Referring back to my hypothesizing whilst struggling with Crayon Shin-chan, I proposed a theory for the unique gestation process of anime franchises. A theory which InuYasha continues to validate:
- The series starts as a manga (comic book), masterminded by a single author.
- The manga is picked up as a television series, animated with episodes corresponding to individual comic entries, telling the same story.
- With years of success, supplemental cinematic films are released, as standalone individual features having little to do with the comic.
- As befits any franchise, toys and whatnot appear.
InuYasha follows that trajectory perfectly. The original manga originated in 1996, and ran for 12 years, offering plenty of material for further adaptations. Writer and illustrator Rumiko Takahashi (who also originated a different manga/anime series, Urusei Yatsura) is considered one of Japan’s premier mangaka. Her “InuYasha” takes on the fantasy genre, chock full of unusual elements. For now, let us say it is a good example of uniquely Japanese mysticism, which actually allows for decent export, as it becomes all the more unusual for foreigners.
The “InuYasha” TV series is produced by one of Japan’s greatest animation studios, as every element of this franchise just screeches quality. While their (vast) output feels more populist and sci-fi than Miyazaki’s beloved Studio Ghibli (lots of assorted Gundams, for one), Sunrise is generally professional, which defines this property’s visuals. This series (with which I am woefully unfamiliar) faithfully adapts the manga to a new medium. It is also familiar beyond Japan, known partly for an English dub on Adult Swim.
Then there are the movies, which are by necessity of this blog’s mission statement the only part of InuYasha I shall concern myself with. With anime (and largely no other form of film franchise), this is a major failing on my part, as these are generally the least essential aspects of their respective series. So it is here, with the new stories having nothing to do with Takahashi’s output, but rather written for the screen by Katsuyuki Sumisawa. Likewise, directing (for all four films) is by Toshiyo Shinohara, familiar like Sumisawa with the show, so at least a great deal of consistency remains.
One reason for a movie-only anime diet being foolish is how complex these years-long cartoons can be. I jump into a narrative with 54 episodes preceding it, and only the barest narrated intro to ground me. (It’s likely this narration belongs solely to the English dub, where audiences wouldn’t be as familiar to begin with.) Keep in mind these Inyuasha movies, like today’s Affections Touching Across Time, are rather like The X-Files: Fight the Future in that they bridge the show’s production seasons, exist in that continuity, but are far less essential…In fact, these movies are devised to have no impact upon the greater series, for that is how minor they are in the overall InuYasha scheme.
Some context: InuYasha is a half-demon, half-human, and upon movie start squarely the hero – despite the occasional conflict with his demonic heritage. Living in a feudal Japan amok with other fantastical entities (it all in a sort of elemental, animalist mode), InuYasha seeks the Sacred Jewel, which can “grant power” in the sense of all MacGuffins. Stretching out a decade’s worth of stories, it has been broken into countless shards, creating a “collect ‘em all” scenario familiar from “Dragon Ball Z” or “Pokémon.” Keep in mind this is just the series framework, which has little bearing upon Affections Touching Across Time.
Now, when I call InuYasha a “demon,” that’s not in the Western sense, ala The Exorcist or some such. InuYasha builds upon the same sort of Japanese spiritualistic mythology which informs the bestiary in Spirited Away, and so InuYasha’s “demonhood” is really that he is partly a fox spirit…Look, I’m still trying to grasp all this myself!
Aiding him in his adventures are a good half dozen other...creatures. With lots of stopping and starting on the DVD, here’s what I could grok: Childlike foxtail (not sure what that means) Shippo. Demon-slayer Sango. Flirtatious monk Miroku, Sango’s opposite. Sango’s gigantic two-tailed demon-cat what-have-you Kilala (sp?). Captain exposition himself, the tiny flea demon Myōga – he is especially handy in spelling out the for us whenever the storyline or insane visuals get out of hand…
And then there’s the teenaged Kagome Higurashi, a Japanese schoolgirl (what else?!) hailing from the modern age – hence our “in” into this complex world. She is the latest in generations of…witches, I guess, in a Japanese sense, spanning back to InuYasha’s time, and protector of the Sacred Tree in our time. She regularly travels to the past via a magical well (get used to such notions, and an unclear metaphysics which goes with them), to help InuYasha & Co. in their adventures. She and the fox-demon (InuYasha, that is, not Shippo or Kilala) share the sort of platonic relationship Japanese anime fans read waaaaay too much into, which is good for the grander arc.
In film, all this info occurs in under a minute, but it’s essential to follow what comes up. Well, sorta… These characters are presented clearly enough, as personalities; it never seems too important to know the name of InuYasha’s gigantic sword, or Kagome’s arrows, or any of that stuff which’d be essential in an RPG. Just go with it.
The plot coupon quest for jewel shards doesn’t occupy much of Affections’ attention. Instead, to make minimal macro-plot waves, Affections features a one-off villain, a basic good vs. evil story – which is a good sort of story for such a complex fantasy, lest we lose our minds. To that effect, Affections’ antagonist is a much more classically demonic individual, Menomaru – and for as Satanic as he seems, Menomaru is still a proper Japanese demon, representing…wait for it…moths! Perhaps that dread winged insect has different cultural connotations – I mean hell, look at Mothra! – because it’s easier for a Westerner to look at Menomaru and simply think “the Devil.” But still in that Japanese way where he poses, looks rather effeminate (it took me a while to determine genders), and if oft accompanied by glowing power effects.
