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Inuyasha: The End (Almost)
So there's only one more week until the very last episode (26) of Inuyasha: The Final Act airs and then it's finally done. Finito. Owaru. OVER.
Having experienced Rumiko Takahashi's so-called endings before, I'm prepared for something out of left-field, but I wonder with all the time she's spent making this story (and whether or not the anime adheres very well to the manga, but I've heard it has), the fact that the anime stopped and started again in a new OAV-type series, and all those movies, etc...could she really cop-out of what the ending just plain calls for at this point? (And I think it's been pretty obvious from the get-go; if anything, Inuyasha at least had an implicit promise established well within the first season.)
In the second-to-last episode, we have Kagome finally capable of firing a powerful purifying arrow straight through the Shikon Jewel, supposedly to purify it, once and for all. But then came the revelation that the Jewel never really granted Onigumo's wish to have Kikyou's heart, and the knowledge of that is what drove him to more or less summon the crazy demons that turned him from victim into terrorist of the Feudal Era.
I actually thought, for the briefest of instants, that Onigumo's wish was actually an unselfish one: to have the Shikon Jewel disappear. It seemed that way, judging by how Naraku kept talking about how it WAS supposed to disappear with Kikyou after her death, but it was Kikyou's lingering feelings for Inuyasha that caused the Jewel to get "reincarnated" into Kagome. It would have made a little sense, at least: the Jewel can't grant the wish for it to disappear anymore than a genie can wish to set himself free! Well, the Jewel at least has that in common with Disney's Genie: you can't make someone fall in love with you.
The Jewel CAN bring people back from the dead, but I doubt you can wish for more wishes on the Jewel, and you probably can't wish to be stronger than the Jewel itself (or its various "soul" components, demons and pure spirits alike). I also wonder if maybe the Jewel can't truly grant the one wish Kagome would really want: to be in her world with Inuyasha (a'la Fushigi Yuugi and the Four Gods).
The Jewel forced Naraku to wish, upon his death, for the destruction of the Bone Eater's Well, because the Jewel, as a conglomeration of souls, is "alive," and seems to have its own will. This was a huge revelation, because before it just seemed like a power object that everyone was after for some reason or another. That being the case, it wanted that because it feared Kagome could truly destroy it: it's not a limitation of the Jewel that it disappears after someone wishes it to be so, it's an ability of the wisher. Naraku wouldn't wish for it, Inuyasha wouldn't, etc. etc. The only person who would is Kagome, and for a living Jewel, that scares whatever "shit" it has in it (which is probably a lot, given the number of icky demons, but anyway) out.
Naraku knew he'd end up making this wish, so he had Byakuya create the sword out of the Meido Zangetsuha's demonic energy. Cutting Kagome with it seemed to sever her ties to the Feudal Era (with the Jewel out of her, what else but some mysterious "soul-bond" would keep her in that time period?), and she went into an illusory Meido/Underworld where the Bone Eater's Well had never existed, the Sacred Tree was never scarred by Inuyasha, and she didn't miss her high school entrance ceremony.
But she started to remember, probably because her soul's just too strong to forget Inuyasha. The Jewel gave her what it thought SHE wanted, but it can never really know for sure...until Kagome wishes on it, out of pure desperation, which is what it would want, if she came out of the illusion: doing so would perpetuate the Jewel's life. The question is: does wishing on the Jewel take the soul of the wisher? Would that kill Kagome, or mean she couldn't have an afterlife, or couldn't be reborn, or something? Or would the Jewel vanish, only to be reincarnated again?
Because Kagome remembered, she ended up in a dark world with the arrow-pierced Jewel and a choice: to either "go back to that world" (presumably the illusion, and not the real world, where she appeared as an invisible "ghost," unseen to her friends or family - a world where the shrine still existed but the Bone Eater's Well vanished) or to fight, for an eternity, in darkness. The Jewel seemed to imply that if Kagome wished on it, it would end the cycle until someone new tried to use it for "dark purposes."
The preview for next week's episode made it look like Kagome caved and ended up going back to "her" world, but the illusion (a'la the Matrix?) or the truly real world? I don't think she could go back to the truly real world, where everyone but her would remember Inuyasha and why Kagome was always disappearing through a no-longer present Bone Eater's Well. There'd only be so long before she'd snap. But if she went back into the illusion where no one remembered, maybe she could convince herself that it was for the best, and she never wanted that life of being a priestess or an archer or any of that in the first place. It would hurt, forgetting Inuyasha, Sango, Miroku, Shippo and the others (I half-expected her to yell for Sesshomaru, and that would have been hilarious. Desperate!Kagome is desperate), but she could do it eventually if there were ZERO reminders of him in her world.
But that would leave Inuyasha in his own cut path to the Underworld (rather, "inside the Jewel," as another absorbed soul?), and even in the recent spate of episodes, we haven't seen too many ways to get out of that. If Kagome even has an inkling that Inuyasha's in there with her, she wouldn't leave him trapped intentionally. And even if she did leave him in there accidentally, who's to say where the physical Jewel actually is? Would it go back to being inside her in the modern world, safe because there's no reason why a demon would detect it? But we've seen a few demons in the modern world, so maybe not so safe! Plus, what about the passing of time inside the Jewel? Does any time pass at all?
