SDT’s Fanmade

during the final battle:

three and a half years after the final battle:

Hi, ma’am. Here at Wendy’s we got you!

I most definitely haven’t covered this topic yet and for two simple reasons: one, it frustrates me to no end! Like, I’m already getting riled up just thinking about it, LMAO! Two, anything I say on the subject will fall flat to the brilliance that is @dyaz-stories take on it. Her thoughts on it took the form of the amazing one-shot Opposites.

That’s right! You’re getting a fic rec as a treat, totally on the house. For those of you who haven’t read it yet (you should), this is our big, old “What If Sota Hadn’t Walked Into The Damn Bedroom?” trope, except that instead of the Epic Kiss™ Kagome actually takes time to sort her feelings out.

As we all know, this event happened after Kikyo’s final death and with that in mind, in Opposites, Kagome can’t help but think Inuyasha is only making a move on her because Kikyo is no longer around, so she feels like second best and tells him so. And I absolutely love that.

I still think that, without the interruption, they would have definitely kissed in canon. But only because throught the whole story, Kagome’s feelings are pushed aside (or not adressed at all) by the narrative when they’re not convinient. It sucks because this shit end up creating plot inconsistencies and hurting hers and Inuyasha’s character development, both as individuals and as a couple.

In my opinion, the almost kiss scene is a classic example of that. It was pretty obvious that they both wanted it. In fact, Kagome had wanted it for a while. Of course, Inuyasha was in love with her too, but even thought they acted like a married couple for most of their journey, he hadn’t been as forward about his feelings since the very first time he tried to kiss her, right at the beginning (creating one of the best Inukag paralels ever, at least in the anime):

On both occasions, Inuyasha is the one making a move. On both occasions, Inuyasha looks at her with this soft, decided, almost solemn expression. On both occasions, he gently takes her hands on his before leaning in. On both occasions, Kikyo isn’t in the equation at all. In the first “almost kiss”, because she hasn’t been ressurected yet. In the second, because she was dead. For real this time. And on both occasions, the kiss doesn’t happen.

It’s not hard for us, the audience, to recognize and understand this padron. Once Kikyo is gone, Inuyasha feels free to seek a relationship with Kagome, which clearly is what he wants to do. But with Kikyo around, comes duty. And guilt. How can he allow himself to be happy when Kikyo is miserable out there? How can he turn his back on her after everything they went trought? He feels responsable, even though he isn’t.

Kagome, God bless her (canonically) large ass soul, doesn’t fully understand that. She tries. We can all agree that she tries. But her jealousy gets the best of her and clouds her judgement. To make matters worse, Inuyasha is far from helpful whenever it comes down to this issue.

Ironically (or not), when he tried to kiss her for the first time, she was just calling him out for not looking her in the eye since the day before, assuming it’s because she looks like Kikyo and that’s why he hates her, to which Inuyasha replies that it’s nothing like that.

What I’m trying to say is: Kagome doesn’t shy away from calling Inuyasha out on his bullshit, especially if it’s Kikyo related. On the contrary, she has been pretty vocal about it through the whole story. To me, the TFA almost kiss should have been one of those occasions because I think it would be more in character for her (again, read Opposites and tell me I’m wrong) and more consistent with the bagage she now has, courtesy of the insecurity the love triangle caused.

From Kagome’s perspective, I feel like she had every right to question Inuyasha’s motivations. How could she not, when he went from 0 to 100 with no further explanation? She was by his side the whole time and... nothing. Now, all of a sudden, he wants to kiss her? Sure, another canon kiss would have been amazing! But Kagome (and the audience), deserved to hear from Inuyasha’s lips that she was not a consolation prize, that she was not the second best.

Because, yes, she has been his first choice all along. Inuyasha told that to us time and time again through his actions, and as meaningful as it all was, using words to show his true feelings is a very important thing to his character development and we only got that when he made his “Kagome was born for me” speech, but Kagome herself never heard it (which... you know... it’s a war crime).

So we could have an epic kiss. We could have a honest conversation that would set things right between them. We could have both! Or we could have Sota interrupting them for the sake of comedy.

Destroyer of Lands- A Playlist for Moroha (Hanyou no Yasahime)

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“Kagome taught me how to smile, how to believe in people. Kagome was the reason I could make friends, and rely on those friends. To shed tears for others, to understand true strength and kindness… They’re all things I learned from Kagome.”

I love this scene to pieces, you guys have no idea. It’s so meaningful, impactful and straight up epic. Truly worthy of a love story like theirs.

Let alone that by the mere fact of being there Inuyasha was pretty much defying time, space and thousands of demons to get her back. And let alone that Kagome was so sure Inuyasha would come for her, that it only took her hearing his voice to decide not to make a wish upon the jewel and wait for him instead, no matter how frightened she was. Let alone the unbelievable level of trust between them — for Inuyasha, that she won’t make the wish until he gets there. For Kagome, that he will save her like every time before.

