#inuyasha meta

Kikyo falls off a cliff and disappears shortly after being resurrected by Urasue. When we see her again, the gang are investigating a soul-stealing creature.

The soul-stealing is without question seen as a horrible act. The story mixes shinto and buddhist traditions and I'm not sure which one is more relevant here, but regardless, destroying a soul means ending the person. [The guy mentions heaven which I'd assume falls more into the shinto category, but they are hiring a buddhist monk to help them sooooo... who knows.] Whether they're supposed to reincarnate or go to heaven, their essence will no longer exist. You could argue that it's worse than murder — robbing people of their eternity. Either way, everyone is rightfully horrified by it.

As for Kikyo, she directly says that the body needs to be 'nourished' by souls. I point that out because I've seen people say that they headcanon that she doesn't fully consume the soul, and while I sympathize with that if you like Kikyo, I do want to say that like... what would that look like? In a system based on reincarnations, does it prolunge the souls's cycles? In a system that doesn't have them, is their essence... depleted? It's just not a satisfactory answer to me — and I think Rumiko was well-aware that a lot of her readers wouldn't buy it.

Because as we keep going further into the story, she quietly drops that plot point and never comes back to it. I remember this flabbergasting me when I first watched the show. The soul-consuming was so shocking, so horrible to me, that I constantly expected them to come back to it, and then they just... didn't? For a while, I genuinely thought that I was missing a huge cultural element where it was Fine to eat souls because it made so little sense to me that Miroku, Kagome, Sango, hell, even Inuyasha would be chill with Kikyo in the latter parts of the manga in these circumstances. After talking to other people about it, I don't believe that was the case.

My personal take is that it was very deliberate on Rumiko's part. She was trying to make Kikyo sympathetic; reminding the reader that she has to consume countless souls to just move around would not help achieving that. I think she didn't even want to try and introduce a solution/retcon it, because then the reader might go "ooooh right, she did that, that was fucked up wasn't it?". Like, if you say "oh she no longer needs to consume souls she found another way", she still did it do at least dozens of souls, right? So she kinda just... looked the other way and never brought it up again — exactly like she did with the fact that Kikyo tried to kill Kagome.

Something Inuyasha never finds out about either — even though it clearly should be a huge deal to him.

In the same way, I think Rumiko knew that him finding out about that would break the story. Inuyasha can't overlook Kikyo hurting Kagome, and it would destroy his bond with her. Since it's not the story Rumiko wanted to tell, best to just... sweep it under the rug, and never bring up a huge pivotal point for Kagome's character in hopes people forget about it.

Here's a sweet Inukag moment following that to cleanse your palate:

Back to the Shinidamachu, whose name is literally translated to 'Soul Collectors' in the show and at least one translation, they stick around in both manga and show — I think even more so in the show, as they become a big part of Kikyo's visual identity — but their role changes quite a bit.

This is from chapter 309; although they play an important part in guiding Kagome to Kikyo, they're only visible in two panels, and they serve as messengers/Kikyo's helpers. They're definitely featured in more chapters, but I just wanted to show they stay around up until pretty late in the manga too.

The total lack of resolution on this storyline was genuinely story-breaking for me — incomprehensible to the point of loss of immersion. It also makes it impossible for me to think that Kikyo had a redemption arc: how could she, when the wrongs she's comitted are never actually adressed?

mind you, this is the man who taunted inuyasha with the visage of his dead mother, who has tried to kill inuyasha on multiple occasions, and who consistently makes sure to remind inuyasha that he’s a half-breed who shouldn’t be getting any grand ideas of self esteem. and it’s not like sesshomaru was any nicer this time around; he was on factory settings this entire battle:

he’d also blinded inuyasha with poison beforehand:

so inuyasha is blind and is relying on his sense of smell to locate the wind scar, which makes this even more absurd because without the use of his sight, he would have had to be even more deliberate about his aim to ensure that sesshomaru didn’t die.

even while he’s thinking, “i’m going to kill sesshomaru!!” he doesn’t go through with it.

totosai is aware of his true intent, even when inuyasha denies it:

this scene makes me a little sad, though. i know it’s meant to demonstrate inuyasha’s “soft spot,” as totosai calls it, but there’s something sobering about inuyasha being so desperate for kinship that he isn’t able to kill the last remaining family member he has, despite never having maintained a good familial bond with them.

disclaimer: I'm aware there's a debate about whether or not inukag was officially, canonically dating during the series and that the answers tend to change according to the source material embasing them (manga or anime), but despite using manga panels to write this, I did it purely out of practicality and have no intentions of opening this particular can of worms right now. The point I'll be trying to make for @inukag-week's bickering prompt is that their feelings were valid regardless.

