Inuyasha and Blade of the Immortal

Ironically enough, those two mangas hold a very special place in my heart for the funniest reason. When I was in 7^th grade, I went to buy my first manga; I wanted Inuyasha. Well mommy dearest flipped through the first volume of Inuyasha, and there were a pair of bare breasts on the centipede lady. Oh no, bare titties!! Whatever shall a young girl do? Its not like she’ll never have them, so we must shield her eyes. Yeah, so she was against Inuyasha. She instead picked up Blade of the Immortal: Beasts. That was apparently acceptable. With all its hack and slash sword fights not to mention Hyakurin gets raped and the tortured, but it’s still not as offensive as bare breasts. Cause you know, nipples, they’re evil. But then within a few weeks, I had bought Inuyasha myself. So no harm was done.

Anyway, I digress, about Rumiko Takahashi’s Inuyasha. I have had up to volume sitting on my book shelf at home for many years, afraid to add to the collection until I knew how long the series was going to be ( and therefore how much money I would have to invest). And as of last spring (2009), the series was completed in Japan, and so when summer rolled around, I reread through my volumes then continued the series online. I completed the series. Yes all 56 volumes. Through all the filler arcs, those filler arcs that it seemed like the anime threw in to take up time until the manga caught up to it, those damn filler arcs were built into the story. And dear god, are they rather painful.

Jakotsu though was a saving grace. He was very different from the standard villains, and completely and utterly flamboyant. It wasn’t the standard “we’re fighting you Inuyasha because Naraku told us so!”, just a bit more of the “our leader said so, and you are adorable”. Maybe he just reminded me of the Amazon trio from Sailor Moon. Well whatever the reason, I found him adorable.

The Band of Seven was also the last of the decent villains being manipulated by Naraku. The baby ends up just wanting to take over Naraku, and betraying him like majority of his other spawn (Kagura for example, except she becomes a much stronger character after a while). And then there’s Byakuya. I can only see him as completely and utterly useless. Sure he has a small pathetic role of slicing Kagome, which causes a Meidou to appear behind her. But really, he shows up at the end does like one thing, then dies. Woo. He’s the exact opposite of Naraku.

That annoying Hanyou is thee villain and doesn’t know how to stay dead. No matter how many purified arrows he gets shot with, nor how many times his body is destroyed, he will never be truly defeated. That is until the Shikon no Tama is completed and history must repeat itself. Because you know, because Kagome is the reincarnation of a priestess and she needs to be useful for once.

And so last in the line up of villains is Sesshomaru. He’s not really a villain per se, but he was the entire reason I was such an Inuyasha fan. In the first half of the series, it seems like he’s just an older brother jealous that his father left the youngest all the good stuff. But as the story goes on, Sesshomaru finally gets an amazing offensive attack for his sword. Then it is revealed that his father planned to have Sesshomaru’s sword to be absorbed into Inuyasha’s Tetsaiga, Now that’s just plan sad. Seriously, think of it from his point of view: Daddy dies and leaves the youngest the stronger of the two blades. Once he finally makes his blade amazing, it ends up it’s going to be given to the younger sibling again. Maybe its just because I’m the oldest sibling that I sympathize with him so much.

Blade of the Immortal is done in a completely different artistic style. While Inuyasha is solid simple lines, Blade o f the Immortal is full of crosshatching, sometimes messy lines. It’s geared to a more mature audience. It’s a series I’ve avoided for a long time just because I knew I’d fall in love with the violent samurai story of revenge. And so I caved, and current am on volume 14, page 67 out of 24 volumes.

But Rin bugs me; She’s pathetically weak trying to defeat a man who’s destroyed so many Dojos. She is just being unreasonable. Though I must say, she’s not the worst. At least she trains and admits she’s pathetic. I’m rather apathetic towards her I guess. Manji though, he and those boys of the Itto-Ryu, and the Assassins keep me reading, Hyakurin especially.

But, I honestly haven’t read enough of the series to write anything really concise nor conclusive about it. I want to though, I’m seriously too into Samurai manga not too.