For the sake of saving headaches, let's just skip over anything to do with time-travel paradoxes, okay?

'''As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
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[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Through the Well]]
* Why can Kagome transport inanimate objects through the Bone Eaters well, but not people? If the well was like time travel in ''Film/TheTerminator'' and it only transported living material, then it would make sense, but that's not the case.
** I thing it has something to with spiritual power.
*** Presumably, the well's time rift rejects foreign spiritual presences (IE, anyone who isn't tethered to the eras)
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Idle Companions]]
* Why do so many of the battles involve Inuyasha fighting some demon while his companions just stand around doing absolutely nothing except talking about the battle like they are sports commentators? I love this series, but this was a really crippling flaw, perhaps the biggest one. Apparently Takashi just couldn't find enough things to do with Inuyasha's team, and that's a real shame. Did it not occur to her that Inuyasha might not be everyone's #1 favorite character?
** Well, his other companions are humans (Sango, Miroku, and Kagome) and child youkai (Shippo), so, in a good number of those instances they wouldn't be strong enough to fight alongside him (that and wind tunnel takes a lot out of Miroku), along with that Inuyasha does, for the most part, initiates these battles alone.
*** I would disagree about Sango and Miroku not being strong enough to keep up with him, since Sango did keep Inuyasha on his toes the time they fought, but Miroku and Sango have much more to lose in a fight, since Inuyasha is capable of healing from injuries that would kill a normal human, while Sango and Miroku do not have demon healing factor. That said, I agree it is a shame that Sango and Miroku are not involved more in the battles.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Relating to Kouga]]
* When we first see Koga, he's unabashedly ordering his wolf pack to EAT an entire village of defenseless people. Why are the heroes so friendly with him in every episode after this?
** This may not answer your question completely, but I think it was mainly due to Kagome finding a reason to see "good" in Kouga when he stopped his wolves from eating Shippo when he was found to have been also taken along with Kagome, also when Kouga was keeping her safe during the attack from the birds of paradise. Because of that, she decided to forgive him...and let's face it, she not only bothered to get along with Inuyasha right after he tried to kill her, but even fell in love with him, so suggesting that she'd be friendly with someone who didn't directly kill an entire of village of people she didn't know isn't that farfetched. Kagome can (and I know any serious Kagome fans will be flaming me for this) be pretty shallow in terms of which youkai she trusts...with the only exception being Jinengi (who never even did anything wrong to be hated), any youkai she has been willing to forgive or trust all look human (and were even bishounen worthy). Also, an outstanding majority of the time, Miroku, Sango and Shippo will take Kagome's side in most disputes, regardless that there may not be a proper reason as to why they should just be agreeing with her side when the issue was never even explained. As far as Kagome trusted Kouga, they were willing to do so too, even though it makes little sense for at least a Buddhist monk taught to exorcise evil spirits and a Youkai Exterminator trained in disposing of youkai that threaten humans to have forgiven the wolf demon without a good reason. Then again, this probably was because Rumiko didn't want to spend too much time in having Kouga to prove himself as a "good" guy anymore than what the fans have seen at that point just for the fact that the other characters were not there to see it; so letting everyone else take it as "if Kagome decided to give him a chance, than we should too" was just a quick and easy fix to just move on. Also, on a special note for Inuyasha, although they are "rivals" Inuyasha isn't a saint himself and doesn't have anything against killing when necessary (actually... that's usually just how he resolves most of his disputes in the first instance) so of course he was not going to find any problem with that. He'd only find a problem in Kouga declaring love for Kagome, which was the only basis for their constant dislike of the other.
*** What? Inuyasha has no problem killing in self defense or the defense of others. He really hates youkai that slaughter humans without provocation, once he stops hating humans for betraying him. And even back then, the most you could say is that Inuyasha wouldn't go out of his way to save humans, not that he approved of their murders.
*** That wasn't the point. The OP wanted to know why the heroes act friendly to Kouga after ordering his wolves to eat the remaining villagers in their first meeting. Also I did say Inuyasha has nothing against killing when ''necessary''. I wasn't implying that he'd go on a rampage and kill a bunch of humans just cause.
*** We should bear in mind a couple of things. In canon (ie, ignoring anime filler), Kouga and Rin never met after the day she was killed and Kouga and Sesshomaru never met at all. Also, Inuyasha's group never learned about Rin's history with the wolves or Kouga's involvement in that. Further more, the manga's ending excluded Kouga completely - he was written out of the manga as soon as Naraku obtained his shards and, at the very end of the manga, when there was talk of everyone's futures moving on together and on the paths the readers were now familiar with, while that covered Inuyasha's group and Sesshomaru's ground, that noticably did not include Kouga. I think there's a good reason for that. Sesshomaru's change of heart took most of the manga to develop and came at heavy price. There was no such change in path indicated for Kouga Kouga's entire focus resided around his people - his enmity with Naraku, his association with Inuyasha's group, even his initial interest in Kagome and certainly any use Kagome could be to his tribe. Even his departure was based on this focus, as Takahashi didn't take the shards from him until she had given him a tribal-specific power upgrade to replace them as well as an anvilicious encounter with two young children of his tribe that made him realize he was neglecting the living people because of his focus on avenging the dead. In the end, his association with Inuyasha's group was temporary and not permanent. I can't help thinking even that temporary relationship wouldn't have survived if the truth about Rin had come out (ie, putting a face on the crimes they knew he had committed in the past). Ultimately, the manga seemed to be suggesting that Kouga and Inuyasha's group weren't very compatible at all. They associated for a time but not permanently.
** How many people did Sesshomaru kill in the decades that he was alive? Probably more than Koga. And yet they forgived him. So why should they hold a grudge against Koga feeding his wolves. They need to eat after all.
*** They were also going to forgive Kagura and let her join them, and she was pretty “trigger-happy”. It's not about Koga, they all just seem to forgive rather easily, I mean Kagome forgave Inuyasha for trying to kill her almost immediately.
*** Most evidence points that Inuyasha did not try to kill Kagome. He never is shown killing any humans prior to meeting Kagome, and if he really wanted to kill her, he would have just killed her in her sleep by the third episode. He did try to take the Jewel and threatened Kagome, but that's it. Hardly killing an entire village or wiping out any humans irritate him.
*** In the manga when he attacked her she moved but he destroyed the ground she was standing on. In the anime he sliced with his claws where she was standing but she tripped and fell missing his claws just barely.
*** Considering how ridiculously faster than Kagome Inuyasha is (having just become a living buzzsaw against Mistress Centipede), its unlikely that Inuyasha was actually trying to kill her. Heck, he had plenty of opportunity to kill her and take the jewel later that same day/night as he was just hanging around outside Kaede's hut and making sure that no youkai stole the jewel from her while she slept.
** Arguably, it could simply be an understanding that Kouga did what he did because of nature, not malice. He's a Wolf Demon, and his actions were that of a starving animal. Similar to forgiving a wounded animal for attacking others while blinded by pain.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Kagome's Family]]
* What the hell is wrong with Kagome's family? Particularly her mother and grandpa who show little to no concern for her safety for the majority of the series. They know she is off fighting demons and didn't even know Inuyasha well enough to trust him early, but they just let her go? Sure Kagome doesn't tell them how many times she's been nearly killed, but they saw the mask demon.
** I guess RuleOfFunny. They're just that open-minded and allowing of it seeing how important it is for her.
** Her grandfather can be insane and her mother may as well be off her meds. While at first it can be for the sake of funny, or you can imagine she never told them how dangerous it actually is, or how she can have used the argument she broke the Jewel, so she fells responsible for it and has to collect the shards (since she is the only one who can see it), in any case, it is a little TOO MUCH when Kagome comes back home with her clothes full of blood or getting so many medicine and curatives and no one even BLINKS AN EYE to this. Same said for the amount of time she can spent without returning home (which could mean either getting kidnapped or worse, killed).
** Same can be asked for her friends, who never seem to question, grow suspicious or get the slightest bit annoyed at how she constantly gets sick for weeks at a time, carrying some new, usually serious illness every time, which eventually would just sound like the lamest excuses to get off from school (or even as a cover-up for something suspicious). Instead, they eagerly interrogate her about her "boyfriend", [[FridgeLogic apparently never wondering how she hangs so much out with this boy when she's supposed to be hospitalized.]]
*** From what Kagome tells them, they think she's dating an abusive, two-timing delinquent, and are really worried about her just brushing off some of his questionable actions. They also generally brush off her conditions almost immediately and treat her normally. Most likely, they think she's faking it. But they're probably trying to be considerate of Kagome because they think she's in an unhealthy relationship and needs all the support she can get. It would also explain why they push [[NiceGuy Hojo]] on her.
** And if they are as worried as they say, how come they never tried to see her in a hospital? Not all diseases stop people from getting visits.
*** It ''is'' possible that the grandfather uses the excuses that Kagome is either in a different hospital, out in a Sanatorium in the greens or flat out doesn't tell them what room number she may be in. Or says Kagome doesn't want any visitors.
** Ignoring the causality loop it ends up creating, isn't it hinted that Kagome's family (including herself but we're ignoring the loop) are ultimately her and Inuyasha's descendents? It would certainly explain how her grandfather ended up with the cursed Noh mask, with the intention of breaking the curse on it no less; so we can at least infere that his position as priest isn't just for show and he has some power and knows how to use it despite being a cloudcukoo lander, and that his family going back are probably the same. And speaking of families, family histories and stories are a pretty important part of Japanese culture, it's unlikely that Inuyasha and Kagome didn't tell their children and grandchildren at least an abridged version of their story, including Kagome's orgins and the battle against Naraku. Given all of that if Kagome's family really are her own descendents through her granfather it's possible that he either knows or at least has an inkling of what is going on in a sort of fortold destiny sort of way, and if that is the case he also knows that by his own existence, Kagome survives unharmed. He/they may be ignoring it - or seeming to ignore it - because they don't want to mess with destiny and their own existence, and because they by way of that know she's going to be okay.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Shippo's Age]]
* After the three years go by at the end of the show, why is Shippo the only young character to not grow at all? Even though we never see his father in canon, his father's pelt would imply he'd grow a bit.
** It's heavily implied that demons age at a much slower rate than humans. There have been some suggestions that Shippo's actually around 50 years old, and that's still considered a "young child" in kitsune terms.
*** When he asks Inuyasha what two adults might do in a bath together, Inuyasha says something along the lines of him needing to be 50 years older to know. Given that a lot of demons are shown to age much, much slower than humans, this was probably not an exaggeration.
*** What might answer this better is Japanese mythology, which, more often than not, states that youkai are quite LongLived, so, yes, they would age slower but that tends to depend on the youkai. In which case, Shippo could be anywhere from 50-100 years old, at least for his Kitsune species (there are different types kistune).
** Another thought could be that, after the time skip, he's using a low-power illusion to make himself look younger. Both for the sake of making sure Kagome recognizes him, and possibly as a little bit of a manipulation.
*** Perhaps, but there seems to be some clue that Shippo just ages slower, after all, Inuyasha is about 200 years old and, in flashbacks when he was a child, he's shown to be without his mom, Iyazoi (who lived during the earlier portions of the Sengoku period, as Inuyasha was born at about 1297), though it's not said how or when she departed this existence.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Youkai/Demons]]
* Where are all the demons in the present day? They seem to be ''everywhere'' in the feudal era, but the only supernatural things shown in the present day are the possessed mask and the ghost kid. Did they all die out between then and now? Or are they all hiding, like the dinosaurs in ''Dilbert''?
** And why doesn't Kagome think to ask about this? I'd sure be asking my grandpa what happened to all the youkai between then and now.
** I think Takahashi intended to do the "separation of the worlds" thing in the final episode. It would make sense, as well as force Kagome's hand in choosing eras.
*** Especially considering all the other anime like Yu Yu Hakusho, where the Demon World is split off into another dimension.
