InuYasha

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Alternative Titles

English: InuYasha

Synonyms: Inu-Yasha, Inu Yasha

Japanese: 犬夜叉

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 56

Chapters: 558

Status: Finished

Published: Nov 13, 1996 to Jun 15, 2008

Genres: Adventure, Comedy, Demons, Drama, Fantasy, Historical, Romance, Shounen, Supernatural

Authors: Takahashi, Rumiko (Story & Art)

Serialization: Shounen Sunday

Statistics

Score: 7.82¹ (scored by 25,457 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #1099²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #165

Members: 48,528

Favorites: 3,050

7.82

Ranked #1099Popularity #165Members 48,528

MangaShounen SundayTakahashi, Rumiko (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /56

Chapters: /558

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Synopsis

Kagome is a modern Japanese high school girl. Never the type to believe in myths and legends, her world view dramatically changes when, one day, she's pulled out of her own time and into another! There, in Japan's ancient past, Kagome discovers more than a few of those dusty old legends are true, and that her destiny is linked to one legendary creature in particular—the dog-like half-demon called Inuyasha! That same trick of fate also ties them both to the Shikon Jewel, or "Jewel of Four Souls." But demons beware...the smallest shard of the Shikon Jewel can give the user unimaginable power.

(Source: Viz)

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Background

InuYasha was awarded the 47th Shogakukan Manga Award for best shounen manga in 2001.

The series was published in English by VIZ Media as Inu-Yasha: A Feudal Fairy Tale from July 6, 1998 to January 11, 2011, it was relabeled as InuYasha from volume 12 onwards, the first 37 volumes were in left-to-right format but all later volumes were printed in traditional Japanese format. It was republished in 3-in-1 omnibuses under the Shonen Sunday VIZBIG imprint from November 10, 2009 to February 11, 2014. It was also published in Spain by Glénat España, and partially published in Argentina by LARP Editores.

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Related Manga

Sequel:	3.11 wo Wasurenai Tame ni Heroes Comeback
Adaptation:	InuYasha (TV), InuYasha, InuYasha (TV): Kanketsu-hen

More characters
Characters

Inuyasha

Main

Higurashi, Kagome

Main

Sango

Main

Kikyou

Main

Miroku

Main

Shippo

Main

Sesshoumaru

Supporting

Kouga

Supporting

Naraku

Supporting

Rin

Supporting

More reviewsReviews

Dec 29, 2009

558 of 558 chapters read

Overall Rating: 8

Archaeon (All reviews)

237 people found this review helpful

Every so often a manga series comes along that the average reader will find daunting for one reason or another. It may be that the scope of the story is too great, or the number of chapters may be too large, or the drawing style may not be to taste, or some other reason entirely. Whatever the case may be, there are many out there who will be put off reading a manga for one reason or another.

That said, there is sometimes justification for not even starting a manga, especially as there are those that really can't cut the mustard.

And then there's the ones read more

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Sep 4, 2008

558 of 558 chapters read

Overall Rating: 10

WindWitchKagura (All reviews)

64 people found this review helpful

Inuyasha is a beautifully plotted storyline, and the characters are truly outstanding pieces of work. While reading, you are led bit by bit to an exciting ending, and it is very difficult to put it down!

I enjoyed Inuyasha because of the characters, particularly Kagura. It also has a lot of action, suitable for the easily bored. The romantic element is tragic, sweet, and comic at the same time. I consider Inuyasha to be the very best manga I have ever read.

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Jul 22, 2009

558 of 558 chapters read

Overall Rating: 8

DrBoondigga (All reviews)

43 people found this review helpful

Made by the famous Rumiko Takahashi, the length draws out over 558 chapters, and this length both causes some of it's greatest and worst moments. For instance the romance of the story (or more specifically the love triangle) reaches it's climax as we draw towards the end with a bittersweet, but none the less great conclusion to it. However we go on to, in my opinion, another disappointing ending from Takahashi. I haven't read all of Ranma 1/2, but I hear that the ending was not the best, and InuYasha certainly felt rushed at the end. That is always a bad thing, but it's quite annoying when the ending feels rushed, and it's even worse when the story had ran for 558 chapters and still feels rushed. God forbid another couple of chapters to tie thing up, but instead (trying to be spoiler free) the "romance" at the end during a reunion feels like "oh hey, how you doing? It's been a while" thing between two old friends. That and the idea of side character's getting more of an "ending" than the main ones, can be rather annoying. Basically, InuYasha is certainly not a Manga you would pick up if you don't have patience. At times it runs into a repetitive schemes like "villain attacks and villain leaves" or "upgrade weapon, get stronger, upgrade weapon, get stronger" type of thing. If you're going to read InuYasha, you're going to get crap, feel unsatisfied at times, but you will also at times witness a great plot, and good, though eventually disappointing romance. Well onto other points.

The story of InuYasha starts off with Kagome, a normal fifteen year old high school student, who lives in an ancient shrine, filled with old artifacts. One day she is suddenly taken by force into the Boneeater's Well by a monster, and finds a demon sealed to a tree. Upon being taken to a village, she discovers he is an evil demon called InuYasha, who was sealed by a Miko named Kikyou fifty years ago at the cost of her life. However when she gets close to him while running away from the monster, he awakens, mistaking her for Kikyou as they look a like. She is attacked and ends up having the ancient powerful object in her body called the Shikon no Tama (Jewel of Four Souls), an object than can make demons stronger, the same one InuYasha was after, but Kikyou sealed him and took it with her to the afterlife. To save her own life, she frees InuYasha to kill the demon, but InuYasha immediately goes after the Shikon no Tama. Kaede, Kikyou's younger sister from the village, seals a necklace object onto InuYasha which gives Kagome the ability to command him, causing him to be unable to steal the Jewel. However when another Demon tries to steal it, it is easily stolen, and they have to work together to get it back. It ends up getting broken and scattering to little pieces around the world, and now InuYasha and Kagome have to work together to find it.