Inuyasha and Kagome get criticized a lot for the jealousy they feel of each other.

People seem to think that Kagome is not entitled to that sentiment because she chose to stay by his side knowing what it entailed and, more often than not, was the one telling him to go see Kikyo, so it's not fair of her to resent him when he actually does.

On the other hand, they claim that precisely because Inuyasha goes to see Kikyo, it's hypocritical of him to get mad at the fact that Koga is constantly showing just how much romantically invested he is on Kagome, as he has no ground to stand on.

Their feelings, however, are completely justified and no other scene proves that better than this manga interaction Sunrise mercilessly cut out:

Inuyasha is once again jealous of Kagome and Koga's proximity and he lets his frustrations out in no uncertain terms, but then Kagome makes a good point: what righ has he to be upset about it when he is also close to Kikyo? It's exactly why he gets flak in the first place. And his answer to that question is very interesting:

However, is there any sufficient evidence to support this reading, or is it pure fanon?

The most relevant question in pop culture possibly ever: 

Does Bankotsu Actually Like Women?

(I’m sure you’re losing sleep over it.)

Content warning note for period-typical sexism and implications of SA by Mukotsu.

(I had this sitting in my drafts for like 7 months so I'm finally giving it a prison break.)

I thought about what I felt Kagome gets out of her relationship with Inuyasha, since I think it's pretty clear what he gets out of the relationship with her...

Kagome is already sort of at a good place. She knows her worth, what's worth her time, and doesn't need a Man™ (or any person) to satisfy anything she "lacks"... we all know she was just vibin before slipping into the feudal era.

But compared to the other suitors in her life (Koga and Hojo)... Inuyasha doesn't quite treat her like a princess. Of course, he loves her and would do anything for her, but he doesn't exactly grovel at her feet either (I mean, he's tsundere max x5).

(This panel is pretty early on in Ch. 44, but basically summarizes their dynamic lol.)

Some people would prefer to be treated like a princess, but I don't think bad azz b*tch Kagome does. Inuyasha pushes back, fights her a little, he has a little pride, and Kagome is the same to him, but never to a point of no return, and they both trust each other to know they can handle criticism. They humble each other. Kagome seems to get a bit of satisfaction from that.

If she were with Koga or Hojo, I imagine it feels like a cat scratching at a smooth pole. It doesn't satisfy her. Whereas when she's with Inuyasha, it's like scratching... you know, at a scratch post. There's a right amount of resistance.

I received a question about their names. The meaning behind Moroha's name will be in another post. Since these were things we previously covered I'll have the master post on Towa and Setsuna's name here -

In Yashahime Episode 15 Rin says "Towa and Setsuna" to their names. In Japanese - Towa and Setsuna mean One Moment and an Eternity. It's also said in each episode. "Towa and Setsuna, between us half-demon twins, two worlds exist at the same time; Human and Demon, Feudal Era and Present Day, Peace and War, Joy and Sorrow, Dreams and Reality, Now and Forever, and finally Love and Hate. A Feudal fairytale, Yashahime. We'll keep moving forward, overcoming the hurdles of destiny."

Katsuyuki: — What is the origin behind the names “Setsuna” and “Towa”?

**From the outset, I came up with “Setsuna” using “setsu” in “Sesshōmaru”. I chose the name “Towa” so that it would pair with “Setsuna”. https://ayuuria.tumblr.com/post/684458629287542784/yashahime-translation-official-guidebook

Setsuna means “moment” while Towa means “eternity”. - Hence, a pair.

Katsuyuki-san said that "Setsuna is a black Sesshoumaru" and Towa is "White Sesshoumaru" they are Yin and Yang.

https://www.tumblr.com/officialinuyasha/629334377576464384/this-was-a-translation-collab-between-esther-xiao Katsuyuki: "Setsuna and Towa inherited the "yin" and "yang" of Sesshomaru, respectively, but at the same time both yin and yang exist in Towa and Setsuna. Half-demons are self-contradicting existences, and that is the subject that has been passed down."