*** It can't be, because the past affects the present. The bald spot on Goshinboku. The jewel shard found to be in the sacred tree in the first movie . The explanation I would give would be that demon power comes from belief. As people lost culture, and fear, which would start seeming fairly irrational and stupid eventually, the demons eventually just went into hiding, getting only enough power to be immortal. But not nigh invulnerable. Then world war 2 came, and they, with the bombing of Hiroshima, saw that there was no point anymore. So they just used what little magic they had left and joined humanity, though needing to create new people each time because of living thousands if not millions of years. I would have made some links, but it doesn't work for some reason.
*** After all, that's exactly what happens in ''Anime/{{Karas}}''. Demons still exist on earth- most humans just don't see them because their minds are closed to the belief in the supernatural.
*** Considering the sheer ridiculous number of demons that were killed during the course of this series, I wouldn't be surprised that they all just died away. Certainly their numbers were pretty badly knocked down by the Jewel Crisis and Naraku. Then combine that with the growing control of humans over Japan's environment. Demons went the way of the wooly mammoth.
*** That was pretty much how I've tried to answer that question. The humans are typically population-checked by the demons up until they have a lot of internal political strife, and they essentially forget to keep their numbers down. The humans grow, gain technological advancements (as in, guns), and with Kagome's and Inuyasha's unwitting help (prior to this), take over and turn genocidal. Kagome, being a very powerful priestess (by the end of the series) presumably spends the end of hte manga onward keeping humans safe...by killing off the demons that pose a threat, typically the powerful ones. Inuyasha doesn't realize that this is what has happened to all the demons in the modern era, and goes about helping her, aiding in a kind of ButterflyEffect - they start small, going after ones deemed "threats" (both big political players in the demon world and small pests), and the consequence is that entire civilizations and races - including his father's own, are killed off. Kagome doesn't see the effects of what she's doing until it's too late to reverse the damage, and at first, she sees nothing wrong with killing powerful demons (because it's protecting the humans, right?). The demons, once they figure out that they're being hunted and their numbers are falling far faster than they ever imagined, are too disorganized and still caught up in the politics that led to the lapse in watch to put up a front. CurbstompBattle occurs. Demon abilities, it turns out, don't beat small metal balls that can smash bone from great distances and bring bacterial infection to an open wound, despite their {{Healing Factor}}s. In addition, I assumed there was a StableTimeLoop making it so that events that have already occurred in the future (extinction of demons) will happen regardless of what is done in the past, having already happened. If Kagome were to die before finishing her role in said events, someone else would eventually continue on and take her place. But that's just how I worked it out. Feel free to correct me here.
** The demons aren't the only thing that seems to vanish, just look at the effectiveness of Miroku's spells vs Kagome's grandfather's (miroku's charms actually work, Kagome's grandfater's, not so much) so it seems that spiritual powers in general have left the world.
*** That's not necessarily a fair comparison, though. Miroku, in spite of his faults, demonstrates on several occasions that he has a genuine core of deep spirituality, whereas Kagome's grandfather is almost entirely interested in tradition and lore - going through the motions without observing the spiritual significance behind them.
** Guns won't do jack to monsters that can even one-shot armies. The most likely explanation is that literally the only powerful demons surviving by the end of the series are Inuyasha and his friends/allies. Everyone else was either killed by them or killed/absorbed by Naraku. With Shikon no Tama gone, low-tier demons no longer were able to get sudden powerups and become major threats. And considering that both Inuyasha and Sesshomaru generally kill other youkai without a slightest bit of remorse (in fact, as far as we know, Sesshomaru, who is the most powerful character in the series and quite possibly the most powerful youkai to ever live, can do this for no particular reason), most survivors might have just decided to lay low for the next couple hundreds of years, and those not wise enough to do so were mopped up by the dog brothers or the demon hunters. And both Inuyasha and Sesshomaru are far more likely to go WalkTheEarth after their human loved ones die from old age, than start using their power to interfere in human conflics, never mind dominate humans. Alternatively, the well actually leads to an alternate universe, not to the past.
** The series have shown how entire clans of Demons have died during the course of the series. They also die by the droves compared to the humans, where "hundreds" of demons show up to face the protagonists and antagonists alike, while when a human village gets destroyed, only a few dozen corpses at most are shown. This could mean that Demons as a race was on the decline, while humans (normally prey) are on the rise. In addition, it's entirely possible that the advent of guns help destroy demons, as Ginkotsu was more or less a primitive tank and Renkotsu was using blackpowder dynamite sticks and they managed to freak out Kouga, who is implied to be a very strong Demon. Demons still exist in the modern world (as shown by the piper and the Noh Mask) but the population is so small now that they're no longer a fact of life. Finally, most of the Demons appear to be simple animals, laying eggs and whatnot. Humans have hunted several dangerous animals to extinction to protect our asses, so it's not that much of a stretch.
*** Adding to this, it may be a simple matter of concealment. As humanity advanced and became increasingly capable of fighting back, demons increasingly hid away, blending in to the growing masses or hiding away in places humanity couldn't reach easily (Deep forests, high mountains, etc). And as time went by, they eventually simply merged with humanity, the bloodlines diluting to the point that their modern descendants simply appear human with the odd quirk (nekomata descendants having exceptional grace and a few feline behaviors, dragon descendants having a similar love of collecting and hoarding things, dog descendents harboring a strong sense of smell and deep loyalty, etc).
** It's interesting to note that while some demons are born from parents and whatnot, others can actually be "created" from disease, war, famine, and everything under the sun. There's no clear line of demarcation, as demons have multiple attributes that are a cross between spiritual and physical. In the 17th century, the country was united under the Tokugawa Shogunate and experienced political stability for the first time in a while. Demons of the second category probably went on a serious decline after that, with war mostly gone. The theory of belief also seems to be a rather convincing one since that was a major theme that was played with during Meiji Japan. There's a famous legend in which a steam train kills a tanuki, with the train symbolizing modernity and the tanuki representing nature and the unknown. With the death of the tanuki comes the "lifting" of enchantment from Japan. Folklore didn't hold as much power after that. So maybe when people in Japan stopped their literal belief in beings such as demons, the ones in the second category disappeared completely while more powerful ones went incognito. That, and the brothers'/Naraku's wanton killing of demons everywhere during the jewel episode affected things a bit.
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* And seeing how as there were no demons or such things in the present, and no-one but Inuyasha or Kagome could go through the well, why didn't Kagome leave the jewel shards at home instead of carrying them around? She was practically asking for them to be stolen. And furthermore, if it was so dangerous for Inuyasha to be out and about while human, why didn't he hide out at Kagome's for the night?
** Well, the present isn't 100% monster-free, especially not in the anime - in addition to the mask, there's also the soul piper, which implies that there could very well be at least a few other hidden supernatural critters lurking around. The last thing that Kagome wants to do is leave any shards lying around unattended where they might attract something nasty to her family while she's not around to deal with it. (The anime further attempts to establish that Kagome has to have the shard/s with her in order to time travel through the well, although admittedly that falls apart eventually during the periods in which the storyline requires that the heroes have no shards at all.)
*** As Yura showed, even non-Inuyasha characters can travel through the well if they had shards. The last thing they want to do is give Naraku a reason to go through the well, as I don't remember if he was ever shown knowing when Kagome is from, or how she gets there (he did effect the well in the final battle, but the well's time-powers were already somewhat known in that area beforehand.
*** No, no, NO! The well being affected was due to the Shikon Jewel's Forced-On-Naraku's wish to... affect Kagome somehow.
*** To get her to be the next miko after Midoriko to fight endlessly in the Sacred Jewel.
*** thank you. as i was saying, the shikon jewel feared Kagome, and as a result, tried to force her into being a dumbass and wishing to go back to her own time (and being locked in the Sacred Jewel) by trapping her in a commonly-feared-by-humans scenario, being alone in the dark.
*** Ohhh... so THAT's why they didn't just say, "Let's just tell Kagome to keep her jewel shards at home, because since Naraku's not Inuyasha/Kagome, he can't get through the well." Although that would ruin the plot...
*** The "affect the well" point was only to show that he knew the well existed, and possibly that Kagome came from beyond the well though it could be that the Bone Eater's well is just another magical artifact that Naraku's heard of. Yura's attack was enough to show that one shard is enough to let a youkai invade her time if they've got a reason to.
** Not to mention the very first episode, Kagome was going about her life, minding her own business as a normal student before being [[TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive forcibly dragged into the past]] by the centipede daemon? The inverse seems to be the head scratcher is to why the other party members CAN'T use the well.
** They probably can't because of spiritual power.
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* The above question leads me to ask something else...where are all the monsters in Inuyasha's present era? Were they driven to extinction when Mankind developed guns and they reached Japan, leaving only a few exceptions? The [[SealedEvilInACan Noh Mask was kept in a box for who-knows-how-long]] and easily missed, and the Soul Piper has been implied to be benign and on a different plane than humans, how could they shoot it.
** The answer is never clearly stated in either version of the series, and thus is open to speculation; my guess is that the progress of technology etc, combined with sheer numbers, eventually gave humans the edge against youkai and most of them were forced into extinction and/or hiding.
*** Weeeellll, as we saw somewhere in the middle of the series, a strong enough youkai can cause other youkai to go into hiding just by being active even if they don't actively pursue them, like Naraku with youkai in the castle basement. Maybe everyone found out that Sesshomaru likes humans now and are scared spitless of crossing a guy who can smell them from across the country and kill them with a scratch, or something.
*** I don't think I'd go so far as to say that Sesshomaru likes humans now. At the end of the series, it still seems to be only Rin and to an extent Kogome that he can tolerate.
*** Given a few hundred years he might broaden his horizons, though, especially considering his affinity for CharacterDevelopment.
*** It seems less like he dislikes humanity, so much as that he holds an almost aristocratic disdain for them. He is, after all, both the firstborn son of a lord and Daiyoukai, and a Daiyoukai in his own right, and as such just considers himself above the common rabble of humanity. He might make exceptions (Rin), but generally he sees no reason to care about the short-lived and weak masses of humankind.
*** In addition, youkai thrive during times of war and chaos, the reestablishment of an effective central government ended that for centuries, the civil war of the Meiji Restoration was brief, and the end of WWII was brief also. There is a lot of Japan that is wildness preserve, plenty of space for youkai to hide from humans, even if they don't have access to other realms as folklore ascribes to kitsune. Not to mention the possibility of TheMasquerade.
** I'd say that it's likely that just about all of the strong and large youkai that could actually pose a threat to even humans with guns were consumed by Naraku (it's specifically mentioned that he's running out of powerful enough demons to be worth the trouble of absorbing by the end of the series) or killed by Inuyasha and Co., the rest either being killed by humans after the invention of guns or going into hiding. My question would be does the rest of the world have demons and if it does, where are they?
** As noted with ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'' (and by some level, the ''Franchise/TouhouProject'', if Gensokyo is an indication), it could be one of those "separate world" things or, perhaps, more powerful youkai have died out while miscellaneous ones still survive. I mean, a lot of folklore tend to have this separation of worlds (and subsequently explains why the two worlds shouldn't be bridged). Likewise, in the vein on what time periods had to do with this, the Meiji restoration (and some of the preceding events) and WWII (before and after) started to have a decline of traditions, so, when traditional customs started to fade, as did the folklore. In terms of the Well, I more or less took it that the "past" that Kagome went to isn't really the "past" per say, rather, it's separated realm of the Heian period that she goes to, with the Sacred Tree and the Well bridging the two worlds.
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* What were the laws of heredity, vis-a-vis demonic powers? Every half-demon shown with known parentage had a demon father and a human mother. If the mother was demon and the father human, would the child still be half-demonic?
** Yes. Although youkai heredity is quirky to say the least, one human parent plus one youkai parent equals a hanyou regardless of which was which, and if memory serves the anime does provide one example of a hanyou with a human father and a youkai mother in the person of Izumo, the hanyou who was manufacturing faux Shikon Jewels.
** There's also the "Thunder Brothers" from an early episode; this troper distinctly remembers a scene where one of the brothers discussed his parentage and noted that his mother was a youkai.
*** Both of the Thunder Brothers' parents were youkai, so they don't really count. They were just different types of youkai, and Hiten and Souten seemed to have taken after their father while Manten took after their mother.
