Inuyasha Manga: 293 Division

Not interested, Chapter. I'm disenchanted with math in fiction ever since I picked up a book at the store expecting math to factor into the plot when it was mentioned on the jacket that the protagonist was a math genius, and it had nothing to do with anything whatsoever. So disappointing. Besides, I don't come to Inuyasha for MATH. I come to Inuyasha because I am incredibly easy to entertain. Always have been, ever since I was a baby and could keep myself occupied for hours with a set of plastic keys. 

In case anyone wanted the simplest explanation as to why my tastes are like this. 

If they're going to lock up youkai like that, maybe the priests should figure out a more permanent solution than a seal that will just dissolve when they kick the bucket.

Anyway, the wreckage of this place has a swirling vortex of sus energy behind it, and Inuyasha notes that he can smell them - or as the translator put it: he can "feel" the scent of nothing but a few small fry youkai. An odd way to phrase that, but okay. Miroku says these youkai are hiding, but almost immediately a rumble issues from the wrecked shrine and three giant serpentine heads with hair down the length of them burst out from it, hissing at Inuyasha, who has drawn Tessaiga.

Well. That's that done, then. Cross it off the list of boring chores for the day.

A narrow sky transition panel leads us into the gang crowded into a wide doorway, Miroku sitting and talking to what looks like your typical headman, given how many of them we've seen before, and a couple of village men loitering behind him. Miroku asks about the similar occurrences to this shrine decimation rumored to be happening elsewhere in the area, and the headman says that everyone is talking about how priests and monks are being murdered everywhere. Miroku begins to ask who in the world could do such a thing, and the headman interrupts him to say that's the weird thing - people say it's the work of a woman and a baby, of all things. Kagome, Inuyasha, and Sango look alert at this, alarmed but not shocked by any means. Kagome in particular is thinking of the baby, and immediately fills in the gaps with Shnooky. Inuyasha also automatically deduces that the woman in this scenario has to be Kagura. That one was a gimme. 

Presumably that very night, we cut to another temple out in the woods. Inside, two disciples are kneeling on the floor worriedly asking another old priest standing with his back to them in the middle of the room whether this place will also be attacked in time. The priest answers that it won't be "in time" at all.

Is Miroku the only one of these guys allowed to have hair or WHAT??

A voice from outside among the trees hums that this priest seems to have a few more abilities going for him than the other ones before him. A bit more of a spiritual sense, so to speak. Then there's a volley of blades tearing through the open doorway, and the disciples yelp in fear, but the priest whips out a loop of beads as he acknowledges the youkai's presence. The beads appear to project a dome barrier around him that disperse the blades. 

A guy with all these extra abilities wouldn't just stand there and get whacked by wind blades, Kagura. Come on girl.

The priest scoffs that this must be the woman and baby he's heard so much about, adding silently that his spidey senses are telling him the baby is WAY worse than the woman. I generally find babies to be worse than damn near everything than most people. Except crying. They're experts at that. Shnooky chuckles, speculating that the priest might just know something about the border between this life and the next, at which the priest is quite alarmed, and his disciples cry out that the infant spoke. 

Kagura waves her fan a little, asking the priest if he'll be able to handle her next attack. She doesn't give him time to respond, just throwing out a "Dance of the Dragon Serpent" as she draws a wide circle with the fan in front of her. This produces a few whirling spirals of wind, the points of which aim straight for the priest. He raises the beads again to put up his personal barrier, but this and his groans of effort last a surprisingly short amount of time.

The spidey senses weren't enough.

As he goes down, the disciples peek out from behind a statue with their mouths agape at the fate that befell their priest. In the shadows just beyond his bleeding body, the sound effects indicate that Kagura steps forward, but dude's not dead yet. He grunts in the effort it takes him to reach up and under the collar of his robe. 

Shnooky informs the priest that he's going to take a teensy peek into his soul while Kagura holds him out and lowers him down onto the priest's gushing chest. It only takes Shnooky a moment to grimace at the revelation that something bad is about to happen to him, but it's also a moment too late; he's blasted right the FUCK off the priest's chest with an oddly vertical-looking slash through his little body, much to Kagura's alarm.

... You're probably not going to get any pay for this botched sitter job, Kagura. 

The priest holds up the weapon with which he dispatched Shnooky, a relic much like the butsugu on Hijiri Island, but with three prongs on each end instead of a single point. Then the priest gives out all at once, his arm falling as he dies. The cowardly disciples shiver from behind the statue, fretting over their honored priest, but not daring to go over and see if he can be at all helped by this point. It's probz because badass Kagura is still there, resting her fan on her shoulder as she regards the two halves of baby lying on the floor critically. She is clearly annoyed. 

Narrow sky transition panel with bonus trees! Inuyasha and crew are racing through the forest, Shippou, Sango, and Miroku on Kirara and Kagome on Inuyasha's back. Miroku asks about the blood smell Inuyasha is detecting, and Inuyasha tells him it's fresh. He adds that he also smells incense, so he's betting there's another tragedy at a temple. Not a half-bad deduction there, Sherlock.

They show up at the temple where the two disciples are at last kneeling next to their murdered priest, and recoil at MORE youkai coming in there. Miroku steps forward to declare them totes not suspicious people. Says the most suspicious of all of them. One look at the priest lying dead in a pool of his blood is enough for Sango to suggest that this is Kagura's doing while she comes into the building behind Inuyasha, and he confirms that he can smell her in here too. Or "feel" her smell in here, as the translator has put it again. 

Miroku is interrogating the disciples, asking if they're absolutely sure that the ones who did the priest in were a woman and a baby. As if there's anyone who could be mistaken about something so ludicrous. One of the disciples affirms their story, and spoke to how bravely the priest took on the weird duo. They brag on him for SOMEHOW managing to destroy the youkai's infant companion, because infants are notoriously difficult to kill. Inuyasha and Kagome both seem to perk up at this news.

Genuinely a relief to her, I'm sure.

The disciples insist that they are not mistaken, and the little baby was cut clean in half by their master's spiritual powers. Calm down, bros, I believe you. Of course, that doesn't mean the Inuyasha gang isn't still a little skeptical, as they're about to explain. Sango turns to Miroku, asking what he thinks, and Miroku slowly states that the baby was the monster heart of Naraku birthed in Mt. Hakurei, a part of him that he went out of his way to help escape when Mt. Hakurei was crumbling. Sango picks up what he's putting down, and says that this probz means the baby is vital to Naraku's plans, to which statement Miroku agrees. Kagome is also thinking that it's like this kid died WAY too quickly. 

Well, we ARE almost 300 chapters into this story with nary a sign of the plot ramping up to a climax, so I can see where she's coming from on that one. 

