Inuyasha

Inuyasha

犬夜叉
2000 -2004 Sunrise Yomiuri TV / NTV 167 episodes Completed
Action Adventure Romance Historical Supernatural
Details & Synopsis
In 1996, Rumiko Takahashi, the architect of Ranma ½, Maison Ikkoku, and Urusei Yatsura, the most successful female manga artist in the world, began a new series in Weekly Shōnen Sunday. It would run for twelve years and 558 chapters. The anime adaptation began in 2000 and did not stop until 2010.

Kagome Higurashi is a fifteen-year-old girl who lives at a Shinto shrine and falls into the old well in the storehouse. She emerges five hundred years in the past, in the Sengoku period, in a Japan populated by demons, monks, priestesses, and things considerably worse than any of them. She also awakens Inuyasha, a half-demon pinned to a sacred tree with an arrow for fifty years, and accidentally shatters the Shikon Jewel, a jewel of immense power, into hundreds of shards that scatter across feudal Japan.

They have to get the shards back. Naraku is trying to get them first. This is the arrangement.

Produced by Sunrise and directed by Yasunori Ide, Inuyasha aired on Yomiuri TV from 2000 to 2004. One hundred and sixty-seven episodes of the original run, followed by Inuyasha: The Final Act in 2009, twenty-six episodes that complete the story the manga had finally finished. Adult Swim carried it for years. The fansub community carried it before that, and the uncut versions circulated heavily alongside the broadcast dub for viewers who wanted the story without the edits.

The cast is Takahashi at her most generous: Miroku, a lecherous monk with a wind tunnel in his hand and a death sentence ticking down; Sango, a demon slayer hunting the creature that destroyed her village; Shippo, a small fox demon who contributes mostly by panicking; and Sesshomaru, Inuyasha's full-demon elder brother, so comprehensively cold the show essentially had to invent a separate arc just to give him a reason to exist near the main cast. It works.

The love triangle between Inuyasha, Kagome, and the resurrected priestess Kikyo is the emotional center. It is messy in the way Takahashi's best work is always messy, not because the writing is confused but because the feelings are.

Start with the original run. Watch The Final Act immediately after. Do not stop in the middle.
Alt Title 犬夜叉
Studio Sunrise
Network Yomiuri TV / NTV
Aired 2000 - 2004
Episodes 167
Genre Action, Adventure, Romance, Historical, Supernatural
Status Completed
← All lore

Shikon Jewel & Cosmology

Sengoku Era & Demonic Artifacts

The Sacred Shikon Jewel (Shikon no Tama)

Born from the ancient battle between the priestess Midoriko and a thousand fused demons. The Shikon Jewel embodies four souls: Courage (Arami), Friendship (Nigimi), Wisdom (Kushimi), and Love (Sakimi). It amplifies demonic or spiritual power exponentially, shifting between purity and corruption based on its bearer's heart.

Kagome Higurashi & The Bone-Eater's Well

500-Year Time Shift · Priestess Kikyo's Reincarnation
Kagome Higurashi, a 15-year-old modern Tokyo student, is the reincarnation of the priestess Kikyo. Transported 500 years into Japan's Sengoku (Warring States) period via the Bone-Eater's Well, Kagome accidentally shattered the Shikon Jewel into dozens of fragments across the feudal countryside.
Kikyo Kagome Higurashi

Inuyasha: Hanyo (Half-Demon) Hybrid Vigor

Dog-Demon Father · Human Mother · Sacred Beads
Son of the great Great Dog General (Toga) and a human noblewoman (Izayoi). As a half-demon, Inuyasha possesses physical resilience and claws, but loses all demonic powers on the night of the new moon, turning completely human. Kagome controls him via the Subduing Beads ("Sit! / Osuwari!").
Inuyasha