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InuYasha (犬夜叉, InuYasha?), full title InuYasha, A Feudal Fairy Tale (戦国お伽草子–犬夜叉, Sengoku Otogi Zōshi InuYasha?) (also romanized as Inuyasha), is a popular manga series written by Rumiko Takahashi. The story centers around a time-traveling middle school student, a half-demon, a lecherous monk, a young fox demon, a demon slayer, and a nekomata in the Sengoku Period who seek to restore the Jewel of Four Souls (Shikon no Tama) and to keep it out of the hands of the evil Naraku.
The series is named after one of the main characters. The name "InuYasha" means "dog spirit". Inu (犬) is a Japanese word meaning "dog". Yasha (夜叉) is a Buddhism-related word meaning "spirit".[1]
The manga was adapted into a 167 episode anime series directed by Masashi Ikeda (episodes 1 to 44) and Yasunao Aoki (44 onwards) and produced by Sunrise. The anime first aired on Yomiuri TV in Japan from 16 October 2000 to 13 September 2004. The television run of the anime ceased without a conclusion to the story. The manga is still being released in Japan as of today
The story begins in feudal Japan with InuYasha, a hanyō stealing the Jewel of Four Souls (四魂の玉 , Shikon no Tama?), a jewel that can increase anyone's powers enormously, from a village. He does not get far before Kikyo, the young miko of the village, shoots InuYasha with a sacred arrow, sealing him forever to Goshinboku, a tree in the nearby forest. Mortally wounded, Kikyo tells her younger sister, Kaede, to burn the jewel with her remains to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.
In modern Tokyo, a junior high-school girl named Kagome Higurashi is on her way to school. She stops in the well house of her family's Shinto shrine to retrieve her cat, Buyo, when a centipede demon bursts forth and pulls her into the Sengoku period of Japan.
Not knowing where she is, Kagome wanders around a forest near the well. She spots Goshinboku off in the distance and proceeds to towards it. When she reaches the tree, she finds InuYasha, who is still sealed with an arrow to the tree, asleep. Villagers seize her and take her to the old miko, Kaede. Recognizing that Kagome is the re-incarnation of her sister Kikyo, Kaede tells the story of Kikyo and InuYasha.
The centipede attacks again, and Kagome is forced to release InuYasha to kill it. After defeating the centipede, in order to prevent InuYasha from taking the Jewel of Four Souls, Kaede casts magical prayer beads around InuYasha's neck so Kagome can subdue him.
Then the jewel attracts more demons. In a battle against a carrion crow demon, the jewel is shattered into numerous shards.
Kagome and InuYasha set out to collect the shards and restore the Jewel of Four Souls. Along the way they befriend Shippo, a fox demon, Miroku, a cursed monk, and Sango, a demon-slayer whose brother was tricked into slaughtering the rest of their village. The group often encounters InuYasha's older half-brother Sesshomaru, Naraku who tricked Kikyo and InuYasha into turning against each other, and Koga, a wolf demon who is in love with Kagome and wants to make her "his woman".
[edit] Characters
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- Kagome Higurashi (日暮 かごめ, Higurashi Kagome?) Voiced by: Satsuki Yukino (Japanese), Moneca Stori (English)
- Kagome is a 15 year-old 9th grade student. She is the reincarnation of Kikyo, a miko (priestess, miko?) who died 50 years before the time Kagome first emerges from the Bone Eater's Well in the Sengoku Jidai (Feudal era, Sengoku Jidai?). Because of this Kagome has powerful spiritual powers herself and can even sense the Shikon no Tama (Jewel of Four Souls, Shikon no Tama?). Kagome can be extremely sweet, but can also become very dangerous when provoked. InuYasha wears a special bead necklace which only responds to Kagome's command: when she yells "Sit!" ("Osuwari!", "Sit!"?).[2] At this, InuYasha is thrown to the ground. The necklace was placed upon him by Kaede due to his dangerous attitude when he was unsealed.
- InuYasha (犬夜叉, InuYasha?) Voiced by: Kappei Yamaguchi (Japanese), Richard Ian Cox (English)
- InuYasha is a hanyō (半妖, half-demon?), the product of an inu-yōkai (犬妖怪, dog demon?) and a human. He wields the Tessaiga [3], a supernatural sword made from one of his deceased father's fangs. This sword, when properly wielded, can destroy one hundred demons with a single swing. InuYasha can quickly recover from injuries which would be fatal for any average human, because of his demonic heritage. On the night of the new moon each month, InuYasha will change into a normal human with black hair, brown eyes, and loses his yokai power during this time. InuYasha was bound to Goshinboku (Sacred God Tree or Tree of Ages, Goshinboku?) by Kikyo's arrow for fifty years until Kagome freed him.
