InuYasha

戦国御伽草子 犬夜叉 Sengoku Otogizōshi InuYasha

Rating: (4/5)

Released: 2000
Genre(s): Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Historical, Romance, Shounen, Supernatural

Plot: The story begins with a flashback to Feudal Japan, when the handsome half-demon InuYasha raids a human village to steal the Sacred Jewel of Four Souls, a magical jewel that enhances its wielder's powers and can grant a single wish. InuYasha hopes to use the gem to turn himself into a demon, but is soon stopped when Kikyo, the young miko of the village, shoots him with a sacred arrow, sealing him onto the sacred tree Goshinboku in the nearby forest. Mortally wounded, Kikyo tells her younger sister, Kaede, to burn the jewel with her body to prevent it from falling into the hands of evil.

The story then shifts to modern Tokyo, where a junior high school girl named Kagome Higurashi lives on the grounds of her family's hereditary Shinto shrine. When she goes into the well house to retrieve her cat, Buyo, a centipede demon bursts out of the enshrined Bone Eater's Well and pulls her through it.
Main Character Descriptions:

InuYasha - InuYasha is the titular character and one of the main protagonists of the series. Born to a dog demon father and human mother, InuYasha is a half-demon who initially wants to use the powers of the Shikon Jewel to become a full demon. After falling in love with Kikyo, the miko who guards the Jewel, he changes his mind and wants to become human so he can live with her, but Naraku manipulates both of them into believing they have been betrayed by one another. Kikyo is fatally wounded, but before she dies, she shoots an arrow through InuYasha to seal him onto a sacred tree. InuYasha remains in suspended animation for fifty years until Kagome Higurashi, Kikyo's reincarnation, pulls out the arrow and frees him. After the Shikon Jewel shatters, InuYasha and Kagome travel together to retrieve its shards. At first, he is hostile and uncooperative, but Kikyo's sister Kaede restrains him with a magical necklace that hurls him to the ground whenever Kagome gives the simple command word "Sit!"

Kagome Higurashi- Kagome is one of the main protagonists and the narrator of the series. Born in modern Japan as the reincarnation of the priestess Kikyo, Kagome has the Shikon Jewel unknowingly hidden inside her body until 1997, when a demon pulls her into the Bone Eater's Well and 500 years back through time. They emerge in the Feudal Era about 50 years after Kikyo's death, where the demon extracts the jewel from Kagome. When another demon seizes the jewel, Kagome shoots it with a bow and arrow,
While trying to protect the jewel using a bow and arrow, she accidentally shatters it into numerous shards that disperse throughout the country. She agrees to help find them, as she can sense the presence of nearby shards. As the series progresses, she falls in love with InuYasha, and finds herself competing with the revived Kikyo for his affections. During the search for the jewel, Kagome's own spiritual powers and archery skills continue to improve.

Myoga - Myoga is a flea demon who appears randomly and gives InuYasha information on current events, foes, and the shards of the Shikon Jewel. Assigned to protect Tetsusaiga's hiding place in the grave of InuYasha's father, he runs away when Sesshomaru comes there in search of the sword. Myoga often flees before or during a battle, which the others recognize as a sign of pending danger; his mere presence in any area is enough to determine its safety. Myoga enjoys drinking demon blood, and actually saves InuYasha's life at one point by drinking a spider demon's venom out of his blood. He can save the others in a similar manner, but often gets slapped for drinking their blood without permission.

Kaede - Kaede is Kikyo's younger sister and assists her with various tasks such as gathering herbs or holding her arrows. After Kikyo's death, Kaede becomes a miko in her own right and defends the village against demons. When Kagome arrives, Kaede recognizes her as the reincarnation of Kikyo. After Kagome frees InuYasha, Kaede puts the "Beads of Subjugation" onto him to give Kagome the power to control him with a spoken word. Kaede is highly respected by the villagers and the members of InuYasha's group, and she often advises them about demons and other spiritual anomalies. Though InuYasha is easily annoyed by her, he listens to her when necessary and doesn't hesitate to protect her from a threat.

Kikyo - Kikyo is a powerful shrine maiden, or miko, who is given the task of guarding the Shikon Jewel. She falls in love with InuYasha and considers using the jewel to turn him from a half-demon into a full human; this would cause the Shikon Jewel to vanish, allowing her to live as an ordinary woman by his side. However, Naraku disguises himself as InuYasha to attack her village, mortally wounding her. With her last strength, Kikyo shoots a charmed arrow into the real InuYasha to seal him to a sacred tree, then orders the Shikon Jewel to be burned with her on her funeral pyre. The jewel disappears and is apparently destroyed, but is reborn 500 years later in the body of Kagome Higurashi, her spiritual reincarnation.
After Kagome travels back through time and reappears fifty years after Kikyo's death, an ogress tries to pull her reincarnated soul into a clay body made with graveyard soil and Kikyo's bones and ashes. Kagome appears to suffer no permanent harm, but a small part of her soul detaches and reanimates the new body with Kikyo's memories, personality, and human appearance. Although Kikyo retains some of her old powers in this form, she remains technically "dead" and must absorb the souls of dead women in order to move. At first, she wants to vengefully drag InuYasha to hell and kill Kagome to recover the rest of her soul. However, Kikyo gradually returns to her former compassionate nature and learns that Naraku caused the real circumstances of her death. In the anime she is attacked by a reborn Naraku, who has been able to rid himself Onigumo's heart, and falls into a stream of thick miasma. During her last moments she recollects her fond memories of her and Inuyasha. Inuyasha, also having visions of Kikyo, arrives to Kikyo's broken bow and looks into the stream just in time to see a piece of cloth from her clothing fall into the stream with a soul collector. Her remainder of her soul then dissipates with a flash of light.

