Inuyasha Manga: 166 Untied Seals

Yes, please untie the seals. I always feel a little bad watching them perform tricks for treats ever since Blackfish came out, and that wasn't even about seals. I'm sure there's one or two out there about them being abused as well, but I just don't have the heart to watch them. I had to stop watching Our Planet just because of the infamous walrus scene, which went to show how fucked NON-incarcerated marine wildlife are these days too.

So is it actually better to leave them tied up or not? Boy have WE cause something of a dilemma, huh?

I can tell you one thing, though, THIS creature probably should have remained tied up. Also, he is not a seal.

Juuroumaru rasps through his copious amounts of drool as Naraku's head rustles in his absence, and Miroku comments that Naraku's body was a puppet after all. I think you guys should just assume every time you encounter Naraku thus forth, it's just a fucking puppet. Why should he meet up with you guys in person when he can send a dummy in his place? Hell, I'D do that too, if I could, and I don't believe I have an enemy in the whole world. Just the bit of social anxiety EVERYONE seems to have these days.

Miroku still speculates on what it means that Juuroumaru knocked the head off his supposed ally. Besides the obvious issue that Naraku is a DICK and no one's ally, apparently. Sango comes to the conclusion that Juuroumaru is just an indiscriminate killer. Kagome wonders if that's why Juuroumaru was chained and masked as he continues to ooze drool at them all. Taking his time being indiscriminate over there, huh?

But that's over, because he finally lunges at Inuyasha, forcing him to leap out of the way as the ground at his feet is shattered by Juuroumaru's fist. Juuroumaru glances up at Inuyasha, STILL drooling like a mad dog. Inuyasha is severely weirded out by this drooling and demands that Juuroumaru cut that shit out right now.

Inuyasha's friends all gape at the scene as Juuroumaru reels backward, drool arcing through the air. And he's down for the count, face down in the crumbling ground. Inuyasha speechlessly watches Juuroumaru, first still held across his chest as he stares, because Juuroumaru pulls his head out of the ground and stands back up to face Inuyasha again, also wordless. Inuyasha wonders what's up with this guy, who would let himself be struck so easily. At first, he considers the possibility of a trap, but he thinks that Juuroumaru isn't shrewd enough for anything but the straightforward route.

With his conclusion reached, Inuyasha goes for Juuroumaru this time, cracking his claws and declaring that he's going to crush Juuroumaru at once. But when Inuyasha hits him with Sankon Tessou, Juuroumaru hits back with an equal-looking blow, and Miroku observes with alarm that they appear to be matched.

Suddenly...

... That was a weird thing for an arm to do.

Kagome shouts Inuyasha's name while he lands a distance from Juuroumaru, wiping off his bleeding cheek with a curse. He wonders what that was just now, because it seemed a little like Juuroumaru extended his arm back there, or transformed his body in some way. I don't know why this would be much of a surprise, considering he's seen weirder things in the past 160+ chapters.

Juuroumaru rasps some more, but he appears to have taken Inuyasha's advice and is no longer drooling it up.

Elsewhere, one of Kouga's followers asks if he's okay, and he answers in the affirmative. They're on that cliff again, Two-Tone asking if this means Kouga met up with Naraku then. This also gets an affirmative, which causes Two-Tone and Mohawk to gape silently at Kouga a moment. Two-Tone asks why Kouga would come back, then, while Mohawk exasperatedly suggests in could be because Kouga just ran away. Kouga scoffs and informs them that his intuition was giving him a bad feeling about the seeming idiot that Naraku brought with him. That weirdo gave Kouga the creeps, and his intuition is never wrong about the creeps, no sir.

Kouga scoffs about how Inuyasha is a fool, because he's undoubtedly getting his ass handed to him by Juuroumaru by Kouga's estimation. Two-Tone asks if Kouga really met Inuyasha back there, and hesitantly suggests that it may not be their business, and trails off for Mohawk to delicately say that Kagome would be in danger too, being with Inuyasha 24/7 and all.

I wish I could be as comfortable with the fact that an extremely important thought never crossed my mind as Kouga is here. Doesn't question his own intelligence, just blames everyone else for not reminding him of obvious shit he SHOULD care about. Carefree as hell.

