Inuyasha: Season 6

Due to the long running nature of this show, there WILL be some spoilers in this review. Read at your own risk, you have been warned.

Well folks, we've made it, this is the final installment. It's been a long time in coming and I'm sure you're all excited so let's jump right in. For the very last time, if you'd like to see the older parts of the review, from season one to now, you can check it out by clicking the entry marked "Inuyasha" in the tab showing the list of shows I've already reviewed. Also for the last time on this review, to make sure that we meet our copyright obligations: In the extremely unlikely event that you forgot, Inuyasha is produced by Sunrise, based on the manga of the same name by Rumiko Takahashi, and is currently licensed in the United States by Viz Media. Naraku's been causing even more mayhem and the final countdown has begun (though whether it actually ends is up to you). So once again, slip on that awesome heirloom sword and prep that nigh invulnerable fire-rat kimono, because here there be demons that desperately need exterminating.

If it tells you anything, that is a guy and he's creepier than Jakotsu.
I'm going to need brain bleach for this. ><;

So when we last left our heroes they had been engaging in a stint of plot derailment in which they were horribly distracted from what they were actually supposed to be doing by an immigrant character from one of the films (Akitoki, Houjo's ancestor) as he had been charged with purifying this demonic blade and wanted them to help him take it to Furai shrine, since Mount Hakurei had been evaporated (see last season). At the end of last season, things had gone to hell in a hand basket. And even now they continue to get worse. Kagome's been kidnapped, Houjo's ancestor is still useless, and of course, the Nakama's walking into another trap. What else is new? Fortunately this mess only lasts a little while longer no thanks to the flamboyantly but ambiguously (and sometimes not so ambiguously) gay henchmen of the villain of the month (a weird Inuyasha parable whose Samurai/miko girlfriend betrayed him in order to separate him from this possessed naginata, half of which Akitoki's carrying around right now). I was glad it was over mainly because even though the back story was pretty dramatic, it was already kind of the backstory of the main plot (Kikyo pins Inuyasha to a tree to prevent him from having the Sacred jewel as opposed to Tsukiyomi sealing Hoshiyomi in some medallion thing so she can get rid of his demonically possessed naginata which is apparently eating his soul. Both girls die.) but especially because...  well, let's just say that Akitoki and Inuyasha end up taking the brunt of a whole lot of uncomfortable innuendo on the part of some of Tsukiyomi's henchmen (not unlike Jakotsu did last season.) Even Shippo gets some which makes it even worse!

Kagura's creator didn't raise no fool. She knows
that being 'stoned' is not conducive to wind sorcery.

Fortunately, the plot get's back on track fairly quickly after this train wreck, because we pan back to Kagura as she has apparently been ferrying that baby around so he can kill various monks and mikos with the hope of being able to see into the border between this world and the next because the last shard's there. But suddenly, one of these monks proves more formidable than the others and manages to slice Akago in half. What? Kagura flees, with the pieces after which Kanna takes one half leaving her with the other which morphs into a new incarnation of Naraku called Hakudoshi (who is definitely at least as much of a jerk as Naraku is) who subsequently goes after a fiery horse called Entei, which he then starts riding around to collect demon heads for a while. The Inu-nakama is pretty much reduced to figuring out what the heck he's trying to pull off as they follow his trail of mercilessly beheaded bodies. Soon after this, they find a young otter carrying a head Hakudoshi missed in hopes of reattaching it to his body which is currently running around on a mindless rampage. In the course of this, they find Sesshoumaru who is willed by Tenseiga (and Inuyasha's appeal to his arrogance) into saving the otter's life with  the sword, and they learn that Hakudoshi's trying to get to the spirit world (which just happens to be the location from which Inuyasha and Kagome recovered Tetsusaiga (or Tessaiga, take your pick) from. the grave of Inuyasha's father (waaaaaay back in season one). After discovering that the black pearl they used last time (no not that Black Pearl) was a one use item, they decide to find the guy who made it in hopes he'll make another own. Unfortunately, Hosenki, the clam demon who made it, has kicked the bucket and there won't be another one for another hundred years. Since the Nakama can't wait that long, they decide to find a different route. After a failed attempt to enter through the front door and discovering that unless they want to be turned to stone (as aptly demonstrated by Kagura who bailed in the nick of time) they'll need a second alternate route. Really, there is a front door and it's guarded by Gozu and Mezu Rasetsu, the guardians and tormentors of hell, though they are a lot nicer looking in the IY version then as they are traditionally portrayed, I think.