Meanwhile, Kagura is flying on her giant feather, a bundle still in her arms. I suppose leaving the infant corpse behind would have been a tactical disaster - don't want the enemy to reverse-engineer that baby! She notices the Saimyoushou hovering around her, and indicate a path to the ground where it looks like little Kanna is standing with her mirror all stoic-like. Landing in a kneel in front of Kanna, Kagura greets her and asks if Naraku told her to come here. Kanna nods in silent response. 

Kagura flings two separate bundles to the ground, each showing just a peek of half a baby face. Kagura drawls that this is just how it ended up, and asks if the reason Kanna was sent here was to scold her or something. Kanna kneels down to pick up one half of a baby, then starts to walk away. Kagura has picked up the other half again, demanding to know where Kanna is going, indicating the half she's dangling from her fingers to indicate that she's left it behind. Kanna pauses and turns to tell Kagura she should protect the half she's holding.

The little guy would have wanted it this way: retirement in the most violent manner possible. 

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I'm kind of amused, because this chapter felt like one big ol' lampshade. Between everyone having to be skeptical that a priest managed to kill a BABY, to Kagome admitting that it seemed a little too soon for a major cog in Naraku's new machine to eat it, to Kanna speculating that this could actually all be for the BEST really - it's like a giant signpost declaring that RT was already getting super bored with this kid. I mean, how many times can you reasonably write a baby being placed on a dying man's chest in a shounen comic? Shnooky was NOT a sustainable character, and it's just funny that RT had to actually put him in the story for a couple of chapters before she realized that a LITERAL INFANT wasn't going to rivet readers. 

Also, Kagura's flippancy in how she treated the bisected corpse of Shnooky made me laugh out loud at the end there. She's just flinging it around like she's living in a "dead baby joke" and it brings out the lulz. Kagura saving the content once again with her unique charm, we love to see it.

Yu-Gi-Oh Movie: Dark Side of Dimensions

 It's nearly 3 hours long. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. XD

Inuyasha Manga: 292 A Special Woman

Oh, like I've never heard THAT one before! It's always one of two things: you're too special and precious for him to "ruin", or you're so special and precious that you can't be exposed to the horrors of the world and he's the only one who can keep you safe. Either way, this phrase is bad news, and I've both experienced and heard some shady shit go down when connected with it. Chapter, do we honestly have to do this? Can you just spare me?

Although, to be fair, Sango is pretty special to be able to sustain an attack on a man like this. That combat training against youkai really put her a cut above the rest.

Miroku is shown clenching his injured arm as it continues to drip blood, and tells Sango that he's going to expel the youkai that's hanging out in her gut. She, of course, doesn't respond with anything but the creepy vapor coming out of her possessed mouth. And another swing at his head, this time with the sword. Miroku ducks that too, grabbing his staff off the ground as he does so, and raises it to block yet another slash of the blade. 

Sango bends back her arm to put a little more force behind her next swing, bringing the sword down in the middle of the staff that Miroku's holding defensively across his chest. He counteracts the force of the blow and throws her backward, where she lands on the rock on her back with a thud, and the sword is knocked out of her hand toward Kirara, who looks down at it and recoils a little. Miroku is on top of Sango, but not in the sexy way he wants; he's got his fist speeding down toward her stomach to try and make good on that promise he made a moment ago while he pins her with the rest of his body, but...

She's going to slice him into pieces before he gets CLOSE to punching that salamander-infant out of her.

Sango deftly takes this opportunity to jump backwards out from under Miroku while he watches in a bit of a daze. He smiles, admitting she's fucking SCARY to have as an enemy. Sango lunges at him again, and this time slashes his OTHER arm, forearm this time, as he holds the staff up again in defense. But now she's close enough to grab by the arm, and he doesn't waste any more time.

Yeah. Friends.

Sango coughs, and the slimy little egg the headwoman was shoving in her face pops out, splatting on the ground. Immediately, Sango goes limp against Miroku's shoulder, not responding to his calling her name. Miroku sinks into a sitting position, cradling Sango but still BEYOND exhausted, and breathes a sigh of relief that he made it through the whole ordeal. 

Inuyasha comes leaping onto the scene, Kagome and Shippou on his back, with both he and Kagome yelling for their friends. Once Kagome has dismounted Inuyasha (stay out of that gutter, kids), she runs over to Miroku and demands to know what happened, observing that he's wounded. Miroku just confirms that he is indeed wounded, clearly without the energy to really respond fully, or maybe just still recovering his head. 

Shippou has knelt next to the egg and comments on it curiously, because all he's seen so far are salamanders. Miroku seems to have gotten back enough sense to explain that it's a "Body-Snatcher" egg, and says that if the egg had hatched, he might have gotten hurt a lot worse. Or straight-up killed. That's always a possibility. Inuyasha seems confused that Sango would be controlled by the egg, given it's not like her to make a mistake like that, what with her youkai-extermination experience and all. Kagome repeats that Sango got very upset and lost it when she saw Miroku getting all cozy with another woman. Miroku looks exhausted again, picking up on the suggestion that it's HIS fault this happened. 

I'm not going to say it's his fault, but I am going to say he probably shouldn't be surprised that Sango beat his ass so hard after seeing him completely ignore her feelings, even if she WAS possessed at the time.

So, in in the next narrow sky transition panel, there's some light farewell conversation regarding a couple of someones going back to their hometown together. Shinosuke and Wakana confirm, the former more than the latter. I thought that village they came from was all burned out and abandoned? Oh well. Shinosuke begins to thank Inuyasha and his crew for all they did, but Inuyasha dismisses this gratitude, saying that they didn't really pay all that much attention to them anyway. Such an Inuyasha way of saying he doesn't want to take credit for an incidental good thing that happened because he was up to something else, lol. Because Miroku is not in the sending-off party (just Kagome and Shippou are there), Shinosuke expresses his desire to also thank HIM for his part in his and Wakana's happy ending, but Inuyasha tells him not to worry about it.

Don't know about confusing - more delicate than anything else.

Sango begins to apologize, saying it's all her fault that he got hurt, which, yeah, fair. Miroku looks utterly ridiculous with a Band-Aid slapped across his cheek, especially for at slash that might have required stitches in reality. He tells Sango not to worry about it, proceeding to apologize for his bad habit with women causing her some distress, adding that even Kagome was a bit peeved with him over it this time. Honestly, it IS about time someone got irritated with him over his shitty behavior, although I have a feeling that there's not enough emphasis on the more problematic aspects of it...

Sango twitches uncomfortably, stuttering that it's not something he has to apologize about, saying she was just being careless, and his actions really had nothing to do with the thing. She's kind of turned away from him and they remain silent a moment while Miroku looks at her. After the pause, he says he's going to tell her his feelings, and he wants her to listen to them all the way through to the end. She looks over at him with wary interest.

And Miroku takes the title prize!

