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  • Accidental Innuendo: The sword Tessaiga is astonishingly phallic. It even throbs with warmth when "awakened" and grows hair on its hilt. The reason the sword was created was for a WOMAN. The sword is "awakened" by "protecting" a WOMAN. Plus powerful energies being "released" from it.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Would it be a stretch to say that Miroku is more desperate than lecherous? After all, if he doesn't have an heir before the Wind Tunnel consumes him, well...
    • The old lady from the Demon's head arc, is she really a fraud or is it merely Obfuscating Stupidity and she is actually more powerful than she seems, especially since she's not unnerved by the demonic aura that keeps everyone in the main group on the edge.
  • Arc Fatigue: A common criticism of the series, even by its fans, is that it was way longer than it needed to be. Naraku's Joker Immunity meant he kept getting more and more powerful while his Motive Decay meant he became less and less interesting, turning him into a Generic Doomsday Villain. The Love Triangle between Inuyasha, Kagome, and Kikyo takes a very long time to be resolved, even though it's obvious early on who Inuyasha would end up with eventually and it should be obvious to all the cast as well (especially since Kikyo is still technically dead and her resurrection isn't going to last forever). The story was also dragged out by Inuyasha's group being full of Chronic Hero Syndrome, helping anyone in spite of Inuyasha noting this draws them away from finding Naraku and thus the main plot. The Final Act reverses this issue, cramming more than 20 volumes into 26 episodes, at the sacrifice of one chapter involving a regenerating tree hermit demon never being adapted in favor of Kanna's character development.
  • Awesome Music:
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Kikyo and Kagome, either good foils to Inuyasha or incredibly bad influences on his behavior. Kagome being extremely clingy and getting jealous for any reason, even if it's not justified and Kikyo, who constantly avoids him and/or manipulates him into getting what she wants. Both their problems (going back to the present to graduate and finishing off Naraku when she's not capable) respectively have dragged down Inuyasha on more than one occasion. It apparently got so bad that it made Kagome's first English actress, Moneca Stori, not come back for The Final Act following her retirement. While Willow Johnson, Kikyo's actress, did reprise her role, she never expected the character to be so polarizing which made her give up voiceover in general for a while until Yashahime came along where she returned once more.
    • Inuyasha himself. He's either a badass Anti-Hero with a heart of gold or a whiny, abusive, Designated Hero.
    • Sesshomaru: The coolest character ever or a childish and extremely powerful character who can't come up with interesting dialogue and suffers from Parental Issues.
    • Naraku. He is either loved for being a badass chessmaster, or is hated for sitting on his ass most of the time and constantly cheating death to the point of absolute boredom for the audience when he does fight.
  • Broken Base:
    • Over The Final Act, which crammed over 20 volumes into 26 episodes. It's either considered an Even Better Sequel from the last few seasons of the anime because of the fast pacing and removal of a lot of filler, or it's considered just painful to watch because of said pacing being too fast (particularly if one is familiar with the manga), cutting Character Development, rushing a lot of the storylines and leaving many Plot Holes as a result.
    • There's even a small one over whether the original anime is a good adaptation of the manga or not. Detractors usually dislike the anime for adding too many pointless filler moments or even entire episodes, while removing some other important moments of the manga. A second group will complain on the characters, particularly Kagome and/or Kikyo, being portrayed as more unlikable than their manga counterparts, i.e. Kagome in the anime has a tendency to be more short-tempered (she gives Inuyasha the "sit" command a lot more in the anime than in the manga, for instance), while anime!Kikyo appears even more aloof and holds her grudge towards Inuyasha longer. There's also how Inuyasha and Kagome act like a subtle couple in the manga from volume 7 and onwards, while the anime focuses far more on them bickering and being oblivious to their feelings instead (Inuyasha telling Kagome he wants her "next to him" - treated like the beginning of their relationship, is removed, for instance, while another moment of Inuyasha putting his arm around Kagome to practically cuddle with her is changed to the two of them bickering over Kagome's injured arm instead - to give just two examples). The anime still remains incredibly popular, but some of these changes have still been enough to turn certain fans away and sticking primarily with the manga.
    • Naraku's defeat. The revelation that his true wish had been to have Kikyo's heart had fans either finding it a touching, final moment to showcase his human heart in the end, or a complete deviation from his consistent portrayal as a Complete Monster through the entire series, next to Onigumo having been stated to have only been a part of him, which made said revelation come a little out of nowhere to some fans.
    • The ending. Fans either find it a touching and satisfying wrap-up of the series, or quite underwhelming given the lack of any real emotional payoff between either Sango/Miroku or Inuyasha/Kagome, or between any of the main cast for that matter. While Sango and Miroku were at least given Babies Ever After during the three year time-skip, fans never quite forgave Takahashi for not giving Inuyasha and Kagome a single kiss. The Final Act would eventually fix that last one though.
  • Catharsis Factor: Naraku finally being rendered Deader than Dead after being an Invincible Villain for 12 real-life years.
  • Common Knowledge: 'Sesshomaru raised/adopted Rin' pops up often in discussions of their characters, but while Rin does spend most of the series travelling with him, the time that covers is only about a year. The series actually ends with Rin staying behind in a human village until she's old enough to decide whether she wants to remain in the human world or not; and it's Kaede who takes her in and raises her for the rest of her childhood, with Sesshomaru visiting her but not actually involved in her upbringing. The sequel series takes their relationship in a whole other direction...
  • Complete Monster: See here.
  • Covered Up: Of the Translated Cover Version variety: Australian pop singer Sophie Monk's Come My Way was covered by Namie Amuro as "Come" and used as the 7th end theme. Try finding a video where it's not listed as "English cover".