What gets me the most is how far Inuyasha, and consequently Inukag, had come. How much progress they had made as individuals and as a couple. And of course, the way Inuyasha gives his speech. They’re strong words on their own, but the way he “says” them with such confidence, not a shadow of doubt in his mind or heart is what sells the whole thing for me. 

Now, I’ve seen people compare his monologue to Kagome’s on Return To The Place We First Met and point out that while Inuyasha is being selfish by listing the things Kagome has done for him, Kagome is being selfless by putting his needs first: 

“I want you to be happy. I want you to laugh a lot. I don't know what exactly I'll be able to do for you, but I'll always be by your side.”

That’s a way to interpret it, but I’ll respectfully disagree. For one, because the “and I was born for her” ending line of his monologue suggests obvious reciprocity, confirmed by everything they went through on their journey. For two, because the way I see it, the speeches complement each other, just like their respective speakers do.

Both monologues happen in a really emotional time for the one having them. Both monologues are introspective. And, of course, Inuyasha never listened to Kagome’s and Kagome never listened to Inuyasha’s. Still, if you look close, they’re pretty much in sync.

In hers, Kagome doesn’t know how she will fit into his life, what will be her part on making him happy, how can she be useful to him. But she wants to try and to achieve that, she promises to always be by his side. In his, Inuyasha literally answers her previous doubts.

So we went from “I want you to be happy. I want you to laugh a lot.” to “ “Kagome taught me how to smile.” We went from “I don't know what exactly I'll be able to do for you” to “Kagome was the reason I could make friends, and rely on those friends. To shed tears for others, to understand true strength and kindness… They’re all things I learned from Kagome.” She wanted to know what she could do for him? Well, he just told us what. And she did all of them.

Finally, Kagome promises “I’ll always be by your side” and we have Inuyasha saying “Kagome was born to meet me. And I was born for her”, which is nothing if not a confirmation of her statement. Of course she we’ll always be by his side, because they were made for each other.

In the end of the day, he was absolutely right. They were made to each other. Fate brought them together and they kept choosing one another even after. And until this meido incident, Kagome kept her promise and stay beside him even when things got harder and harder.

Another thing to take in consideration is that the speeches show us how much of an impact Inuyasha and Kagome had on one another’s lives. Inuyasha’s is more forward about that.

But the context of Kagome’s is that she was a 15 years old girl who had to rethink everything she thought she knew about herself because thanks to him she realized there is more to the world than her school or the four walls of her room. And she was processing a lot of complex feelings, some of them for the very first time. She did it mostly on her own (with a little help of her mother) and she did it not only for him, but for her sake too, because she didn’t like the colors some of those feelings were bringing out on her. 

But Inuyasha was the catalyst. And it challenged her. It made her grow. It made her stronger. It made her kinder. Because she had to leave her comfortable life and immature ways behind. It was for him. But also for herself.

Back to Inuyasha, after a declaration of love like that, it’s clear to me Kagome was the most important person to ever walk into his life since his mother. I love how unapologetic he is about his feelings. No holding back. Not overthinking. No guilt about it. He knows where his affection lies. He knows it’s reciprocal. And he’s not afraid to admit to himself or others anymore.

I like to think this Inuyasha, the one so confidently giving the speech, would never accept to or try to change his nature in order to belong, because Kagome showed him he doesn’t have to. She loved him unconditionally just the way he was and now that he had tasted truly acceptance he wouldn’t settle for nothing less. He found out he deserves happiness, that he is worthy of happiness, that Kagome is it for him.

I’m dead.

My opinions are thus:

I’m very happy.

I’m kind of scared.

I don’t care if this is literally shit.

I don’t think it’s written by Takahashi, just the character designs.

Your hate is silly but hurts me but I’m an adult woman so I’ll ignore it.

I will be fine with whomever had Sesshoumaru’s daughter(s). If it’s a rando it’s fine. If it’s Rin then fine. It’s honestly fine. It probably is if the title is roughly “Half Demon Princesses” because what other human would be the mom??

If it’s bad it’s fine. I’ll just die. I’m already dead. As in, I’ve ascended into a new realm of FEELINGS™️ so whatever happens, happens. If it sucks I’ll pretend it didn’t.

If Kagome is dead I will die again. But she probably will be.

I would murder for InuKag daughter. I just would.

I’m very happy it’s about girls.

I need to finish my InuKag family story. Now knowing that my designs are NOT canon is ridiculous in good and sad ways.

