Anime: Inuyasha

InuYasha is an anime (and manga) beautiful and I never get tired of reviewing. I think it's with Dragon Ball Z series that I love most of all. Beautiful story and the characters really beautiful. I followed everything and I never tired of his longevity. The skill and imagination in creating clashes and Takahashi's situation is truly amazing. The anime is beautiful and very smooth (unlike what you might think) and they are fantastic music by Kaoru Wada. Unfortunately, the anime starts to spoil and lose shots from the third set because of the fillers added, only to sink into the fourth season, but he recovers well in the last two.

I am not agree with those who say that souls become boring, slow and "to Dragon Ball." If you avoid the fillers (which are only about forty, but in comparison to those of Naruto, Bleach and Dragon Ball that meet and exceed the hundred or so) you can enjoy fully all the souls before seeing the series Kanketsu-hen ( The Final Act) with the ending. I also find that the sixth series, starting from episode 141, ie the division of child, Inuyasha really return to his "glory" original. What was sinking into Hades because this was just the break that leaves everything open. Fortunately, now that they're doing the seventh season (another very short) there are no more excuses. Now Inuyasha is an anime complete.

I would also like to make a note about the change of the producer of the anime: Masashi Ikeda forty-four produced the first episodes, and if you notice, these episodes are more fascinating than the next. But we must also say that Yasunao Aoki (who produced the other) was more faithful to the manga but has only had the misfortune to get there.
For those who want to watch it, reached the third round (that's where I start the fillers), just avoid the following episodes:
Third series: 59,65,68,72,75-78
(Episodes 75-77 are those of the clan of the Panthers, in my opinion, the only noteworthy filler, which can be seen wanting)
Fourth series: 79, 89-101 (these episodes must be avoided because they can bring down the estimate for this cartoon, but I believe that many have abandoned the vision just watching them)
Fifth series: 129-130
Sixth series: 133-140 (also filler must be avoided. You save a little 'special Sesshomaru only).
And finally, the episodes 162-163.
I recommend it highly to everyone.

Inuyasha has been around for a while and it was one of the earlier animes that I watched. I watched it originally on CTN and then (when it went too slow) got the subbed version through 167 and the 4 movies.

The series is about a modern girl who travels through a well and ends up in Feudal Japan where she meets and eventually befriends a half human, half demon dog guy named Inuyasha. It follows their journey to collect shards of a jewel called the Shikon no Tama which holds mystical powers that can be used for good or evil. For the most part, the series was fairly good though it just got way too long and the ending... didn't really happen, until 4 years later when they released The Final Act.

If you're willing to sit through 167 episodes, you'll find a lot of action, comedy, and some pretty good romance/drama while being surrounded by serene depictions of feudal Japan.

Animation:
The animation quality is fairly average in general, a bit dated my current standards. They could have used a bit more detail on the characters (compare with the movies) and the backgrounds, and the overall FX is inferior to more modern shows.

Sound:
They really went all-out on the OP and EDs, which is a good thing. The EDs in particular were one reason why I got hooked on the series (CTN cuts out the OPs). The soft traditional Japanese BGM fit the scenery perfectly, and they even went through the detail of adding piano scores for the modern scenes. Voice acting was superb and you may end up using "keh!" or "Osuwari" in your lingo for a while after the show. Kagome's voice is very distinctive and FMP watchers will hear Chidori.

Story:
There are many arcs in this long series starting with the introduction of Kagome and Inuyasha and how the Shikon no Tama was originally shattered. After this, Inuyasha reluctantly joins with Kagome who can sense the jewel shards and slowly gain allies. A lot of the first arc is the introduction of characters though it is done while forwarding the plot greatly. Sadly, once the first few arcs are over, by ep. 70 or so, the story slows down and it almost feels as if every episode was advancing a sub plot. Basically, the plot line slows down and you end up watching a lot of fighting (similar to Naruto fillers). By the end of the series the anime essentially says hey thanks for watching and to find out what happens next please read the manga without ever giving a real conclusion whatsoever. I found this remarkably unpleasant having followed the series for so long.

Other than the long storyline, the developments between the characters are fun to watch and the occasional humor episodes when Inu travels to the modern world will always be a pleasure.

Character:
This is where the show really distinguishes itself. The primary and main supporting characters are all well explicated and you really do end up rooting for the couples.

Inuyasha is a very fun character that most viewers will enjoy. He is impulsive and seemingly cold but on the inside he's really a kid. The development between Inuyasha and Kagome is fairly rapid through the first few arcs but then pretty much remains constant for the rest of the series. However, the arguments between the two and how they reconcile is always great to watch. Yes there are some emotional situations but they are so spaced out that I had to flag certain episodes as superior to the rest. Shippou was probably the only character that I actually disliked. He is a little fox demon but he's really just a (supposedly) cute sidekick with no real fighting potential.

