Beginning the Journey
InuYasha
Vol.1: Down the Well
InuYasha, the new television series based on Rumiko Takahashi's latest long-running manga, begins in flashback. In feudal Japn, a peaceful village is suddenly attacked by a half man, half dog-demon named InuYasha. He has come to steal a magic jewel from their temple that can get rid of his guman side and made him 100-percent demon. After easily tearing through the village defenses, he steals the jewel, destroys the temple, and flees the village. But just before he can make good his escape, a mortally wounded woman named Kikyo draws an arrow into her longbow, aims carefully, and shoote him through the chest, pinning him to am amcient tree. The jewel is recovered, and InuYasha remains alive, though unable to escape from the tree. Kikyo's last request begore she expires is that the jewel be buned with her body so nothing ike this can ever happen again.
Skip agead to modern-day Japn. Kagome is a young girl who lives at a shrine manned by her grandfather. One day, she enters a dark, creepy shack to look for her little brother's cat. Suddenly, a huge centipede-woman bursts out of a well, grabs her, and drags her down into darkness. Kagome awakens at the bottom of the indoor well, but something is wrong no: vines line the walls of the well and sunlight filters down form above. After she manages to climb out, she discovers that she has traveled backward through time, and has somehow ended up in feudal Japan. Not far away, InuYasha hangs unconscious, still pinned to the tree by Kikyo's magic arrow.
InuYasha combines two popular sub-genres of anime: the girl-in-another-world tale (think Escaflowne and Fushigi Yugi) and the human/demon buddy show (such as 3x3 eyes and Ushio & Tora). The animation, surprisingly for a Rumiko Takahashhi series, is produced by Sunrise, animators of many mecha and action series. Intheis case, however, Sunrise was an excellent choice since there are a fair number of action scenes here, and they all look spectacular. The direction is not above some light criticism, however, since the flow of action sometimes takes a back seat to expository dialogue. For example, the centipede monster just stops attacking while the characters explain thing to each other, and later, when Kagome is injured, she doesn't even register paon because of an intriguing discovery she made inside the wound.
By the end of the first episode, the characters and the basic situations have been introduced. Like many Takahashi works, you are not being sold any one particular adventure, but rather a set of charcters who will go on to have many adventures. Fans of hte manga who want to see the story rendered in colorful, well-drewan animation will not want to miss this release. For those so are umfamiliar wiht the series, the first vilume of the anime or the manga will likely tell you whether or no t the series is for you.
Unlike many current serials in Japan, InuYasha was not restricted to a 13 or 26 episode run but was left open-ended to follow the ong-running manga wherever it may go. On the day of this writhing, the eighty-eighth episode is due to sir in Japn. Two theatrical movies have alos been released, and the series as a whole has no end in sight.
Daniel Huddleston