The preview mentioned "three years since the battle," and made it sound like Kagome was graduating high school, Sango was popping out babies, and...Inuyasha was where? Still inside the Jewel? If Kagome IS inside an illusion, she's still in the Jewel, and so's Inuyasha. Three years could feasibly pass both in her world and in the Feudal Era without her, and time seems to flow pretty evenly between the two, so if Sango's really having babies, then at least several months would have gone by in the real world, too, meaning Kagome was missing out on high school.
Somehow I see it as too suspicious for the Jewel to actually send Kagome back to her real world. Even if she didn't know Inuyasha was in there with her, could she really live any kind of a life without trying to find him again? Would she eventually move on? Maybe the idea is, if she's back in the real world, there's no threat to the Jewel: unless Inuyasha finally gets to wish on it like we all thought he eventually would, but not to turn into a full demon (which would presumably grant him longevity and the ability to disguise himself, a'la Sesshomaru), but to become a human in Kagome's world...perhaps without memories of her and their time together, but there nonetheless, taking a chance on fate. And like Miaka and Taka, Inuyasha and Kagome would meet again (hopefully he'd have a better name than "Inuyasha" in the modern world, because let's face it, you'd so get made fun of for that) and they'd fall in love in high school and be happy and blah blah blah.
The Jewel needs to go. It needs to be destroyed or wished on for an unselfish, pure wish, or something. Not reincarnated again, not reborn. DESTROYED. Maybe it's already on its way to that, since it's all electrical now that it's pierced with Kagome's arrow. But somehow I doubt that, judging by the way it talked to Kagome and crafted the illusion world and such. Then again, it IS the damn Jewel, infused with heck knows how much power, both good and bad. It "dying" might actually take a long-ass time, and even when it finally does, would that mean Inuyasha necessarily gets spit out in one timeline or another?
Maybe some of these questions have already been answered in the main TV series, but I never did get around to finish watching it. I heard The Final Act helps wrap things up, but would the TV series really have ended on a total cliffhanger, or would it have just resolved things messily in an attempt to get things over with? I shall probably rewatch the whole series after next week, just to see if there are any fun plot holes to play in.
Wow, Inuyasha, done! It's so long, and I've been watching and reading it practically since its beginning! The starts and stops had me out of the fandom for a while, but I do really want to see the anime come to a good resolution finally. Maybe then I could stop comparing the characters in Takahashi's new work, Rin-Ne, to those of Inuyasha or Ranma....
Having experienced Rumiko Takahashi's so-called endings before, I'm prepared for something out of left-field, but I wonder with all the time she's spent making this story (and whether or not the anime adheres very well to the manga, but I've heard it has), the fact that the anime stopped and started again in a new OAV-type series, and all those movies, etc...could she really cop-out of what the ending just plain calls for at this point? (And I think it's been pretty obvious from the get-go; if anything, Inuyasha at least had an implicit promise established well within the first season.)
In the second-to-last episode, we have Kagome finally capable of firing a powerful purifying arrow straight through the Shikon Jewel, supposedly to purify it, once and for all. But then came the revelation that the Jewel never really granted Onigumo's wish to have Kikyou's heart, and the knowledge of that is what drove him to more or less summon the crazy demons that turned him from victim into terrorist of the Feudal Era.
I actually thought, for the briefest of instants, that Onigumo's wish was actually an unselfish one: to have the Shikon Jewel disappear. It seemed that way, judging by how Naraku kept talking about how it WAS supposed to disappear with Kikyou after her death, but it was Kikyou's lingering feelings for Inuyasha that caused the Jewel to get "reincarnated" into Kagome. It would have made a little sense, at least: the Jewel can't grant the wish for it to disappear anymore than a genie can wish to set himself free! Well, the Jewel at least has that in common with Disney's Genie: you can't make someone fall in love with you.
The Jewel CAN bring people back from the dead, but I doubt you can wish for more wishes on the Jewel, and you probably can't wish to be stronger than the Jewel itself (or its various "soul" components, demons and pure spirits alike). I also wonder if maybe the Jewel can't truly grant the one wish Kagome would really want: to be in her world with Inuyasha (a'la Fushigi Yuugi and the Four Gods).
The Jewel forced Naraku to wish, upon his death, for the destruction of the Bone Eater's Well, because the Jewel, as a conglomeration of souls, is "alive," and seems to have its own will. This was a huge revelation, because before it just seemed like a power object that everyone was after for some reason or another. That being the case, it wanted that because it feared Kagome could truly destroy it: it's not a limitation of the Jewel that it disappears after someone wishes it to be so, it's an ability of the wisher. Naraku wouldn't wish for it, Inuyasha wouldn't, etc. etc. The only person who would is Kagome, and for a living Jewel, that scares whatever "shit" it has in it (which is probably a lot, given the number of icky demons, but anyway) out.