Value:
For the length, you're getting some real gems mixed in with a lot of rock. There are definitely certain arcs and episodes that I'd easily give a 10 but also long spans of filler-type material that I would rather skip if not for finding the gem episodes. Overall, a decent watch with some sweet moments but just a tad too long.

NOTICE: This review covers both seasons.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

A few years before the Big Three became a thing, Inu Yasha was the show everybody was raving about. Even I was in love with it, during the initial episodes. The sheer amount of things that were happening at the same time, along with fast pace and lovable characters, made it an instant hook for everybody who loves action adventures. We were all hyped for what was going to happen next, since everybody could find something to like in it. It was a series for all ages and demographics, with character emersion, a multi-layered story, mystery, epic battles, romance, slapstick comedy, all wrapped up in a setting which was blending feudal and modern Japan in all its mythological glory. It was a phenomenon, a thing we all talked about and waited with anticipation, discussed and speculated.

But over the years, this image changed completely, and by now it became the reason I consider perpetual ongoing shonen to suck, romance anime not being about romance, and having high expectations for anything can only lead to disappointment.

ART

Visually, the show remains consistently very good throughout its duration, something very rare if you have watched enough long series. The constant switch from the daily life of modern times to the epic quest during the feudal era was very catchy, and there is variety in moods, as some episodes are comical, others are serious, and some are borderline occult horror. The character designs retain their level of detail, and overall fidelity improves in later seasons.

Small issues include how obvious it is to tell who is important by the way he is drawn. If a new villain looks lame, you know he will die right away because not much thought was put behind his conception. Also, although there are tons of visual effects that make it seem very epic, it can’t be denied how much more interesting the battles were at first, since there were far fewer energy attacks, and far more battle choreography. You know, stuff where the characters are moving and use martial arts, instead of throwing fireballs, or just dodging the other guy’s fireballs.

A simple Youkai-of-the-week needed at least one episode and lots of planning in order to be defeated. Yet, this wonderful feature went away in just 8 episodes, when Inu Yasha got himself a super sword that could kill any normal monster with a swing. A few dozen episodes later, he could kill a thousand monsters, without planning anything. After a hundred episodes, he was the second strongest creature in the world, with the first being the archvillain, and only because he was also constantly leveling-up.

STORY & CAST

To make a long story short, the first dozen or so episodes are amongst the best an action anime of its kind can possibly offer. They had a gazillion ideas, from time travel, to demon slaying, to a quest for magic relics, to revenge, to comedy, to romance, to drama, to mystery, to whatever you can think and love seeing in anime, unless you are an emotionfag who only watches them for cute girls doing cute things.

Beyond those episodes, everything starts to slow down, before going on an endless loop of chasing after the same villain again and again and again. It’s like Rumiko Takahashi forgot what show she was making, and went on producing more Ranma ½. And even then, she stopped caring because instead of wrapping everything after a couple of seasons, she kept making more and more arcs, where nothing actually changes. And by that I don’t mean the usual stuff all shonen have, like, how everyone wears only one set of self-repairing clothes and yells the names of his attacks, or how severe injuries are scrubbed off easily, as if everybody has fast regeneration. I mean, actual change.

Despite secondary characters being constantly introduced, and everybody constantly getting more power ups, nothing matters in the longrun, since the former do not add more character dynamics, and the latter become meaningless after a few episodes. Character development comes to a halt and gets replaced with shallow power creep. The different personal goals characters had at first, get replaced by having them all going after Naraku, which took away their individuality. There are many cases where you think something is finally going to change, only to regress back to status quo by the next episode. All you are left with, is watching fights with no tension, since you know Inu Yasha is the strongest, and the only reason each battle lasts more than 5 seconds is because nobody is using super-kill-everything special attacks right away. Let’s go over the major ones, and see how they evolved.

- Inu Yasha is the main character, but not the leader, since he is a pet at the hands of a Japanese high school girl, which of course constantly mistreats him, because Rumiko loves to have women torturing men. He begins as a tragic hero who hates his human side, and ends up as a delinquent, running after bad guys and the chick he likes.

- Kagome is said chick, which expresses her feelings by having the otherwise bad-ass half-demon that can kill a thousand monsters with a swing, being her lap dog. She starts off as a scared girl trying to return home, but as soon as that is over, she becomes more worried about getting to college than saving the time-continuum by a merciless demi-god.

