searching for the jewel fragments from the shattered Shikon no Tama. There are six seasons to the series. The first couple of seasons follow the manga more closely than the later seasons do. As such, the first couple of seasons are better. The third season begins to do more "filler" episodes in order to pad the season as there is not enough manga material. As such, we get the story about the Panther Youakai story which was not in the manga, but which I found very enjoyable all the same. Also the wolf-youkai character of Ayame was created, whom I would have enjoyed seeing more of before the series ended.

Season 5 (episode 102-125) is the low-point of the series and is shouldn't be. Seven very powerful dead mercinaries known as the Shichinin-tai are brought back to life by the series villian Naraku to fight Inuyasha and his party. So the entire season is dedicated to this. It COULD have been a good season and at times was, but because the writers don't inject the standard "filler" episodes to fill the season, but rather stretch out encounters to the breaking point. So we get a lot of episodes with Inuyasha and an opponent trading insults for a long time. Then while Inuyasha's companions stand around with their thumbs in their collective rear's, they cry "Inuyasha!" but never raise a hand to help. I was completely ready to stop watching the series, but I struggled through to the end of the season where it actually got good again.

The series final season brings back the fun we'd seen before. While the manga continued on (and as of this review is still being written), the anime found a nice place to end with Naraku still on the loose, the Shikon no Tama still incomlete, and a sense of the adventure continuing in the air.

The characters are fun and memorable. Takahashi-sensei does create the stereotypical villian in Naraku, though he didn't start out that way. Some characters like Inuyasha's half-brother Sesshoumaru-sama turn out to be much deeper than initially conceived. Ditto Kagura. We get a bit of romance between Inuyasha and Kagome, but it never advances beyond a certain point and thus gets frustrating. Ditto Sango and Mirkoku, though to be fair that couple goes further than Kagome and Inuyasha do. This reflects a weakness in Takahashi-sensei's writing a series that goes on for an extended period of time. She can't allow her characters or story progress beyond a certain point as to do so would end the series (as she sees it). The series would have been much better had these relationships been allowed to grow.

From the DVD point of view, those fans used to fansubs (like those done by Anime-Kraze) will be sorely disappointed by Viz's subtitles. No culture notes, no honorifics, and certainly none of the fun Japapanese terms like "youkai". While the Engish dub is fine for what it is, the Engish dub comes off as more juvenile than the Japanese dub does.

Bottom line: all in all, a fun shounen title that Takahashi-sensei fans should enjoy. Mostly good writing, good humor moments, good music, and good characters make this a good rental title.

Last updated Saturday, February 05 2005. Created Friday, February 14 2003.