Miroku - Miroku is a Buddhist monk who travels the countryside performing spiritual services such as exorcisms and demon exterminations, although sometimes he deliberately falsifies these to earn comfortable rewards. Miroku can attack enemies with his holy staff and sutra scrolls, but his greatest weapon, the Wind Tunnel embedded in the palm of his hand, is also a hereditary curse originally inflicted by Naraku upon Miroku's grandfather Miyatsu. The Wind Tunnel sucks in almost anything in its path and is a powerful weapon against demons. However, it grows larger with increasing use, so that Miroku's grandfather and father were eventually consumed by their own Wind Tunnels. Miroku hopes to break the curse by killing Naraku.
Miroku first meets InuYasha by stealing the Shikon Jewel, causing them to fight one another until Kagome leaps between them. After Miroku explains his situation, InuYasha allows him to join their group as a valuable ally. Miroku's lechery is a recurrent habit, usually manifesting as shameless flattery, semi-surreptitious groping, and asking random women to bear him a child; he learned these bad habits from the monk Mushin who raised him, but he also has the more serious motive of wanting an heir to follow him if he dies without defeating Naraku.

Sango - Sango is a demon slayer who hails from a village of professional demon slayers. Naraku wipes out her entire family and village, then causes Sango to blame InuYasha and try to kill him. When the plot fails, Naraku revives Sango's little brother Kohaku, controlling him as a pawn to manipulate Sango's emotions and attack the rest of InuYasha's group. Sango seeks vengeance against Naraku, but her primary goal is to rescue Kohaku from Naraku's influence and save his life.
Of her broad repertoire of tools and tricks for fighting demons, her most powerful weapon is the Hiraikotsu, a massive boomerang made of purified demon bones. She is accompanied by the demon cat Kirara. Sango is often the victim of Miroku's lecherous tendencies and tends to slap him for it.

Shippo - Shippo is an orphaned young fox demon who attempts to steal the Shikon Jewel from Kagome and InuYasha, wanting to become stronger and avenge his father's death. Though his plan fails, Kagome and InuYasha aid him after hearing his story, and he becomes their companion for the rest of the series.
Shippo normally appears to be a young boy with certain fox-like features: his legs, feet, ears, and tail. He can shape-shift, but his other forms (such as a large pink flying balloon) are temporary and often ineffective, usually given away by his lingering fox tail. He can also create illusory duplicates of himself, as well as weak fox-fire magic and toy-based tricks such as his giant spinning top attack. Naively observant, he often directs cheeky comments to InuYasha, earning a smack on the head. InuYasha and Kagome serve as older sibling figures to Shippo. Because of his small size, Shippo often rides on Kirara or the shoulders of others. His actual age is never stated in the series; according to the official InuYasha guide by Rumiko Takahashi, his appearance is equivalent to that of a seven year old boy.

Kirara - Kirara is Sango's faithful demon-cat companion. Kirara usually appears to be a small kitten-sized feline with two tails, but can become large enough to carry several passengers (usually Sango, Miroku, and Shippo). Her full-sized form has more prominent fangs, flames around her feet and tail, and enough power to fly through the air fast enough to keep up with InuYasha's top speed.
At the end of the series after Naraku's defeat, she joins Kohaku as he trains to become a demon slayer while Sango starts her new life with Miroku and their children. The anime series suggests that she was once the companion of Midoriko, the miko who created the Shikon Jewel.

Sesshomaru - Sesshomaru is InuYasha's older half-brother. As a full-blooded demon, he is very powerful, though he too has been unable to completely defeat Naraku. Unlike most demons seen in the series, he shows no interest in possessing any of the Shikon shards, feeling confident of his own strength and seeming to find the use of the gem to enhance one's power distasteful. He is initially ruthless in dealing with InuYasha, whom he despises as a half-demon who consorts with humans, and attempts to take the sword Tetsusaiga from him.

Naraku - Naraku is the series' primary antagonist. Naraku is responsible for most of the characters' misfortunes, including the death of Kikyo, the sealing of InuYasha to the sacred tree, Miroku's curse, and the death of Sango's family. Naraku was born from the fusion of Onigumo, a crippled human bandit tended by Kikyo, and a horde of weak demons. Driven by frustrated lust for Kikyo, Onigumo made a bargain with the demons: they could eat his flesh, and the demons would combine into one entity to become part of that new body. However the resulting half-demon promptly caused Kikyo's death in an attempt to corrupt and possess the Shikon Jewel.
Naraku is driven by three goals: To become a full demon, to possess a fully-corrupted Shikon Jewel, and to possess Kikyo. The third goal is rooted in Onigumo's heart as a vital part of Naraku's body, causing an obsession with Kikyo that prevents him from killing her. He attempts to rid himself of Onigumo's heart multiple times, ultimately separating it into The Infant. With his heart freed from his obsession, he is able to later kill Kikyo. On his final death, he faintly remembered why he made the bargain in the first place and merely expressed regret at not being able to have Kikyo for his own. He then understood the true essence of peace and recovered himself from his sins.
Throughout the series, Naraku creates many subordinate beings from his own body to aid his goal of killing his opponents and reuniting the shards of the Shikon Jewel, whose corrupted form he hopes to use to gain ultimate power.

Review: This is another classic anime that I'm sure everyone knows and loves. It is one that I would consider more family friendly. It has a little something for everyone, without being overly adult, or graphic. I'm personally a huge fan and have been for a while now thanks to Adult Swim's constant need to re-run the series over and over. Review by: Leanore