InuYasha, a Feudal Fairy Tale (戦国御伽草子 犬夜叉 Sengoku Otogizōshi InuYasha?

STORYLINE

The series' plot follows a middle school girl Kagome Higurashi who lives on the grounds of her family's hereditary Shinto shrine. When she goes into the well house to retrieve her cat, a centipede demon bursts out of the enshrined Bone Eater's Well and pulls her through it. As she leaves the well, Kagome appears in the Sengoku period of Japan. During the demon's previous attack, a magical jewel known as the Sacred Jewel of Four Souls was embodied from Kagome. She then becomes the demon's target and it tries to consume the jewel and kill Kagome. In desperation, Kagome unseals the half-demon InuYasha who was placed on a tree fifty years ago by Kagome's incarnation Kikyo, the young miko of the village in charge of the sacred jewel who had, upon her death, requested that the jewel be burned in her funeral pyre. Although InuYasha destroys the centipede, the Sacred Jewel is later shattered into numerous shards that disperse across Japan. Even the individual shards are capable of granting great power, and are eagerly sought by humans and demons alike. Kagome and InuYasha set out to collect the shards to avoid disasters caused by Sacred Jewel of Four Souls.

Along the way, they join forces with Shippo, a small fox demon, Miroku, a monk who suffers from a curse his ancestors were given by a powerful demon, and Sango, a demon-slayer whose clan was killed by a group of demons. They are mainly opposed by Naraku, a devious and powerful collective half-demon who manipulated the initial conflict between Kikyo and InuYasha, Sango's clan's destruction and was responsible for Miroku's curse. Naraku collects the shards for himself and continues setting up traps on the protagonists to take Kagome's jewels. Other people they find are InuYasha's older half-brother Sesshomaru, who wishes to kill Naraku after he tried to manipulate him, Kikyo, now partially resurrected with a fragment of Kagome's soul, and a wolf demon named Koga, most of whose comrades were killed by Naraku's forces.

Eventually, Naraku collects all of the shards and reassembles the Jewel of Four Souls. Although InuYasha and his allies defeat him, Naraku uses his power as the Jewel's owner to wish for Kagome's soul to be trapped inside it with his own, which would allow Naraku to survive within it in eternal conflict with her. Kagome wishes for the Jewel to disappear forever. She is thrown back into her own time and loses contact with InuYasha for three years. In those three years without Kagome, Sango and Miroku have three children together and Shippo attains rank seven for fox demons. Kagome graduates high school and comes to a realization which allows the well to work again. Kagome returns to the Sengoku period, where she stays with InuYasha.

CHARACTERS

InuYasha

InuYasha (犬夜叉^?) is the male protagonist of the series. Born to a Inugami father and human mother, InuYasha is a half-demon who initially wanted to use the power of the sacred jewel to become a full-blooded demon, like his older half-brother, Sesshomaru. Fifty years prior to the main era of the storyline, though, InuYasha fell in love with the priestess Kikyo, who was given the task to protect the jewel. InuYasha changed his mind and instead, wanted to use the sacred jewel to become a human so he could live with her, but Naraku manipulated the both of them into believing they had been betrayed by one another. Being a shape-shifter, he used Kikyo's appearance to deceive and attack InuYasha, and vice versa. Before Kikyo died, however, she shot the real InuYasha with an arrow that sealed him to a sacred tree. InuYasha remained there for fifty years, until Kagome Higurashi, who was Kikyo's reincarnation, pulled out the arrow and broke the seal. In attempt to stop the crow demon who escaped with the sacred jewel, Kagome shot a powerful arrow at it, and accidentally shattered the jewel into several shard fragments, scattering it all over Feudal Japan. InuYasha and Kagome then travel together to retrieve its shards. At first he is hostile and uncooperative, but Kikyo's sister, Kaede, gives Kagome a necklace that restrains him from trying to steal the sacred jewel. Whenever Kagome gives the simple command "Sit!", InuYasha is compelled to sit due to the unbreakable spiritual power the necklace contains. At the beginning, because of Kagome's resemblance to Kikyo, InuYasha found it uncomfortable and annoying. As the story progressed, however, he began to fall in love with Kagome, and yet was strained by the unexpected reawakening of Kikyo. Throughout the series he remaind indecisive about who he wants to be with. Verbally he states that it is Kikyo but his feelings for Kagome are also undeniable. Eventually Kikyo finally passes away and ascends to Nirvana. During this scene Inuyasha cries over her and kisses her passionately. However, after being separated for three years, InuYasha and Kagome are reunited, and proceed to get married and live happily together in Feudal Japan. Inuyasha's older brother, Sesshomaru, in the beggining despised Inuyasha because he was a half demon and also had the heirloom that Seshomaru wanted, Tetsusaiga.