On the other side of a nearby tree, Inuyasha, Kagome, and Shippou sit and eavesdrop, Kagome and Shippou just a little off to the side and half-hidden in the foliage so they can better see what is going on. Inuyasha is just leaning carefree against the tree, though, snarking that Miroku is STILL going to fondle other women's butts regardless of all this "special" talk. Kagome hushes him.

Meanwhile, Miroku tells a blushing Sango in heart-pounding nervous wreckage that he never thought he could trust and rely on a woman to the degree he has with her. That doesn't sound sneakily misogynistic at ALL. Miroku then goes on to say that BECAUSE of his trust and reliance on her, he feels like he can love her as a woman. DEFINITELY not sneakily misogynistic! Sango expression in profile is shadowed and frozen, and Kagome from behind the bushes looks absolutely furious at this rejection. Miroku concludes that Sango is a friend to fight alongside, and this is how he feels. 

Sango hangs her head, and the peanut gallery is up in arms - Shippou asks if Miroku is REALLY saying that Sango is just a friend to him ("friendzoning" term fans, eat your hear out), and an infuriated Kagome says that she'll never forgive him for how mean he's being right now. Inuyasha lazily twists to look around the tree, the very picture of boredom and not giving a shit. 

Sango speaks up, stuttering that she knew that already, without him having to tell her, tears welling in her eyes. She's fully turned away from him, but she's trembling in holding back her emotions, saying that it's not like she thought he'd be in love with her or anything. Miroku looks at her out of his periphery and says her name, but she's already getting to her feet, asking if this conversation is done now, and saying she's off, no doubt to shed a few heartbroken tears. 

But Miroku says that this conversation is actually just getting started. He looks at his cursed hand wrapped in cloth and beads, throwing out a bunch of hypothetical ifs: if when their battle with Naraku is over, if his kazaana is healed, if he's still alive...

Did that about-face in record time, didn't you, Miroku?

But Kagome is suddenly all sunshine now, having forgiven all those "mean" things he said earlier like she said she wouldn't, and sparkling at what she has declared a proposal. I would sooner call it leading Sango on, but okay. Inuyasha and Shippou have leaned a little closer to the scene too, the former suddenly a little interested.

Sango drops back down into a sitting position, and when Miroku says her name again, she mutters into her hands that she will. Suddenly, they're facing each other, and Miroku has grabbed Sango's hands, asking for confirmation that she WILL indeed bear 10 or even 20 of his babies. GIRL, RUUUUUUUN. No, she enthusiastically agrees to that ridiculous number of children. I weep for her future. 

Sango takes this opportunity to suggest that this means he'll do something for HER in return, namely, not cheat on her anymore. I side-eye the word "anymore", given this has been an OFFICIAL relationship for half a second. Miroku just continues grinning at Sango, not answering, so she asks again, squeezing his hand all the harder and looking a little menacing. His expression has devolved into an awkward frozen half-gape. Then he looks away wordlessly, and this refusal to promise such a thing tells Sango all she needs to know about his future propensity to cheat. 

In the bushes, Shippou asks if the conversation is over NOW, Kagome looks on with a supremely irritated face, and Inuyasha says in his renewed boredom that this whole situation will probably get more complicated from here. Odd that he's the reasonable one right now.

Cut to some spooky hills in the misty evening.

They decorate for spooky season earlier every year, it seems.

An old monk in this temple shakily asks who goes there, in response to a shadowed figure stepping toward him in the darkness with a folded fan in hand. He doesn't have any time to react; with a slash and a splatter of blood, he's lying wheezing and nearly dead on the floor. Kagura has knelt next to him, having placed Shnooky on the monk's carved-up torso for obscure but nefarious reasons, I'm sure.

Shnooky lays there on the old guy, listening to him wheeze for a minute or two, while Kagura sits by and wonders what the brat is even DOING. She works out that he's checking out the geezer's heart after she sliced him half-to-death, but beyond that, she's not able to figure much as far as intentions go. Shnooky turns his head and tells Kagura to finish the old dude off after a moment, saying he's all finished up here.

We don't see her putting the poor guy out of his misery, the next panel skipping to the part where they're flying through the air on Kagura's giant feather. Shnooky at last complains that he didn't see anything, and supposes that though the man they killed was a high-ranked holy guy, he was still just a regular old human after all. 

Are you sure baby didn't just need a nap?

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I'm not going to say I HATE it or anything. After all, it was a little awesome seeing Sango ANNIHILATE Miroku as she did, and their relationship isn't the most problematic I've seen in media by a long shot. Still, there are enough problematic elements to this and their conversation about it that it made me cringe a little. Especially when we have a recent example of a relatively mature conversation on relationship status between the main couple not too far removed. 

Beginning with Miroku's part of the conversation, there are so many things about what he said that ruffled my feathers. He fully admits to not really seeing Sango as a romantic option because she's been placed firmly in the battle context. This in and of itself isn't a horribly misogynistic thing, because we compartmentalize relationships like this all the time, and it's hard to compute people outside of a certain relational context once we're used to seeing them fill a particular role in our lives. What irritated me and gave me asshole-vibes (more than usual from him, anyway) was the comment that he never thought he could come to trust and rely on a woman like he has Sango. It implies that he doesn't consider women in general to be reliable or trustworthy most of the time, and that smacks of trying to manipulate Sango into feeling better about his rejection. "See, you're not like other girls, so I can't just use you up and toss you out like those other ones!" just doesn't have the same polite ring to it, I guess.

The other issue I have with his little speech is that there is NOTHING at all connecting the part before Sango gets up to go and the part after that. None whatsoever. Essentially he just told her that he's not attracted to her, but later maybe if he's not dead they can get married? Not much sense is made here. The most generous interpretation I can come up with is that he's saying that once the context of them fighting Naraku together is done and over with, he'll be able to actually see her as an option because they're not both risking death all day every day and can settle down. But it comes across as more another manipulative tactic to avoid any disharmony between them so they can get this job done and he's leading her on so she won't act all EMOTIONAL (read: GIRLY) while they're trying to fight in the future, especially because he DOESN'T answer when she asks point-blank if he'll cheat on her. 

Let's address that too, actually, because Miroku isn't the only one acting like a tool in this interaction. As I said above, Sango is acting REAL entitled to have an exclusive relationship with this guy who is KNOWN for being a bit of a floozy. Of all the things I have against Miroku, being promiscuous or having a libido isn't one of them, because there's nothing inherently wrong with that until he's being abusive toward the people he's with. I think that Sango expecting a guy who is as horny on main as Miroku is to just drop that and become monogamous on a dime is not only unrealistic, but weirdly possessive. They weren't even an official couple before this moment, but the use of the word "anymore" suggests that she was already considering his moves on other women to be a slight against their nonexistent relationship. That's unhinged shit right there. Not cool. 

I've never really been much of a shipper, so I didn't have an opinion on this pairing the first few times I read this series. Going through the story with a fine-toothed comb as I am though is really dredging up some not-so-nice things about Sango and Miroku's relationship in particular that don't sit right with me, and I'm becoming just a tad repulsed by it, not going to lie. Again, this isn't the WORST pairing I've ever read, but goodness, it could be a lot better. 