* As a theorem, perhaps the waning belief in magic and spirituality has simply weakened the presence of youkai and the like, so they have simply faded into a shadow of their former glory.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Kagome]]
* There are many things that were extremely valuable in medieval times that are cheap today, such as salt, spices, cloth, and pins and needles. Did Kagome ever stop to think that, with a minimal capital investment, she could live like a queen in the past?
** It's hard to live like a queen when you're busy chasing down Plot Coupons and/or the Big Bad and getting into scenery-destroying fights every time you turn around. While Kagome ''could'' in theory invest in luxuries like a baggage train and armed guards, doing so would only slow down the group's progress - at least, for the short period of time before the Monster Of The Week laid waste to the whole business and the main characters were obliged to do without again. Since between Kagome bringing supplies through the well and Miroku's skills as a con artist, the group's needs are almost always covered, anything else would only be a distraction.
** Define "live like a queen". If you mean building some sort of feudal mini-empire in the past, even if she had the expertise to administrate a mini-kingdom, Kagome isn't really the type of person who would want to do that.
** It's also shown that she wasn't that good in terms of her schoolwork. It's likely she never really learned that such things were valuable in the past. That and when she could just pop in and out of the past she was on the road hunting demons and Naraku the entire time. When she finally decided to settle down it's implied that the well permanently closed on her, so she never really had the opportunity.
** A little note about her schoolwork: it's mentioned in the first few episodes that she was a very good student and had great grades until the well happened. That doesn't mean she had a very practical mind, and not only because she was very young.
*** If I remember the first three episodes correctly, the villagers weren't really sure what to do with her and probably would have killed her if they hadn't consulted Kaede beforehand.
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* Why did Kagome keep going back in time in her school uniform? Wouldn't jeans and some hiking boots have been a better idea?
** Takahashi stated that she kept Kagome in her uniform intentionally, as a way of maintaining her identity. Dunno why it bothers everyone so much, since wearing the uniform seemed to work out in the end.
** I read somewhere (it might have even been on another page of this site) that in the anime Kagome says she wears her uniform because its easy to get blood out of it. Which really doesn't make any sense.
*** She lives with a guy who routinely eviscerates, decapitates, and disembowels giant demonic beasts. How does it ''not'' make sense?
*** Because it doesn't make sense that a white school uniform would be particularly easy to get blood stains out of.
*** Apparently, most students have only one uniform, so the uniforms themselves are very easy to care for.
*** Because pouring bleach on white uniform is much easier then trying to get the same stain out of say a black one. Her skirt and the other green parts have the same problem as a black uniform would but they're less likely to get anything on them.
*** It doesn't make sense because it's her school uniform, and thus something she needs to wear to school. She can just buy a normal outfit that's easy to clean so that she wouldn't have to go in civilian clothes to school when Inuyasha bleeds all over it, again.
*** It seems to simply be a case of LimitedWardrobe for the sake of the artist not having to design new outfits for whatever reason. Otherwise it makes no sense.
** What about her choice to wear a skirt? She travels across Japan by straddling the back of a male hanyou (who has the age appearance of a 15 year old) who clearly is running fast enough for a lot of wind to be blowing around them, enough for her small skirt it easily be lifted. Also, with one of their friends being the ChivalrousPervert there is really nothing stopping him from getting a "nice view" especially if Inuyasha has decided to run in front of Kirara. What logic does she see in wearing that?
*** Maybe it's come to a point where it no longer matters to Kagome.
*** I'd wonder forget the possible indecency, it could be severely cold, her legs are exposed to bugs, rough branches, and other wildlife, and she has no pockets to carry anything in, she always has to grab something from her bag which could take several agonizing seconds. It would seem more practical to just wear pants, she did in the very beginning for a brief few moments so she does own some.
** I've always wondered why it never occurs to Kagome that maybe wearing period-appropriate clothing would be a better idea than just running around in her 20th century clothes. You'd think that that would be dangerous as the strange clothes make her stick out like a weirdo and she'd be easier to recognize at a glance.
*** She hangs around Inuyasha, Shippo, Kirara and Sango. True, the fact that only her appearance gets noted was used as a punchline once (the punchline being that they thought that SHE was the youkai of the group), but who in their right mind is going to mess with her when she's hanging around armed hanyou, monks and humans, especially once she starts carrying around a bow and arrow herself, which she masters to levels that are beyond peak human in the real world, even without magical abilities. Besides, if anyone so much as nicks her within a mile of him, Kagome can rest assured that Inuyasha will kill them to death soon after.
*** So, supposedly women in Japan started wearing western clothes partly because it was much easier to move around in than traditional Japanese clothing. There were even cases of some being targeted for robberies and assaults because they wouldn't be able to get away as easily in traditional clothing. So, a school uniform, while not the most practical clothing choice, would probably have been better than a kimono for mobility. Really, I think it was just a design choice to make her more easily recognizable to readers.
** I agree. I mean, fine, wear a skirt, but at least do it like Xena, with heavy boots and armor. Seriously, if I were to walk around in such a place, where every second something could attack me, I'd wear heavy steel toe boots (or at least carry them along and wear them when we're looking for something evil), a chain vest and probably gloves without fingers. Not to mention that instead of bow and arrow, I'd use a semi-automatic rifle or a shotgun and, if necessary, a machine gun. Or at least a crossbow, if it had to be arrows. And I'd carry at least two hidden knives on my body. Basically, I'd follow every rule in the CrazyPrepared book.
*** Regarding the weaponry, its unlikely that a fifteen year old could easily get their hands on high powered firearms even in modern Japan, and she probably doesn't have the preternatural affinity to them that she does to short/longbows and arrows, and most of those weapons probably don't have the holy connotations that bows and arrows have in Shintoism, where even twanging a bowstring is a powerful charm. Not to mention that she can do a lot more damage (and eventually a lot more accurately) than any modern hand-held weapon, albeit with a much slower rate of fire (though Kikyo could fire around five arrows almost simultaneously) and with a much smaller ammo stock.
*** And most of that armor would be pretty useless against almost any youkai that's actually capable of catching her when she's not being weighed down, considering how easily they snap swords. Not to mention that most youkai of note tend to do stuff like breathe fire or have corrosive auras (which she's almost immune to as it is), which armor would be useless against, and normal human enemies are pretty much comic relief when you hang around her friends. And as she's got nowhere near the hand to hand combat training to try and effectively use armor and knives at close range in an era of constant war and bloodthirsty, centuries old, wandering spirits, she's probably best served by being able to run and dodge as fast as possible, until she's far enough away to use her magical arrows and let her superhuman boyfriend nuke the area.
*** Given her family does know about the situation though, carrying a switchblade would not be a terrible idea. That or a taser either. Sure they wouldn't be effective against the big threats, but some of the smaller ones it would help if they were too close and she needed an emergency out. It would still be recommended to use her arrows, they're powerful weapons, but having backup doesn't hurt.
*** Besides which, in Japan it's illegal to own firearms unless you work for the military or law enforcement. There's no way Kagome would be able to get a hold of some.
** I'd kind of accept her wearing the uniform for the sake of recognition. However, in the rare instances she visits Inuyasha in different clothes, she still wears a skirt! Fine, she had no time to change when they confronted Yura, but there is no excuse for her choice of dress the next time she went to the past, in a short white skirt.
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* From an above entry, I just have to wonder, why did Kagome always return to her time for school? I mean I get that she'd want to see her family every once and a while, or that she could pick up medical supplies, but what I don't get is why her NUMBER ONE reason is for SCHOOL. Okay, so she wants to pass, but hell girl, you're going up against one of the most evil demons of all time. Try to set your priorities straight. She's aware that she could die - it's shown in a number of episodes that she does know how dangerous it is but she'll still go through with it - so how can school be ''that'' important to stop their journey? If she's going to die, then it won't even matter that she passed the year. Why waste the time with school when there are villages in feudal era Japan being killed by a villain they're going after during that time they're not doing anything to find him? (And please, don't give me the "they also do other things" during that time. Resting, getting medical supplies, seeing her family all come second to her exams, so I want to know why should it be so important)
** I always thought she wanted to leave some options open; what would she do if after all her adventures were over? She didn't figure that she'd stay in the feudal era forever.
** There's probably some ValuesDissonance at work, since success in school and getting into a good high school are bigger deals for Japanese teenagers than for American ones. In any case, for most of the series, Kagome is operating under the assumption that when Naraku is defeated, she's going to need to pick up her life in the present where she left off, and while her family will be there regardless, if she simply drops out of school to focus on fighting in the feudal era, it could mess her up for the rest of her life.\\
There's also some indication that it's Kagome's way of keeping some control over her life. She's a stubborn, strong-willed person; things in the feudal era are crazy and Naraku jerks everyone around six ways to Sunday, but dammit, she is not going to let that keep her from getting into high school successfully. Note that she also goes through the full three years of high school even though by the time she's finished she's already made up her mind to go back to live with Inuyasha in the feudal era - it's something that she wants to see all the way through even if, ultimately, the situation in the feudal era ends up making it irrelevant after all.
*** As an Asian person I can tell you that East Asian cultures are very very extreme about education to the point that some high schoolers don't get off of school until midnight and walk around with nosebleeds. Education is such a giant deal in Asia that they forced their children to study for nearly ten hours a day in middle school. So it's very much a cultural thing.
*** There's also the implication since the first chapter that ''something'' is messing with her mind her entire life as she can never remember the story of the Shikon Jewel no matter how many times she hears it; we later find out that Magatsuhi is that force, and may have been influencing her in that way to make her less effective, though it may also have something to do with Kikyo's desire to be a normal girl being expressed through her reincarnation.
** In all probability she was just hedging her bets, she knew that there was a chance that she could stay in the past where a proper education would be irreverent, however, she also knew that there was a decent chance that once her adventures were over she could end up stuck in her own time where not having a proper education would ruin her life, in a scenario where she did plan on the feudal era permanently rather then it being a spur of the moment decision it would still be better for her to keep up with school just in case that plan doesn't work out.
* How does Kagome not get kicked out of school? I mean, her relatives use the illness excuse, which is fine, but when it comes to such extended periods of illness, shouldn't she need to bring a doctor's confirmation? I don't know how such things are handled in Japan, and I know that it would be perhaps potentially insulting to ask for a confirmation because it would be taken akin to accusing her family of lying, but it still strikes me as odd.
** My guess, seeing as only a year passed in Kagome's time (which, by the way would be impossible seeing as even if every chapter of the manga was only one day it still added up to two or three years in the feudal era) is that time passes differently on either side of the well. In all likelyhood she was gone for much shorter periods of time than it appeared on the modern side of the well.
*** Several chapters can cover a single day, so it's not too hard to believe a little less than a year passed. (The last few ''volumes'' covered a single day. Especially since Inuyasha turned human (a once a month thing) only a handful of times.
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* In one episode Kagome is in a hurry to go back to the feudal era and is throwing stuff into her backpack (which generally seems to way more stuff than it should) One of the items she packs to take to FEUDAL Japan is a plug in hair dryer.
** This is undoubtedly intentional, as a subtle but cute indication of just how much of a rush Kagome is in: she is throwing things into her bag without any consideration for what she's really going to ''need'' or what will actually be usable.
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* Is it ever explained why does Kagome ''want'' to travel back to the past? When she comes back to her world the first time, she breaks down crying and says she's done with the feudal era, with her grandpa even trying to seal the well for good. Then, Inuyasha comes and drags her back to the feudal era, and her motivations are turned around 180º. Did I miss something? She whines time and again the feudal era is messing with her grades and she won't be able to graduate, so why does she insist on going back to what she considers a dangerous place, filled with strange people (mostly Inuyasha) that don't respect her?
** It's possible that, after having been going between worlds for quite some time, she probably just fits in better with one than the other.
** At first, she feels responsible for having (Albeit unintentionally) breaking the jewel, so it’s likely she initially came back for that reason, as they rely on her ability to see said jewel shards. Afterwards, it’s noted that it becomes personal as she learns and hears the main casts stories, falls in love with Inuyasha and encounters with Naraku, eventually, the feudal era becomes more of a home to her then the modern era.
