is it just me or has the Inuyasha fandom been on a rapid death spiral since S2 of HNY ended?
it wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest. Given how toxic the fandom itself has gotten, and the troubled production of HNY giving us bad writing/animation I wouldn’t be surprised if the fandom just finally dies already.
it would probably be for the best if it just died for a decade or so. There’s way better works than Inuyasha out there more deserving of fans that are criminally underrated.
Looking back at Inuyasha critically, I don’t think the series was half as great as the fandom made it out to be after all these years. it’s a nice time capsule of a series, and I get pretty nostalgic when I hear Change the World, but it’s also something that for me doesn’t have a whole lot of rewatch value as it once did.
Maybe I’m just getting old.
Let’s be honest, if you’re not an InuKag fan, (and I mean it has to be your favourite ship, not one of many), don’t worship the ground Kagome walks on and aren’t still trying to defend Sesshomaru, there’s no place for anyone in the fandom lol.
The homophobia problem is still strong. Attaching an alphabet soup of queer headcanons to your fav characters and trying to make queerness “unproblematic” is a huge modern problem with queer youth and the Inuyasha fandom is no different. Ignoring canonly queer or queer coded characters bc it’s “problematic” is why we get these super oppressive, sanitised takes on pride parades. Y’all aren’t any better, it’s still part of our history, Jakotsu being a gay stereotype and Naraku being a gender non conforming shape shifter are still canon and still part of our identity.
Racism is still present. I will see people saying that everyone’s interpretations are too white, too westernised, not correct enough, then will turn around and create “realistic” versions of the characters that are so disgustingly stereotypical and caricaturised that a 1940’s anti-Japanese propaganda magazine would be proud. Bonus points for East Asian people expressing their discomfort in the replies and getting dog piled. We love to see it.
Sexism haunts this fandom like the ghosts in a Christmas Carol. I won’t get too into this one, the poor treatment of women, the uncomfortable fan service, the double standards, the insensitive approach to male trauma and mental health, because it legitimately makes me too angry, but I will say that the way Kikyo is still treated by this fandom, all for the sin of being The Ex, is fucking DISGUSTING.
Now, all of this exists and has existed for a long time. It’s not even much of a secret. However, when the sequel was announced, most corners of the fandom, including people who were no longer in it, were at least curious and willing to unite again just to see what was happening and maybe get some new content to enjoy.
What we got was “pedophilia is great, bad writing is even better, overworked animators don’t matter and neither do any of you, give us that sweet sweet nostalgia money cuz these lolicons aren’t going to be quite enough to pay all our bills :)”.
The rest is history. Just like the fandom of a once perfectly passable anime that was this close to dying a quiet but dignified death.