That's just the start of a plot, that soon winds itself into a much greater plot of why Kikyou killed InuYasha, and as such we get greater villains, a wider cast, and greater ambitions on the part's of the characters, that still tie into everything of the beginning perfectly. As I said before, the length both helps and ruins the plot, as at times Takahashi pulls of great twists to the story, and introduces even more characters, and pulls of many great scenes throught the story. However at times you can also get 50 chapters where the same thing seems to happen over and over. It would help if it was interesting the first time, but painfully it wasn't, and the plot can jump from great, to boring. I'll give it an eight because it provides some interesting scenes, especially in Romance, but at times it's just completely mediocre.

From the few Mangas I've read (just started reading them), the art in InuYasha is fairly average. Compared to the other Manga I'm currently reading ("20th Century Boy"), it even can get rather ugly at times, but at times it can look fairly good. Nothing much to say here, the art in InuYasha is just average artwork and never really goes far beyond being average. That said it certainly isn't bad, it's rather good, just nothing special. You'll probably never take a moment just to look at how good it looks or anything like that.

The characters in InuYasha is the best part of the story, as we get all types of characters. Well the "good guys" are fairly typical people, angry lead fighter, sexual harassing guy on the side, innocent girl, etc. the "bad guys" have variety ranging from "bad ass" fighter to homosexual. I'm not sure on whether that is widely considered a good thing or bad thing, but it can be rather entertaining at times, and my favorite parts of the story come from the interaction between the characters. Once again mainly the love triangle which presents one of the best I've seen yet. The women you fell in love with first, who showed you a different style of life, and followed you in death or the women who came after and helped to change your life. If you had to choice, which one would it be? Certainly the best concept presented I've read (well, yet) presented in love triangles, and really can make you question which choice would be better. I haven't even come up with an answer to that myself.

I'm sure mostly everyone who's decently involved in the world of Anime and Manga have heard of InuYasha and Rumiko Takahashi, and I've read as much love as I have read as hate. Well most the hate I've read is for the Anime and how it falls into being repetitive, but remember that even though it fells into that, it also comes out of that (only to fall back in), but it certainly has some great moments, and the best is in the later half of the story (the conclusion of the love triangle). If you are looking for a Manga with a merge of great characters and a greatly established Fantasy world, than InuYasha is certainly a great book to pick up, as long as you have patience. There are times I was in love with it and started the next chapter right away, and there were times when I forced myself to read through it, always trying to look at the brightside of what's ahead. InuYasha may have it's disappointments, which I've certainly voiced in this review, but it also has it's great moments to, and is a great read. End of the first review, please put whether it was helpful or unhelpful.

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Apr 16, 2009

558 of 558 chapters read

Overall Rating: 8

purple_neko (All reviews)

6 people found this review helpful

Well, actually I finished this before I began reading Pretear, and also saw the anime way way before, probably around high school (2001?).

Inuyasha is a story about Kagome Higurashi a seemingly normal junior high school girl and a inu(dog) hanyou (half demon) named Inuyasha and their quest to retrieve shards of a jewel called the Shikon no Tama (Jewel of the Four Souls), which then turns into an adventure that includes a youkai kitsune (demon fox) child named Shippou, a monk with a cursed hand (can be taken to mean at least two things here :P), named Miroku, and a taijiya (demon slayer) girl named Sango. The quest for the shikon shards turns into a quest to defeat an evil being called Naraku, and the story begins expanding from there.

Well, as usual some events and characters differ between the anime and the manga, and the manga continues further on than the anime itself.

One thing that's been on my mind though is why there are such a lot of Kikyo haters out there. Well, yeah she was a real pest for the Inu-Kag shippers, but if you look at it from a non-biased (neutral, non-shipping) POV, she was more of the tragic character than an adversary (although admittedly a love rival for Kagome). Had circumstances been different, it may well have been an Inu-Kikyo pairing.

Well I am not a shipper of any sort, although I do occassionally read fics from this series, but still, though Kikyo started out as a betrayed, and therefore vengeful resurrected spirit doll of clay and souls, she still loved Inuyasha (although how she shows it IS kind of...twisted, but let's face it, she's dead, so of course she'd think of taking her love with her to the afterlife/hell where she "initially" probably ended up in).

Kagome does come off as a martyr for love, holding in her feelings of jealousy (although at times rather poorly, since she does take it out on Inuyasha).

These arguments I've presented are actually why I liked this manga, the "love-triangle" between two women, one dead and one from the future vying for the affection of a young inu-hanyou :P What's more fantastic than that?

Seriously though, I like the many character interactions and I see why a myriad of "non-canon" pairings are quite imaginable. There's also elements of "nakama" working together to achieve a certain goal, and then there is also a look at sibling relationships: like in Inuyasha's and Fluffy (Sesshomaru)'s case, Sango and Kohaku, Kagome and Souta...plus parent and child relationships or lack of (there are so many examples of this). Plus I like the "alternate world" feel which I sort of associate to Fushigi Yuugi as well.

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