Aided by his henchwomen Hari and Ruri, Menomaru picks a fight with InuYasha. These baddies come equipped with some “whatever” magical powers, able to easily best the heroic troupe – at least, at the story’s start. They enslave Kilala, steal Miroku’s patented Wind Tunnel™ (everyone has a sort of Mega Man weapon), but they mostly leave the good guys tired and angry – angry enough for InuYasha to pursue Menomaru and continue this battle.
I probably sound a little harsh on Affections (mostly based on comments I’ve now deleted), which I don’t intend to be. The movie is quite good, even as it aims to please a fairly niche audience (the sort which already enjoys anime). The animation is of a high quality, the story is told with notable clarity considering how involved this world is, and the well-established characters provide plenty of humor to counterbalance the potential seriousness of any good vs. evil endeavor.
Menomaru’s initial forays against InuYasha are motivated by his arc, as an evildoer, to amass power for the first 7/8ths of the story. To that end, he means no specific ill will towards InuYasha, except to get him to release some pent-up generational energy from Menomaru’s Tree of Ages (which is distinct from Kagome’s Sacred Tree). This allows Menomaru to hole up in a power-ball-like moth cocoon, enter Menomaru menopause, and suction up his ancestor’s accumulated evil strengths like so much siphoned gasoline. Evil power grows, the world descends into the sort of hellish nightmare world the animators wanted to draw, inundating InuYasha in incapability.
Myōga becomes invaluable, in the way that Navi is invaluable in “The Legend of Zelda”: a tiny, irritating distraction who occasionally points the way when it isn’t clear to the protagonist. For every new evolution to a former problem which Myōga already declared insolvable, he proposes new solutions. But at this stage in the narrative, it’s just a matter of defense…for now.
Despite existing in light-ball stasis, Menomaru can still manage his “whatever” powers as it suits him (and the film). Because the movie’s point (and possibly the point of all InuYashas) is to emphasize the relationship twixt InuYasha and Kagome, these powers extend directly to Kagome – who becomes Menomaru’s slave, intent upon murdering InuYasha. This is to highlight the challenge of a human and a half-demon in love, a particular miscegenation Menomaru is quite offended by. Hence his continued insistence upon attacking InuYasha, even when he previously could’ve cared less about him, and he’s too powerful now for it to matter.
The InuYasha/Kagome duel goes on for a while, as Sango and Miroku are busy in a subplot endlessly fighting Hari and Ruri (hope ya remember all those character names from above!). Myōga knows no solution. Rather – eventually – Kagome overcomes Menomaru’s controlling powers through sheer force of will. Doncha love these movies where if someone just simply wants something hard enough, it comes into being – It’s like when the “power of rock” stops the Devil, or some such. (This same “salvation through feeling really hard-like” is also what brings Kilala out of her [his?] funk later on.)
Ah, but with that solved, Kagome’s ghostlike sorceress antecedent representative (just go with it) arrives to randomly tell her that now the whole human/half-demon thing must come to an end. So, seemingly out of context with the greater Menomaru conflict, Kagome is banished back to 2001 A.D., that time travel well sealed up. Oh, and the modern age is beset with an endless snowfall (like Chicago!), the post-temporal effect of Menomaru’s evil.
Here comes the entire gist of Affections – the title! Despite her banishment, Kagome romantically yearns for InuYasha in the past; InuYasha does likewise. Affections even touch across time, if you will, again simply by the fiat that these vague feelings of love are so strong they transcend the Einsteinian laws of space and time. I’m probably the wrong sort of individual to take such emotional content seriously. But that’s me; this is the sort of storytelling technique which is common to so much fantasy, and so much anime fantasy even more so. No matter, Kagome and InuYasha love each other enough that time breaks down, Kagome goes back to the past, and things are as they were (plus a title drop).
And just in time, for Menomaru has emerged at last from his ever-lasting gobstopper of pure energy, gigantic-sized like a medium kaiju! His abilities are at their peak, allowing for an innumerable mass of disgusting demons “from the continent” (China = evil) – so many humanoid pigs and goats and lizards and over a dozen other beasts I didn’t note, with barely any screen time to justify such a sudden load of imagination.
At last, the plot circumstances being right, Myōga figures out how Menomaru must be defeated, now that his is ostensibly at his most undefeatable. In keeping with the romantic bond between Kagome and InuYasha, they must simply combine their battle powers (i.e. sword and arrows – swarrows?!). It’s in keeping with the light thematic material, and it’s the simple explanation for how good triumphs over evil. Though I was surprised at how non-crazy this anime climax was, considering they usually go to 11, and then up to 22.
Things end with InuYasha and the gang travelling on in search of jewel shards, almost as though none of this ever happened – because for the next season of TV to work, it basically hasn’t happened. That’s a bit of a crutch to build a movie upon, as it employs the same “reset button” principles which guide so much television (not that certain pure movie franchises don’t do likewise). InuYasha the Movie: Affections Touching Across Time is done so professionally that this isn’t a major issue, but it does somewhat reduce how “epic” these stories can get. Still, Affections is a mostly successful representative for the series as a whole, I gather, showcasing the tempo, style, characters, what have you, without asking too much of an unfamiliar audiences (that is, myself). I do apologize for a certain lack of enthusiasm on my part in this write-up, though, as it’s been nearly a week since I watched it – curse these uncontrollable outside circumstances! Even so, I look forwards to the following three entries.
RELATED POSTS
• No. 2 InuYasha the Movie 2: The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass (2002)
• No. 3 InuYasha the Movie 3: Swords of an Honorable Ruler (2003)
• No. 4 InuYasha the Movie 4: Fire on the Mystic Island (2004)
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