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* So, are there other reincarnations between Kikyo and Kagome? If not, what's their soul doing in real-time between their times?
** It might be implying an afterlife where one spends some time there, then gets reincarnated eventually.
** Also, there's no guarantee that time passes the same for souls that are being transmigrated to their next life.
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* A theory for this was mentioned previously in Kagome’s family, but nonetheless- In the Final Act, Kagome chooses to go back and stay with Inuyasha after a tearful goodbye with her family. But... Does this cause any timeloops? Will she forever repeat the cycle of living her life in the feudal era, and then being reborn in modern Tokyo only to go back? Or does this cause a change in history for there to be a new timeline?
[[/folder]]

[[folder: What happened to the wolf?]]
* When everyone was shown three years later in the last chapter, where the hell was Koga?
** With his pack.
** The question you really should be asking is where the hell was Kouga after he got conveniently written out of the series? Considering the guy spent near 400 chapters chasing after Naraku just like anyone else for revenge, why did he suddenly drop all of that after losing the shards? Sure, he probably realized that Kagome only had feelings for Inuyasha, but really, after gaining a weapon that finally made him useful, why did he just drop all that "avenge my comrades" motive and leave?!
*** You have to remember, Naraku was pretty powerful at that point, having absorbed Moryomaru and Hakudoshi, along with having most/all of the jewel. Koga was barely able to keep up a fight, and that was with his jewel shards. Powerful weapon or not, if he didn't have speed to get in and out of close range (as that was the type of weapon he had), he would be killed. Not wanting to be a burden, (or perhaps cause unnecessary grief to Kagome) he could've decided that leaving with as much dignity as possible was the best solution. At least, it appears that way. In the second anime, they handwave it by Kagome mentioning a rumor that he got married to Ayame.
*** All of that makes sense, but the last thing with Kagome saying that Kouga married Ayame was never in the manga. So as far as the manga is concerned, Kouga just disappears.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Shikon No Tama]]
* What was up with the ending? I get that the jewel wanted Naraku and Kagome to replace Midoriko and the sealed demon within itself. So why was Naraku's wish for Kagome to be [[Film/DragMeToHell dragged into hell?]] Why didn't he wish for love like he was contemplating? Besides, Byakuya slashed Kagome with the stolen Meidou Zangetsuha katana a few hours beforehand. Why didn't she get sent to hell at that time?
** Well in the end, Naraku just wanted to go to hell and end up with Kikyo's soul there for eternity. Which really makes no damn sense because, if he wanted to go to hell with Kikyo's soul that badly, why not just let Inuyasha kill him all the way at the beginning of the series? Honestly, this troper saw it as an AssPull for Naraku to get some sympathy. As for the delayed Meidou Zangetsuha, [[RuleOfDrama it was probably just to give the reader fake relief that it failed, before it did work]]; or blame it on WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief.
*** I assumed that it wasn't literal hell, and that his death shoved his soul entirely into the Shikon no Tama, which is the perfect moment to cause Kagome to corrupt herself with a selfish wish and be trapped there with him. Just wishing her to love him wouldn't suffice as she was basically able to purify the effects of the jewel pretty well even before the majority of her power got unsealed, and Onigumo's greatest wish was always to corrupt Kikyo's pure heart. Besides, I don't think the Shikon no Tama was ever shown to grant wishes as non-physical as that.
** As Kagome pointed out, the Jewel tricks people. It takes a rather simple wish and twists it to it's own purposes. Kikyo had wished to see Inuyasha again, look how that turned out. It's possible that Naraku's dying wish was to cause Inuyasha and/or Kagome pain. He had set up Kagome to be taken away from Inuyasha before the fight even moved outside, he didn't really need to wish for her to be pulled into "hell." The Jewel used this has a chance to snare them both. Perhaps his wish was for immortality, something the Jewel would give him by dooming the two of them to fight within it for eternity. Maybe he wished to be the ultimate power, which he would be... as part of the Jewel.
** Naraku says this directly: even if both his and Kikyo's souls are going to end up in Hell, they still wouldn't be together (because that will reduce Naraku's punishment, of course). Literally the only way for him to ever reunite with Kikyo was to make her reincarnation and himself replace Shikon no Tama's old inhabitants in their eternal battle. \
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* Something that always bothered me personally is the fact that a single shard of the jewel is as strong as the whole jewel. At least when it comes to boosting a demon's powers. It at least seems that way.
** I disagree. It only seems the same sometimes because "demon powers" are difficult to quantify. But it is strongly implied throughout the series that more jewel shards = more power enhancement. For example, take the Thunder Brothers. For most of the episode they feature in both Brothers have a couple shards each (one has two and the other has three IIRC), but when one of the Brothers dies the other one takes his jewel shards and becomes instantly more powerful.
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* Why didn't Kaede just tell Kagome to destroy the Shikon Jewel once it came back into the picture? They've seen first hand what it could do when a bad guy got a hold of it, not to mention the Jewel bringing nothing but misery to those around it. Instead, Kaede just tells Kagome "You are entrusted to guard this thing that could plunge the land into darkness if some jerk got his or her hands on it.", setting in motion the bloody events of the story and making Kaede look like a total dumbass.
** Destroying it may simply not have been possible. Burning it with Kikyo's body didn't destroy it, it just sent it with her into her reincarnation. Smashing it resulted in approximately a billion shards all over Japan. What else are they supposed to do?
*** However, in the end, Kagome successfully wishes the jewel out of existence. The only way this could make any sense is that Kagome was doing this out of desperation and neither she, nor anyone else with knowledge on the Jewel, had any idea this could work.
*** Kagome didn't know at the beginning that the Shikon Jewel would be destroyed by wishing it out of existence. In fact no one knows. It is only later that she gets a hint of this from her grandfather, who mentions a legend that the Shikon Jewel will disappear if someone makes the right kind of wish. She figures it all out in the final episode, only after being trapped by the Shikon Jewel.
*** Very few people are aware of the Jewel's existence, even less are aware of its origins, and practically no one knows that it has any sort of will of its own. Kikyo, Kagome and even Miroku were trying to purify it and Kikyo thought that using it to wish Inuyasha into a human would cause it to disappear, but that wasn't the right wish and Inuyasha wouldn't really agree to it during the short period they had the jewel prior to its breaking. Kagome couldn't even remember the wish aspect until Magatsuchi was killed, clearing the veil on her memories that was implied since the first chapter (where she says that she can never remember the story of the Shikon no Tama no matter how many times her grandpa told her, for some reason).
*** What kicked off the plot was the Shikon no Tama shattering and it's pieces being spread.
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* What the hell happened to Miroku's Jewel shards in his arm? Did he just give them to Kagome even though Kagome made a point not to take them?
** It's kind of implied that after seeing Kagome purify the shards so easily without even trying he just let her have them.
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* I'm surprised no one asked this already, but why is a jewel shard required to go through the Bone Eater's well for Kagome and everyone else, EXCEPT Inuyasha, who can go through at will?
** The Shikon shards are not required to travel through the well, since both Kagome and Inuyasha do it all the time without one and people with shards can't.
*** Wrong, Kagome and anyone else needs them to be able to travel through the well, while Inuyasha can apparently go through the well whenever he wants. It's even a plot point in one episode where Inuyasha tries to trap Kagome in the future for her own safety, and for that reason steals her shards so she can't get back. Kagome isn't able to go back the entire episode until Shippo brings the shards to the well and apparently "opens" whatever time warp from that side.
*** No, they're not required. The second time Kagome traveled in time she didn't have a shard and then spends the last third of the story coming and going through the well without any shards. In the story you are mentioning, ''she'' thinks it's because of her lack of shards but in reality it's because there was a tree in the well blocking it (although the Jewel does help her get through that eventually). And as you mention, Shippo had a shard in the well but still couldn't travel.
*** Shards are not required to go through the well in the manga. The anime ''attempted'' to introduce that requirement for whatever reason, but could not enforce it consistently because plot developments in the manga resulted in numerous cases of Kagome going back and forth through the well without any shards.
** One possible explanation is ties to that particular temporal rift. Kagome is the reincarnated soul of Kikyou, and so her soul exists both in the modern era and the Sengoku period. Inuyasha has a link through the tree he was sealed to, which happens to be located in the Higurashi shrine grounds. Thus he has a tether to the modern Era through it. The others have no such tie (at least to that portal and that point in time), so the well needs a guidepost to send them to Kagome's era. They might be able to go through other time rifts (if, say, their reincarnations lived in another place and time, or there was a location of great significance to them near one).
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* Kind of surprised know one's mentioned this, but how did no one notice the jewel in Kagome's side during the first 14 years of her life?
** [=IIRC=], it wasn't "active" then.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Inuyasha]]
* Inuyasha's heightened senses make him easily overcome by strong tastes and smells, like curry or India ink. What do you think his alcohol resistance would be?
** Smell has nothing to do with metabolism.
** No, but it DOES have to do with getting into your system at all. If he got it past his nose to drink it, he'd probably have had a conniption at the taste, especially if it were very strong.
*** We have seen an instance of Inuyasha versus alcohol when the group ran afoul of the sake mist in "The Last Banquet of Miroku's Master." He got kind of wobbly, but held up better than the girls and Shippo did, and didn't seem especially bothered by the smell.
*** But there was that time in ''Inuyasha: The Final Act'' when the whole gang visited the Demon Potions Master and Inuyasha fell in a barrel of sake, after which he began seeing 3 Kagomes instead of 1.
** Inuyasha also has a better immunity to poison (whether gas or liquid) compared to everyone else in his group. Where others are seen struggling to breathe in Naraku's or any other demon's Miasma, Inuyasha either ignores it completely or just has to loosely cover his mouth and nose with his sleeve for a moment before moving on like nothing happened. And as we all know alcohol is poisonous, so it could be the reason why he's resistant to it is because of its poisonous nature.
*** Yes, alcohol is poisonous but that's in large amounts (supposing one tries to consume it in the usual way and is without metabolic issues). Of course, we could shrug it off as him being hanyou, which combines both a dog (youkai dog, notwithstanding) and human's tolerance, so, in the case of ''The Final Act'', he probably just gets drunk easily, as dogs can't hold their liquor, however, we didn't see exactly how much he drank.
*** It may be a metabolic factor as well (his body metabolizes the alcohol faster, meaning it hits him faster, but also doesn't last as long or have the side effects like a hangover).
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* Why didn't Inuyasha ever succumb to his evil side in the many, many years (and episodes) before he ever got a hold of the sword?
** I think it was only a problem when the sword ''actually broke''. ''Then'' he had to keep it with him at all times.
** Well, ya know, if you paid attention, the ''sword was in his freakin eye.'' Isn't ''that'' an extreme example of possession?
*** Technically, his eye only contained the black pearl that acted as a portal into the world between life and death, landing him '''near''' his father's grave where Tessaiga was kept.
** Yes, the implication is that the seal originally repressed his demon blood regardless of its proximity to Inuyasha himself, but after the sword was broken, the seal couldn't be entirely recreated and thus was no longer effective unless Tessaiga was in Inuyasha's immediate possession.
*** Wonderful of his dad, then, to not put the sword in, say, a titanium safe in the bottom of the ocean. That whole plotline simply made no sense. (And if Inuyasha wanted to become a full demon so badly, why doesn't he just chuck the sword?)
*** Inuyasha specifically answers the latter question with a mild HeroicBSOD after the second time he transforms, when he freaks out over how indiscriminately he attacked people during his UnstoppableRage. He explicitly protests that when he said he wanted to be a full demon, ''he did not want this.''
