For anyone who believe Mao to be Inuyasha 2.0 and have their doubts because of Trashahime: DO NOT WORRY!
Mao's plot does involve a girl traveling to a past period and meeting a sword user like Inuyasha, and there might be some other things that could remind you of Inuyasha, yet it differs in lots of ways. I won't spoil the story but I’ll reveal 4 traits that make it differ from Inuyasha that I believe are safe to reveal:
1. While Inuyasha’s group is of 6 characters always traveling together, Mao’s group is of only 3 which in fact is like Rinne's group of Kyoukai no Rinne (a boy not rude running an honest business with his little servant and a female companion), and their allies appear on and then.
And fun fact: Mao debuts on April 4th, which is the same day the anime of Kyoukai no Rinne debuted 11 years ago.
2. It features demons, yet most of the major characters are humans. There are between 20 and 30 significant characters so far, and only 3 of them are demons, and some are similar to the Black Cats of Kyoukai no Rinne.
3. Unlike the mystery of Inuyasha and Kikyo's tragic past which was quickly uncovered, the pieces of the puzzle of the past in Mao are slowly coming together and even after more than 300 chapters, not everything has been uncovered. In other words, unlike Inuyasha and all of her other long series' in which she had *no* clue where she was going and no idea how or where or when she'd end them, Rumiko Takahashi has a direction and a basic ending in mind that she wants to reach.
4. In Inuyasha, despite regularly coming across Inuyasha’s group and Naraku and some of his incarnations, Kikyo, Sesshomaru and Koga rarely crossed paths (Sesshomaru and Koga in fact never cross paths in the manga (ep99 was a filler episode)). In Mao, the handling of the major characters crossing paths seems better.
If anyone were to still consider it Inuyasha 2.0, I'd say Mao is an improved Inuyasha. And unlike Yashahime, which I consider to be an amateurish what if full of recycled stuff from Inuyasha and also Sailor Moon, Mao is a masterpiece like all of Rumiko Takahashi's handy works. I highly recommend it. As much as I hate that Sunrise got their hands on it, Mao deserves to be more popular so either give it a chance watching it in anime or reading the manga.
PS:
I’ve read Mao until its latest chapter, and there’s absolutely no chance of a Sessrin like ship to happen, thankfully.