- Miroku is a perverted monk who doesn’t miss the chance to feel some girl’s ass and be slapped really hard in return, since Rumiko loves to have women torturing men. It was funny the first 30 times but then it just became annoying, as he clearly loves someone, yet keeps cheating on her. He is cursed with a wind tunnel, which conveniently does more good than harm, since it can wipe out entire armies of monsters. It is also capable of defeating Naraku, who happens to be the one who gave him the curse, but magically couldn’t take it away after realizing how stupid that was.

- Sango is the girl Miroku loves, and is looking for a way to save her brother. But since this is not important up until the last episodes, she spends her time slapping Miroku and nagging like an old maid.

- Shippo is the cute mascot all such stories need. He had a reason for being with them in the first episodes, since he was trying to avenge the death of his father. But once that was achieved, he quickly turned into a comic relief character and moe-attraction for the fan-girls.

- So did Kirara, the bestial demon cat that was supposed to play a major part in defeating Naraku but ended up being just flying means of transportation for the gang and another cute kitten for the neko-lovers. And by the way, there is no fun in adventures, if the characters are no longer passing through interesting areas, and are instead flying over them.

- And let’s not forget of Sesshomaru, the coolest character and main antagonist, who starts off as trying to be the strongest youkai, and ends up becoming a babysitter and bishonen attraction for the fujoshis.

As you see, all the characters were cool and interesting at first, but the lack of a plot and the repetitive jokes, turned them into obnoxious idiots.

SEQUEL

The show was eventually discontinued, and left everybody disappointed for not getting any closure. Most followed the manga thereafter, and even then they were getting more of the same shit for several years, until the damn thing finally ended. Nobody cared about it anymore, and yet a couple years after the manga was over, the rest of it was animated regardless. There was some rejoicing by the old fans but it quickly died out as soon as the sequel series began, for the following reasons.

1) We knew how the story will play out. During the first series, we had no idea what comes next as the manga was still unfinished. But now, we were simply expecting to see things we already know about. The suspense was lost.

2) Said suspense was quite diminutive during the ending of the first series to begin with. The plot had grown so slow, repetitive and filler-like, we lost interest in it. Fillers and pointless power-ups can be fun for only a few episodes, yet Inu Yasha exceeded that amount a hundred times.

3) Said plot was very cheesy. It’s like a soap opera with monsters, revealing its bad side more and more, while constantly tempering with your patience and suspension of disbelief. If they are constantly time travelling, why isn’t the present affected in any way? How can Inu Yasha be in love with Kagome just because she has the same soul as Kikyo? Did Naraku waste hundreds of episodes running away from the wind tunnel he created himself, and chasing for dozens of episodes the shard he gave himself to Kohaku, and caused all this harm because of a simple crush he had on Kikyo?

4) The pacing was very erratic. The first series was moving too slow without going anywhere, the second series was moving too fast to let you care about anything.

5) After the first series ended, dozens of similar themed anime came out and attracted the interest of the fans. Horo’s sexy wolf ears were now the new trend over Inu Yasha’s ears, the Bankais in Bleach were far cooler than his Tetsusaiga, a schoolgirl going to a feudal magic world was far catchier in the 12 Kingdoms. What can I say, if you don’t keep the audience pleased, it will dump you faster than you can yell Kazenokizu.

6) The ending is a total cop-out. It contradicts the rules set by space-time in the well, neglects to offer a good finale for most secondary characters that were there for hundreds of episodes, and made Kagome to seem like she dumped Inu Yasha to finish school, for the sole purpose of dumping her career and return to him. What was the point of that??? “Kids, finish school before you elope because having a diploma in feudal times is very useful for women.”

EPILOGUE

The show is watchable if you seek mindless entertainment, but it gets really hard to care when you don’t get something new after dozens of episodes. It eventually wraps up things, and although the finale is a complete mess, it is still something most anime do not get to have. If they ever remake this show, then all they will need to adapt, is the first dozen and the last dozen episodes. And if they correct the terrible problems with character motives and inconsistent rules of time travel, it can be one of the best action adventures ever made. Until that happens, I consider this show to be a complete let down, and the reason I began hating shonen in general.

Inuyasha is a self title anime about it's main character, who happens to be a dog demon. It takes place in the feudal era for the most part, and in the present when it circles around Kagome.

Animation

Well, I could say it's better than average. The backgrounds look good and the fighting scenes always look nice too. Nothing excellent, just good.

Sound

I'm actually a big fan of almost all of Inuyasha's OP/ED, and though I haven't heard the Japanese version, the DUB voice actors and actresses are pretty good. The soundtrack however through out the show is kind of poor in comparison, it's only decent.