My favorite part of the chapter was seeing my girl Kagura being cool in the last two pages. Best part of the whole thing, for sure.

Inuyasha Manga: 291 Sango's Whereabouts

Don't know where that little grotto/cave is that Sango is chained up in, but I can't decide if she's better off in THERE or going back above where someone WILL punch her in the gut. Man, did Sango get a raw deal in this arc. Being restrained and forced to eat nasty amphibian eggs, then inevitably being forced to cough them up with a violent blow to the stomach? I've had some bad days, but I don't know if any of them can compare to THAT garbage. 

It's a good thing she's a tough girl. She's going to need to be, unfortunately.

"Just that I'd like to slurp it up. Is that weird?"

The salamander explains that a hanyou skin is much better than a regular human's, estimating it to worth five or even ten men's. Is it just like, more nutritious, or...? It casually plans, to Inuyasha's FACE, to eat him and finish up its resurrection right quick. Inuyasha scoffs that he doesn't know what the salamander means by all that nonsense, but he doesn't want to be made to laugh by the "threat" that the big amphibian is going to eat him, drawing Tessaiga. Mid-leap at the salamander, the village women shoot up out of the water and hover in front of it as a human shield. 

Or, at least they did for a moment. Then they full-on launch straight at Inuyasha and collide with him, and they're not the only ones.

Kagome was still standing on that big rock, by the way. As the stone breaks up beneath her feet, she loses her balance, and either her or Shippou flying off her shoulder shriek. Inuyasha calls out to Kagome in concern, because he doesn't have anything more pressing to worry about than if Kagome scrapes her knees or something.

A pair of unknown hands catch Kagome by her shoulders before she falls entirely, which she seems alarmed by, and it's revealed in the next panel to be Miroku, shouting about how the salamander has shown its true form. That was... an entirely superfluous mini-mystery, but cool, I guess. Kagome says Miroku's name like she's surprised he's there, perhaps assuming he was BUSY with something else, considering the last time she saw him. 

Miroku yells at Inuyasha to try and route the women over to him, and Inuyasha complies, throwing out an arm so the women clinging to his front to stop him are flung in Miroku's direction. With a cursory plea for forgiveness toward one of the zombified women traveling toward him, he starts throwing hands, quickly punching each of the ladies in the stomach. They in turn cough into their hands, then pass out on the rock below, a wriggling salamander infant trailing from their unconscious mouths. Miroku couldn't be bothered to catch THEM, I see. Shippou recoils in horror at the salamander he saw come up from one woman's stomach. 

Inuyasha comes to the same conclusion as Miroku, which is that these salamander infants were the ones controlling the women of the community all along. The parent salamander laughs that these women were weak at heart.

How weak of them to be affected by petty things like the deaths of loved-ones! What rubes!

The salamander cites this as the reason they sought to soothe their aching hearts and the hanging scroll in the Temple of Kannon. Kagome muses on how she could have SWORN one of those flying scrolls just flew past her a minute ago, not having been IN the temple herself to recognize it more clearly. Miroku fills her in on how the salamander monster in front of them had been sealed inside the scroll she saw, and she makes a noncommittal noise, because she's still missing a few dots to connect for this to be an "ah-ha" kind of moment. 

Inuyasha asks the salamander why it decided to come out NOW, and it chuckles that while it doesn't know exactly what happened while it was sealed away, but it did pick up that a great source of evil arose and gave it a little baby boost. Kagome speculates that this might be Naraku's influence, which is a fair conclusion to draw given his more pervasive miasmic form of evil. 

Miroku looks around at a couple of women from the water moving toward him, Kagome and Shippou - oh yeah, there are women to knock around. Inuyasha assures him that he'll take care of the big salamander guy, and Miroku agrees that he'll in turn "take care of" the women. Big yikes.

There must have been a line here where Miroku asked for Sango to jump in on this action too that the scanlator forgot to include, because in the next panel, Shippou is asking Miroku what he's talking about from Kagome's arms, telling him Sango isn't here. As Miroku grapples with another possessed woman, pushing aside a her blunt staff, Kagome asks him if he didn't even NOTICE Sango wasn't there. He makes a questioning noise of his own in response and, jabbing the woman in front of him in the stimach with her own staff, asks what Sango is off doing then. Kagome gives him a worried, pleading look, telling him that Sango disappeared when she went off after the women alone, after they spied him two-timing her with one of the village women. He sweatdrops and looks highly uncomfortable with this information.

Kirara bounds over by Miroku's foot, meowing up and him in small kitten form. Kagome says Kirara's name in surprise while Shippou remarks on the drenched fur of the cat.

Meanwhile, Inuyasha raises Tessaiga above his head and invites the giant salamander to go. It just reiterates its intention to eat the hanyou.

The salamander parts rain down in an anticlimactic gore shower into the water. I hope the community isn't depending on that as a drinking source...

Kagome looks a little shocked for some reason, while Shippou shouts that Inuyasha got the thing with a delighted air. But Miroku and Kagome turn to see that they've still got zombie salamander women shambling towards them. Kagome questions how the village women are still being controlled now that the main youkai's been defeated. Clearly this isn't a "head vampire" type deal. Miroku states that it looks like they'll have to remove the salamander infants from the women's stomachs one by one. Should be easy, what with them just walking up to get punched in the guts like that. 

But Miroku's not planning on doing this involved work himself. He immediately turns to a perplexed Inuyasha, barely asking for confirmation that he's aware how to get the salamanders out of these women's stomachs before he announces he's leaving the rest to him so he can leap on the transformed Kirara's back, thinking of Sango. Watch, he comes back and Inuyasha's performing complicated surgery on the women. I don't know if that would be funny or tragic.

Did Shippou NOT point out to you that Kirara was wet? 

Something comes hurtling at them through the water from below and Kirara has to dodge to avoid it. Miroku sees down on the bed of the lake/river, there's a dark figure with a familiar ponytail and outline floating near what looks like a cave with... an raised grate at the entrance? Did... did they NEED to put a gate blocking the way into an underwater cave? Who was going to wander down there and waltz in, except fish???

Anyway, just in case you hadn't guessed it was Hiraikotsu that had come at Miroku and Kirara in the water, we see it bursting from and arcing over the water in the air above. Sango has risen from the water herself and catches it without any fanfare. And last but not least, Miroku and Kirara burst from the lake/river as well, the former shouting Sango's name. 

Honestly, I'm a little in disbelief as well. The idea of Sango being FORCED to do anything by those weird village waifs is a bit of a stretch.