*** He hid the sword in Inuyasha's eye. Kind of hard to get any more secretive or closer than that.
*** Technically, he hid it in another dimension, which can only be accessed by getting a jewel created by an apparent friend/vassal who is an incredibly powerful -- and incredibly moral -- daiyoukai (or by ripping out Inuyasha's eye, which is a lot harder than it sounds and at which point going youkai is probably among the least of his problems), going through a portal that turns anyone without an otherworldy weapon (of which we only ever see one, which belongs to one of the most dangerous people in the series; said weapon is also the only thing that can hurt the portal's violent guardians) into stone, by turning the blood of a hellborn youkai into a river, or just plain dying. Oh, and even someone with Sesshomaru's youki levels couldn't touch it without being repelled (normal humans are even less likely to get there). And the only clue to any of this was hidden in Inuyasha's subconscious, so far down that even he has no idea that it was there. Titanium boxes at the bottom of the ocean would be a walk in the park, comparatively.
*** Even more wonderful of his dad to make it into a sword, i.e. something that people would ''want to take out of the seal'' and ''bring into combat situations where it could break''. Why didn't he just make it into a rock?
*** The sword predated Inuyasha, so its likely that Inu no Taisho just put the seal and human-protecting barrier on it after Inuyasha's conception. Besides, giving his weaker son a weapon that let him use daiyoukai levels of power would probably help him survive the kind of fights that sealing Inuyasha's daiyoukai power would have gotten him killed in.
*** It probably did not occur to Inu no Taisho that the sword would break. It's not a normal sword, after all; it's a very powerful magical artifact. The first thing that anyone knows about it is that it can kill a hundred youkai with one swing. Inu no Taisho couldn't have predicted Naraku or the kind of abuse Inuyasha would put it through, and besides that, it was made from his fang, so there would be a level of personal pride involved as well. He was having the sword made anyhow to grant Inuyasha greater strength to protect himself and others... having the seal incorporated into it probably seemed like it would be the most efficient way to do things at the time.
*** Adding to the above, it's likely he didn't expect Inuyasha to be fighting against demons as powerful as he did. Inu-no-Taisho probably was thinking Inuyasha would face lesser demons (more along the lines of what he faced early on), NOT enemies on the level of Daiyoukai. That and possibly the expectation that Inuyasha would have had formal training in swordsmanship, and would know how to properly use a blade, rather than simply bludgeoning his foe with it.
** I don't know if the Tetsaiga could seal Inuyasha's demon blood from a distance. It was never even implied before or after it broke. The reason that the Inu no Taisho gave Inuyasha the sword was so that he could use it's power to protect himself and his loved ones, without turning into a deranged monster. The fight against the incarnation of Naraku that broke Tetsaiga was the first fight that he was in where he couldn't run away or defeat it with his own power. Prior to making an enemy of Naraku, Inuyasha tended to steamroll everything he fought, so it's possible that the situation never came up before hand. Also, given that Sesshomarou didn't realize what happened, it's possible that the Inu no Taisho neither knew that the Tetsaiga could do that, nor realized that it would have to.
*** Actually, it ''is'' stated in the series, by Totosai. He says that the seal broke when the sword broke and could not be recreated completely when the sword was reforged. Even if he hadn't stated it, we ''do'' see instances of Inuyasha struggling in combat prior to the breaking of Tessaiga, most notably in the fight in which Sesshomaru took Tessaiga away from him. If that fight had happened after Tessaiga had been broken and reforged, Inuyasha certainly would have transformed. We also see flashbacks to a very young Inuyasha having to run and hide from larger youkai, so it's not possible to say that the fight with Goshinki was the first time it ever came up.
*** Also, Myoga tells the group that the seal was broken because of Inuyasha's strong will to live. It can be argued that, prior to the events of the series, Inuyasha had fewer ties to this life and thus not as desperate to hold on to it. With his new-found friendships and drive to protect Kagome at all costs, he has more to lose. Not only did he fear for his life, but also feared what would happen to her if he failed (as he failed to protect Kikyo, in his mind) and therefore finally crossed the threshold of the seal. Given all of his father's other foresight, perhaps putting an extra protection on the sword was deliberate. After all, the sword could only be wielded by a someone with a desire to protect a human. Once Inuyasha had such a person in his life, the likelihood that he would find himself in a situation that could result in a transformation out of desperation increased. And the sword served as double protection, sealing his youkai blood at the same time it made him stronger, making the blood rage unnecessary.
*** One of my pet theories as to all the questions regarding the swords was that Inuyasha's father ''really'' knew what he was doing. He gave Sesshomaru a sword that seemed useless but actually inevitably helped Sesshomaru gain compassion for others, and he gave Inuyasha a sword that would help him protect his loved ones by giving him power he would only have if he were a full demon--the loss of this sword turns him into a full demon which Inuyasha's father knew, in my opinion, would make him realize he didn't want to be a full demon after all. So Inuyasha's father simultaneously gave him a weapon that would give him an epiphany, keep him from turning into something he doesn't want to be, and bestow him with the power he would have without it.
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* Why is Inuyasha still wearing the prayer bead necklace on the final page? I mean, three years later, Inuyasha is a Nice Guy, they're ''married to each other'', and Kagome doesn't trust him enough to take the necklace off? Giving them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he just trusts her, or she had it de-enchanted, or he likes it for sentimental reasons, or they're just that kinky, but I'd still feel better seeing the necklace gone.
** Well aside from the fact that the '''SIT!''' command is a ready-made source of comic relief, I like to think of it as a symbol of trust and fealty, kind of like a wedding ring. Husbands and wives both consent to wear a wedding ring as an outward symbol of the fact that they belong to another person. Just the same, Inuyasha consents to keep wearing the necklace (or at least stops complaining about having to wear it) as a sign of his trust in Kagome not to abuse it. If Inuyasha suddenly asked Kagome to take the necklace off it would probably mean their romance is in shambles.
*** That can be reversed against Kagome as well, as at the end of one of the movies he clearly doesn't have the beads until Kagome tells him to close his eyes, then puts them back on. He acted just fine without them, but this implies Kagome doesn't trust him at all as he even asks her why and she doesn't answer him, she only says SIT while smiling. It seems almost sadistic, and that it's more like a safety mechanism for Kagome against a possible danger that doesn't exist. This means there is no romance already, the only way to fix it would to trust the man she is with and take the things off. 1) She's worried he'll turn any minute, or 2) Kagome enjoys her power over Inuyasha, whether she uses it for some form of self power or simply to constantly use it to teach him to not be rude, although there are plenty of examples where she simply uses it to take out her frustration when Inuyasha clearly hasn't done anything. 3) Kagome is worried he only likes her because he has the prayer beads on and is therefore tied to her. It'd be perefectly understandable for him to want them off considering Kagome seems to go off like any adolescent, but this has serious ramifications against Inuyasha's physical health.
*** To be fair, the bead scene at the end of the movie was because well, the movie is essentially filler, thus can't change the status quo of the series (an awkward contrivance of StatusQuoIsGod really), it should be noted however that the beads only ever really served there ORIGINAL purpose a handful of times, most were at the beginning of the series, when Inuyasha really would have killed Kagome because of his resentment towards Kikyo, the other times being when Inuyasha's demon blood took over. The rest of the times the beads are used are mostly a form of bitch slap.
*** Physical health? The Sit command only ever did more than startle and mildly annoy him exactly once in the entire series, and it was when she used it multiple times in rapid succession and caused him to drop a boulder (which he was planning to use to trap her in the past) on himself. And besides, even ignoring that the movies aren't canon to either the manga or the anime, there's also the fact that the beads have shown the ability to knock him out of his youkai state, and each time he transforms without Tessaiga in hand, his bloodlust has been getting worse and worse throughout the series (though his resistance has also been increasing, but if Sesshomaru is right, eventually it could turn him into an uncontrollable beast), so he might consider having to endure the occasional SIT from an annoyed Kagome acceptable if it also gives her an effective way to stop him from attacking anyone long enough to help him get back to normal should he find himself in a situation where he transforms again.
*** The beads were originally enchanted by Kaede. One would presume that Kaede could also take cancel the spell, and may have done so, after which Inuyasha might just have chosen to continue to wear it for sentimental reasons.
*** Also, he may keep wearing them as a reminder of who he was before (the angry, self-interested loner who wanted to become a demon for the sake of power), and in so doing, keep himself from ever falling back into that person (think a human wearing something from a shameful past so that they remember and never fall back into that person).
** The logical reason would be that Rumiko's been drawing Inuyasha with those beads for ten years or there abouts, so she was probably just too used to drawing those beads on that she never thought whether those beads should be there or not in the end. Also, I tend to notice that the fandom puts way more significance to those beads more than how it's treated in the actual manga. It's probably not as much as a big issue to her - it was mostly for comic relief (YMMV on how comical it was).
*** If I remember it right, Inuyasha can't take the beads of himself. Either Kagome or Kikyo would have to.
----
* Why do Inuyasha and Sesshomaru have razor-sharp claws that serve as highly effective {{Natural Weapon}}s? They're supposed to be ''dog demons'', not ''cat demons''. Dogs' claws aren't sharp at all, and are used solely to provide traction while running.
** Dog claws are sharp. I've been cut up by my dogs when they jump up on me while I'm wearing shorts.
** Dog claws aren't as sharp as cat claws because they're not retractable and thus wear down as the dog walks (and, as mentioned, can still cut you). Inuyasha and Sesshomaru aren't walking on their claws, so they're not as blunted.
*** That and they're youkai dogs, so it's not like they function exactly like regular dogs
----

* About Inuyasha's demon transformation, why doesn't he try to train and master said transformation? He goes crazy whenever he transforms because his human side isn't strong enough to handle it, so why not try and make his human side stronger? It's not like some humans haven't shown levels of strength comparable to demons before. It seems like the writers missed perfectly good [[TrainingFromHell training from hell]] and [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower Charles Atlas superpower]] opportunities.
** Everything we learn about the transformation indicates that it's not something that can possibly be "mastered" - the whole point of Demon Inuyasha in a storytelling sense is to provide a means for Inuyasha to learn that becoming a full demon, which was his motivation for quite a bit of the early parts of the series, would not solve the problems he thinks it would solve. It paves the way for Inuyasha to accept his half-human nature and learn to use what he has instead of trying to become something else.
** Also, the only time he would have to train that form is one night every month. And by the time he found out about the transformation in the first place, he's in the middle of a quest that ends up with him wandering into a life and death battle on that day more often than not, so he doesn't have time to train it. Maybe after the epilogue he can try and learn to use senki or something in his human or even hanyou form to help purify its powers into a controllable state like Tessaiga uses to make the Dragon Scale form safe to use at full power, but senki and the like usually take years of hard training unless you're a reincarnation of a master of it, ala Kagome.
** To add a bit to the mix; during his fight with Ryukoutsei, we see Inuyasha struggle and eventually regain himself when he picks up the Tessaiga once more. I believe, at that point, Inuyasha had ‘mastered’ his demon transformation; I don’t recall another time where he transforms under his own power (Magatsuhi possession caused his next transformation). It just so happens that the intense Youki and Human Ki aren’t entirely compatible (which is what causes the rabid, berserker fury, as the talking tree explains to Sesshoumaru). As mentioned, he could try and purify the form (which the anime gave a nod to), but they don’t have the time for Miroku to give Inuyasha lessons on that.
----

* Why is Inuyasha so desperate to become a full demon when as a half demon he's already several times stronger than about every full demon they encounter?
** Well, for one thing, he's not stronger than every full youkai they encounter. He's stronger than many of them, true, because they encounter a lot of relatively weak youkai like Mistress Centipede (Sango later tells Kohaku that spider and centipede youkai are basically the bottom rung in terms of power), but they also encounter a good many against whom he struggles even with Tessaiga helping to balance the scales. For another, as a half-breed child he was shunned by humans and attacked by youkai, so it's no wonder that he doesn't want to go on being something everyone else hates if he has any option to change.
*** On the other hand, nearly every demon that causes him trouble has at least one jewel shard. Not to mention the sword is at least partially made with his own power after repairing it with his own fang.
----
* Why does it seems like people hate Inuyasha for everything?
** Well, he's a hanyou. He's not to accepted by humans for his half-youkai heritage and vice versa. From what I've been getting out of the show, hanyou are practically considered to be abominations to both sides (for some reasons that I can't recall).
