Inuyasha

Inuyasha (Inu-Yasha, InuYasha, & Inu Yasha / Japanese: 犬夜叉) is a shōnen manga and anime series created by Rumiko Takahashi. more...

The anime series first aired on Nippon TV in Japan in 1997. The series is named after the main character, Inuyasha. Inuyasha was in Shogakukan's Shonen Sunday (Shūkan Shōnen Sunday). The name "Inuyasha" literally means "Dog Demon". Inu "dog" + yasha "female demon" from Japanese yasha, derived from masculine Sanskrit yaksha, "yasha" is also Japanese for "forest spirit". The full title is 戦国お伽草子ー犬夜叉 (Rōmaji: Sengoku o-togi zōshi Inuyasha), which roughly translates to Inuyasha, A Feudal Fairy Tale.

A female junior high school student, Kagome Higurashi, falls through a well ending up in the Warring States Period. There she meets a han'yō (half human and half yōkai (demon) named Inuyasha. The two are trying to get the shards of the "Shikon Jewel" before they fall into the wrong hands.

Overview

Inuyasha has fallen in love with a miko (shrine maiden) named Kikyo. Kikyo is the guardian of the Shikon Jewel ("Shikon no Tama" or "Jewel of the Four Souls"), a very powerful jewel that can grant wishes. Inuyasha was to use the Shikon Jewel to become a full demon to become more powerful, but Kikyo sealed him to a tree. Then 50 years later, Kagome appears.

Kagome Higurashi is an ordinary girl who is somehow pulled into an old well at her family's Shinto shrine by a mysterious force, sending back in time 500 years to the feudal era. (The time where Inuyasha is). During the time slip, a youkai claims that Kagome possesses the "Shikon Jewel") and attempts to seize it. The girl fights back and when she climbs out, she finds herself in the Warring States Period of Japan, where both humans and youkai reside.

She is quickly recognized as the reincarnation of the miko Kikyo by Kaede, an elderly miko who happens to be Kikyo's younger sister. Youkai are immediately drawn to Kagome and she flees into the forest to save the villagers who have taken her in. Her presence causes a strange boy pinned to an sacred tree by an arrow to awake. He is Inuyasha, a Hanyou and recognizes Kagome as Kikyo, the priestess who sealed Inuyasha to the tree. In order to combat the youkai, despite Kaede's warnings, Kagome frees Inuyasha.

However, the youkai manages to attack Kagome and remove an object from Kagome's body, the Shikon Jewel. While the youkai is easily destroyed, it is Kagome's duty to protect the jewel from both youkai and corrupt humans who seek to use it to gain power - including Inuyasha, who desires to use the jewel in order to become a Youkai (a full demon).

However, when the jewel is shattered, Kagome and Inuyasha must team up to recover the shards before they get into the wrong hands. While they gain valuable allies along the way with the monk (Houshi) Miroku, youkai exterminator (taijiya) Sango, and fox-Youkai (kitsune) Shippo, they find adversaries in Inuyasha's older brother Sesshomaru, a resurrected Kikyo, and the malicious demon Naraku.

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