Kirara bounds forward while Miroku announces he's coming to save Sango right now. By punching her in the gut. *Ahem* Sango throws Hiraikotsu again and it SHATTERS a rock nearby when Kirara leaps to the side again to avoid it. Meanwhile, Sango jumps out of the water and onto a rock outcrop next to her, tapping it in what looks like a very deliberate manner with her fist. Once Kirara gets close enough, Miroku leaps off and runs toward Sango, shouting her name some more. Before he can reach her, Hiraikotsu hits like lightning between them and bounces back up to be caught by Sango, Miroku thrown backward in surprise. He has to duck when Sango swings the giant boomerang at his head, while it at last dawns on him that getting rid of her belly-salamander won't be as easy as it was with the village women. Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.

He shifts mental tracks, knowing he has to get closer to her. Somehow there's a bit of distance between them again, and she's running to swing dispassionately at him again, though they were JUST right next to one another. Miroku aims and throws his staff like a javelin at her.

Whoopsie Daisy!

Miroku announces that he's got her now, and runs at her with his right fist already balled up and ready to go. But Sango makes a slashing motion, or at least a slashing sound effect that the close-up of her empty expression doesn't really show the accompanying motion for, and there's blood spatter over the panel following it. 

Cut to Inuyasha standing among a smattering of unconscious women laying around on the rocky bank, having already performed the dark deed Miroku requested comfortably OFF-panel, while Kagome stabs a salamander-infant with one of her arrows. Awkward-sauce. He's looked around in surprise at the sudden scent of blood he's smelling, Kagome responding in question, but neither of them seeming to move very quickly to see why or how this is the case. 

No surprise that it's Miroku, whose blood splatters on the rock next to his feet and he grips his arm tightly where Sango had cut it a moment ago with the sword she rarely uses. He sighs at her, and tells Kirara not to worry when the saber-toothed feline's head swivels toward him and his injury. He insists Kirara should leave Sango to him, that he'll "deal" with her.

I feel weird hoping homegirl throttles his stupid ass, considering she's possessed, but this is the position RT put me in.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I do think there's an interesting implication in the scene where Miroku has to be informed that Sango isn't actually there and is missing. I checked in my official Viz version of this chapter (took a bit of digging around in a closet, lol), and it does appear that Miroku said that he AND Sango would take care of the village women in there. Regardless of which version of this chapter is more accurate to the original Japanese, the sense of Miroku taking Sango for granted and just kind of expecting she's around and available to help out whenever. Since she confessed her feelings for him so brazenly back at Mt. Hakurei, he can't really claim to be ignorant of that aspect of their relationship either, so there's also a HINT of exploitation of that as well - like she'll be a pliable resource for him no matter what he says or does because she likes him. 

So it might very well be a valuable lesson for this character to remind him just who the hell he's dealing with, honestly. Sango's the only member of this team without magical powers and kicks SERIOUS ass, to the point where they've all come to depend on her, Miroku especially. There's a little justice in Miroku learning how difficult things would be for him if Sango didn't like him as much as she does, and give her the respect she deserves for only being annoyed with him when he's on one of his flirt-binges. All the same, I'm not sure the upcoming resolution of this conflict really addresses Miroku's tendency to take Sango for granted, but we'll see, I suppose. I don't remember the end of this arc all that well, to be honest, it's been a while since I last read it. 

Also, can I just say, I liked this arc better when it was called the Oni's Head Castle arc? Similar angry sealed youkai that was given extra power by Naraku passing by, similar Sango jealousy side-plot, and thankfully lacking in our heroes having to punch women to exorcise them of youkai influence. The way RT just kind of quietly skipped over how she had Inuyasha gut-punch a bunch of ladies proves just how proud she is of this poor recycle job. I'm not going to get over how she could have done something interesting with the setting of a secluded community for women escaping and healing from the horrors of war being taken advantage of by a youkai, but THIS is what she wrote instead. Big cringe YIKES.

Where's the DSoD Review?

Just wanted to give a short update on the progress of the movie post that hasn't shown up yet! I said in the second part of Transcend Game that it might be coming mid-August, and I've unfortunately had to put off the schedule a bit, as has no doubt been noticed. I've got everything that I need all set up, but the issue is TIME, because I didn't realize how much stuff would be popping up at the moment to take all my attention! 

This may even be the busiest I've ever been, and I'm still trying to figure out my time-management strategy. Between having more work than ever, trying to find a new job (because the one I have has begun to come up with all kinds of excuses not to PAY me), setting aside time for my personal writing projects, maintaining the garden at the height of harvest season, and getting in my regular home-cooked meals, fitness, other hobbies, etc., it's been getting difficult to juggle. I've had to spend far less time on the blog than before, which has resulted in only two new reviews for the whole month, unfortunately. A part of me hates slowing down on this project, considering I've been doing it pretty steadily for about eight years (!!!), but I know that it has to be one of my lower priorities in the hierarchy of responsibilities in my life, at least until I can figure out a way to rearrange and re-balance things in a way that can bring my activity on this blog back up to the norm. I'm sure this is perfectly understandable to all of my readers - I know you're all busy people too!

I'm shooting for mid-September now on the DSoD review, and I'll let everyone know if that too has to change. I'll work it out no matter what, though, make no mistake! No way I'm going to abandon my silly commentary on Yu-Gi-Oh right at the finish line!

Inuyasha Manga: 290 The Youkai Energy Inside the Stomach

I took a holiday for the first half of August to refresh myself (part of the reason I took so long to get my last blog post out), and coming back into the swing of things made me realize just how tightly-wound I was. Before I took my PTO and took some time to relax, I was ripping my hair out over the smallest things and my job was giving me undue stress in SOME manner every single day. Not to mention I had a bunch of other things I wanted to get done during the day that put even more pressure on me to be busy every second. And then I logged back in after my staycation and had about 400 unread emails from the previous week, plus a multitude of tasks I was not going to get through in one or two days, and all the regular chores I'd neglected over my reclining time, and I WASN'T hyperventilating at knowing for a fact that I probably wouldn't be fully caught up until the end of the week. 

I guess what I'm saying is that maybe we should put these oni-ladies into a warm tub with a pina colada and a few of those cool bath bombs so they can chill out a little. 

Wherever she is, you probably shouldn't be screaming for her, Kagome. This was supposed to be a stealth operation, but I guess that's blown now.

Inuyasha is pondering if the fact that Sango's scent vanished right here means that she went down into the water, JUST as the normally easy and calm water below starts sloshing and roiling. 

Sango had SOME company down there, didn't she?

The women touch down lightly on the rock, obeying gravity once more, with blank expressions that refuse to acknowledge how cool they looked for a second there. Kagome recoils and hugs Shippou to her, identifying these as the women from the community. Inuyasha skips over stating the obvious himself and asks these bastards what they did to Sango, demanding to be told where they've hidden her, and cracking his knuckles in a trailing threat. 

A light mist rises from their unimpressed slack jaws in response, and Kagome says that it looks like evil energy coming out of their mouths. Inuyasha scoffs over the fact that they managed to find the community of oni-women they were looking for all along. 

