Inuyasha Manga: 001 The Sealed-Away Boy

WHAT? This isn't Yu-Gi-Oh! Surprise!

The blog is called Manga Snark because while I was focused on Yu-Gi-Oh for a time, I wanted to start reading and reviewing other manga too. Inuyasha happens to be my very favorite manga of all time (yes, I'm one of THOSE), so I wanted to take a closer look at it and share my thoughts, if not my disdainful disregard for enjoying things in a puritanically sunny way. That's right, I'm going to be just as snarky with this one as I am with Yu-Gi-Oh, and just as ruthlessly critical of writing decisions.

I've already read this one multiple times, so I know that I have my work cut out for me. Inuyasha contains some of the most irritatingly frequent use of flippant resurrection I have ever seen, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Oh no! He took the village necklace! That was some bangin' bling too!!

Yeah, whatever dude, I think these people have more important things to worry about than you being a loud thief taking some jewelry. Unless, of course, that jewelry happens to be magical and dangerous, which the boy taking it seems to imply by saying that it's going to turn him into a REAL boy youkai. Someone calls out "Inuyasha" and he turns just enough to be shot in the chest with an arrow! AWESOME!

A girl covered in blood on her right side is holding a bow and looking pretty pissed off right now as she glares at this Inuyasha fellow she pinned to a tree behind him with her arrow. Wait, he IS pinned to the tree, right? Crap, that's a LONG ASS arrow. Inuyasha identifies her as Kikyou

Suddenly, the page is flipped as Inuyasha calls Kikyou a bitch on the LEFT side of the page. Kikyou's blood is also now on her left side as she stumbles forward through some burnt out rubble to grab that bling Inuyasha stole from a pool of blood on the ground. She can't believe Inuyasha did such a horrible thing for the artifact.

Soon, Kikyou is approached by others, all commenting on how awful her left-side wound is. There's a girl on the other side of her who calls her sister and urges her to get a bandage on that or something. It worked for her punched out eye, apparently. Kikyou says it's already too late to stop her bleeding, so she tells the girl, Kaede, to listen to her. She instructs Kaede to burn the necklace with her body, to prevent it from falling into the clutches of evil again.

Sucks to be them!

Cut to Tokyo in 1997! It's dated OUTRIGHT, too, so you know I'm too old to like it anymore. From within a shrine that advertises all kinds of services from contacting gods to exorcisms, someone is asked about this Shikon no Tama that the two kiddos above went and died for. An old man inside explains that a replica of the jewel he hold up by the keychain attached can keep your house safe and your business booming.

A young girl he's talking to asks if they're going to sell them as a cat in her lap looks curiously at the dangling ball. Well, girl, it has the "Sunset Shrine" logo on it, doesn't it? Her grandfather attempts to tell young Kagome about the history of this replica, but she interrupts him while she teases the cat with the fakey fake jewel. She asks if he remembered that it was her birthday tomorrow. He lets out a chuckle and produces a wrapped box from... somewhere. He asks her how he could forget the adorable birthday of such an adorable grandchild.

I would be more worried about her making the cat sick with that nasty-ass thing, but you know grandpas got to have their priorities.

Kagome begins to exposit how she and her mother, brother, and grandfather live in a very old shrine, so everything is full of history. Even the pickles that her grandfather wants to pontificate upon at meal times, before Kagome shuts him down by reminding him that they were from someone named Ujiko-san. Exposition resumed, Kagome says that the Goshinboku tree on the grounds is 500 years old, and there's a water well concealed in a building that's supposed to have some sort of legend behind it. Historical as they are, Kagome never had much interest in them and always forgot the stories her grandfather told.

She claims to have never thought about why she has so much trouble remembering them until the day of her fifteenth birthday, when she's running off to school with a shout that she's leaving. Well, could it be that you just didn't care? Teenagers are notorious for forgetting about things they don't give a shit for.

