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miko2I've been watching Inu-Yasha recently. I think I posted a few months back that by the fourth season (I'm pretty sure it's the fourth) the series had clearly run out of ideas or places to go. In other words -- Inu-Yasha and his band were all assembled and established; they'd explored much of their back story and Inu-Yasha had learned all of the tricks his sword possessed, to the point where they frequently came up with reasons why he couldn't unleash his awesome power, just as they often come up with reasons that Miroku can't use his wind tunnel. They'd developed a whole host of side characters and foes -- Kikiyu, the undead priestess that Kagome is the reincarnation of, Songo's undead brother, Inu-Yasha's older brother Seshimaru and those who travel with him (and the full story of how he got his own magic sword), the wolf tribe and the leader who is Inu-Yasha's main rival for Kagome's affections (kind of the Ryoga to Inu-Yasha's Ranma 1/2)... and of course, they'd fully developed the main villian, Naraku, exploring his history quite a bit and developing all of his various minions.
In short, it seemed as if they'd reached a point where they were unwilling to kill any of the main characters, had little room to add new ones, and had employed so many different tricks and smoke and mirrors to explain how Naraku continued to evade them that it seemed like an empty exercise at that point. They'd even killed Naraku -- and then of course, he somehow survived anyway. But essentially, it seemed to me that they'd written themselves into a corner.
And really, I was pretty impressed that they'd manage to take so long before writing themselves into that corner. All of Takahashi's other series suffered the same fate once they grew long enough -- Ursei Yatsurs (Lum) was basically episodic comedy from the begining, but after a while it had its standard cast of characters and the boundaries beyond which no story would stray. Maison Ikkoku did finally reach a conclusion -- but in between it got very old and predictable. Ranma 1/2 eventually fell into the same trap, where new "villians of the week" might show up, but none of the established storylines were likely to advance any further.
Well, I'm not here to tell you that Inu-Yasha is actually advancing many of their established storylines... but they've definitely found a way to redirect the whole story and keep everything fresh and interesting. Naraku nearly dies, and then escapes and disappears. The crew follow after him -- Seshimaru and the wolf tribe are looking for him too, and Kikiyu also -- and for a little while it seems pretty generic, demons are coming out of the woodwork because Naraku's no longer around, yadda yadda yadda.
And then we get to the "band of seven" and the holy Mount Hakurei, and things get very interesting again. The band of seven present new and different challenges for Inu-Yasha -- they aren't demons, but resurrected humans who are all evil killers of incredible power. And the holy mountain hides some strange secrets. All in all, Rumiko Takahashi has yet again found a way to throw new and interesting enemies into the path of Inu-Yasha and company, create a lot of mystery and drama, and reveal yet another bizaare twist in Naraku's schemes.
And all of this, despite the fact that you know full well that none of the main guys are going to die, and nothing about the established relationships is going to change. Miroku likes Songo, but they aren't either going to take the relationship a step further or break up. Ditto for Kagome and Inu-Yasha. Inu-Yasha isn't going to kill his brother, and Seshimaru certainly isn't going to kill Inu-Yasha -- nor are Seshimaru's companions ever going to die. Etc. All of this makes it pretty damn hard to keep the show interesting, let alone exciting, but somehow she's managing to do it.
Of course the dumb thing is that they could kill off any character any time they wanted to. After all, so what? Kikiyu was dead. The other two servants of the witch that revived Kikiyu were also dead, but one still lives and the other was alive before Inu-Yasha killed him again. Songo's brother was dead, but he lives. Naraku was of course dead before he became what he is today. They've faced other villians who were dead and revived -- and now we have the band of seven, all once dead, but very much alive at the moment and presenting major obstacles for all of the heroes. This series is so full of dead people who are nevertheless still walking and talking, you might wonder if you're not really watching Army of Darkness.
Oh, let's not forget Rin, the human girl who travels with Seshimaru. She was also dead, but brought back to life by the power of the demon's sword. They could kill everyone and he could bring them all back to life, except that he's a demon and would never have a reason to do any of that, of course. ^_^ Bringing Rin back to life was almost more of an experiment for him, to see what his sword was capable of.
In short, it seemed as if they'd reached a point where they were unwilling to kill any of the main characters, had little room to add new ones, and had employed so many different tricks and smoke and mirrors to explain how Naraku continued to evade them that it seemed like an empty exercise at that point. They'd even killed Naraku -- and then of course, he somehow survived anyway. But essentially, it seemed to me that they'd written themselves into a corner.
And really, I was pretty impressed that they'd manage to take so long before writing themselves into that corner. All of Takahashi's other series suffered the same fate once they grew long enough -- Ursei Yatsurs (Lum) was basically episodic comedy from the begining, but after a while it had its standard cast of characters and the boundaries beyond which no story would stray. Maison Ikkoku did finally reach a conclusion -- but in between it got very old and predictable. Ranma 1/2 eventually fell into the same trap, where new "villians of the week" might show up, but none of the established storylines were likely to advance any further.
Well, I'm not here to tell you that Inu-Yasha is actually advancing many of their established storylines... but they've definitely found a way to redirect the whole story and keep everything fresh and interesting. Naraku nearly dies, and then escapes and disappears. The crew follow after him -- Seshimaru and the wolf tribe are looking for him too, and Kikiyu also -- and for a little while it seems pretty generic, demons are coming out of the woodwork because Naraku's no longer around, yadda yadda yadda.
And then we get to the "band of seven" and the holy Mount Hakurei, and things get very interesting again. The band of seven present new and different challenges for Inu-Yasha -- they aren't demons, but resurrected humans who are all evil killers of incredible power. And the holy mountain hides some strange secrets. All in all, Rumiko Takahashi has yet again found a way to throw new and interesting enemies into the path of Inu-Yasha and company, create a lot of mystery and drama, and reveal yet another bizaare twist in Naraku's schemes.
And all of this, despite the fact that you know full well that none of the main guys are going to die, and nothing about the established relationships is going to change. Miroku likes Songo, but they aren't either going to take the relationship a step further or break up. Ditto for Kagome and Inu-Yasha. Inu-Yasha isn't going to kill his brother, and Seshimaru certainly isn't going to kill Inu-Yasha -- nor are Seshimaru's companions ever going to die. Etc. All of this makes it pretty damn hard to keep the show interesting, let alone exciting, but somehow she's managing to do it.
Of course the dumb thing is that they could kill off any character any time they wanted to. After all, so what? Kikiyu was dead. The other two servants of the witch that revived Kikiyu were also dead, but one still lives and the other was alive before Inu-Yasha killed him again. Songo's brother was dead, but he lives. Naraku was of course dead before he became what he is today. They've faced other villians who were dead and revived -- and now we have the band of seven, all once dead, but very much alive at the moment and presenting major obstacles for all of the heroes. This series is so full of dead people who are nevertheless still walking and talking, you might wonder if you're not really watching Army of Darkness.
Oh, let's not forget Rin, the human girl who travels with Seshimaru. She was also dead, but brought back to life by the power of the demon's sword. They could kill everyone and he could bring them all back to life, except that he's a demon and would never have a reason to do any of that, of course. ^_^ Bringing Rin back to life was almost more of an experiment for him, to see what his sword was capable of.
