Inuyasha: The Stitchy Retrospective
Started Inuyasha January 26 2024.
Finished Inuyasha May 24 2024.
Stitchy's Score: 6/10
As a huge fan of Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2, it seems almost sacrilege to have never read or watched Inuyasha in all my years on this earth. A series revered and loved by many anime fans. Yet, here we are. I decided to pick the manga up this year just to say I did, plus it's probably Rumiko Takahashi's most famous work. I went in excited to see how Takahashi Sensei would handle a long running over arching shounen plot. The chapters of Urusei Yatsura that are a lot more plot focused are really strong! Especially the last bit of the manga and when she first introduced Inaba. Unfortunately I left Inuyasha very underwhelmed, especially for something as revered as it is.
The main plot of Inuyasha is constantly hurt by how rough the pacing is. In my humble opinion, this 558 chapter manga feels more bloated than something twice as long like One Piece. It's meandering and it feels like a lot of the time, it doesn't really know what direction it wants to go exactly. It feels to me that all the people remember is their OTP. Now, there's nothing wrong with that but, it is quite telling to me that nobody really talks about the plot on the stan accounts. By far the worst part of this story is Kikyo. She constantly grinds character growth to a halt. Every time this woman is around, it's always the exact same song and dance. Inuyasha is understandably still working through how he felt about her, especially because he spent 50 years thinking she betrayed him for no reason. Kagome gets understandably jealous and even has the very normal reaction of worrying if Inuyasha likes HER or likes her because she looks like Kikyo. These are great tools for character arcs, in truth, Kagome is very young and Inuyasha is very immature. We want to see our characters grow and change in a story like this. 300+ chapters in, however, these arcs should be long behind us. Yet Kikyo, the dead woman, sticks around for SO LONG, bogging and slowing down the plot. Her long presence in the story also takes a lot from Kagome herself as well. I was really excited to see Kagome was the ace in the hole. She can see the shards, she can shoot light arrows, her ancestry is just really strong. I wanted to see her grow as a priestess and really make the power her own but, it really just ended up being she's a worse Kikyo until an arc that comes way too late in the story. Inuyasha and Kagome also have just an okay romance. It would be a lot better if Kikyo was not around bogging everything down. It was so hard to get through and I really wanted it to end about halfway through. Naraku is actually a fine villain but he too gets exhausting.
What about the good? The art is, as always, fantastic. Rumiko Takahashi is one of the best manga artists to ever do it and she really shows it off in Inuyasha. The horror elements are all incredible. Our four main characters all all distinct and very cute. Her expressions are fantastic. Shesshosmaru and his character arc were interesting and he proved a good foil for his younger brother. The real OTP for me was Miroku and Sango, however. Maybe it's my firm love for sleezy characters with hearts of gold, like Ataru Moroboshi or Spirit Albarn, but every time they were together was cute and fun. Sango ending up a homemaker was a little dissapointing but I'm very happy they ended up together happy and healthy.
Overall, I think Inuyasha was pretty mid. Now that's mid as in okay not as in grabage, like so many use as short hand. It was an okay story with great art and lovable characters (except Kikyo) and overall I'm glad I read it. Will I again? Most likely not but, again, I'm happy that I have read it to say I have. Think this manga would have really benefited from being a lot shorter or with some better pacing.
Hopefully her newer series, Mao, fixes some of the problems I had with Inuyasha. Especially since from the description, it really just sounds like Inuyasha but again. We will cross that bridge when we get there, I suppose.