Anyway, a little boy leans out of that building containing the well she mentioned earlier, the brother whom she calls Souta. Souta's looking a little nervous when he calls her over, and she tells him not to play in the shrine. He tells her that Buyo is in there, and Kagome asks if she's actually IN the well. Quite the reverse on that Lassie trope, huh?

Souta says he thinks Buyo's down there, but he hesitates in fetching her. Kagome asks why he won't go down there already, and he answers that it's a bit creepy. Kagome mocks him for his lack of courage, essentially telling him to man-up. Wow, Kagome, you're kind of an asshole to your brother, aren't you? They hear a scratching noise from somewhere on the edge of the well and Souta jumps behind Kagome for cover, shouting that there's something down there. Kagome reminds him that it's probably that cat he's looking for. The well continues to make that scratching sound.

Kagome, realizing that she's not going to talk Souta into accomplishing what he went in there for with her assholery, descends the stairs herself, muttering. Getting closer to the well, she hears the scratching noise again and is amazed to find that the sound is coming from INSIDE it. Buyo comes to rub against her ankle and she screams. Souta, heart pounding, yells at Kagome for scaring him like that as she picks up that damn cat. As she's preparing to lecture him, probably on the fact that he's the one who was too afraid to go down there in the first place, he stares at a point behind her.

One of the planks covering the well creaks aside. Souta stutters out a warning, but it's too late.

SHIT! It's like that creepy true-life story about that guy living in someone's cabinet for months, except this is a well! And a six-armed woman! And it's even weirder than that, because that six-armed woman appears to be attached to a LONG-ASS winding spine trailing into darkness as she pulls Kagome into the well with her. I'd be screaming up a storm, but Kagome's mouth is agape and silent as she wonders what the hell is going on. The six-armed woman talks about how great it feels to have her power returning.

WOAH, BOUNDARIES. You need to get your Gene Simmons tongue up off Kagome, there, weird bug-lady! Technical issue, here: yes, she looks like a bug when her flesh all grows back, but why does she have a SPINE? Centipedes and the like are invertebrates with exoskeletons, she shouldn't have bones.

Whatevz.

The tongue thing is the one thing about this situation that Kagome deems disgusting, and she thrusts out her hand to push away Six-Arms McGee as she yells at her to get the fuck outta her space. A light flashes from Kagome's palm and blasts Six-Arms McGee in the face, forcing her away and tearing off one of her arms in the process. Six-Arms McGee curses Kagome as she falls away into the darkness of the void they're suspended in, insisting that she won't let go of that Shikon no Tama.

Kagome tries the word Shikon out, looking confused. Eventually, her feet touch solid ground and she falls to her knees in the dirt, panting. She looks up and sees the mouth of the well above her, even more confused than before.

Yeah, you wish. Kagome thinks about the things Six-Arms McGee said as she fell away, about that Shikon thingy. She asks herself if she's heard the phrase before. Seriously? It was just yesterday. I'm beginning to think this girl has a worse memory than I do. She at least remembers that she shouldn't sit at the bottom of a well for the rest of her life, and thinks that she has to get herself out of there while looking up at the mouth.

She screams for that darling brother of hers to get her grandfather, but there's no reply. Instead of waiting, Kagome begins to climb the dirt wall of the well, muttering about how Souta ran away on her while grasping at some vines to pull herself up. I guess that's what you should expect when you're an asshole to your family members. She makes it all the way up the side, sweating and impressing me pretty hardcore, and is amazed by the fact that she's not in a building, but outside.

What, you didn't notice the sky when you were looking up out of the well from the bottom? How do you not notice that, Kagome? She's stunned that she fell into the well in the shrine, but managed to come out of it outside, but staying put is just not in her nature. She wanders around in the wilderness, calling out for her family, thinking that her house just disappeared. Kagome recognizes the big Goshinboku from the shrine's grounds and runs towards it, convinced that her house must be somewhere nearby. However, she stops cold when she gets close enough to the tree to see its base.

