Inu-Yasha 5 (big ed.)

Rumiko Takahashi – Viz – 2010 – 56 volumes
this omnibus contains vols. 13-15

As I’ve said before, there is something completely addictive about Inu-Yasha. It is polished and manufactured, certainly a popular Shounen Sunday series through and through, but even so, it is also addictive and I genuinely like reading about the characters and the demons they cross paths with. I love reading the 3-in-1 volumes especially, because I fly through even these. I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I can’t imagine reading this a volume at a time, or even a chapter a week.

I was surprised by how character-centric this volume was. I mean, it usually is, but this blew me away with how much it revealed. It almost makes me worry for the content of the future volumes, because here it seems to move awfully fast. Volume 13 was about the Tetsusaiga, Sesshomaru, and his sword the Tenseiga. We find out the true power, why it won’t go to Sesshomaru, why it is better suited to Inu-Yasha, and why Sesshoumaru was left a seemingly ill-suited sword of his own by his father. The Tenseiga makes for an interesting bit of future development. While Sesshomaru isn’t as unrepentantly evil as Naraku, he’s still a bad guy, and there might be some evil versus good fun down the road with a sword like that.

Volume 13 also had the second half of a story from last volume, where Inu-Yasha attempts to slay a demon miasma, Kikyo has questionable loyalties, and we try and figure out if Inu-Yasha is really “over” Kikyo. I’m always surprised when these relationship conversations and jealousy plots come up between Kagome and Inu-Yasha. There’s no romance between them whatsoever, but all the same they are the strongest couple that I’ve ever seen in a Takahashi series, not counting Maison Ikkoku. Also, this story made my confusion surrounding Kikyo even worse, if that’s possible. In theory, she is a soulless demon monster, but she’s just like Kikyo was alive, and has no alliance to good or evil. What is her role? Observer? Why does she interfere the way she does, then?

Volume 14 is almost all about a not-so-evil demon wolf tribe that kidnaps Kagome in order to use her ability to see Shikon shards to stop a rival tribe of harpies. In this case, the enemy was sympathetic and also completely smitten with Kagome. She eventually forgives him the kidnapping and begins to defend him, which rankles Inu-Yasha. This whole story then becomes, again, about Kagome and Inu-Yasha, with things spilling out into the real world. I still like that Kagome worries about exams and her friends while saving the supernatural world from the threat of powered-up demons, and I love that Inu-Yasha can still come for her. They are touching, in their way, but again, they lack romance, and it’s a little odd that they are so close this early in the series. I suspect this will never grow or change, but that’s okay. I do like the way things are now, and I love that the story can lapse into these action-less breaks every now and again.

After the romance, the action starts again with a new Naraku villain and the Wolf Clan making a comeback. Lots of action, lots of jealousy, some soul stealing, some re-animation of the dead. I like pretty much everything that went on in these three volumes, and as always, it went by in the blink of an eye and I want more. I still think there isn’t much extraordinary about it, but it does do everything right. I like it a lot better than Rin-Ne so far, too. Rin-Ne’s characters are a little bland for my taste, and the battles feel a little pointless. In theory, Inu-Yasha’s success over it rests on the fact that their creature fights are dire and the characters are identically angry and stubborn, but what can I say, it’s a little more interesting that way.

Also, Takahashi’s monster designs are great. I don’t care who says different. How great are they? Well, the harpies that the characters fight re-appeared in the volume of Berserk I read after this. And I consider Kentaro Miura the forever king of monster design, so there you go.