Say what you will about Sesshomaru, he has his priorities.
Instead of going after Naraku first as any normal heroic person
 would do, he instead goes straight for Inuyasha to punch him out
 for disturbing their father's grave again.
(Never mind that he did it first way back in season 1.)

Naraku and Hakudoshi's search for a way into the border to the next world eventually leads them to Princess Abi, the cruel bird mistress and daughter of Tekkei an ailing demon bird from hell (literally). Naraku helps her to collect blood as a means to dilute the poison Tekkei as been exposed to with the intent to kill her once she's taken in enough of the stuff which should open the door somehow. As the Nakama hunts around for clues as to whats with the sudden increase in bird related deaths, they soon discover rumors that someone named Hijiri-sama is apparently protecting the refugees from other villages at a nearby settlement, but even crazier, there's evidence that Hijiri-sama might be Kikyo! Yes, Kikyo, the one who supposedly died...  again...   last season (even got an image song for it!), yeah, so is she gonna fall off a cliff this time too? Anyway, after a while it turns out that Kagome has to save her from Naraku's miasma which nearly killed her at Mt. Hakurei, and she does it without question (pointing out how good and pure she is, while Kikyo just takes a level in meanness by going out of her way to say she won't thank Kagome for it). During this part of the arc, Abi also attacks a nearby castle where the baby happens to have been hiding out along with Kanna and Kohaku which reopens old wounds for Sango, again as Naraku orders Kohaku to kill everyone to take the baby out of there. In the process, Kohaku gets his memory back and he decides that Naraku needs to die so he'll just play along until he can figure out how to kill Naraku himself. Kikyo gives Kagome a special arrow through Inuyasha before Tekkei dies and the door opens. Sesshomaru eventually follows to take part in the fight by going through the gate the others couldn't go through (because Tenseiga allows him to do so without being turned to stone). After an epic battle with Naraku as well as Hosenki within Inuyasha's father's remains, Inuyasha's party emerges with Tetsusaiga having acquired a shiny new power from Hosenki, and a shiny new jewel shard they prevented Naraku from stealing (Naraku also gets blown to pieces by Kikyo's special arrow and if he didn't let Hakudoshi take the brunt of it it would have been the end for him). So things look pretty good for the moment and they may even have Naraku on the run. Until...

Inuyasha on bike repair: EPIC FAILURE.

Yeah, Hakudoshi is ordered to go after Kikyo with Kohaku and he hatches a plan involving demon rats. They fail to actually get Kikyo, but Kohaku finds himself a whole lot of conflict as he is forced to confront his sister with full faculties while still pretending to be Naraku's lackey. It's pretty heartbreaking, but only serves to strengthen his resolve. After a brief and hilarious respite in present day, where Inuyasha finally meets Kagome's friends (after an unsuccessful attempt to repair the bicycle he broke on the way in), we get some nice relationship highlighting for Miroku and Sango as they work through a sticky situation with one of Miroku's old flames and a local catfish kami (we learn you do not piss off Miroku, or "touch his woman"). We also once again enter into the realm of filler for a little while as Sesshomaru has to rescue Rin from a combination of a demon that kidnaps children and the monks that have been sent to get rid of it (where we also learn that you do not piss off Sesshomaru or harm and/or make Rin upset), and Kohaku engages in some back to back badassery with Kirara against some demons near the demon slayers deserted village while reminiscing about the past and nearly crossing paths with Sango if he hadn't hid at the right moment before we get back to the plot again and start moving towards the season's climax. Naraku decides he wants to steal some crystal ball thingy, which turns out to be a aura purifier that had prevented it's previous owner from having to fight any demons because it was a mountain demon and all it wanted was to just be an ordinary mountain and sleep.