Iconic. Also creepy. Kagome stares at this guy for a moment, noting that he's a boy, but seemingly not much else. Like how he has an arrow sticking out of his chest. Must have totally overlooked that one, or she wouldn't have bothered asking what he was doing. She climbs up the roots twisted around him, trying to gain his clearly nonexistent attention. She DOES manage to notice, when she climbs up close to him, that he has animal ears on the top of his head. Yup, those aren't human ears at all, and she continues to stare before admitting that she kind of wants to invade this corpse's personal space to touch them.

I hope she won't make this rudeness a habit or anything.

That's a fair question, Kagome: what the hell ARE you doing over there? Kagome and whomever is asking this question have something in common, because they're acting before receiving a reply. Kagome finds arrows embedding themselves into the tree around her and she presses herself to the boy on the tree as she watches the deadly projectiles come distressingly close to hitting her. Whomever is on the bow-side of the encounter informs her that she's standing in a forbidden zone, and asks if she's a foreigner. She just looks behind her sheepishly.

Cut to what looks like a few buildings peppered among some rice paddies. Someone asks for confirmation that Kagome was found in Inuyasha's forest, and another person says that yes, a strange young girl in even stranger clothing was picked up in there. The strange young girl in question is indignantly proclaiming that no one had to tie her hands and feet like they did as she sits awkwardly in the center of a village. Some villagers are going about business as usual, but others are staring at her and speculating about who she is. Is she a spy, some other sign of impending war, or a fox in disguise?

Kagome is wondering too, though more about WHERE she is rather than WHO these people are. She says it looks a bit like a scene out of the feudal period. Someone requests that everyone step aside for the approaching Priestess Kaede.

Technically Kagome, in this place, YOU'RE the one who stands out a bit.

The eyepatch gives away the fact that this is the same Kaede from the opening panels, which means that it's been quite a while since then. A closer look at her quizzical face when getting her first sight of Kagome shows that her eyepatch is a FUCKING SWORD GUARD AND THAT IS THE COOLEST FREAKIN' THING. This woman is clearly the baddest of asses.

Kaede grabs Kagome's chin and leans in REAL close, wanting to get a better look at her face. Rude, but to be fair, she looks pretty old and obviously doesn't have the best eyesight anyway due to the missing eye. So, you know. While examining her, Kaede asks Kagome to try and look more intelligent, and she hasn't got an excuse for that. It's just plain ol' rude. Kagome is understandably miffed until Kaede says that she resembles Kikyou, at which she's confused.

A little while later, in a hut at the base of a torii gate, Kaede is explaining to Kagome that Kikyou was her sister and the priestess that protected their village. She has a short flashback of Kikyou standing regally upon a hill, and another of the day Kikyou requested Kaede burn the Shikon no Tama with her body. She tells Kagome that fifty years have gone by since that day, and she was only a child when her sister died. Suddenly, the subject changes.

I see that old age hasn't been the kindest to Kaede's memory. Then again, being young hasn't done Kagome's memory any favors either. Peas in a pod, these two.

Kagome asks if this is Tokyo, and Kaede admits she's never heard of such a place, asking if that's the province from which Kagome came to them. Kagome puts on a forced smile and says that they'll go with province, yeah... She also says that she wouldn't mind getting back home, but wonders also how she's supposed to get back.

A commotion erupts outside the little hut and Kaede gets up to shove aside the covering on the door to see what's going on, followed closely by Kagome. A horse that's had a great chunk of flesh torn out of its belly, exposing its ribs, falls on its back in front of Kagome. She shrieks.

Six-Arms McGee! You're back! She celebrates her and Kagome's reunion by skittering towards her and demanding the Shikon no Tama. Kagome still only seems to vaguely recall the term, but Kaede asks her if she's really carrying it, seeming to know exactly what Six-Arms McGee is on about. Kagome says she doesn't know, but she does know one thing: Six-Arms McGee is after her for what she's supposedly carrying, and she needs to lead away the destructive creature before it murders everyone in the village to get to her.