Naraku knew he'd end up making this wish, so he had Byakuya create the sword out of the Meido Zangetsuha's demonic energy. Cutting Kagome with it seemed to sever her ties to the Feudal Era (with the Jewel out of her, what else but some mysterious "soul-bond" would keep her in that time period?), and she went into an illusory Meido/Underworld where the Bone Eater's Well had never existed, the Sacred Tree was never scarred by Inuyasha, and she didn't miss her high school entrance ceremony.
But she started to remember, probably because her soul's just too strong to forget Inuyasha. The Jewel gave her what it thought SHE wanted, but it can never really know for sure...until Kagome wishes on it, out of pure desperation, which is what it would want, if she came out of the illusion: doing so would perpetuate the Jewel's life. The question is: does wishing on the Jewel take the soul of the wisher? Would that kill Kagome, or mean she couldn't have an afterlife, or couldn't be reborn, or something? Or would the Jewel vanish, only to be reincarnated again?
Because Kagome remembered, she ended up in a dark world with the arrow-pierced Jewel and a choice: to either "go back to that world" (presumably the illusion, and not the real world, where she appeared as an invisible "ghost," unseen to her friends or family - a world where the shrine still existed but the Bone Eater's Well vanished) or to fight, for an eternity, in darkness. The Jewel seemed to imply that if Kagome wished on it, it would end the cycle until someone new tried to use it for "dark purposes."
The preview for next week's episode made it look like Kagome caved and ended up going back to "her" world, but the illusion (a'la the Matrix?) or the truly real world? I don't think she could go back to the truly real world, where everyone but her would remember Inuyasha and why Kagome was always disappearing through a no-longer present Bone Eater's Well. There'd only be so long before she'd snap. But if she went back into the illusion where no one remembered, maybe she could convince herself that it was for the best, and she never wanted that life of being a priestess or an archer or any of that in the first place. It would hurt, forgetting Inuyasha, Sango, Miroku, Shippo and the others (I half-expected her to yell for Sesshomaru, and that would have been hilarious. Desperate!Kagome is desperate), but she could do it eventually if there were ZERO reminders of him in her world.
But that would leave Inuyasha in his own cut path to the Underworld (rather, "inside the Jewel," as another absorbed soul?), and even in the recent spate of episodes, we haven't seen too many ways to get out of that. If Kagome even has an inkling that Inuyasha's in there with her, she wouldn't leave him trapped intentionally. And even if she did leave him in there accidentally, who's to say where the physical Jewel actually is? Would it go back to being inside her in the modern world, safe because there's no reason why a demon would detect it? But we've seen a few demons in the modern world, so maybe not so safe! Plus, what about the passing of time inside the Jewel? Does any time pass at all?
The preview mentioned "three years since the battle," and made it sound like Kagome was graduating high school, Sango was popping out babies, and...Inuyasha was where? Still inside the Jewel? If Kagome IS inside an illusion, she's still in the Jewel, and so's Inuyasha. Three years could feasibly pass both in her world and in the Feudal Era without her, and time seems to flow pretty evenly between the two, so if Sango's really having babies, then at least several months would have gone by in the real world, too, meaning Kagome was missing out on high school.
Somehow I see it as too suspicious for the Jewel to actually send Kagome back to her real world. Even if she didn't know Inuyasha was in there with her, could she really live any kind of a life without trying to find him again? Would she eventually move on? Maybe the idea is, if she's back in the real world, there's no threat to the Jewel: unless Inuyasha finally gets to wish on it like we all thought he eventually would, but not to turn into a full demon (which would presumably grant him longevity and the ability to disguise himself, a'la Sesshomaru), but to become a human in Kagome's world...perhaps without memories of her and their time together, but there nonetheless, taking a chance on fate. And like Miaka and Taka, Inuyasha and Kagome would meet again (hopefully he'd have a better name than "Inuyasha" in the modern world, because let's face it, you'd so get made fun of for that) and they'd fall in love in high school and be happy and blah blah blah.
The Jewel needs to go. It needs to be destroyed or wished on for an unselfish, pure wish, or something. Not reincarnated again, not reborn. DESTROYED. Maybe it's already on its way to that, since it's all electrical now that it's pierced with Kagome's arrow. But somehow I doubt that, judging by the way it talked to Kagome and crafted the illusion world and such. Then again, it IS the damn Jewel, infused with heck knows how much power, both good and bad. It "dying" might actually take a long-ass time, and even when it finally does, would that mean Inuyasha necessarily gets spit out in one timeline or another?
Maybe some of these questions have already been answered in the main TV series, but I never did get around to finish watching it. I heard The Final Act helps wrap things up, but would the TV series really have ended on a total cliffhanger, or would it have just resolved things messily in an attempt to get things over with? I shall probably rewatch the whole series after next week, just to see if there are any fun plot holes to play in.
Wow, Inuyasha, done! It's so long, and I've been watching and reading it practically since its beginning! The starts and stops had me out of the fandom for a while, but I do really want to see the anime come to a good resolution finally. Maybe then I could stop comparing the characters in Takahashi's new work, Rin-Ne, to those of Inuyasha or Ranma....