Inuyasha

With Pokemon, Beyblade and Yu-Gi-Oh gracing the small screen, it has become difficult to take Japanese Anime seriously. Thankfully, Cartoon Network has put a block of Japan's finest in their red-eye time slot, spearheaded by Inuyasha.

The general gist of the plot is Kagome, a modern schoolgirl, winds up in feudal times and must help a half-demon(Inyasha) recover the shards of a jewel of ultimate power.

One might say that Inuyasha combines the best of both Shonen and Shojo stylings. The world of feudal Japan is laced with ghosts, demons and other critters who roar, slash, dash, slice, splat and snarl, and at least one of these beasts duke it out with the title character per episode. On the other hand, there is romance, guilt, past betrayals and secrets to be discovered, not to mention sight gags and running jokes.

The visual quality is a step above pocket monsters and moon princesses as well. The show is thankfully devoid of giant sweat-drops, fountain tears and misplaced mouths.

It takes patience to watch the series, with 100+ episodes and long-running character development, it would take a fortune of DVD purchases or steadfast loyalty to the television at 1:00 am (as of this writing)to get the entire story down.

But even so, I highly recommend this show to anybody yearning for more than just flaming mesomorphs and pocket monsters.

At this point my favourite anime series are "Noir (2001)" and Inu Yasha. The story just sucked me in and kept me captive. I highly recommend this anime to everybody. It's full of humour, I just ROFL when Kagome invokes the "sit!" spell on Inu Yasha. :) The rest of the "cast" is also very good.

This is a rather complex series. It has love, sex, action, horror, drama. It has a good plot and believable characters. The emotions are nicely portrayed, even when it's silly Japanese sex humor. This is one of the rare stories where evil really corrupts and is cunning and elusive rather than just big strong dumb creatures.

Even if it has some characteristics of soap opera, it goes well beyond that, as the animation and the plot go very well together. I am hooked already and I am barely in the middle of the second season. In a week or so I will probably cry in anger for the lack of more episodes, but hey, that's life.

You know a series has to be good when you fall in love with a

"flawed" main character, especially an animated one (the only

other time this has happened was Vegeta from DBZ). I've only

seen the English dub on Adult Swim, but it really seems that

Richard Cox and Inuyasha the character were a perfect match; the

voice-acting is one of the biggest draws.

As for the show itself, anyone who's a fan of Buffy the Vampire

Slayer and Angel will love this. The storyline about an ancient half- man/half-demon and a young modern girl does have that base

parallel to Buffy and Angel, as well as incredibly good storytelling

that defies just as many genres. But from there it goes off on its

own particular mythologic twists and turns that make it so unique

and powerful. After every 24 minute episode I'm amazed at how

much has been accomplished and developed, all while giving a

fair balance to the cast of characters, all sharply-delineated and

possessing their own unique appeal. The scoring is equally

wonderful and often difficult to get out of your mind.

All in all, who cares about gritty or anything near that when for once

in a long time you can get swept up in the romance and fantasy

and drama of it all? This is a rare series, and one bound to get

rarer, particularly when all the networks (American at least) seem

to care about these days are reality shows or "realistic" dramas

uninterested in strong character-based plot developments. Anime

seems to be one of the last realms where you can find good

stories told exceedingly well with the emphasis where it should

always be, on the characters; that there's action, adventure,

romance, drama, or comedy is merely secondary.

If you liked Ranma 1/2, it is safe to say that you'd most likely enjoy InuYasha. Based off of the manga of the same title by Takahashi Rumiko, this is the tale of the half-demon Inuyasha and his companions Kagome, Miroku (aka: Houshi-sama), Sango, Shippou, and sometimes Myouga the youkai flea (more in the earlier season than later ones) as they search for the shards of the Shikon no Tama (Jewel of Four Souls), then hunt for the demon Naraku.

The series is a juvenile one, but not offensively so. I really enjoy the epic nature of the series. There are the standard "filler" episodes, but there are long stretches where the story just presses on. The writers often don't feel pressed to end the story withing the 30-minute format and so a certain tale can go on for a few episodes. Filler episodes are used to allow the viewers (and the writers) to catch their breath before plunging in again. But in recent episodes (starting at the late 90's into the 110's), the stories have dragged much longer than they should, just to extend things (IMO). However, things have improved with the current season in Japan. The fun filler episodes are back, but then the action episodes are more like the early season's in nature rather than last season. So my enjoyment has gone back up this year (2004).

Characters are another nice touch to this series. Characters are allowed to grow to a certain degree though relationships don't grow beyond a certain point. I would have liked to have seen Sango and Miroku do more at being a couple rather than just eyeing each other. That may have been fixed in episode 132. Also, I would like the writers to advance the Kagome/Inuyasha romance and we may see that this season. The other problem is that after a while, Inuyasha becomes the only character to do anything. Everyone else just stands around looking stupid rather than jump in and try to help. I hear that it will get better (based on the manga apparently) so I keep my fingers crossed.

The English dub is pretty well done, though the show felt a tad more juvenile in English than it did in Japanese. The DVD subtitles aren't to great, so if you are used to the excellent job done by the fansubbers (Anime-Kraze), you'll be in for some disappointments.

Bottom line: Nicely drawn and interesting characters & good (and sometimes humorous) writing make this otherwise juvenile series very enjoyable to watch.