One of the men from the village says that none of their weapons are doing any damage, and Kaede suggests that they have to lure it back to the old dry well. Kagome may not know about the Shikon no Tama, but she certainly knows about a dry well. Kaede says that it's the one in Inuyasha's forest, and Kagome knows it's the one she came out of. Kagome asks which way the forest is, and Kaede tells her its in the east, where Kagome can see a light haloing the woods. She takes off in that direction while asking for a confirmation about the light, but not waiting around for one.

I'm beginning to see a pattern here. Six-Arms McGee gives chase after Kagome, begging her to wait like she's a younger sibling trying to hang out with her sister and her older friends. Weird. Meanwhile, Kaede is dumbfounded by what Kagome just said, because normal people don't usually see the aura coming off the evil forest.

Within the forest, Inuyasha's slumber on the tree is brought to an end with a twitch of his ears and a pulse of power. He opens his eyes, already glaring.

Bro, if you were dead, you wouldn't be moving. Stop being overly-dramatic and claiming you were killed. As for you, Kagome, did you even SEE that thing tearing up the village?? I wouldn't have counted on a rescue, if I were you.

So, what did I think about this chapter overall? Obviously, the first time I read it, I found it compelling enough. I have, after all, read this whole manga multiple times at this point. This will probably be the fourth now? I was a little afraid, because I've read it so much, that I'd not only lost the reasons why I liked it to begin with, but also miss all the little things that worked and didn't work throughout.

Here's the meat of what I think drew me to this story and kept me stuck to it all these years: It's a shonen manga with a female protagonist whose femaleness isn't the crux of who she is. Right away, we get the sense that she's practical, she's no-nonsense, but at the same time she's adventurous and willing to take risks. She realizes things quickly, including when she's got to rely on herself for help, but doesn't give up hope that someone might come along to get her out of a pickle. She's also kind and willing to take dangerous actions in order to help others.

This is A LOT more than we usually get to work with when it comes to female characters, even the main ones. The most we got on Anzu during her first appearance was a verbal description of being hard-headed, and I wasn't sure what that meant in relation to her fairly mild, if not cheeky, behavior and dialogue. True, Anzu is FAR from the main character in Yu-Gi-Oh, and it's not a totally fair comparison to make, but it still says something when I've always gotten the feeling that Anzu was just there to be a female presence and not an actual character. She's not as developed as her male counterparts, so I often have to GUESS what's going on with her.

I don't have to guess with Kagome; it's all SHOWN in her actions and speech what kind of person she is. She is out there DOING things at her earliest convenience, and I don't have to rely on the author to TELL me who she is and what her motivations are. Her character is very well set up right from the outset, and that's an important factor in making readers care about her and her present/future struggles. She's a heavy draw and asset to this story.

What's also a great thing right off the bat is that the three points in time represented here are switched between and explained well. We had the beginning conflict between Inuyasha and Kikyou, modern Tokyo, and fifty years AFTER that initial conflict opening the manga. I was never confused about where we were, what was happening, or how we got to these places. It was clean-cut and straightforward.

The monster/horror element here is strong, and I'm such a fan of horror that I always eat that part up when I'm reading this comic. The monster design on the centipede lady was phenomenal, despite how I was making fun of the fact that she had a spine above. The spine WAS kind of necessary to the imagery, because that was what the flesh was returning to, and the centipede lady's impact wouldn't have had the same shocking impact without it. 

I wasn't a big fan of that exposition at the beginning with Kagome outright telling everyone that she lived at a shrine, though. It's less clunky than in Yu-Gi-Oh, because at least you know what's exposition and what's speech. Still, I think THIS Takahashi could have thought of a better way to get that information across, because it's a visual medium and pictures are worth a thousand words, as they say.

Still, all in all, I'm just as impressed by this as I've always been, and I hope I don't come across as too biased when I say that this had the development, drive, purpose, and action that every first chapter should have.

But we've still got a LOOOOOONG way to go, folks. Just because it draws you in doesn't mean it's going to hold onto you. We'll see.