Finally: Don’t touch me. I can’t function. Inuyasha is the most important like... THING SHOW MANGA FANDOM everything!!!!! To me. To get even a little more of it is insane to me. My mind is broken. I’m boggled. It’s probably going to be a shit show and I don’t care!!!! It’ll be amazing!!!!!

Oooh dear anon, this is an old, divisive question in the fandom!

I could tell you that it has a lot to do with interpretation. For example, I don’t really consider love in terms of quantity, and there are plenty of people among the fandom who think that Inuyasha never really loved Kikyo, and others who think he never really loved Kagome. I will say, I dislike the second take because it’s often tied with the idea that you can’t love more than once or that Inuyasha can never stop loving Kikyo and I dislike the idea — and I don’t think it’s true. As for the first one, I actually like the idea that Inuyasha liked Kikyo because it emphasizes this very idea: you can love more than once.

However, I do think there are a lot of elements in the manga that we can use. It’s complicated, and frankly, not always handled well, but if I were to give you a tl;dr, it would be: it’s Kagome. As I said, I don’t really think of love in terms of quantity, but I think Kagome is the one Inuyasha is in love with during the story. Following take on that isn’t technically spoilers considering how old the series is but I do advise against reading it if you really just started and you want to experience everything first hand. Also, I base myself exclusively on the manga, so it’s not 100% relevant for the anime!

So, I can’t really discuss Inukag in that context without first talking about Inukik and, as I’ve said before, I don’t believe Inukik knew each other very long nor very well before the Naraku incident. I know the anime distinctively goes against that (Tragic Love Song of Destiny), but I don’t think it makes much sense on many levels, from Kikyo chosing to test the Jewel on Inuyasha to her even offering him to become human if she knew how much he absolute despises being human.

Basically, my take on it is that they didn’t have that many conversations at all.

Does that mean he couldn’t have loved her? I’m not one to make such a call honestly, though I get why many people feel it’s a shallow basis. I do think Inuyasha worshipped the ground Kikyo walked on and that he had very strong feelings for her — I’ll let you decide whether or not that qualifies as love.

Things start getting complicated, of course, after the betrayal and when Kagome appears in Inuyasha’s life. I do want to point out that Inuyasha and Kagome’s relationship is very, very different from Inuyasha and Kikyo’s, just like Kagome and Kikyo are very, very different. There are two things to note about Kikyo though and it’s that 1) she’s the first person Inuyasha had an actual connection to and 2) she’s dead. The fact that she’s dead is essential in the InuKagKik dynamic, as Inuyasha’s guilt is the stone the ‘love triangle’ is built on.

(I don’t think it’s actually a love triangle because I don’t think Kikyo and Inuyasha love each other at this point and I think Kagome and the group are the ones who miscontrued it that way)

However, in the manga at least, Inuyasha affirms his feelings for Kagome very early on and very clearly. After Kikyo falls off a cliff for the first time (yes she has a tendency to do that), he’s all sad and everything and Kagome’s smile cheers him up.

Like, just seeing her smile, after his ex ‘love’ died again as far as he knows. He says he ‘wants her by his side’,

tells her that there is no replacing her and that his feelings for Kikyo are mostly guilt,

and dismisses her worries that he is still in love with Kikyo.

In comes what half of the fandom defines as him ‘choosing Kikyo’. I actually have a whole analysis on that. Bottom line is, I don’t believe he chose Kikyo, I don’t think he loves her romantically, and generally, I think the whole debacle has to do with Kagome’s insecurities and inability to see that he’s not in love with Kikyo and that he just feels guilty, and Inuyasha’s guilt. I think Kagome doesn’t think clearly when it comes to Kikyo and Inuyasha.

And after that, well, the thing is, I believe that Rumiko changed her mind. I connect it to Kikyo, because as I’ve said in other meta pieces, I feel the story ‘bends’ around her. I think she tried to make InuKik more important than it originally was and, to be honest with you, it made it very hard for me to enjoy Inukag by the end of the manga / anime. I mean, I can’t see this Inuyasha kissing Kikyo, and I don’t think this kiss is justified considering who they are at this point. I think he should have mourned her earlier on— I have a lot of feelings but oh well.

Still, in the end, it’s all about Kagome. I know many people feel that she was his ‘second choice’, and with how the manga framed it, I totally get it. I’m very bitter about the almost-kiss scene because it particularly carries that feeling for me (and I actually wrote about it… for Inukag week last year I think?) due to the lack of resolution around many things with Kikyo — if Rumiko wanted us to feel that she was what stopped him from being with Kagome, it would have been nice to mention again, at some point, that she wanted him to die with her.

However I do think the conclusion we get when it comes to Inuyasha’s feelings is as clear as can be in the mess that is the last part of the manga.

She was born for him, and he was born for her. And honestly, I think the fact that he says that is what matters most.

Bonus: Inukag moments where Inuyasha shows his feelings dump