Our lives are full of different distractions that bring us joy. I have been lucky to stumble on a few, many of which continue to distract and amuse. I enjoy listening to the band garbage, though they remain in what seems like an endless hiatus. I have seven seasons of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to watch here at home, though a new comic book series named “Season 8″ has continued this obsession for me. But, for the last six years, I have enjoyed a different kind of pop culture delight: Inuyasha.
It started for me as a late night excuse to avoid homework. I was still a college student at the University of Georgia and like many of my peers I would stay up late watching Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. At 12:30 a.m. every night, Inuyasha would come on, and as much as I resisted, I soon became sucked into the story. The anime cartoon chronicled the adventures of Kagome, a middle school student in Tokyo who stumbles upon the entryway to a door to the past — the feudal era of Japan, 500 years in the past to be exact. There she resurrects a half demon, Inuyasha, and together they go on a “collect the pieces” quest, which is an often repeated story gimmick in Japanese manga.
Well, it’s been over 11 years and about two years since I picked up on the continuation of the manga version of Inuyasha, which is the ongoing storyline that the anime was adapted from. The past nine weeks have brought us the final volume of Inuyasha, where Naraku is finally killed and the Shikon Jewel is dealt with once and for all. It’s sad to see the series end, but it’s so refreshing that such a long standing story can be given such an appropriate send off.
Basically, if you’re looking to be spoiled, Inuyasha and Kagome wish away the Shikon Jewel only to be separated by time again. As Kaede says, Kagome appeared with the Shikon Jewel and she disappeared with it as well. Three years pass and Kagome graduates high school, considering her future. She realizes why she has been unable to reach Inuyasha across time and makes the difficult decision in her heart to give up her live in the modern era and live permanently in feudal Japan.
The manga ends there, with epilogues revealing that Sango and Miroku marry and have three kids, Kohaku beginning to develop into a powerful demon slayer and Shippou training to become a powerful fox demon. The cutest part of the final chapter would have to be Kagome’s heartfelt exchange with Inuyasha’s older brother Sesshomaru, where she calls him brother-in-law. This is the perhaps the chapter’s only clear implication that Kagome and Inuyasha have indeed decided to live on together romantically (though there other obvious implications that lead to this assumption). We’re not given a kiss between the two, but their characters are allowed to drift happily into the sunset.
It might not be my chosen ending, but I’ll take it. I always hoped that Naraku, the series antagonist, would live on forever coveting the Shikon Jewel. Kikyo, Inuyasha’s resurrected ex-girlfriend, would curse him and drag him willingly to hell, the only place they could ever be together. Shattered and destroyed, Kagome would return to her time broken hearted, but forever remembering Inuyasha and regretting her sad fate. Thankfully for the fangirls and boys, that didn’t happen.
I actually have a couple poems I wrote about the series Inuyasha, which I hope sometime I will bring to the surface of this incarnation of my Web site. For now, I’ve finally begun work on what may be my final poem about the anime/manga series, chronicling Kikyo’s perspective of my vision of the fates of the series protagonists. I may save that for this blog or perhaps for my next blog’s introduction. Who knows, we’ll see.
Anyways, that’s my sendoff for Inuyasha. It was a fabulous series and I will miss looking forward to a new and exciting chapter every week. Now what am I going to do!