----
* Do the beads work on Inuyasha when he is in human form? I know that there is no reason to use them while he is stripped of his demon abilities, but could they still work anyway?
** Maybe, maybe not, however, we don't see them being used and we wouldn't know that because it's not like Inuyasha can remove them.
----
* How did Inuyasha (in episode 57) in human form survive getting smashed to the ground by that fat sage in stone form?
** I believe he was wearing the cloak of the fire rat, which is, according to the show, like some kind of armor, plus, when he is in his human form, he'd still be slightly more invincible than the standard human.
----
* Why didn't Kagome use the "Sit" command every time Inuyasha transformed into a full-demon? She did it twice, but refused to do so beyond that when it was more crucial.
** I think that command would only work if he was either in the beginning and ending stages of the full youkai mode and or when he's not strong enough to resist it. The instances as to why she did it was because he was weakened enough to not resist it (I recall that he was injured pretty bad in one of those instances).
[[/folder]]


[[folder: Band of Seven]]
* During the Band of Seven arc, why did everyone keep calling the feminine one (whose name escapes me) "He"? After all, he-or-she sounded feminine and had a crush on Inuyasha.
** Because he was a dude, that's why.
** That's Jakotsu, and yes, he's male. It's fairly obvious in the scenes after his kimono gets trashed and he's going about wearing his armor over his bare chest.
*** Also, his overwhelming misogyny.
** They call him he for exactly the same reason they call Sesshomaru he - because they are both male. They also both look extremely feminine (Sess eventually starts to actually look masculine but ye gods his first appearances in the manga), but that doesn't necessarily mean anything in this series.
** He's played by a female voice actor in both the Japanese version and the dub, which just adds to the confusion.
*** Not a historian, but I assume they weren't too trans-positive in Feudal Japan.
*** It doesn't really matter since Jokutsu probably would just kill anyone who objected.
** He was originally a girl, but the author didn't feel like having Inuyasha hit a girl. However the author likely still wanted to keep the flirty-killer type within the band of seven, so made him a murderous crossdresser. His real gender likely added more to the disturbing stuff he said (despite all of the unfortunate implication that entails).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Going back to the village]]
* What I really don't get is WHY after getting some progress in finding Naraku's whereabouts do the entire Inuyasha-tachi just decided to go return to Kaede's village, effectually losing all the ground they covered? Sure, Kagome has her life in the modern day era, but does that girl have no common sense to realize if Naraku or any other big evil for that matter caused a lot of damage in the Sengoku era of Japan which isn't meant to historically happen, then it's going to change the world she's currently living in, therefore making any effort to keep up in her current life pointless if it all changed? It doesn't even seem like Naraku's new whereabouts are any closer to where the Bone Eater's Well is. In fact, in this troper's opinion it seems more like Naraku is just moving further away. However, the gang never have any problem in getting back to their previous "check point" once they return from that village by the next episode, or sometimes even in the same episode. Despite it taking an entire season or so to reach Naraku once they get a clue as to where he is (and that takes a long time in itself) time becomes irrelevant when it comes to going and leaving the village with the well. Unless Inuyasha and Kirara can travel faster than the Shinkansen (which can take you between 2-3 hours to travel from Tokyo to Osaka depending which Shinkansen you take), there is no reason as to why it takes them so little time to get to and from this one village, yet taking almost an entire season to travel around the rest of Japan.
** They probably weren't traveling in a straight line. The group would go one direction, see Naraku wasn't there, double back, and go off in a different direction. Kaede's village was a good central point to map out their progress. Plus, the three humans of the group can't heal as fast as Inuyasha. Whenever they returned to the village Kagome could get medical supplies (and other supplies) from her own time.
*** Adding to this, Naraku didn't always stay in one location.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Sango's Clothing Change]]
* How does Sango change into her Demon Slayer outfit so quickly, and get her hair in a ponytail in time for it as well? She's like a superheroine.
** Combination of {{Hammerspace}} and some unexplained super power she has?
** She's wearing it underneath and just has to strap on a few extras. Years of practice have mastered it to an art like firefighters suiting up.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Inuyasha, Kikyo, the village, and the Tree]]
* After seeing the first episode again, this Troper just found something ridiculous. In the very first scene of the series, we have Kikyo standing by the stairs and torii of the village, shooting an arrow at Inuyasha who was running by the Goshinboku (the God Tree). Now this would imply that the Goshinboku is besides the village, you'd think so? However, later in that same episode, when Kagome comes to the past for the first time, when she goes to the Goshinboku we see that it's completely surrounded by forest, with no part of the village in sight. So what the hell happened to the geographic location of the Goshinboku and the village? Did the village just decide to remove apart of itself away from the Goshinboku, or does the Goshinboku have some sort of magical teleportation skills that caused it to appear next to the village just for Inuyasha to be pinned to it then disappear and find a nice place in the middle of the forest to hide, or what? And it wasn't just the anime that had this problem - the manga did this to! So clearly Rumiko stuffed up somewhere here, on the very first CHAPTER.
** Fifty years passed between the time fakenuyasha trashed the village and the real one got shot and the time when Kagome came through the well. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine the villagers rebuilt the village several meters away from the tree where their attacker was sealed, but close enough to keep an eye on him.
*** They might have built the shrine housing the Shikon no Tama a bit away from the village (and right next to the Bone Eater's Well) in order to keep the potential civilian casualties to a minimum and allow easy disposal of youkai corpses.
*** Real!Inuyasha trashed the village after Naraku!Kikyo attacked him at the tree. Naraku put the Jewel back in the shrine to lure both of them together and Inuyasha rampaged and stoke the Jewel in revenge. In all likelihood, the villages did choose to rebuild further away. In the first episode, they are clearly still fearful of Inuyasha and have named the area after him. Also in that episode, Kaede expresses shock that Kagome can see the demonic aura of the forest around the Goshinboku. It's reasonable to think they would relocate.
** Inuyasha wasn't much of a good guy back when he got shot, so it wouldn't be hard to believe the villagers moved away from him and the tree. Then again, maybe it just looks different/farther away because of the angle we see the forest, causing visual-distance confusion.
*** You mean Inuyasha was perceived to be the "bad guy" when he got shot. Remember, Naraku did deceive both Inuyasha and Kikyo into thinking the other betrayed them.
*** He's still a bit of an ass, though. And he rampaged their village as well.
----
* In the first episode of the anime, we see Inuyasha breaking out of the temple and escaping with the real Jewel. He is quickly pinned to the Goshinboku. I'm very much aware that Naraku tricked both Kikyo and Inuyasha into believing the other betrayed them, using impersonations of Inuyasha and Kikyo on each person, respectively. But, if the ''fake'' Inuyasha (impersonated by Naraku that attacked Kikyo) supposedly was the one who destroyed part of the village, then how the hell did the ''real'' Inuyasha, who obviously stole the Jewel from the shrine after the Kikyo impesronator replaced it, manage to destroy the shrine (and other parts of the village, that looked undamaged before)? Basically, who the hell ''actually'' trashed the village: the impersonator, the real Inuyasha, or both?
** I would guess that Naraku, in the guise of Inuyasha, tore up the village en route to returning the Jewel to the shrine before attacking Inuyasha in the guise of Kikyo. The real Inuyasha then went to get the Jewel in his grief and rage, and either assumed that another youkai had attacked while Kikyo was distracted by trying to murder him, or just didn't care why the town was on fire, and stole the Jewel before becoming the world's worst birdfeeder for the next fifty years.
** No, that was Real!Inuyasha. In his anger over being betrayed, he revels in destroying Kikyo's "hometown." Notice he doesn't actually kill anyone. Naraku!Inuyasha would not have restrained himself. He merely replaced the Jewel in it's shrine in order to let Real!Inuyasha steal it and be found in possession of it when Kikyo makes it back.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Miroku and the bike]]
* Miroku is a monk in the medieval Japan, yet he appears to be extraordinarily skilled in riding Kagome's bike. He doesn't even seem to wonder which kind of transportation he uses, seriously, what the hell?
** Maybe he's just naturally talented at it. Inuyasha stated that he found it to be very tricky... which prompted Kagome to ask him if he's been trying to ride it when she's not looking, much to his embarrassment. Still, Miroku and Inuyasha are superhumanly strong, fast and agile -- ''I'm'' more curious as to how Kagome, a normal 15 year old girl, is able to ride a street-class Bicycle all over Feudal Japan. A mountain-bike would be feasible, but her bike looks like it would grind to a halt if you gave it a dirty look, much less tried to ride it up a grassy hill.
** Miroku is also generally really smart, so a case could be made that he [[AwesomeByAnalysis figured out the basics of how it worked from seeing Kagome on it]], and natural physical ability did the rest.
** Some people just happen to be good at riding bikes the first time they try. It took this troper weeks to learn to ride without training wheels, but her brother mastered a two-wheeler in half an afternoon.
*** Building on this, the biggest obstacle to mastering a bike is balance. And depending on what kind of monk Miroku is (which seems to be some variant of traveling exorcist), he's probably had some degree of martial training, so he'd have a good sense of balance.
** I wouldn't object to him riding the bike that much if he didn't also carry Kagome while doing so. I mean... how?! I've been riding the bike for years, and I'm pretty sure that I couldn't just carry someone on my lap. Also, he was riding it on a rather rough path. Hell, with that bike, riding over grass is probably tough enough. How could you even dream of riding it where he did?
** I always assumed that Miroku being the world's biggest pervert, just happening to figure out how to ride it while admiring her short skirt. frankly i'm more concerned with how he managed to ride it in those shoes.
** At one point even Inuyasha wonders how he mastered it so fast, which lets Kagome know that he was trying to learn it himself. It's likely that he's just gifted.
*** Or he just learned it quicker than Inuyasha did, especially since Inuyasha, at different points, has been shown going on all fours when he wants to go faster (thus he would have a harder time at using it).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Sesshomaru's Arm]]
* So... did Sesshomaru's arm that Inuyasha cut off in his first episode just sort of... grow back, or did literally everyone just forget he lost it?
** It pretty explicitly grew back just before/during the beginning of the very last arc. At a couple of points he used a human arm (to let him activate Tessaiga) or a couple of youkai arms (to replace it, temporarily, but they could never really handle the paces he put them through), but Inuyasha tore off any that Sesshomaru used against him. In the Shishinki fight, Shishinki blasts off his sleeve and is mildly surprised to find out that there was no arm under it and Sesshomaru reminisces about how IY tore it off and that he doesn't mind since it just forced him to become even stronger. It spontaneously grew back when Sesshomaru got over his daddy issues, bringing with it an insanely powerful youkai sword.
*** It just sort of threw me off because I haven't found a single fanart made that showed him having any missing or different limbs, and fanfictions don't seem to even reference it that often.
*** Yeah, its a bit odd that the fanbase hasn't really picked up on that fetish, but I guess that if Sesshomaru wears such loose clothing and is so competent at fighting that even someone of Shishinki's (and thus Inu no Taisho's) calibur didn't even notice that he was minus an arm, its not too unusual that it slips the minds of the fans as well.
----
* I just really wanted to know, how did all the demons find out about the jewel breaking so fast, more importantly, how and when did Naraku find out. I mean when they first meet Miroku it looks like they have half the jewel around that necklace, and lastly, how did that one jewel end up in his father's grave.
** I'd assume that the demons could "feel" it. A disturbance in the Force, if you will. Naraku probably found out at that time too, but chose to observe before acting.
** That jewel ended up in his father's grave because Housenki, the powerful daiyoukai who created the Right Black Pearl which was used to access the grave in the first time around, had an affinity for jewels (as evidenced by him being the source of the Diamond Tessaiga) and took it there to keep it safe from Naraku.
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* Wouldn't the first thing you tried to do after getting a healing sword be to fix the arm you just had chopped off? Also, I can see why Sesshomaru things the sword is useless, but why does everyone else think it is too? Not one person thinks having a resurrection sword is awesome just because it can't cut?