- Miroku (弥勒, Miroku?) Voiced by: Kōji Tsujitani (Japanese), Kirby Morrow (English)
- A Buddhist "hōshi," (low-ranking, itinerant monk, "hōshi,"?), Miroku traveled the countryside performing services such as exorcisms and yōkai (demon, yōkai?) exterminations to earn his living. He suffers from a hereditary curse originally inflicted upon his grandfather Miyatsu (also a Buddhist monk) by Naraku. The curse created a hole in his hand that became a kazaana (air void or "wind tunnel", kazaana?) which sucks in anything not nailed down, regardless of mass. However, absorbing poisons harms him, a fact Naraku takes advantage of by creating highly poisonous insects whose presence prevents Miroku from using his kazāna on Naraku or his allies. Miroku uses the kazāna as a powerful weapon against yōkai, but if the curse is not broken (by defeating Naraku), it will grow too large to control and consume Miroku himself. Miroku is a talented con artist who does not hesitate to invent fictitious supernatural menaces which he can then offer to combat in return for food and shelter, and he has a distinct weakness for pretty single women. He makes a point of asking every attractive woman he meets if she will bear his child, and he habitually strokes the buttocks of attractive women. He also eventually proposes to Sango, though this does little to curb his flirtations with other women.
- Sango (珊瑚, Sango?) Voiced by: Houko Kuwashima (Japanese), Kelly Sheridan (English)
- A "yōkai taijiya" (demon slayer, "yōkai taijiya"?) who hails from a village of professional yōkai slayers. The only member of InuYasha's group to have no supernatural powers, Sango instead wields the Hiraikotsu, a massive boomerang made of yōkai bones, in addition to a broad repertoire of tools and tricks for battling yōkai. Sango seeks revenge against Naraku for the death of her family and her entire village. In addition, Sango seeks to rescue her brother Kohaku from Naraku's influence and somehow save his life, even though Kohaku's life is tied to the jewel shard embedded in his back. She also eventually falls for Miroku. Although everyone but InuYasha noticed, she never wanted to admit it. Her interest was manifested by hitting Miroku when he flirted with other single women.
- Shippo (七宝, Shippō?) Voiced by: Kumiko Watanabe (Japanese), Jillian Michaels (actress) (English)
- A young orphan kitsune (fox demon, kitsune?) whose father was killed by the Thunder Brothers, Hiten and Manten, and the first character in the story to join InuYasha and Kagome in their travels as a group. Shippo can shapeshift, but his forms are temporary, often incomplete and ineffective, and he is usually given away by his tail. His other noteworthy abilities illusionary tricks with toys like his giant spinning top attack, using his race's notable fox fire magic, and making things like leaves or himself multiply. He tends to be naively observant and often makes pointed and cheeky comments directed towards InuYasha, earning him a retaliatory bonk on the head for his unsolicited "advice".
- Kirara (雲母, Kirara?) Voiced by: Tarako Isono
- Sango's faithful nekomata; Kirara [4] has light-tan colored fur, with black stripes on each of her two bushy tails near the tip, and black-tipped paws. Kirara can change between two forms, a ferocious yōkai the size of a lion with the ability to fly, and a cute little kitten. Sango, Miroku, and Shippo often use Kirara's flying ability as transportation in order to keep up with InuYasha.
- See also: List of InuYasha chapters
The manga was serialized in Japan in the weekly publication Shonen Sunday by Shogakukan, with the first installment issued on November 13, 1996. Chapter 485 was published December 5, 2006 with the series still ongoing.[5] Every 180 pages, usually ten chapters, the issues are collected in bound tankōbon. Volume 45, collecting chapters 439 through 448, was published in May 2006.[6]Volume 49 was recently published. The chapters for volume 50 are ready but are yet to be published. Inuyasha recently surpassed 500 chapters, and still shows no sign of stopping. Chapters 499 onwards will comprise of Volume 51. The latest chapter is Chapter 515.
In the United States the English version is published by Viz Media. The artwork is flipped to conform to the American standard of reading left to right. Volume 1 was published in March 1998, with either two or three new volumes following each year. At present, the series has stepped up to a quarterly release basis. Volume 28 was published in January 2007, while Volume 29 was published on April 10, 2007, signifying that although Viz is still several years away from catching up to the number of volumes in Japan, they will start to catch up soon with the release of volume 30.
It should be noted that the manga will pick up where the anime ends with Volume 36.
- See also: List of InuYasha episodes
The InuYasha anime series spanned 167 episodes, and was broadcast across Japan by the anime satellite television network, Animax, who have also aired the series across its English-language network in South Asia (being the first network to fully broadcast the series in the English language) and also across its networks in East Asia, Yomiuri TV and Nippon Television. The series ended on September 13, 2004.
The anime is licensed in North America by Viz and ShoPro Entertainment, and the actual dubbing is done by the The Ocean Group.
InuYasha was first broadcast in the United States on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim on August 31, 2002. The series later premiered on Canadian television screens on YTV on September 5, 2003. However, today on |
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