DuckTales.

. ᦔ᥅ꫀꪖꪑᦓ ꠸ꪀ ᭙ꪖꪻꫀ᥅ᥴꪮꪶꪮ᥅

But Sunrise downplayed it in some pretty subtle ways, too. Other excellent blogs have pointed this out before (I just can't find the posts 😭), but it became obvious to me during my recent reread of the manga: there are a lot of small, background moments of intimacy between InuYasha and Kagome that the anime either alters or ignores. And while changing those individual scenes doesn't seem like a big deal on the surface, it all adds up. There's a cumulative effect of downplaying those individual moments—it leaves the general impression that InuYasha and Kagome's relationship isn't as strong or close as it actually is. Things like body language and non-verbal cues do communicate information to an audience, which is why altering them does affect overall perceptions of the story/characters.

Here are some examples of downplayed InuKag intimacy, just off the top of my head:

⬆ Note that in the manga, InuYasha and Kagome are touching in this scene; in the anime, Sunrise literally put space between them.

⬆ Again, notice the difference in physical closeness. In the manga, InuYasha is the one actively checking on Kagome, and his concern/protectiveness is clearly communicated through his body language (crouched low over Kagome's leg, one finger gently pulling her sock aside, etc.). In the anime, he becomes an observer (watching Sango check on Kagome), which makes him seem more removed from the scene.

⬆ This one is more subtle, but I think the difference is still noticeable. In the manga version of this scene, InuYasha meets Kagome in her bedroom (a very personal space), and he's standing close and directly facing her when he says he wanted to see her. In the anime, they have this encounter in a shared living space of the Higurashi home (less personal), there's more physical distance between them, and he's not facing her when he says he wanted to see her. Again, all this stuff is subtle, but it adds up: these details communicate things to an audience.

And there are more scenes just like these peppered throughout the series. Sometimes when I squint I can understand why Sunrise might have changed something (like in that third example, I can kind of understand them changing the setting from Kagome's bedroom to a shared living space, cuz "family friendly" or whatever), but it's frustrating to see how they did this repeatedly and often for no clear reason other than trying to make InuYasha look like a tough guy.

From chapter 179 of the manga, and the corresponding anime episode (season 2, ep. 22), here's a roughly scene-by-scene comparison and just... look at the hot pile of nothing Sunrise gives us instead of the cute scene we could've had.

⬆ In the manga: InuYasha is so concerned about Kagome's safety that he literally doesn't put her down until Kagome flat out tells him to. In the anime: they are attacked by a demon horde/Kagura and InuYasha doesn't so much as glance at Kagome before he runs off to attack. (*SIGH*)

⬆ In the manga: it's not enough for InuYasha to just put Kagome down anywhere. He wants to make sure she's as protected as she can be, so he whisks her off to their makeshift shelter (and just looooooook at how closely he's holding her!). In the anime: InuYasha's off doing his own thing and Kagome is who-knows-where, so it's Sango who approaches the shelter out of concern for her brother.

⬆ In the manga: InuYasha makes his concern for Kagome's safety extremely evident. In the anime: InuYasha is still off doing his own thing, and Sango and Kagome decide to search for the missing Kohaku on their own.

I doubt very much that Kagome's scent is identical to Kikyo's. There may be some similarities between their scents (in the same way they share physical similarities), but that's about it.

InuYasha refers to their scents being similar in the first couple chapters of the manga, but you'll notice that immediately after he first comments on it, he takes another moment and is quickly able to tell them apart:

I guess you could argue that he figured it out based solely on her appearance, but I don't think that's it. It strains credulity to think that Kagome—born 500 years after Kikyo, and with her own ancestry, genes, unique DNA, etc.—would have Kikyo's exact scent. More importantly, though, it literally never comes up again in the story. InuYasha never compares their scents again after chapter 3 (when he attacks Kagome to get the Shikon Jewel). This suggests that it's a non-issue for InuYasha, and it's certainly a non-issue in the narrative. The text doesn't give us any reason to think that Kagome and Kikyo have identical scents.

But to be honest, even if Kagome did have Kikyo's identical scent... that doesn't take anything away from InuYasha’s feelings for Kagome. At all. InuYasha makes it very clear early in the series that he sees Kagome as her own person.

We have no reason to doubt InuYasha's sincerity here. So even if Kagome smelled exactly like Kikyo once did (which, again, seems highly unlikely), that makes no more difference to InuYasha than the similarities in their appearance. He still sees and appreciates Kagome as Kagome.

That said, I think it's worth pointing out: throughout the series, the sheer number of times that InuYasha instantly recognizes and downright indulges in Kagome's scent is pretty strong evidence that InuYasha only associates it with Kagome. It'd be way too much work to compile all of those scenes (there's too many of them), but here's a pretty iconic one:

My favorite spy duck being awesome!

Fanart for the guy on this hellsite that genuinely does the most important work ever.

Thanks @uncaaj for all of your wonderful translations! You are simply the best!

Drew this while in an obsessive stupor