In the cave, Sango's wrists still hang from the wall while the village headwoman kneels at the edge of a grotto, sticking her arm into the water. She pulls out a thick tube that has a like of spheres down the center, leaving Sango wondering what the hell it is. Her first impression is some sort of egg-sack, from which the village headwoman has taken an egg and has begun approaching with. The headwoman asks politely for Sango to swallow it, confirming that it IS indeed an egg that will hatch in her stomach and will make Sango into one of them. Sango gives the woman a look of utter disgust when she grabs her chin and raises the egg to her lips to try and force it in her mouth. So much for all that politeness she was trotting out before. Sango turns her head, silently cursing, another question about just who the hell this weirdo is crossing her mind too.

I don't know about that lady lurking back there...

Miroku says that the rumors say the WOMEN have been the ones flaying people (or, rather, the ONE rumor they heard, anyway), but he accuses this watery bastard of being the one REALLY doing the deed. Fluid-Face over here confirms that this is indeed the case, informing Miroku that the skin of men is necessary for it to return to its normal form. It says it was the youkai lord that once ruled this valley, but I'm not sure if this means it's male or if there's just a weird translation deal going on here. Either way, it tells Miroku about how a high-ranked priest exorcised it and sealed it in the scroll. Question: are priests ranked? Is this a reference to a hierarchy of priests similar to Catholicism? Because all I'm thinking of is leader boards right now. THAT is what popped into my dipshit brain.

Anyway, the humans then SKINNED this youkai and sealed its movements by painting Kannon over it. That skinning bit seems somewhat... malicious, if I'm being generous. Because Fluid-Face's soul wouldn't die regardless, it sat and waited for a chance to be resurrected. Getting some heavy Uncle Frank from Hellraiser vibes in here. Fluid-Face lunges at Miroku, declaring he'll become a part of it, in response to which Miroku produces one of his paper sticky charms. But, just as expected, the village woman latches onto the arm holding the charm to prevent him using it, and Miroku has to dive to the floor and pull the woman with him to avoid Fluid-Face's charge.

Having crashed into the window on the other side of the room, Fluid-Face gets a peek out of it and notices Shinosuke and Wakana strolling up the walk to the little temple. Shinosuke is asking where they're going, and Wakana hesitantly says they're headed for the Kannon temple. She's not lying, but it's pretty clear she's withholding some valuable info. Fluid-Face chuckles that Wakana has done well to bring her man with her, a name Miroku is quick to recognize as the missing fiance of their new acquaintance, despite struggling to sit up from under the still listless woman lying on him. He yells for Shinosuke not to come inside the ramshackle temple. 

A clueless Shinosuke makes a confused noise as the doors are opened before him.

You ever imagine some of these panels as album covers for metal bands? I do. 

Miroku yells at them to run away, the distant and blank Wakana starting to become aware of the position she and her long-lost fiance are now in herself. She has to croak out her first rebellious syllable, and then...

Fluid-Face is missing out on ALL the flesh meals today. 

Miroku jumps between the shocked Shinosuke with Wakana and Fluid-Face, yelling over his shoulder for the humans to get out of there. Shinosuke stutters at him in alarm as Miroku starts to remove the string of beads on his right hand, cursing what a pain this has become. He's begun to plan out using the Kanaana, but the nameless village woman who took him up here staggers to the defense of Fluid-Face, standing in front of it with a, um...

Hang on. 

So, I had to do a tiny little search to confirm what the little stand with the spindle on the top she's holding is, because I remember seeing it on the altar in front of the scroll before. Turns out it's a candle stand, typically of the Buddhist variety, and the candle goes on the spindle. I think it's interesting, because I don't think candles were widely used in this time and place, the little oil pans seem to be a more common thing, but they probably don't make as handy of an on-the-fly weapon. Very stabby.

Anyway, she holds this up over her head, creepy steam issuing from her mouth, and Miroku has to wind those beads back around his hand in a hurry, knowing he can't suck up his enemy when it's using someone as a shield like that. Instead he uses the woman as a push off point when she lunges forward ineptly to stab him and leaps off her back to launch himself at Fluid-Face.

Right in the eyeball!

Miroku skids around and is fully prepared to run after Fluid-Face, even declaring he's not about to let the youkai run (floating head that it is aside), when the village woman once again stumbles at him with the damn candle-holder raised and ready to stab. After claiming this will shame him, Miroku PUNCHES her right in the gut while pleading with her to go to sleep. Apparently it's a bit of a common thing in anime/manga to punch someone (usually women) in the "solar plexus" area to render them unconscious, which is... odd. 

Before she passes out from the shock to her torso, the woman coughs something up and it splats onto the floor - what looks like a weird salamander/lizard creature. Miroku is alarmed by this creature, and spares nothing more than an incomplete identification on it before grinding it under the end of his staff. It wriggles and sizzles in agony. 

Miroku announces that THIS is what's been controlling the women of the community, and leaps at the perpetually shocked Shinosuke, demanding his forgiveness for what he's about to do. 

These three panels gave me cancer.

And we've returned to the narrow sky transition panels! By the river, Inuyasha has calmly caught the jab from a woman wielding an ordinary staff in his hand, another woman who popped out of the water earlier standing by for her turn to take a whack at him. from behind him, Kagome calls to Inuyasha not to hurt them, once again stating the obvious that something appears to be controlling them. Inuyasha snaps at her that he knows this, because duh.

He sweeps the woman's staff into her legs, and she flips back into the water, only to crawl back out again with... her arms squeezing her breasts together to produce unnecessary cleavage? This is a pretty small panel, so I don't know why RT even bothered, but whatevz. Inuyasha complains about how this shit ain't getting them anywhere, and I don't know if he's talking about ineffectively fending off the women or the random cleavage, but either way...

A big sweeping sound in the sky behind Kagome causes her to look up and over her shoulder, but before she can get a read on whatever's up there, it crashes down into the water in front of them like a small meteor. At the ripples where it did its cannonball, the scroll from the temple floats, Inuyasha and Kagome looking critically and quizzically at it, respectively, the latter identifying it as a hanging scroll without the experience with this one in particular to know how gross shit is about to get.

Fluid-Face has a more solid form after all! The eggs and little stomach salamanders make a little more sense now, except I'm even more confused about the sex of this thing now. Do salamanders have sexes?

Don't answer that.

Kagome sweatdrops and makes a confused sound, but from her arms, Shippou identifies it as a salamander monster. Inuyasha just kind of glares at it while the water from its re-emergence patters down over his head. The artist formerly known as Fluid-Face chuckles, thanking... someone for the opportunity to eat a hanyou's hide, despite that painful-looking wound on its head from Miroku's staff (I presume. It could also be what little is left for the salamander to regenerate? Not certain.). Inuyasha hams up his offense, demanding that the salamander repeat them fighting words. 