Kagome Higurashi 


Kagome Higurashi(日暮 かごめ Higurashi Kagome^?), aged fifteen at the start of the series, is the female protagonist and narrator of the series. A high-school student born in modern Japan, she is the reincarnation of the deceased (and reawakened) priestess Kikyo. Kagome has the sacred Shikon Jewel unknowingly hidden inside her body until her 15th birthday, when a demon pulls her into the Bone Eater's Well at her family's shrine and takes her five hundred years back through time. Kagome can still go back to modern Japan by using the well only with the use of a shard of the self-shattered jewel, but usually chooses to go to this era. They emerge in the Feudal Era about fifty years after Kikyo's death, where the demon tears the jewel from Kagome's body. She releases InuYasha from his seal, and he defeats the demon, but after the awakening murder, attempts to slaughter Kagome for the jewel. Kaede, Kikyo's younger sister, uses her spiritual power to force the necklace onto Inuyasha, and Kagome and Inuyasha are bound by the artifact. The jewel's power proves to be a strong lure for evil. When the Crow Demon seizes the Sacred Jewel, Kagome attempts to stop it with a longbow and arrow, but in doing so, accidentally shatters the jewel into numerous fragments that disperse throughout Japan. She agrees to help find them, as she can sense the presence of nearby shards, and InuYasha comes along as protector and companion (and, ostensibly, so he can steal the jewel from her when it's complete, though he makes no secret of this). As the series progresses, she begins to fall in love with InuYasha, and finds herself competing with the revived Kikyo for his affections. In the 'final act'she and Inuyasha were separated for three years and she come back to be with Inuyasha, got married and see what future hold for them.

Miroku

Miroku (弥勒^?) is a Bhikkhu Buddhist, lecherous monk, aged eighteen, who travels the countryside performing spiritual services such as exorcisms and demon exterminations, although sometimes he deliberately falsifies these to earn comfortable rewards. Miroku can attack enemies with his holy staff and sutra scrolls, but his greatest weapon is the Wind Tunnel (風穴 Kazaana^?) embedded in the palm of his right hand - which is actually a hereditary curse originally inflicted by Naraku upon Miroku's grandfather. Though the Wind Tunnel is extremely powerful because it can suck in almost anything in its path, it grows larger with increasing use and will eventually consume Miroku, as it consumed his grandfather, Miatsu, and his father. Miroku is able to seal up his wind tunnel with his sacred sutra beads that are wound around his arm, but the curse can only be broken by killing Naraku.

Miroku first meets InuYasha by stealing the Shikon Jewel, causing them to fight one another until Kagome leaps between them. After Miroku explains his situation, Kagome asks him to join her and InuYasha, given their mutual goal of wishing to destroy Naraku. He reluctantly complies, though he soon becomes one of InuYasha's most trusted companions. However, Miroku remains notorious for his recurring lechery, usually manifesting as shameless flattery, semi-surreptitious groping, and asking every woman he meets to bear him a child, except for Sango, who eventually does. While he learned these bad habits from the monk Mushin, who raised him after his father was engulfed into his own wind tunnel, Miroku also has the more serious motive of wanting an heir to follow him if he dies without defeating Naraku.

Over time, Miroku's feelings mature and he begins focusing his affections more exclusively on Sango. However, because of his love for her, he fears that he cannot love her as an ordinary woman and hopes that if his wind tunnel consumes him, she will not die alongside him. He later proposes to her, which she accepts, though their relationship takes longer to solidify since Miroku is still prone to flirting with other girls, but expresses jealousy when other men act the same way towards Sango. When Naraku is finally killed near the end of the series, Miroku's wind tunnel disappears, freeing him from the curse. In the end of the Final Act, Miroku marries Sango and has three children with her, twin girls and a boy. He supports his family financially by exorcising demons with InuYasha.

