Inu Yasha is strangely addictive. I stumbled on it by accident, ambling through the aisles looking for some anime that didn’t feature either stonkin’ great robots or panties. Now, it’s one of my guilty pleasures.
Probably this has something to do with the variety. After all, there’s a quest, for shards of the Sacred Jewel. There’s action aplenty, as the growing band fights multitudinous demons along the way. There’s Kagome’s double life, as she struggles with her schoolwork then dashes off to fight demons. There’s laughs and social bonding. And there’s a smidgeon of romance, although not enough to get cloying.
One of the finest small running jokes involves Kagome’s grandfather, a venerable ancient who takes his shrine responsibilities very seriously. He takes the news of Kagome’s time travel without missing a beat, and amuses himself coming up with weird new diseases to explain her numerous absence from school. I mean, really, gout on a fourteen-year-old? I’m hanging out for beri-beri. It’s got to come up sooner or later.
Inu Yasha doesn’t answer any of life’s great questions, nor does it pose any. But then, who wants it to? I wanted enjoyable light entertainment, and that’s exactly what I got. No deep and meaningfuls, no philosophy, just journeys and jokes and smiting. A whole lotta smiting. With lots of flash and dash.
But now, I have to wait ages for the next volume to come out… :-S