Meanwhile...

NO SANGO! YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO SWALLOW IT!

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I'm side-eyeing the salamander/Fluid-Face's account of how it got into this predicament with the scroll. It seems so weirdly discordant that I found myself questioning just which of it happened when. I could assume it was telling the tale chronologically, but why would the humans skin the thing AFTER it was already sealed in the scroll? Why skin it at all? It seems like they could have burned the youkai's body to more effect if they wanted to make sure it didn't have a functioning body to return to. The skinning part was just so out of place within the sequence of events that the only way I can explain it is that RT just threw it in there to help provide a reason for why the salamander youkai would be collecting men's skins to regenerate at all.

And can we talk a moment about this solar plexus punch we see played out in this specific scenario? I did a brief search about this and it appears that this often happens in manga and anime when a protagonist wants to neutralize someone without it being lethal, usually a weaker-ish teammate turned evil for a moment. That would explain why it often happens to women and children in these stories. But there's more to the particular manifestation of this already pretty questionable trope in this chapter that bumps it up to... problematic. Namely, the male characters in this arc are now downright OBLIGATED to punch all the village women AND Sango into submission because they're possessed and this is the only way to purge them of their demons, so to speak. This scenario was specifically written to make the abuse of women heroic, because it's being done "for their own good". This coming from the lady who didn't want to make Jakotsu female because she didn't want Inuyasha to have to beat up a woman. But THIS arc was perfectly above board for her. Somehow.

Clearly no one gave RT a heads-up that portraying her male characters as abusers with abuser logic wasn't the greatest of looks, and more's the pity. Here's some advice for anyone else that may be contemplating a questionable plotline like this in the future: if you find yourself writing male protagonists into a situation that REQUIRES them to physically abuse female characters, led entirely by the common excuses abusers use in order to justify their shitty actions, it's time to go back and rewrite. 

Or, maybe just scrap the whole thing altogether.

Inuyasha Manga: 289 The Temple of Kannon

Ah yes, a familiar holy concept. Every fandom I've come across seems to have at least one of those structures of events that people tend to accept as the true body of facts of a work. Not a PHYSICAL building, but a castle in the clouds built of ideas that are the bones of what houses and encompasses the community of fanatics. It gets interesting when there's more than one or two, though, because there can be some conflict over which one is TRUER than the others. Like a bunch of warring religious denominations. But I guess that IS where the term originated, after all.

What's that? I'm talking about a DIFFERENT word altogether?

It's weird that this line is directed at the FEMALE visitors, because you'd think more women would just bum out the villagers who are so LONELY among a population of the same. 

Anyway, the woman who is chatting about this to Kagome and Sango bows to them politely and wishes them a good night, and Kagome thanks her, plus the other woman that is holding a stack of what look to be boxes in her arms, loaded with little amenities perhaps? Towels, tiny shampoo and conditioner containers, those little mints they leave on the pillow? 

After the hostesses have left, Kagome and Sango sit around the fire pit in the center of their hut, having a little girl's night. Kagome has drawn a hairbrush from her open backpack and is talking about how happy she is that they didn't have to sleep outdoors tonight. As she polishes Hiraikotsu, Sango seems less enthused by this, and a little MORE peeved that they're not searching for the community of oni-women like they were supposed to be doing. Silently, she's more irritated still by the fact that Miroku goes into nosebleed-mode so easily around here. It's a translator term that I'm totally here for. 

Kagome leans over real close to conspiratorially ask if there's anything, ahem, GOING ON between her and Miroku. Sango makes a confused noise at first, then looks over at Kagome with an attempt at a blank, noncommittal expression to ask what she means. Kagome LITERALLY sparkles as she elaborates by reminding Sango that she and Miroku were alone for a while on Mt. Hakurei, and issues another question about if the two of them made any "special memories" back then, or something like that. I'm very glad to not get a peek inside Kagome's mind so I don't have to see exactly what cringe romance-novel shit she's thinking might have happened here. 

Sango appears to consider the question, and immediately considers the time she was sprawled over the supposedly terminally poisoned Miroku, declaring that she wouldn't leave him behind and they'd die together. She flushes at the memory, thinking he should have figured it out after what she said, but it seems to her that there's been no change in his behavior at all since they left the mountain. With a flippant air, Sango continues to polish Hiraikotsu and assures Kagome that her relationship with Miroku isn't like that. But she drops the giant boomerang in shock when Kagome just comes right out and suggests she's actually in love with Miroku. Sango gets flustered and defensive, red-faced as she refuses to entertain the notion that she'd be into that lecherous playboy. She recounts how Miroku gives up too easily, is a delinquent, he lies whenever he feels like it, and so on. All the while, Kagome smiles and nods along with an encouraging if false phrase, actually thinking that ANYONE would notice how Sango really feels about the guy. 

She's dabbing at her face with some kind of packaged disposable cloth or something (I hope she puts that trash back in her backpack and isn't littering all over the past...) when she says in a fake-offhand way that she thinks Miroku is actually in love with Sango. Immediately, Sango gets quiet and casts a surreptitious look at Kagome over her shoulder and asks in a JUST as fake-offhand way why she would think that. Kagome says she just has a bit of a feeling, you know, that Sango's a special woman to Miroku, that she's precious to him? Sango is leaning right up to Kagome in obvious interest now, stuttering out a hopeful request for confirmation. Kagome playfully looks over to where Kirara is mewling at the shoji screens in disrepair to ask if the cat thinks so too. 

Sango goes up to Kirara and asks what's up with the meows, and sees through a tear in the screen Miroku outside with one of the village women. He's repeating what she must have told him about losing her husband in a war a while back as a question, as if that's not the oldest trick in the book to convincing people that you're interested in their lives. The woman hangs her head and utters a meek affirmative. 

Kagome setting RECORDS over here for statements that age the worst the fastest, lol!

In the boys' cabin, Shippou is asking a lounging Inuyasha if it's really okay to let Miroku wander off like they did. Inuyasha lazily tells Shippou to let Miroku be, saying it's better than having to listen to Miroku's whiny sighs next to him all damn night. Too fucking true. Shippou hops on Inuyasha's side to yell at him that Sango will get angry, but Inuyasha just asks with disinterest why that would be, even though it's perfectly obvious how little he gives a shit. Shippou sweatdrops and suggests that Inuyasha really is a TOTAL moron, and Inuyasha goes from zero fucks to 100 lumps to the head in half a second, bolting upright to ask what that little bastard said to him. 

They start to tussle when Shinosuke addresses them hesitantly, and Inuyasha pauses in hanging a wriggling Shippou by his tail to listen to him say he's going to sleep ahead of them, since he wants to get up early and keep looking for his fiancee some more. Shippou ineffectually beats on Inuyasha with tiny fists as Inuyasha just tells Shinosuke to do whatever he likes. 