Sango 


Sango(珊瑚^?) is a demon slayer, aged sixteen, who hails from a village of professional demon slayers. Of her broad repertoire of tools and tricks for fighting demons, Sango's most powerful weapon is the Hiraikotsu (飛来骨^?), a massive boomerang made of purified demon bones. Her other weapons include a concealed sword and poisons. She is accompanied by the demon cat Kirara, who accompanies Sango into battle.

Sango is first seen when she and her family and companions were on a mission to slay an evil demon, while another demon had actually possessed the lord of the castle. The demon possessing the lord ends up controlling Kohaku, Sango's younger brother, and causes him to slay all the demon slayers except Sango. Realizing a demon was possessing both the lord and Kohaku, Sango attempts to attack the lord, but she and Kohaku are shot by the lord's retainers and assumed to be dead and buried at the orders of the lord's son, Kagewaki Hitomi. Naraku later tricks Sango into killing InuYasha by deeming him responsible for her village's destruction. When the plot fails and Sango joins InuYasha's group, Naraku revives Kohaku, controlling him as a pawn to manipulate Sango's emotions. While Sango seeks revenge against Naraku, her primary goal is to rescue Kohaku from Naraku's influence and save his life.

Sango is often the victim of Miroku's lecherous tendencies and gives him a loud slap for it, though she eventually falls in love with him. While she accepts Miroku's proposal of marriage, she requests that Miroku stop his lecherous actions and not to flirt either. He gradually acquieses to her request, focusing his attention on her exclusively. At the end of series, when Miroku loses his Wind Tunnel, Sango marries Miroku, using the next three years with Miroku and form a family with a pair of twin girls and a baby boy. The two move into a larger home in Kaede's village.

 Shippo

Shippo (七宝 Shippō^?) is an orphaned young fox demon, aged seven, who attempts to steal the Shikon Jewel from Kagome and InuYasha, wanting to become stronger and avenge his father's death. Though his plan fails, Kagome and InuYasha aid him after hearing his story, and he becomes their companion for the rest of the series.

Shippo normally appears to be a young boy with certain fox-like features: his legs, feet, ears, and tail. He can shape-shift, but his other forms (such as a large pink flying balloon) are temporary and often ineffective, usually given away by his lingering fox tail. He can also create illusory duplicates of himself, as well as weak fox-fire magic and toy-based tricks such as his giant spinning top attack. Naively observant, he often directs cheeky comments to InuYasha, earning a smack on the head. To Kagome, he is the child she would like to have. To Miroku and Sango, he is the friend they always needed. To Kirara, he is a playmate she likes to have. To Inuyasha, he is the little brother he never wanted in the first place. Because of his small size, Shippo often rides on Kirara or the shoulders of others. His actual age is never stated in the series; according to the official InuYasha guide by Rumiko Takahashi, his appearance is equivalent to that of a seven year old boy.^[1] He often bears crushes toward the little girls in the village and strives to protect and impress them, and usually works. Though he is the weakest member of InuYasha's group, Shippo gradually becomes braver during the series and is dedicated to his friends. Despite InuYasha's attempt to stop Shippo from joining their final battle against Naraku, Shippo goes anyway in hopes of helping his friends in the ways that he can. At the end of the Final Act, Shippo resides in Kaede's village, but often leaves to train and take the kitsune demon examination.

Kirara

Kirara (雲母^?) is Sango's faithful demon-cat companion. Kirara usually appears to be a small kitten-sized feline with two tails, but can become large enough to carry several passengers (usually Sango, Miroku, and Shippo). Her full-sized form has more prominent fangs, flames around her feet and tail, and enough power to fly through the air fast enough to keep up with InuYasha's top speed. In her small form, she is small and cute, with no fangs, wide eyes, and two tails. Because of her cuteness, Kirara is often the victim to one of Kagome's dress-up games. It is made apparent that Kirara once belonged to Midoriko when they go to her cave for the first time. When Kohaku's memory returns, Kirara is the first character to find out