** For the first, the Tenseiga is only capable of reviving the dead and casting a protective barrier, it can't actually heal wounds, much less amputations. Second, everybody thinks the Tenseiga is useless because the Tenseiga is a sword, and it can't even hurt somebody. Swords, like all weapons are supposed to be able to wound or kill, that's why they exist, despite what various media tries to romanticize the sword into a thing of protection will tell you. There are various shapes the Tenseiga could have taken that weren't weapons that would have allowed it to accomplish the same purpose it already does, it's useless for it's intended shape and the function that goes with it. I don't actually recall anybody else but Sesshomaru putting the Tenseiga down though.
[[/folder]]


[[folder: Kitsune Exam]]
* What is the point of the [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment Fox Demon Exam?]] Do kitsune need to get promoted in order to grow more tails?
** Not sure the exact point other than to add a side story, but not quite a BigLippedAlligatorMoment, it IS mentioned again later on in the final act episodes.
** Probably to give Shippo some token development before the series ended, and to give him something to do post-series.
** It may not be that they need the promotion to grow more tails, so much as that Kitsune have a more structured heirarchy due to their natures (One, they're more tricksters and illusionists over physical combatants, and so prize intelligence and clever thinking over raw physicality. Two, Kitsune are more likely to interact and integrate with human society, and so may have stepped back from the "barbarity" of measuring worth solely in violence, opting for a social structure more like human governance).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: When Kirara Ran Away]]
* In the episode where they thought Kirara ran away, why did everyone agree to beat '''Shippo''' up? I mean, it was Miyoga's fault everything happened, and Shippo had a reasonable defense. More importantly, why the hell did Kagome encourage it? She's usually the one who delivers the sit command whenever Inuyasha beats up Shippo.
** It may have been Miyoga who borrowed Kirara, but everyone stewed and fretted over Kirara because shippo had conveniently forgotten that Miyoga had borrowed Kirara, and everyone had just found this out AFTER shippo had just got done with an accusatory laundry list of how everyone had been mean to Kirara and had driven him to run off.
** Because despite sitting Inuyasha for giving Shippo a lump on the head all the time, Kagome knows that Inuyasha would never actually seriously hurt Shippo. Giving him a few smacks on the head is just Inuyasha's way of disciplining Shippo, and in this case he needed it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Shippo's shapshifting]]
* And speaking of Inuyasha beating Shippo, why doesn't he use his shapeshifting to turn into a rock or a statue? I'm not sure if it would still hurt Shippo, but at least he'll hurt Inuyasha in return.
** Generally speaking, when Inuyasha punches rocks and statues, he's completely unharmed and the rocks and statues are gravel. Besides, Inuyasha is too quick for Shippo to react to when he's not prepared for it, Inuyasha usually only whacks him when Shippo already pissed him off once, so pissing him off the strongest guy in the party again is probably not a great idea from Shippo's point of view.
** That and Shippo's pretty young, so he might not be able to do that, yet.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Getting Rid of the Wind Tunnel]]
* Why did Miroku not try to cut off his right hand? Same goes for his relatives before him. The Wind Tunnel is established as not a fun thing to have, especially close to the end when it gets poisoned. Amputation of a limb to save a person's life happens all over the place; there was a chance it may not have worked, with the hand growing back, or the Wind Tunnel coming out the stump, but the possibility is never mentioned.
** Because when it's not killing Miroku, it's (in theory, which story-wise is the more important thing) really useful for sucking up bad shit. In ''practice'', of course, it's completely useless thanks to Naraku's convenient demonic wasps or whatever, but the point is it ''can'' be important to them.
** Amputations in the 1500s were highly life threatening due to blood loss and most importantly infection. Instead of saving his life he would be risking it more.
** That's under the assumption it would even work. The hole might just show up in the stump anyway, and I find it hard to believe that none of Miroku's ancestors didn't think to chop their hand off as a last resort when the hole got big enough to suck them in.
** Well, it was only present in two generations before Miroku's, and they might not want to have risked the chance that it would cause the Wind Tunnel to instantly implode, as the blast radius of its self-destruct is well above the length of their arms.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Noh Mask]]
* How did the noh mask have its jewel shard? Wouldnt they have eventually found it in the past?
** If we take the time travel as a StableTimeLoop, then it means that in the past there's a complete Shikon Jewel plus one extra shard in a tree somewhere so that Kagome and Inuyasha can retrieve it in the future to complete said Jewel in the past. [[TimeyWimeyBall Yeah…]]
** Perhaps since the future shard went back to the past, no one can find the tree shard because their senses are overwritten by that one.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Weapons and such]]
* Early in the show, we are shown Sango's weapon get snapped in half easily, yet it is fixed by next episode with no mention. But every time it breaks after that, it has to become a plot point to fix it with much effort required. What gives?
** That's because Totosai fixed it without much effort, which the anime left out for some reason.
----
* When Sesshomaru first learns Meido Zangetsuha it's said it transports an enemy straight to Hell, which is supported when he goes through one to save Rin and Kohaku from the Hellhound. When Byakuya and Inuyasha use it, however, it transports Kagome and Inuyasha himself into the Shikon Jewel's [[MentalWorld Inner World]] where Midoriko and Magatsuhi are duking it out. What's going on there? Also, is there a connection between Hell and the Youkai Graveyard, since the same skeleton birds show up in both places?
** It seems to allow you to cut into and out of other dimensions, with Hell being the base destination and the mastered version letting you slice into and out of pocket dimensions (as seen in the battle where Sesshomaru gives Inuyasha the Meidou Zangetsuha) and when Inuyasha's even stronger Cutting Meidou lets him cut through time and space enough to break into the Shikon Jewel itself (despite it being the source of Naraku's immunity to the mastered pre-Cutting Meidou's dimension dumping ability, as well as having jumped 500 years into the future), then escape the jewel into a pocket dimension overlapping Kagome's own time period (her family and friends could hear him, but not see him).
** Also, the Youkai Graveyard was in the border between Life and Death, and we know that one of the ways to reach it involved making a river out of the blood of a bird youkai that came from Hell, so that could be an indication that the bone birds are able to traverse both areas.
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* Since Kikyo could open up portals to Hell I'm confused as to why she just didn't send Naraku there all those times she stopped by and revealed important pieces of information to him that would have been better off kept secret. Furthermore, Midoriko's soul was absorbed by Kikyo and Magatsuhi's soul left the Jewel, was stated to be unable to return due to Naraku's evil displacing his, and was destroyed by Sesshomaru... so how were both seen in the final arc inside the jewel?
** Sending Naraku to Hell might have backfired spectacularly, at least without defeating him first.
** What Kikyo absorbed was probably only a remnant of Midoriko's soul that remained in the mummy. And there's a misunderstanding about Magatsuhi. Magatsuhi isn't the youkai Midoriko fought 500 years ago, it is just the evil spirit of the Jewel. According to the series the four souls become one spirit that resides inside the heart, if the person is good the spirit is balaced and is called Naohi, if the person is bad the spirit is corrupted and is then called Magatsuhi. The same happens with the Jewel, and while it seems Midoriko provides the Naohi and the youkai the Magatsuhi, their souls are not really the spirits per se; Magatsuhi is just the evil will of the youkai and therefore the Jewel itself. It seemed that by the end, the Jewel was so corrupted by Naraku, the evil spirit could take a form outside of it but the youkai's soul remained inside.
** Kikyo was 'slowly' dragging a mentally compromised Inuyasha to Hell with her. In addition to Naraku having some substantial mind powers of his own and not letting his guard down around Kikyo, her original plan was to let Naraku gather all the Shikon shards and then purify him and it at the same time, though once she got more mentally stable was to try and kill him directly, though he got really tricky about neutralizing his weaknesses to her by that point.
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* When Sesshomaru gained a human arm from Naraku with a Shikon shard that would allow him to hold the Tetsusaiga, why was he able to activate it? Last I recall, you could only activate the sword's true form if you had a desire to protect humans and Sesshomaru at that point had no desire to do so.
** Sesshomaru is ''that good,'' essentially. He's both naturally talented and incredibly skilled at swordsmanship, and between that and the immense power of his youki, he's able to more or less forcibly override the sword's built-in requirement. However, because he doesn't have that desire, Tessaiga is more easily reverted to its untransformed state by Kagome's arrow, which is what prompts Sesshomaru to comment that the sword doesn't seem to like him very much.
*** It may also have been his desire to protect the human arm, or possibly an effect of the Shikon shard embedded in it. As for Kagome's arrow undoing its transformation, that's just something powerful strikes of houriki does to Tessaiga, as Kikyo and the River God's halberd both did the same thing to it.
** Theoretically, at that point, he IS fighting to protect a human. Mind you, it is literally A human, but he's got Rin. So, similarly to how Inuyasha at first only cared about protecting Kagome, it could trigger the same.
*** Unless this particular plot point happened twice, he hadn't met Rin at that point.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Translating Conventions]]
* So maybe this is just a translation convention, but in the episode with the Soul Piper, Myoga mentions poltergeists. Was that because there wasn't an exact translation for the Japanese equivalent?
** I think the closest Japanese equivalent to poltergeist would be the zashiki-warashi, which, are to my knowledge, mischievous child spirits that inhabit in houses, so it's possible that what I've said wouldn't really translate that well, considering that they called Jinenji's mother the "baba yaga" , instead of "yamanba" (or yama-uba). However, be this as noted, I don't think the ghosts the Soul Piper plays with are "zashiki-warashi", given what I've said, but Japanese mythology is fuzzy on the note of dead kids, so one could say they had to wing it for translation convention.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Sesshomaru's love interest]]
* There's something that's been really bugging me about the two-parter where a woman falls in love with Sesshomaru. Her backstory seems to be quite consistent up until one point: Seeing Inuyasha when she was about to die. How is it that Sara instantly recognized Inuyasha despite never seeing him? The only thing she ever knew about him was his name when Jaken found him. And you can't say "the demons told her" since she saw him minutes before they showed up.
** Probably because Inuyasha has a strong resemblance to his brother. Chiefly the long, white hair.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Love Triangle]]
* Why does everyone treat Inuyasha/Kikyo/Kagome like it was a love triangle? Even discounting the fact that two of the people involved are pre and post-reincarnations of the same soul, Inuyasha was never shown to be torn between Kagome and Kikyo in a romantic sense, as much as he's torn between the fact that happiness that Kagome gives him in life, and the suicidal guilt he feels towards his role in Kikyo's death leading him to believe he doesn't deserve happiness. While he certainly loves Kikyo, he never planned to run off with her to live Happily Ever After; his original plan was to do his best to ensure that the guy that destroyed her would never lay another finger on her and then die with her.
** And on Kikyo's part, after she got more stable after her resurrection, her main concern romantically seemed to be making sure that Kagome was a worthy person to take care of the man that she loved, in spite of her own jealousy and resentment over the fact that she wasn't the person who would be at Inuyasha's side.
** A lot of this comes from Kagome's feelings, which is a focal point for her dynamic with both Kikyo and Inuyasha. She feels like Inuyasha will always carry a torch for Kikyo and pick Kikyo over her. This comes up a few times near the tail-end of the first anime, with Inuyasha constantly chasing after Kikyo and Kagome feeling jealous and miserable. So while it's not strictly a romantic triangle, it's ''effectively'' a love triangle in terms of story and dynamic.
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* Where did the notion that Kikyo died to follow Inuyasha in death come from? For one thing, Kikyo didn't kill Inuyasha; she just put him in an enchanted slumber. For another, one of the first things established in the series is that Kikyo died in an attempt to ensure that the Shikon Jewel wouldn't fall into the wrong hands. On a related note, why the heck would Kikyo have ever wanted to see Inuyasha again, even on a subconscious level (since that's apparently the reason Kikyo was reincarnated as Kagome)? She died hating him because she believed he betrayed and murdered her; that doesn't exactly leave room to think, "Oh, but I still want to see the lying, traitorous bastard who killed me!"
