InuYasha! The Series

Tomorrow Never Comes

Genre: Anime
Completion: Series and Movies
Graphics: Great
Sound: Awesome
Story: Great
Plot Holes: Some
Complaints: Some
Rewatch: Yes
Verdict: Recommend

I have to admit, its been a while since I watched the entire first series and then read the manga, which wasn't to the end yet.  I finally got around to watching the Final Act though and finished up one of my favorite anime's!

The story in InuYasha is great, I have always loved the feudal era and any anime or art based on it.  The music, fighting, voice acting and almost everything else in the series is awesome.  Naraku has to be one of my favorite villian's. I love how he creates incarnations and uses the demons and feelings of everyone around him.  The way he sets traps and plots things, along with his back story, his connection to InuYasha and Kikyo, is just all cool.  How the demons are drawn, the way they swarm around, their ability's, the settings, loved all that stuff.  Both of the series also had some of my favorite anime music, the build ups, fights and emotional scenes were just so much better because of it.

The first series was drawn out a lot.  It built up the story, introduced the characters and seemed like it was going to go on forever, which is how I like my anime's, long while still keeping the story going good.  There was some filler, while they waited for the manga story to continue but I am fine with that, some of the better characters and episodes were filler.  The story is pretty good, revolving around the shikon jewel, Naraku, Inuyasha and his love interests with Kikyo and Kagome with plenty of fights thrown about.  It has a lot of emotional love stuff going on with it as well, but that's ok with me.  I didn't like, however, the way the series just suddenly ended right when it started getting to some good stuff.  One second they are introducing some new incarnations and building up some drama, then Kagome tells me that they are gonna keep fighting and gathering jewel shards!  The End.

After years of waiting, with many people saying there would be no more anime for the series, The Final Act finally gets going.  It took me a couple of more years to get around to watching it and while it was almost done as well as the first series, same art, introduction scenes and things, one thing really made me not like it as much as the first series.  Instead of being drawn out and full of filler, it seemed rushed.  In almost the same way as a book made into a movie gets hurried along and cuts out parts of the story, The Final Act turned what could have been another 100+ episodes into like 26.  Very disappointing.  Tetseiga, InuYasha's sword gets powered up too fast, fights end quickly, scenes jump around without explanation, Naraku and some of his incarnations motives don't make sense.  Without reading the manga I may not have noticed, but the pacing was much faster compared to the first series, making the transition between both of the series a bit awkward, it should have been smoother and lasted longer.

Overall I really like the series, one of my favorites, though there are a few things I never liked.  Why did Kagome always wear her school clothes everywhere?  I understand this is a fetish thing over there, but it didn't make sense fighting demons in those clothes, especially since she wore the robes often anyway.  InuYasha was always conflicted with his love between Kikyo and Kagome, but she was Kikyo's reincarnation, so why didn't anyway just tell him he loved the same person haha, duh.  Naraku should have infiltrated Kagome's home version of Tokyo, that would have been so awesome and made sense, but he never tried.

Finally, the end of the series.  I didn't like it as much as I would have hoped.  The final battle wasn't that epic, which seemed like it was building up to a massive fight.  The whole ending just seemed like a cheap way to finish things.  It was emotional, but it didn't have the closure I would have liked.  There could have and could still be a lot more from the InuYasha story, so much left in what was a pretty awesome universe.  The ending was happy enough but, I wanted to see so much more of the characters, Sesshomaru for example, so much left between him and InuYasha that could be told.  I always hate when a good story ends and will always find a way to ask for more, hopefully tomorrow will come for the InuYasha series.  I will admit it, I teared up a bit at the end and will miss this series.