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Kagome Inuyasha Sesshomaru
My introduction to anime and quite possibly the reason I am as
crazy about it today begins with "Inuyasha". One of the more
popular animes on late night television, is a story about a half dog demon
(Inuyasha), who falls in love with a High Priestess (Kikyo) during Japan's
Feudal Era, who decides to give up his evil ways for the woman he loves.
Inuyasha is a head strong, boorish, yet somehow kind, demon who has made
it his goal in life to become a full demon so that he can be respected by his
demon brethren. While Kikyo is a polite, overly serious High
Preistess whose job it is to look over and , if need be, give her life to
protect the sacred "Shikon Jewel" which is said to make the pure of
heart a powerful warrior for the righteous, or any demon strong beyond his
wildest imagination, or in Inuyasha's case make him a FULL demon. However when a sick man also falls for the High
Priestess and finds that he cannot have her, he allows a demon (Naraku)
to inhabit his body in order to get revenge on both Kikyo and Inuyasha.
Kikyo is tricked and wounded by a false Inuyasha who seems to have gone
back on his promise, and Inuyasha is similarly tricked and decides to take
revenge in the form of stealing the Shikon Jewel. While attempting to
steal the jewel Kikyo shoots Inuyasha with a sacred arrow to a "magic
tree" of sorts which ends up not killing him and merely leaving him in an
eternal slumber until someone removes the arrow (a sort of Sleeping Beauty
story).
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Enter Kagome, a modern day
Japanese school girl whose family looks after
the aforementioned shrine. She appears to be a
typical popular High School student with a crush on a handsome boy, has a group
of nosey girlfriends, and a family that
tries to get her to strive to be her best and learn about their shrine. One day, however, Kagome slips and falls into
the shrines well and rather than hit the bottom she falls through time and back
into the Feudal Era some 50 years after we left Inuyasha and Kikyo's story. Kikyo has died from the wounds she suffered
and her sister (Kaede) has become the
High Priestess of the Shrine. While
exploring this strange new world Kagome comes across our Prince, not so,
Charming, Inuyasha, who seems to have been untouched by time (though covered in
overgrowth). Kagome, not knowing what
had transpired removes the arrow holding Inuyasha in place essentially freeing
him from his eternal sleep. Not knowing what
has happened or how much time has passed Inuyasha attempts to start where he
left off by once again stealing the Shikon Jewel.
A series of events passes that leads to the eventual discovery
that Kagome, the seemingly run of the mill school girl, is actually the
reincarnation of Sister Kikyo and can harness the same powers of light. Inuyasha loses control of the jewel and it
falls into the hands of another demon who also loses it and an evil looking
crow begins to fly away with the jewel, and rather than let any of these
strange creatures have it, Kagome attempts to shoot down the crow, but instead
makes a miraculous (seemingly impossible) shot with an arrow infused with her
new found power that shatters the Shikon Jewel and scatters it across the
world.
Having seen all of these events transpire, Kaede gets it in her
mind that Kagome (who seems to make the shards react any time she is near
them), needs to team up with Inuyasha to collect and reconstruct the Shikon
Jewel. Inuyasha being an untrustworthy
demon is "leashed" with an
enchanted necklace that lets Kagome shout the instantly classic phrase
"SIT BOY" and Inuyasha is yanked to the ground. And since Inuyasha
and Kagome seem to butt heads at almost every turn, this becomes more of a
safety measure and more of a teenaged girl's, who cannot admit her own feelings,
tool to vent frustration.
Soon after they begin their adventure it becomes semi-apparent
that Inuyasha is at a distinct dis-advantage to other demons because while his
father was, of course, the MOST POWERFUL DEMON OF ALL TIME, his mother was merely
a human whose beauty and temperament calmed the mind of a ferocious demon and
allowed him to love (leading one to believe that the nut doesn't fall far from
the proverbial tree). It is because of
these dis-advantage that Inuyasha and Kagome travel to the resting place of
Inuyasha's father in order to obtain the "Tetsusaiga", supposedly the
most powerful sword in the world that was forged from one of the fangs of
Inuyasha's father. The two must travel
inside Inuyasha's father, who is more or less the size of a mountain, where
they are forced to confront what is easily the coolest character in this
series.
Sesshomaru, first born son of "
Inu no Taisho" (The Lord of Dogs), the full blooded half brother of
Inuyasha, and arguably the single most powerful demon alive, believes that he
is the rightful Heir to the Tetsusaiga. Sesshomaru hates his, so called, half
brother, thinking that his human mother makes him basically worthless, and
certainly not a true brother to the Great Lord Sesshomaru. The
two brothers have a standard sweet-awesome demon fight that ends in the eventual
discovery that Sesshomaru can in fact, not wield Tetsusaiga, and the subsequent
removal of Sesshomaru's right arm.
MORE TO COME.......