Rumiko also mentioned this https://ayuuria.tumblr.com/post/667032838479265792/yashahime-translation-official-guidebook

"Sumisawa-san told me “Towa is a white Sesshōmaru and Setsuna is a black Sesshōmaru”"

You can also find "Rin to Sesshoumaru" theme song in Towa's theme song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lofIKeL_0

The voice actors said Setsuna and Towa's relationship seems to reflect on Sesshoumaru and Rin's - https://www.tumblr.com/officialinuyasha/646757262237597697/staff-thoughts-on-sessrin

"Towa seems to close that gap like *that person* (Rin" "Their relationship seems like that of their parents" "If you look at Towa, I think you can figure out who the mother is"

“…I have someone I have to protect, and that’s why I can never give up.” Inuyasha, movie 3

What started off as a power trip to make himself stronger, changed into making himself stronger for her. This is especially true after he turns full demon. He wanted to hold on to his humanity.

So, this is going to be one of my long posts - bear with me!

I see a lot of debate about Kikyo vs Kagome, and I wanted to share some thoughts on the love triangle aspect of Inuaysha. Although I am white British (originally American), I was raised with an Indian religion – and despite leaving it about 20 years ago, it never fully leaves your system. And I really think you really need to look at Inuyasha from an eastern perspective to understand the Kikyo / Kagome thing.

So, let’s first look at why I personally had such a problem with Kikyo in the beginning – and then we’ll look at why we have to see her in a different way.

I have two problems with Kikyo. The first is that she was a high priestess of the village, known to be so powerful that she was entrusted to purify the shikon jewel, and so forth. She dealt with demons on a daily basis. She knew better than most that they often took on dual forms and they were deceitful. And yet the instant ‘Inuyasha’ attacked her, she didn’t so much as blink at it. She accepted his betrayal without hesitation – which tells me she never truly trusted or loved him.

Exhibit B – her proposal to use the crystal on him, to make him fully human. Essentially, this would have eradicated the world of one more demon – she was slaying him under the guise of love. It was a means to de-claw him, which to me is symbolic of stripping away all his passion and strength - everything that makes him him. He would have been tamed and weakened and in her hands. It’s pretty realistic, because a lot of women fall for the ‘bad boy’ and then work hard to domesticate him until he is unrecognisable. I just don’t like it.

So, to my mind, Kikyo didn’t really love him. She didn’t accept him for what / who he was. He was fatherless, his mother died when he was young, and he had to look after himself in a cruel world of bullies and bigots. He naively fell for the first suggestion of kindness because it was the first he ever had of it – but it wasn’t sincere.

She sealed him to the Tree of Ages and the world moved on, while he remained frozen in an older time. I see this as metaphor for Inuyasha being emotionally and mentally stuck, unable to move forward from his trauma. This is why (apart from just being a demon) he doesn’t age. Kaede is an old woman and he’s still the young naïve reckless kid in desperate need of love and acceptance, unable to grow.

But Kikyo never grew either. She died and sealed away the crystal in her grave, freezing the whole moment in time. She still had lessons to learn – they both did. And this is what leads us to Kagome. She is drawn back to Inuyasha because they have unfinished business from a previous lifetime.

When Kikyo is first resurrected, her soul is removed from Kagome’s body and returned to its former body, Kikyo. But this is not how it should be – that soul is ready to move forward. It’s had time to learn lessons. In fact, an interesting question would be: what was that soul doing for nearly 500 years? Because it had to have gone through other incarnations between the feudal period and modern Tokyo. In that time, Inuyasha remained stuck in one moment, unable to grow, while his lover’s soul reincarnated again and again and learned the lessons it needed to learn in order to go back and resolve this matter.

So Kagome drags her soul back into her modern body – but leaves one crucial piece behind in Kikyo’s resurrected body: her hatred / anger. Kikyo is then a walking body of rage. Symbolically, we are seeing the soul (now in Kagome) leaving the past in the past and wishing to move forward, without the anger it held onto for so long. The anger then gradually becomes purified, we could say, through the infusion of other dead souls mixed in to keep Kikyo’s body alive a while longer. She gains the experience of other souls, to heal that anger so that it no longer lingers in the world.

However, as long as Kikyo is present, Inuyasha cannot move forward. It isn't so much about her as an individual - because we have to remember she's already there as Kagome. Kikyo's presence is a symbol of the guilt and anger Inuyasha needs to let go of. He is still emotionally stuck to the tree.

Kagome has had other incarnations to teach her the wisdom of letting go of those emotions. Her special innate skill seems to be healing – as Kikyo, she was a healer, but now she is even more so. The very birds flock to her. She is also a seer. She sees not just the shikon shards but into people’s hearts. She can read the emotions in their faces. She sees their vulnerability, and their worth, underneath all their bravado and anger. Her kindness touches people. She might struggle with algebra, but she has innate wisdom from lifetimes of experience. She is an old soul. In many ways, although Inuyasha is 200 years old, she is at least 500 and therefore older, despite appearing younger. This works in a way that ‘Twilight’ never did, because of the reincarnation angle.