Meanwhile, Inuyasha leaps away from another of Juuroumaru's blows, which gouges the ground so deep it uproots a fucking TREE. Out of the corner of his eye, Inuyasha perceives something streaking for his face and manages just in time to lift an arm and get sliced there instead of his cheek again. As he finally pulls Tessaiga from its sheath, he calls Juuroumaru a bastard, swinging down at Juuroumaru's offending extending arm. It even rhymes. The arm seems to fly off into the bushes, and Kagome suggests this is what got him. Shippou clings to her shoulder, making the same assumption that Inuyasha cut off Juuroumaru's arm, though his is in the form of a question. Almost as if he read the script.

Inuyasha stares at Juuroumaru, sweating up a storm as he recognizes that he didn't FEEL a cut go through, thinking that whatever that was that darted into the bushes must have separated from Juuroumaru of its own accord. Juuroumaru lunges for Inuyasha again, and it's like his fangs are getting longer? He also has this really dazed look on his face, so I don't think he's fully engaged in this fight.

Not that he NEEDS to be if he's keeping Inuyasha on his toes with so little effort.

When Juuroumaru lands in the dirt, Inuyasha and the peanut gallery are equally surprised to see TWO sets of claws digging into the soil, still attached. Shippou seems particularly offended by both arms still being there. Inuyasha just gapes as he thinks he KNEW whatever it was that came off Juuroumaru earlier wasn't his arm.

He's distracted a bit too long, though.

Inuyasha just keeps having to close up that same chest wound, doesn't he?

While Miroku focuses on the fact that the blow came from the ground, Kagome and Shippou shout Inuyasha's name over the serious injury. Inuyasha groans and kneels on the ground, glaring at the blurred thing that ripped through his chest to get back to Juuroumaru. When it rests next to Juuroumaru, we can finally make out some details, like a long tail, creepy arm-like appendages that bend at the joint to end in bone-scythes instead on regular hands and fingers. and a little head covered in a similar hair to Juuroumaru. Oh, and Inuyasha's blood. Lots of Inuyasha's blood.

Everyone has to ask what the FUCK it is.

I don't think ANYONE has an answer as to what that thing is except nightmare fuel, but it certainly turns a count of FOUR Naraku incarnations into FIVE. There goes that unlucky number four rant I had a couple of chapters ago.

But wasn't it nice Inuyasha's guts got a compliment there?

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I'm very pleased with the monster design for this one, and not just the bizarre new one in the last couple of pages. Juuroumaru's constant drooling through those fangs at the beginning just had my stomach churning. There's an element of disgust to horror that I think is over exaggerated in a lot of the genre, but RT strikes a good balance, even in the overt instances like this. It's not gross enough to make you stop reading, but just enough to have you kind of flinching away from the screen.

But, of course I would be remiss not to mention how much the little twin-creature of Juuroumaru made my skin crawl with its insane design. The fact that it has this little human head mounted on a not even REMOTELY human body is so bizarre it's beyond words, and I like it. I also find it a really fun twist that Juuroumaru, mostly human in form, doesn't speak, but the little creature DOES. You'd think it would be the other way around, but it's little subversions like that keeping me excited to see more youkai design in the future.

This chapter had a good pace, with the action moving along pretty nicely, even if I thought Juuroumaru paused a tad too long at a couple of intervals. Since he doesn't talk, it's hard to come up with a reason why he would do so, other than for a convenient moment for the characters to convey thoughts to the audience. But these were at least better than the big one in the last chapter, which threw me out of the story a bit.

Breaking up the chapter in the middle with Kouga was actually a pretty good way to insert the comedy, because there's only so many times we can see Juuroumaru swiping at Inuyasha before it was bound to get boring, and his character needed a little bit of time to be inclined to draw the heavy Tessaiga. He's not going to want to do it right away now, so he has to really be PUSHED, but the audience shouldn't be forced to endure the same moves over and over until HE finally decides it's time to bust out the tool he can't wield for very long anymore. I appreciate RT giving us a little breather while Inuyasha got shoved in that direction.

And if anyone was still skeptical of what I said before about Kouga not REALLY being all that interested in Kagome, here you go. Guy didn't even THINK about her safety until someone else reminded him she could be in danger. He's just interested in pissing contests with Inuyasha, mark my words.