Also known as the resurrection of the blog. Having lazed around for a few months, I decided I would attempt to bring this corpse back to life through some slightly racist Voodoo mumbo-jumbo and found that I sucked at it, so I went with a different method: I decided to update it slowly and painful. And through updating it continuously, others would have no choice but to become involved to stop my path of destruction. And what better way to torture people into submission than the old historical fantasy classic known as Inuyasha.
Before I ramble about what I fan I am, I am going to give a little background information on the series for anyone that has not heard of it. The series began November 13th 1996 and concluded June 18th 2008. The artist and writer is a woman called Rumiko Takahashi (she also published a number of other stories and is still going on). The series was animated in 2000 and continued into 2004 before it took a five year hiatus where it was finally continued and completed in 2010, translated into English in 2000 after increasing popularity in America. Some people love it, some people hate it. The question is why?
I personally love the series for a number of reasons and I have watched it three times (once without actually knowing it since I was around six at the time). However, this is not about my love of the series, this is about taking a critic's view of the series (otherwise known as the professor's view) and will be judging this from an entirely different perspective.
The first thing that draws me in is the beautiful opening song. It was quite literally a blast from the past and has a nostalgic, classic atmosphere to it that I enjoy. (Said opening gives out spoilers as to how this is going to go, but that's to be expected with all anime opening songs.) Once the opening song is over, we get an interesting view of the landscape and a less than pleasant flashback in the past of a village being attacked by none other than one of the characters shown in the opening: Inuyasha. He steals a jewel from one of the buildings and is suddenly pinned to a tree, left there to die while the high priestess asks her sister to burn the jewel with her body.
Now the voice acting, animation, and music all work perfectly in this flashback. I must say I have always been a fan of the Inuyasha music for it's traditional atmosphere, and still find it good for writing fantasy music. However, the dialogue is far too forced and clunky. Most of what is said is weak and cliche, definitely unnatural and while the actors try to fix this, some of it just does not work. If you get past this you then flash forward to Modern Day (1996 for the sake of the original series)Japan.
We catch a glimpse of the main character Kagome and her family and life within an old shrine with an occult grandfather who seems obsessed with history (he almost breaks into conversation about the history of pickles) Kagome appears to be a rather bored teenage girl who has no such interest in the occult (because of her lovely grandfather's 15 year obsession) and seems to prefer playing with her cat (if I had that cat I would want to do the same). As she is on her way to school her cat seems to have sneaked into the closed off well and goes in to pick up the cat since her brother is afraid to go in. She finds the cat but a centipede creature from hell (it's not actually described as that but damn it's ugly) bursts out the well and pulls her in, healing itself and mentioning none other than the very jewel Inuyasha once tried to steal.
It's a pretty basic introduction to our main character and seems to give a decent setting for her life at home. Her brother and mother seem a little like cardboard cut outs (whether this is because they don't have enough screen time I don't know) and so far the characters I like the most are the grandfather and the cat (but that's just because the cat is awesome and animals always beat people). Kagome's rather dull at the moment, but I'm sure that will develop once she gets to the feudal era. At times her voice can appear a bit forced, but it's not too noticeable, considering she has a weird voice in all translations.
Well after that little slip into what looks like a worm hole made worse, Kagome climbs out of the well and finds herself not at home. She assumes that she is dreaming and wanders aimlessly until she spots the shrin tree and runs towards it, hoping somewhere in her mind it will lead to home. Here she meets a still-not-rotting Inuyasha and plays with his ears (who can resist puppy ears of all things?) before she is shot and and carried to the village where she is condemned a demon or spy from another village. Kaede, the last priestess' younger sister now old, inspects Kagome and orders her release before they head inside where Kaede explains the situation to Kagome who never once mentions she is from the future, but she does explain she's lost. It's a peaceful moment quickly ruined by the return of the centipede hell fiend.
Let me start by saying that the scenery here is absolutely wonderful, especially in the forest scene at the beginning where everything is serene and peaceful. The use of music is beautiful, and the dialogue is a lot less forced. Perhaps it was just the author's way of getting everything started and it did not turn out well, but it seems more natural at this point. I won't deny that Kaede herself is a lovely character, but I dislike her dialogue and old talk (such as using "ye" all the time; no one else does it). Another thing I dislike is how relaxed Kagome is after she's tied up in the village. Maybe she is still under the assumption that she is in a dream or she hit her head, but it still bothers me quite a bit and I feel she needs to feel more panicked about the situation. Also, I know it's just a fault of the animators since Kagome and Kikyo look the same in the manga, but Kikyo and Kagome look nothing alike in this. Again, animators fault, not authors.
Kagome, seeing that the Centipede lady is after her, runs into the forest in hopes of distracting her long enough, oddly enough towards a glowing light no one else can see. We see that Inuyasha has awoken again (well it is a full moon and them dogs need to howl at some point) and that he's hungry for blood. Kagome continues to run (damn this girl can run) before she crashes in front of the awakened Inuyasha who thinks she's Kikyo and begins to mock her. After their mock session of around 12 seconds, Mistress Centipede arrives and so do the men. Unfortunately it's useless and said Centipede tears the Sacred Jewel out of Kagome's side (how the doctor's missed it, I don't know). The Centipede Lady then proceeds to slowly crush Inuyasha and Kagome, swallowing the jewel and getting uglier (if that is somehow possible). Inuyasha convinces Kagome to remove the arrow pinning him to the tree (she either gets crushed to death or releases him so it's not like she has much of a choice) and he goes ballistic, tearing Mistress Centipede into itty bitty pieces. Kagome then has to remove the jewel from said pieces, following the glow no one else can, and reclaims it as Mistress Centipede turns back into a skeleton. Inuyasha, now free, demands the Sacred Jewel or he will do the same to her. It is only then that she realizes he's not the hero of the story.
And that is how it ends. A lot happened in this episode, and I personally feel it needed more time to develop, but I can't really complain considering the average length of an episode of something in Japan is around 15 minutes and this took 20. In terms of visuals and sound, it's very good for the time and the music is still enjoyable to listen to now (I won't deny the main reason I got into this series was because of the music). The voice acting is alright; nothing to complain too much about. The plot is a little cliche for my liking (except the old dog demon doesn't side with the main character) and the dialogue is a little clunky at the beginning. I feel that the flashback was a little unnecessary, but I can understand why it was put there. There's not much to say on characters as this is the first episode and there's a lot of development to go through. I feel that the method of Kagome entering the feudal era was weak and expected. If such a thing were to happen, would it mean that she had not entered the closed off well at any point before then, because if it was because of the jewel that Mistress Centipede resurrected then she would have had to have never entered the well beforehand. I'm assuming Kagome gained Kikyo's priestess powers if she could see the jewel and the spiritual energy of the forest as well as breaking the arrow. If that was the case, had she had such things in the modern world? Or perhaps it was activated upon entering the well and the jewel awakened also (maybe it replaced her real appendix or something). These are questions I want answered soon, although considering this has 167 episodes it might take a while.
Either way I'll be doing just as long a review tomorrow when I get to episode two.
Until then, Rinrei out.
Dem ears.