** The fact that they said it repeatedly; Kikyo herself was surprised that Inuyasha was still alive, suggesting that the sealing wasn't done on purpose, but rather an indication that she was either too weakened to kill him, or subconsciously wanted to keep him alive. As for still loving him despite his apparent betrayal, well, that's love. It doesn't always make sense and you can't just flip it off like a switch. If she had completely stopped being in love with him, she probably wouldn't have been so intensely psychotic when she saw him again. Love and hate aren't necessarily exclusive to one another.
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* Why is it that, in all of their jealousy disputes, Inuyasha never points out Kagome's hypocrisy? Not once does he say anything to the effect of, "Oh, so it's not okay for ''me'' to get mad when Koga shows up to flirt with you and you do nothing to stop him, but it's perfectly fine for ''you'' to get mad when I so much as breathe the same air as Kikyo?" Aside from the fact that the two aren't really an OfficialCouple [[LastMinuteHookup until the very last manga chapter/anime episode]] (which means that, for the vast majority of the series, Kagome has no say over what Inuyasha can or can't do with whoever he wants whenever he wants), Inuyasha is known for his BrutalHonesty and has never held back whenever he and Kagome get into a fight. So why in the world does he never blow up at her about the clear DoubleStandard at work?
** Double Standard is ALL Inuyasha. Kagome wasn't even interested in him. HE was the one who started the relationship. In fact SHE gave him THREE opportunities to be honest with her and back out if he did not want a relationship. He refused to let her go each time. First time he ASKED her to stay. Second she asked him to explain the deal with Kikyo and he told her it was all guilt. And again third time she asked him if he still loved Kikyo and he implied that he cared more about Kagome and even asked her to have more faith in him. Kagome has EVERY right to know what Inuyasha does since they were an official couple long before the manga ended. (The very fact that Inuyasha never stops getting jealous about Kouga proves this) Also the fact that Kagome tried to keep her distance from him after her return after the Kikyo's crisis chapter. It was INUYASHA (once again) who made the first move by putting his arm around her. If he can do wahtever he wants to Kagome, Kagome should be free to react to it in whatever way she pleases.
** ''Kagome has EVERY right to know what Inuyasha does since they were an official couple long before the manga ended. (The very fact that Inuyasha never stops getting jealous about Kouga proves this)'' Uh...what? Seriously, if we're to assume that two characters are officially together just because one of them gets jealous over the other, we might as well say that Miroku and Sango were officially together long before they actually had a RelationshipUpgrade because of Sango getting jealous whenever Miroku flirts with other women. And even if Inuyasha and Kagome were an OfficialCouple before the end of the series, not one of Inuyasha's interactions with Kikyo should make Kagome act like a [[WomanScorned jilted]] [[ClingyJealousGirl girlfriend]]. Yeah, Inuyasha occasionally tells Kikyo that he'll protect her, but not only does Kagome fail to realize that that's Inuyasha's guilt and sense of honor talking, they generally are all just words. If Inuyasha ''really'' loved Kikyo more than Kagome, then he would've stayed with the former instead of returning to the latter. And if it's "cheating" when Inuyasha talks to Kikyo about how to kill Naraku, how the heck is it not "cheating" when Kagome does absolutely nothing to make guys like Koga and Hojo stop pursuing her? If Inuyasha's "cheating" whenever he saves Kikyo's life, how is Kagome not "cheating" whenever she does the same for Koga?
** Um, because Kagome is not sneaking behind his back to go to Kouga? And lol you're really bringing up Houjo? Kagome has never pursued anything with him after she realized her feelings for Inuyasha. And yes Inuyasha goes to Kikyo out of guilt, but Kagome DOESN'T know that for sure. Ever seen how secretive he acts about going to Kikyo? Who could blame her for having her suspicions. Plus she never does anything to him when he goes. She's stays quiet and wants to be left alone so that she can deal with her feelings. Its pretty fucking immature of Inuyasha to go to her when he KNOWS she's upset and prod her (in one instance he does this despite Miroku warning him) Kagome does not trust Inuyasha when it comes to Kikyo. And why should she? After being honest about her feelings and expectations (even giving him chances to back out) , and putting her faith in him she comes back to find him embracing Kikyo. What is she supposed to think. Sure she can try to forgive him but can she forget something like that so easily? No. Inuyasha is not willing to try to understand Kagome's position. He acts like a child pretending that her holding a grudge about that is amazing and unbelievable when actually any normal human would act like that. And Kagome can't read Inuyasha's mind to guess that "its only just words or honor talking" As for their being an official couple. I think Inuyasha claiming he's "won" in front of a known love rival and admitting to being her boyfriend in front of her friends, when she was in the room, makes it obvious that both of them are pretty much on solid ground when it comes to a relationship. Also he complains to Kagome about how she is "ambiguous" about Kouga giving the impression that he is her boyfriend. Kagome of course reminds him of his own actions towards Kikyo and that shuts him up pretty fast.
*** Inuyasha didn't do that with Kikyo either. Fair enough. How can she NOT know that? Inuyasha admitted to her he believes that he doesn't deserve to feel happy and at peace because of what happened to Kikyo. That seems less like he failed to communicate and more like she doesn't trust him. He doesn't act secretive when he talks to Kikyo. He's upfront about it. The group however, suspected of him hiding their discussions and Kagome tended to think he was lying at times. Jealousy is understandable, but suspicions are ridiculous when the guy not only isn't a liar, but is upfront and confrontational to a fault. Except for that one time you mentioned, that's not true. Like I stated, she tended to believe he was lying about his talks with Kikyo. One particular example had Inuyasha return to where he last saw Kikyo after he and the others returned from his father's grave. He honestly stated that he didn't speak to Kikyo because she wasn't there and Kagome accused him of lying. Inuyasha rightfully responded that he had no reason to lie and that she was acting stupid so Kagome responds by losing her temper and using the sit commands stating she deserved to know what they talked about because she was kind enough to let him see her and that there's no point in having consideration for him. That one time you mentioned when Miroku told him to give her some space, yes, he brought that on himself, even though Kagome did take it too far and Inuyasha once again demonstrated his confrontational behavior, but other times when he's honest and upfront about what happened or Kagome lashing out at him because Kikyo acted ungrateful after she saved her are not. Inuyasha may not be the patron saint of maturity, but behavior like that from Kagome is pretty immature. That's fairly obvious. She should because she should know he's not a liar and if there's no trust in their relationship, then there shouldn't be one. She shouldn't have asked to stay with him if she believed she'd be second to Kikyo. Was she honest about her feelings and expectations though? She didn't realize she loved him until she saw him promise to protect Kikyo and they were not an actual couple then. Even then, he was going to break off whatever their relationship was at that point, but didn't because she asked to stay with him. Again, if that fear is so pervasive, then don't stay with him. Holding a grudge in a relationship doesn't make for a good relationship. No, but she can talk to him, like she did when almost stopped seeing each other. There's ground, but considering the jealousy from both, I wouldn't say it is solid. Also, he likely didn't really understand what he friends meant when they said that given either way their question about dating Kagome is translated, it was phrased as either seeing her or going out with her. To be fair, he is annoyed by her kindness towards Koga despite how they were enemies at first and Koga's continued mockery and hostility towards him. Not to mention, while she doesn't return Koga's affections, she doesn't really dismiss them to his face. So unlike Inuyasha who is understandably not over his first love quite yet, she continues to let Koga flirt with her either because she likes the attention, is trying to make Inuyasha jealous on purpose, or she is somehow unaware of the mixed signals she's sending Koga. It also doesn't help that the example you gave came after a moment I mentioned earlier: Inuyasha only talked to Kikyo about defeating Naraku, Shippo asked him if that's all it was which he reaffirmed. However. Kagome suspected he was lying because they talked alone. So really, Inuyasha was right. He wasn't being overly affectionate with Kikyo, but to Kagome, him simply talking to her alone was just that which somehow gives her the right to compare the two unfavorably against him and flip out at him once again when.
** I'd say the very simple answer is that Inuyasha doesn't ''know'' that Kagome is in love with him. It can be hard to forget this fact, considering how we as the viewers get smashed over the head with Kagome's Epipheny of Love every fifteen episodes, but Kagome herself has never admitted her feelings to Inuyasha until the end of the series. And considering Inuyasha is extremely bad at telling what other people are feeling or thinking unless they tell him, he's not very likely to figure it out on his own. Now you could argue he ''may'' have an idea of it, but we can't know that for certain since the audience is never privy to Inuyasha's thoughts on the matter. However, due to his BrutalHonesty tendencies (not to mention he can be a smug bastard at times, especially around Kouga), we'd know for certain if Inuyasha actually did know that Kagome loved him as a fact because he'd have told Kouga this already the first chance he'd get. So if Inuyasha isn't certain about how Kagome feels about him, he'd really have no reason to confront Kagome's behaviour on the Kouga matter. (Although why Inuyasha never confronts Kagome about how she treats him whenever Kikyo is around is another issue, but I'd chalk that up to this series always leaning on the StatusQuoIsGod because I can't see an in universe reason why he wouldn't bring it up eventually)
** Adding my two cents, even as I ship Inuyasha/Kagome, pretty sure he occasionally went after Kikyo because he still loved her and couldn't forget her (in the past they had practically agreed to marry each other, after all). As for why he didn't just "run off with her", that's because it wasn't ''really'' Kikyo in present time, but her soul in an animated clay body. About Kagome and Inuyasha dating before the ending, I have an interpretation that while they weren't officially dating, eventually they became aware of each other's feelings and let themselves act on it. I mean, they eventually have a lot of moments where they will casually take each other's hand, hug, sit close to one another, say intimate things etc. that you would never say with a friend, which gave me the vibe of them being like "Yeah we like each other, but we're keeping it cool as it's still a little awkward."
[[/folder]]

[[folder: How did Miroku know?]]
* How was it Miroku knew it was Naraku who killed Kikyo, while Kaede did not know?
** Kaede didn't know Naraku killed Kikyo until about 50 years after the fact, while Miroku made the connection to a previous event after the Kikyo story was told to him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Why's the jewel that important, anyway?]]
* The first MonsterOfTheWeek had the ENTIRE jewel and was utterly shredded the instant Inuyasha was freed from the tree, before he had any of his eventual weaponry. Before that, it was in Kagome's body and was easily torn out. So, the two people who have had the complete jewel didn't manage to hold it against the first sign of opposition for ''ten seconds.'' While I'm not doubting the usefulness of the things we have seen jewel shards used to do, it really doesn't seem to be the ultimate implement of power, or even the ''only'' way to do the things it's been used for. While shards of it are definitely useful, it really doesn't seem to be the ultimate implement of power if the whole thing doesn't make you any stronger than that; every major figure to go after it seems powerful enough in their own right to not need to fight off anyone else trying to get
** It takes some time for the Jewel's power to be completely absorbed and usable - Since they were killed very quickly, they didn't have the time for that. Add to that that those two were already really weak demons; if the Jewel multiplies a demon's power rather than giving a fixed boost, then the weaker the demon is, the less effective the Jewel will be (So perhaps the Centipede demon with full Jewel power would be about as strong as Sesshomaru, while Sesshomaru with full Jewel power would've ended up outclassing every other demon teamed up). And even if the Jewel only mildly strengthens the demon's powers, it apparently makes them unkillable as long as it's in them, which is also very helpful.
** ArtifactOfDeath?
*** Apparently, the Shikon no Tama can grant immense power or a wish to whoever the hell has it, so people want. The other reason is because of the priestess Midoriko an' youkai fighting within the jewel (it ain't too clear if it's their souls or if it's their spiritual powers trapped within it).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Humans mating like rabbits]]
* How exactly did Japan's population get so large when seemingly dozens of people get slaughtered by demons every other day? Sure, there was the Demon Slayers Sango and Kohaku belonged to, but even that group only had about a dozen people in it. How in the world did the demons allow humanity to expand as much as they did?
** From what I did get out of the show, the demons being a threat to human life was a bigger problem in some parts of Japan than it was in other parts or in some situations.
*** As a comparison, look at something like the Feudal era. Some areas would be hit hard by cruel warlords or terrible conditions, others would thrive
** As strange as it sounds, people tended to have more progeny back then, compared to currently, with juvenile mortality rates being so high.
[[/folder]]
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