The night wears on, and Kagome lies awake, peeking into her periphery at where Sango lays on another bedroll just a short distance behind her in the dark room. She's still thinking on poor Sango and her poor situation.

You think? Do you think it might be futile to constantly try to police someone's excessive flirting/sleeping around? Think that might be a waste of energy???

She notices that Sango is moving around back there, and turns over to ask after her and find that she's sat up and is damn near fully clothed in her battle attire, adjusting her shoulder armor. Sango shushes her, while outside there's a procession of the village women holding torches and looking... strangely vacant. Sango and Kagome watch them pass through a crack between the door and its jamb, the latter asking quietly what she thinks the women could be doing. Sango doesn't offer an answer, just slips out of the shack and says she's going after them. Kagome calls for her to wait, suggesting they go get Inuyasha first, and then Miroku, who she's sure is nearby. Sango barks that she's fine and doesn't have time to look for those guys, rushing off all the faster, even as Kagome calls after her again. 

Oh good, glad to know Inuyasha's nose works for the moment. Perhaps no one has to look for HIM after all. 

He's wondering what the scent he's picking up even is, seeming a little confused as to if it's water or not. He leaves Shippou curled up on his bedroll and sticks his head out the hanging mat covering the doorway and concludes that the scent ISN'T water, but a living being, or rather, a whole lot of them. Meanwhile, Kagome is running up the lane toward him, calling his name and starting to tell him what Sango did. After a short conversation, Inuyasha seems to have been in the dark about the movement of the village women (so much for that nose working), and Kagome telling him that Sango went after them on her own. 

All this chatter has woken Shinosuke, who sits up and makes an uncertain noise at them, as if unsure if he should be concerned. Inuyasha turns to tell him that he should go back to sleep before he leaves with Kagome and carries her through the forest on his back. She asks him about the smell of a "water being" that he's told her about, and he admits he doesn't really get it, and the scent just kind of popped up all of a sudden. He speculates that it was probably simultaneous with the movement of the village women. 

Back at the boys' hut, Shinosuke has NOT gone back to sleep, still sitting up and anxious. Someone slides aside the mat hanging over the doorway, and he looks over in shock over the woman who walks in. Our beauty-marked girl either quietly or dispassionately says his name. 

Is he too elated at finding her to realize she's not behaving quite right? 

Elsewhere outside, Miroku is being led up a path by his lady villager companion, who tells him it's just a little farther to a nice quiet place where they can be alone. It is, unsurprisingly, the little temple on the edge of town that we've seen has a certain appetite. Miroku recognizes it as a little shrine when he first enters as the village woman slides the doors closed behind them. He sees the scroll on the wall and asks if it doesn't seem like the goddess Kannon herself might strike them down for getting a bit nasty in her temple, but he's not worried enough not to wrap his arms back around the woman and nuzzle her suggestively. She asks if he's joking, and he may as well be. 

The painting on the scroll looks on ominously thanks to all the dramatic irony. 

With a narrow transition panel with the rustling treetops showing that's become pretty common throughout this small arc, we switch locations yet again, this time to the rocks over the easy river in the valley. There, Sango is standing on the biggest overhanging rock, staring out over the water and puzzling over how there appears to be no one there. She hops between rocks, wondering where the many people she was following could just up and disappear. Right in the middle of this thought, a hand shoots out of the water below and grabs hold of her ankle. 

This is why you never go off alone in a horror movie, kids.

Another tree-top transition panel later, and Inuyasha and Kagome come running up on the rock overhanging the river like Sango, Kagome calling for her. Inuyasha delivers the unfortunate news that this is where Sango's scent stops. Or, maybe on some of the smaller rocks across the river, but I suppose functionally it may as well be up on the big rock.

Back at the little temple, Miroku is about to get BUSY with the lady villager, laying on top of her and everything, and she calls him her dear priest. It's at this point he pauses, looking at this woman's vacant expression, a marbled ominous atmosphere hanging out in the background. He notices that there's a slight vapor issuing from her mouth, which he identifies as an evil energy, and wonders if it's something in her stomach. Then he swivels his head away from the lady, agonizing how it ALWAYS seems to be like this every time. I don't know dude, seems like you might have a "type" if you know what I mean. 

The woman under him asks what the issue is, and Miroku looks back down at her to voice his concerns out loud that she's being controlled. He jumps up, staff in his fist, as he whirls around to what he's determined the real form of his enemy is. At least he's prepared for whoever he's trying to sleep with being a demonic weirdo these days. The sun in the scroll paining behind Kannon's head glows brightly in response to his accusation. 

Good to know all that energy isn't going to go to waste.

He holds his defensive stance, asking this youkai exactly what kind it is. It doesn't really answer, just chuckles and demands Miroku's raw hide. Super entitled and pushy-like.

Meanwhile, a sopping Sango opens her eyes in a daze, while the village headwoman approaches with a torch and remarks on her being awake now. Sango rattles and pulls on the chains her wrists have been bound up in, anchored in what looks like a cave wall. She asks what this place is. 

As per recent precedent, she doesn't actually get an answer.

Ooh, becoming assimilated by the feudal Borg. That should be new and FUN.

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? Goodness but the rapid switches between the different characters was jarring. I think it was overdone in this chapter, and I think RT could have found a way to rearrange things rather easily that would have cut down on the overabundance of transitions in this one. I counted NINE, averaging one per two pages, and that's just absurd. I know RT is capable of better planning than this, so it's just frustrating.

Otherwise, I did like the content - the transition panels themselves that show the silhouette of the treetops against a murky dark sky that I pointed out in the recap puts me in mind of a good spooky campfire story. The plot of this mini-arc fits that profile as well, with the characters drawn into the area through murky rumors and find themselves staying overnight in an unfolding situation that is turning out to be more dangerous than they initially expected. I very much appreciate whenever this story returns to its horror roots, because that is part of what drew me to it in the first place, so this campfire tale of a diversion is very welcome. It's unsettling, creepy, alarming, and I LOVE IT.

I think it's interesting that Sango has been put into the situation of being inducted into this sinister sisterhood the oni-women have going here. While this community is said to have been formed because the women in it have lost their families to war, it's not unheard-of to have these sorts of women-only communes formed as a sort of refuge for women from MEN fundamentally. War, after all, is often the pretext for abuses to be committed against occupied communities, and it is very commonly waged by men. Given how fed-up Sango is about Miroku and all his flirtations with other women, it's not at all hard to imagine that getting away from him and her uncomfortable feelings for him might be somewhat appealing. If she were given the choice, maybe persuaded a little, it might not come across as such a terrible idea to her to swear off male company altogether and join the nunnery, so to speak. It could have been a subtle temptation, the offer of a new life without the heartache or frustration of dealing with a crush like Miroku.

Of course, she's not being given the choice at all, they're just going to drag her kicking and screaming into the fold. Missed opportunity, in my opinion.