Inuyasha

Inuyasha

犬夜叉
2000 -2004 Sunrise Yomiuri TV / NTV 167 episodes Completed
Action Adventure Romance Historical Supernatural
Details & Synopsis
In 1996, Rumiko Takahashi, the architect of Ranma ½, Maison Ikkoku, and Urusei Yatsura, the most successful female manga artist in the world, began a new series in Weekly Shōnen Sunday. It would run for twelve years and 558 chapters. The anime adaptation began in 2000 and did not stop until 2010.

Kagome Higurashi is a fifteen-year-old girl who lives at a Shinto shrine and falls into the old well in the storehouse. She emerges five hundred years in the past, in the Sengoku period, in a Japan populated by demons, monks, priestesses, and things considerably worse than any of them. She also awakens Inuyasha, a half-demon pinned to a sacred tree with an arrow for fifty years, and accidentally shatters the Shikon Jewel, a jewel of immense power, into hundreds of shards that scatter across feudal Japan.

They have to get the shards back. Naraku is trying to get them first. This is the arrangement.

Produced by Sunrise and directed by Yasunori Ide, Inuyasha aired on Yomiuri TV from 2000 to 2004. One hundred and sixty-seven episodes of the original run, followed by Inuyasha: The Final Act in 2009, twenty-six episodes that complete the story the manga had finally finished. Adult Swim carried it for years. The fansub community carried it before that, and the uncut versions circulated heavily alongside the broadcast dub for viewers who wanted the story without the edits.

The cast is Takahashi at her most generous: Miroku, a lecherous monk with a wind tunnel in his hand and a death sentence ticking down; Sango, a demon slayer hunting the creature that destroyed her village; Shippo, a small fox demon who contributes mostly by panicking; and Sesshomaru, Inuyasha's full-demon elder brother, so comprehensively cold the show essentially had to invent a separate arc just to give him a reason to exist near the main cast. It works.

The love triangle between Inuyasha, Kagome, and the resurrected priestess Kikyo is the emotional center. It is messy in the way Takahashi's best work is always messy, not because the writing is confused but because the feelings are.

Start with the original run. Watch The Final Act immediately after. Do not stop in the middle.
Alt Title 犬夜叉
Studio Sunrise
Network Yomiuri TV / NTV
Aired 2000 - 2004
Episodes 167
Genre Action, Adventure, Romance, Historical, Supernatural
Status Completed
← All lore

The Band of Seven

Resurrected Human Mercenary Warlords

The Shichinintai Mercenary Legend

SPOILER!
A squad of seven ruthless human mercenaries executed fifteen years prior for extreme bloodlust. Resurrected by Naraku using Shikon Jewel fragments implanted in their necks, the Band of Seven served as Naraku's frontline guards to stall Inuyasha while Naraku shed his human heart inside Mount Hakurei.

Bankotsu & Jakotsu

SPOILER! Banryu Halberd · Snake-Bone Whip Sword
Led by Bankotsu (a young warrior who upgraded his massive Banryu halberd by slaughtering 1,000 humans and 1,000 demons) and Jakotsu (a sadomasochistic swordsman wielding a flexible, multi-jointed snake blade that unfolds like a saw).

Suikotsu, Renkotsu & Mukotsu

SPOILER! Dual Personality Doctor · Explosive Engineer · Poison Master
Including Suikotsu (a gentle physician suffering from severe split-personality disorder that transforms him into a clawed killer), Renkotsu (the cunning artillery/explosives expert), and Mukotsu (a hunchbacked poison master whose venom melts human flesh).