Story

Inuyasha's story is incredibly long and drawn out. For instance, there are moments in the beginning of the anime where there is romance between certain characters and 100 episodes later they are still in the same weird "I like him but I wonder if he likes me" mood. Or another example would be how the group can go from having a whole sacred jewel and be missing one piece and lose it all, thus having to restart the entire quest.

Character

The characters of this anime go from cute to plain annoying romance wize. And they are incredibly boring after a while in the fighting respect too. Every episode is the same when it comes to fights also. SPOILER: Inuyasha finishes almost everyone with his lame Wind Scar, and later in the series Backlash Wave. And every single fight could be avoided by using the Wind Tunnel, however there is ALWAYS a reason he can't use it. SPOILER/

Value

Licensed and popular, 8. I wouldn't watch it over but a lot of people love it.

Enjoyment

It's good until Inuyasha gets his special techniques I guess... But still his drawn out relationship with Kagome and the constant losing and gaining sacred jewel shards just flat out kills the show imo. Not to mention the all powerful and immortal Naraku who dies and comes back to life every time they fight.

Final Comment

This anime is a "fad anime" and its completely over rated lol. Those of you who don't agree, go watch Samurai X OVA and witness a real romantic thriller XD

Usually I despise when animes stretch over 100 episodes (Naruto, Dragon Ball Z, Rurouni Kenshin, etc) and that has not changed with Inuyasha. There is no doubt in my mind that the best parts of this series occur before episode 80 or so. However, that does not stop this from being a good series.

Though there are many side stories, each is interesting and exciting. Even the "monster of the week" episodic nature of this anime does not hold it back, as each of the episodes is well done and interesting; each is also unique and so the story does not get repetitive. There is no telling whether or not they will succeed in their quest in a given episode, or whether they will fail. This constant unkown gives the series a greater watchability than if the good guys won every time.


The sound was one of the best parts of this series, with an amazing soundtrack, especially the opening and ending songs throughout the series.

The story is great, though it could have done with a bit less filler and an actual ending. Hopefully the story will eventually be finished for real.

However, as of right now, even 160+ episodes are not enough to end this series. Even though there are plenty of times during the series where there could have been an exciting and conclusive end to the series, each time Naraku escapes and the series drags on for another 20 episodes. This is probably the most frustrating aspect of this series: no matter what the heroes do, it seems Naraku is invincible and omniscient, and can plan for every eventuality and escape the unescapable situation every time.

The characters are another great part about this anime. Kagome and Inuyasha are both multi-dimensional deep characters whose relationship is very complex and compells you to keep watching to find out whats happened. The growth of Kagome and Inuyasha is also apparent throughout the series, but especially in the first 30-40 episodes. Side characters like Shippo, Kirara, Miroku, and Sango add spice and flavor to the already solid character foundation, and each character is given the neccessary background information and depth to create truly engaging characters.


The villians are another great part about this anime: villians like Sesshoumaru, Naraku and his minions, and others are all tremendously done, with a depth and uniqueness to each villian making the conflict between the villians and heros all the more intense. The devious and cunning nature of the villians, especially Naraku, is also an amazing feature of the anime, as you never know what could happen next.

Overall, I truly enjoyed this anime, even the filler episodes, and never got bored during any episodes, though as I stated my favorite parts of the anime occur during the first half of the series.

I stopped watching the series after episode 71 or so. It just got too dull and very very repetitive.

This series would have worked best as perhaps a 49 ep series in my opinion. There was just too many episodes and very little progression.

A plus for this series came in the shape of battling monsters - for the fairly average animation, it wasn't afraid to get stuck into a bit of gore here and there. Most of the times the visuals were nicely presented, with some vibrant colours and nice effects, but the whole look was often babyish, which put me off. Some of the details and texturing were simplistic, and the world design was overall a mixed bag - some well thought out environments, but reused over and over with minor adjustments.

The sound was reminiscent of Thundercats - i'm sure they just blatantly copied some of the score and just changed a note or instrument here and there. Not a bad thing though - the music was very atmospheric. The voice acting was decent enough, and the sound effects were ok.

The story was decidedly average. The base plot just became absolutely endless, with repetitive situations occurring as a result. The sole driving force of the series became the characters and their possible development routes. The plot just seemed to fade into the background after 30 episodes or so. The situations encountered had similar solutions, and became frustrating to watch.

The character development went from developing the good guys, to developing the bad guys. Personally, I wanted them to hurry up and conclude what happens between the whole Kagome-Inuyasha-Kikyo triangle, but they just dragged out everything too long. As mentioned before, I felt the driving force of the series was the character development - but after 71 episodes of frustrating snail-paced progression, I finally gave up on it.

I definately will never be urged to watch the series again. Once is enough, and soon after 30 episodes, it doesn't provide the most enjoyment since it repeats so many previous situations.