Kagome is patient – she’s been patient for 500 years, after all – and continues to be there, waiting for Inuyasha to let go of the past, symbolised by the phantom of Kikyo.

This is not really a love triangle – Kikyo and Kagome are the same person. Kagome learns to realise this. At one point, she finds herself in Kikyo's memories of the day she was killed, and Kagome even yells at Kikyo something to the effect of, 'That's not him! He would never do that! Why can't you see it!?' This is her remembering her own past life and reflecting on how blind she once was. But not anymore - she has learned, and she is a seer.

Kikyo is not a threat. She is a figment of the past, and both Inuyasha and Kagome need to let that past go. This is symbolised when Kagome is tested and held over the cliff by a fake Kikyo, and Kagome has to let go of her hand and declares that she doesn’t need to worry about her – she is enough in herself.

Inuyasha finally comes to see that it’s time to move forward. This is him overcoming trauma, pain and anger. He doesn't simply move on with Kagome once Kikyo dies for good - this is him releasing himself from the past and moving forward with the same lover, but in her older, wiser form. This is the moment that the anger dies. All that matters about Kikyo lives on as Kagome. He isn't choosing one over the other, because there is only one woman.

By the end, when Inuyasha has faced his demons (Naraku and more), he is a whole person and finally able to embrace true love. Kagome, as well, in all these incarnations has learned to accept and love for real. She doesn’t want to de-claw him anymore. She never wants him to go full human, but also doesn’t want him to go full demon – because it is vital that we find balance between our animal and civilized sides. It’s a Buddhist notion, this treading the middle path. Inuyasha is the ‘perfect man’ (I mean that as the western magical term), in the sense that he is equal parts beast and human / instinct and intellect. Neither aspect overwhelms the other – and Kagome is the one who teaches him how to walk this path and be whole.

Kagome gives Inuyasha the acceptance he needs to love himself and therefore love her and see love in others. At the end, when he declares to the demons in the crystal that he was born to meet her and she was born to meet him, he doesn’t just mean as Kagome – he means first as Kikyo and now as Kagome. Their karma is entangled. They have been on this path for 50 years (for him) / 500 years (for her). They share a thread of fate. However, it wasn’t their time, 50 years ago. Neither of them was in the right mental place for it to work, yet. And so it was all put on pause, allowing her time to grow, learn, and come back and teach him what she learned along the way, through all those lifetimes of experience, so that they could both grow together and finally be together. I even like to think that now he might begin to age, because he is no longer emotionally stuck to that tree.

When Kagome’s mother so quickly accepts that it’s time for Kagome to leave forever, this is such an eastern viewpoint, as well. Growing up on the location of a shrine, she clearly understands that this is not really her daughter – this is an old soul who incarnated as her daughter in this particular lifetime, and it is now her time to go back and do what she was born to do. She doesn’t belong to her mother. She was on loan, so to speak.

The ending reminded me so much of a novel I’ve read a few times called 'Mipam' by a Tibetan lama named Lama Yongden. It’s quite an interesting story, again about a romantic couple and their fate throughout incarnations.

So Kikyo is bothersome – but it’s because she is the immature form of Kagome before the benefit of 500 years’ worth of lives / experience. As a soul, she learned love along the way, to the point of becoming someone who can love nearly anyone and anything. Kagome forgives so much – including Sesshomaru and Kouga, who are rather abominable, if you think about their beginnings in the story. I see Kagome as a bodhisattva (another Buddhist concept), choosing to incarnate even when she no longer has to, in order to pass on her wisdom to others and teach everyone the path of love. And in true bodhisattva fashion, she isn’t really aware of it during this lifetime – she is humility.

So there you have it – a love triangle…but between two people! Inuyasha never chose one woman over the other, because they are the same - you can’t have Kagome without Kikyo. Kikyo struggles with it because she knows that part of herself will be gone forever (the anger). Kagome struggles with it because anger is hard to release, and yet she just wants it gone already! But they are not distinct characters, if seen from an eastern philosophical perspective - which we have to do, because the foundation of the story is that Kagome is Kikyo’s reincarnation.

That perspective is essential to understanding what’s happening, who they both are, and the ending / the path everyone takes. Inuyasha has that revelation by the end and accepts that she will return to him because they have been on this path for so long, and been separated before – by death, no less – and she still came back to him.