Manga started: Inuyasha

 I started in a kick to read manga form animes I was watching growing up. It is a trend right now to go back to your childhood favorites, it also helps that I really did not get through the manga, so its a first time read as well in that regard. I barely remember anything from the series so it's going to be simply discussing the manga and not comparing to the anime. I do not think I will be able to remember well enough to compare.

The discussions will contain mild spoilers as its a series and what will I do if I can't talk about what I am seeing in each one?

Inuyasha volemes 1-4

Author Rumiko Takahashi

Translator: is not mentioned anywhere, Panina really has a big improvement room.

Oiriginal publication date: 1997

It kicks off with Kagome as she is living her everyday normal life. She lives in a Temple with her family which consists of a mother, little brother and a grandparent. The grandfather (hisname is not mentioned so far), is very keen on sharing culture, past traditions and legends to Kagome and her little brother Sota. Both youths completely ignore the stories and pay little mind to his talk of evil spirits and demons. Nothing more than superstitious jabber of an old man. He makes talismans and other icons of protection against evil, we come to see they unfortunately do not work. Inuyasha being part demon is not even slight affected by his talismans. But lets return to the start of the journey. 

One day Kagome is helping out Sota to retrieve the cat from the sacred well in their property and something comes out and drags her into the well-

The adventure begins.

She is transported to Feudal Japan.

There she gets attacked by a demon, she barely manages to escape and manges to find people who lead her to the town priestess. Kaede is a nice wise old woman. She recognizes that Kagome is the reincarnation of her older sister who died 50 years ago. 

The reincarnation, Kagome, refuses to believe that and just wants to find a way to go home. For a while she has no idea of what to do and simply lives among the town people.

To tell you the truth Kagome is annoying in this first few moments you meet her, her decisions are not the best. But then again she was just transported to a whole different world it would seem, so her lack of logic can be seen as her inability to adjust to her new reality due to shock.

The town is attacked by the same demon that transported her to the Feudal time. The arrows and spears make very little difference so Kagome takes it upon her to lead the creature away from town after all she is the main target. She frees Inuyasha contrary to everyone's warnings, he defeat the demon pretty easily. 

But that is not the only consequence, during the fight the demon manages to have the Shikon No Tama,  ripped out of her body. The Shikon no Tama is a very powerful jewel that cn grant demons unimagnable power and everyone wants to have it. 

Their first victory but Inuyasha being very stupid still claims to want to take the Jewel for himself and Kaede places a binding charm on his neck, Kagome activates it with the Word "Sit", like command for a dog. 

The village is attacked again and this time the Jewel is taken, Inuyasha and Kagome team up to retrieve it but the demon is a birdlike creature and they can't reach it, so Kagome shoots an arrow to the bird, killing it. The shot also hits the jewel breaking it in small fragments that are sent in every direction.

Now she must tie forces with Inuyasha to retrieve the fragments and make it whole again, even in small pieces demons and humans with dark hearts are going to be drawn to the jewel and with it their power will increase, therefore the humans are in danger.

Her mission is to find it!

You have to suspend you belief for this series. Here are some small details that make no sense to me:

*Kagome is a middle school/high school student who goes missing for days and her family covers it up so no one knows she's missing. Why? How can they simply do that? Wouldn't it make more sense to have a whole search party looking for her, especially the first time she goes missing.

*Once Kagome returns, she is not shown to give any explanation to her family or even ave any consequence for going missing for days. Her grandfather was worried and praying for her return and making up lies to cover her absence in school. That is a bit illogical to say the least.

*Kagome goes back to school and continues to take her classes, take her exams like nothing happened until another demon attack makes her seek Inuyasha'a help.

*Inuyasha is the only one from the Feudal time that can be transported to her world? Why? The first time she was transported a demon manged to cross and drag her into it. Then one of the times Inuyasha visits Kagome Yura a demoness manages to send locks of hir, her weapon of choice, after them.

The well allows only some people through and that is just in certain convenient times, because of course Sota, Kagome's younger brother tries to reach the other side to get Inuyasha and is unable to cross.

Moving on with the story.

Kagome seems to have woken her sensible side, as she is able to see demosn and ghosts now even in her time period now.

Inuyasha and her do not get along. She is stubborn and reminds him of Kikyo, the priestes who sealed Inuyasha in that tree 50 years ago. 

He claims to simply want to take the jewel to become a full fledged demon and that is the only reason he's helping. Kagome is the only one who can see the jewel.

Along the way they meet a fox demon, a child fox demon, who tried to trick them to steal their pieces of the jewel. Shipo is trying to take revange on the Raiju brother who possess fragments of the Jewel and have been going around killing others.

-Here the inconsistency, I am not sure if time goes much faster in the Feudal era, it seems lik only a few days/weeks have gone by but the group start to encounter people who were terrorized and have tragic stories due to demons who are looking to get the Jewel.

That is very odd.

Moving on. We see the group fight several demons, Inuyasha obtains his father's sword, fights his older brother Sesshoumaru who hates human and wants to kill Inuyasha for some reason.

*Small beak for commentary not plot related: Oh wow, I really enjoyed my time reading the manga and its coming off more negative than I thought. It is a very classic we must save the world, we have to face enemies stronger than us but we can do it together.

In this stage they are getting the group together.

Miroku a monk who has a curse placed in his right hand by a powerful ancient demon named Naraku, joins with them. First Miroku is an enemy wanting to steal their fragments of the Jewel then he shares with them their story and Inuyasha discovers that Naraku might have been the demon who tricked him and Kikyo into killing one another.

Inuyasha and Mroki are traveling together on suggestion o Kagaome of course they all want to find the Jewel and kill Naraku so it makes sense. But that does not mean that Inuyasha and Miroku can't pretned to simply use one another and try to be the ones to get the Jewel shard first.

Its funny I do not remember them being enemies, from I remember they were all a team, but well this is only the beginning.

Funny Miroku tried to ask Kagome to bear his children that is very funny. Inuyasha continues to say he dislikes Kagome but he gets jealous of others close to her. He does behave like a teenager.

Over all it was a good beginning. I am exited for the rest of the series. I am not sure yet if I will discuss several volumes in each review or one in one, they do cover a lot ground but not sure how much to include. We will decide as we go.

That's it for today guys, see you later.

Stay safe!