I've heard some stories about folks who moved mountains,
but I wasn't necessarily expecting a mountain that moved.

After Shippo gets possessed by demonic parasites (which surprisingly, are nothing like Myoga) that were dislodged from the mountain demon when went looking for it's crystal, the Nakama find the demon, Gakusanjin, who gives them some of his crystallized youki (demon aura) so they can find the the stone and bring it back. Gakusanjin doesn't live long as he is killed by some local ascetics who turn out to be followers of this guy named Goryomaru (coincidentally sounding a lot like Mouryomaru, a creation Hakudoshi unleashed on the world recently). After not finding anything at this guy's temple except the kids and a weirdo with a demon arm, and fending off an attack by Kagura, they find they have to return because Hakudoshi attacks, killing everyone, and they discover that the baby was actually there after all before Kagura leads them to a cavern (which turns out to be an oni's stomach. Eww...) in which they have the final battle, which is actually relatively short. The Inu-nakama returns to Kaede's village to recuperate before continuing the journey as they keep searching for Narak....   wait a second?! That's it?! Where's the rest?!!! I came all this way! I invested so much in these characters and now their just walking off into the sunset with a smile?!!!

Lets go over the checklist for story completion:
1. Did we reclaim the sacred jewel? Nope.
2. Did we defeat Naraku, freeing Miroku from his curse
and getting revenge? Nope.
3. Did Kikyo find any peace, allowing
Kagome and Inuyasha to live happily ever after? Nope.
4. Did Kohaku ever get his memory back?
Well yeah, but Sango's still miserable.
This is not an ending!

The first time I saw this non-ending, I was devastated and furious, because for one thing, I didn't know how to find the manga, and for another, I had actually hoped that would be the end of it. (Not that I didn't like the story, it's just eventually you want your happy ending.) Fortunately for the anime fans, and those too lazy to go pick up the manga, they finally did finish the anime, in the series Inuyasha, The Final Act, in 2009, but at the time, I didn't know that was gonna happen and I was not pleased. Thankfully, in spite of this, the show did go out about as well as it came in, with only a little bit of filler, and mostly sticking to the story (once it got over the main hurdle of Akitoki's sidetrip at the beginning. There was also a nice little expansion, midway on the romance that developed betweein Inuyasha and Kikyo in the beginning which helped create a little more subtext to the already tense Kagome-Inuyasha-Kikyo love triangle, but I was okay with that since it also explained how Kaede lost her eye as well as a couple of other things. But even so, that so-called final battle was no way to end a popular series, and I am glad Sunrise finally realized this. There aren't too many more significant new voice actors this season, though there is a new opening, "Angelus", by Hitomi Shimatani, which I don't think fit the show at all, and "Brand New World" by V6 which I don't think does much better. There's a reason they still use an instrumental version of "Dearest" for some of the better moments of the show. But I digress, the season was okay, even if it didn't end the series properly.

So where does that leave us in terms of the whole show? Well, overall, I stand on what I said at the beginning, the characters are interesting, the overall story is epic, and even though it succumbs a bit too much to the Siren's songs of filler, creepy gay characters, and narm,  and ends at a terrible place (not the ending), I'd still list it as a classic, especially now, since they fixed it by making The Final Act as a coda. It's got some of the most memorable background music ever as I'd recognize it anywhere, and for many viewers, along with shows like Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, and Fullmetal Alchemist, it was their first exposure to more mature titles. It's a must watch, but I caution you in terms of the filler, in that it can be safely ignored, and I encourage ignoring it mostly, in favor of the meat  of the show. So, am I ever going to do an extended review again? Well...   no. I have learned my lesson. I am never doing this again, ever. If it's longer than three seasons, I'll just say I rolled season one on the D20 and if I happen to find I roll season two later down the road, so be it. Extended shows like this one are ridiculous in this format and take forever. But I don't regret it, and that's the tiger's two cents.

Images taken from Inuyasha.

Share this post