  • Die for Our Ship: Has its own page
  • Draco in Leather Pants:
    • Sesshomaru. Character Development eventually renders him more sympathetic, but even prior to that he already had a substantial fanbase willing to overlook how in his early appearances he made several attempts at murdering Inuyasha and Kagome over a sword that he honestly didn't even need. In the manga he chops someone's head off just because he was standing there in his introduction.
    • Koga. A lot of fans, especially shippers, are quick to forgive and forget his history of siccing his wolves on human villages for their meals, kidnapping Kagome to make her his mate and force her to gather jewel shards for him, and in general acting like other youkai in that he looks down on normal humans and especially Inuyasha for being a half-breed. Character Development does make him more heroic, but he's far from the Nice Guy many depict him as. It might be more a case of Characterization Marches On as the narrative and characters themselves seems to forget about Koga's villainous introduction, as he goes on to be an overall Anti-Hero instead.
    • Naraku. Unlike the above two, he has no Character Development, and he tortures, manipulates, and tries to kill every member of the main cast several times over.
    • Yura of the Demon Hair. For...some not-so-subtle reasons.
  • Ending Fatigue:
    • Many complain that around the third or fourth season the anime begins to drag, pace-wise. This is a complaint of many of Takahashi's work - namely that they're good, but tend to go nowhere fast.
    • The manga too has its detractors, as a substantial portion of the end run is a fight between one of the groups of heroes and one of the villains that always ended as a draw, with nearly 50 chapters going before the status quo is broken.
    • Oddly, the second series has the reverse problem. Well over 100 chapters are condensed into a single season of 26 episodes.
  • Epileptic Trees: Since the announcement of a Sequel Series, fans have been clamoring over who is the mother of Sesshomaru's daughters, Setsuna and Towa. According to the title, his daughters are apparently half-human, making assumptions if the mother in question is Rin. Some fans are aware of the Feudal Era's Values Dissonance at the time, but there are some who sees the Wife Husbandry of the two being a Squick factor.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Yura of the Demon Hair was in two early episodes as a random Monster of the Week and yet has a decent fanbase thanks to her alluring design, unique hair-based powers that made her surprisingly dangerous, and her voice and personality that made her a Soft-Spoken Sadist who was pretty much Yandere for Inuyasha (or rather, his hair). This all made for a very fascinating and cool Starter Villain, so much so that some feel she ought to have been a recurring character.
    • Jinenji, a half-demon who is The Woobie incarnate, which made him very sympathetic and memorable despite only appearing in a few issues in the manga, and he provided a sharp contrast to Inuyasha for being almost a polar opposite in personality. The anime seemed to take note of his popularity and brought him back for a Filler episode.
    • Tsubaki, had a backstory that connected her to Kikyo and the Shikon Jewel, and being a dark Miko meant she had a unique design and power set that set her above other Monster of the Week villains. Once again the anime seemed to agree, since it kept her around for a couple extra episodes for a more decisive defeat, and later brought her back in a two-part flashback episode set when Kikyo and Inuyasha first met.
    • The Panther Deva quartet (Toran, Karan, Shuran, and Shunran), despite being part of an anime-exclusive Filler arc, amassed a good fanbase due to their cool designs, Elemental Powers, and the Backstory of their clan's past battle against Inuyasha and Sesshomaru's father. Because they survived their encounter with the brothers (well, died and were resurrected for three of them) and buried the hatchet with them and resolved to move beyond revenge, some fans felt they should have been made recurring characters and allies of the group.
    • Although she started out as an anime-exclusive character before eventually becoming a Canon Immigrant to the original manga, Ayame has her own small yet loyal fanbase who loves her character design, Plucky Girl personality, and hilarious interactions with Koga.
  • Esoteric Happy Ending: Inuyasha and Kagome are hinted to be married and are living happily with one another, however the probability that Inuyasha will age much slower than Kagome is never mentioned, meaning he'll most likely still be young looking when Kagome (and Sango and Miroku for that matter) are old. Also, it's never confirmed whether they can still use the well, meaning Kagome could possibly be separated from her family forever.
  • Estrogen Brigade: The series is primarily aimed at teenage boys since the manga ran in Shonen Sunday, but it's also attracted a huge number of female fans due to the many attractive male characters and the focus on the growing romance between Inuyasha and Kagome. This is especially the case in North America, where the series has many more female fans than male.
  • Evil Is Cool: Naraku after the Band of Seven arc, Goshinki, Ryukotsusei and the Band of Seven themselves.
  • Fandom-Specific Plot: You can't swing a Tessaiga in the fanfiction community without hitting a fic where characters from the feudal era appear in the present having lived through to the modern era. Charms and spells to mask youkai as normal humans are pretty much a requirement, too.
  • Fanfic Fuel:
    • Fifty years passed between when Kikyo died and when Kagome came to the Feudal Era. Fifty years during which time Sesshomaru was looking for Tessaiga, Naraku was around scheming, Kaede grows up to take Kikyo's place protecting the village, and so forth.
    • The series says only Inuyasha and Kagome can travel through the well between the feudal and modern era, but disregarding that allows mountains of story potential to be realized.
    • Early in the series, Naraku has a large majority of Shikon Jewel shards, and continuously acquires more off-screen. Where he got them and how is an open book. For that matter, writing in the characters encounting others with Jewel shards is a ripe concept.
    • Five hundred years passed between Kikyo dying and being reincarnated as Kagome, plenty of time to say that perhaps she reincarnated before Kagome, and the fifty year time frame is large enough to say she reincarnated just a few years later and this reincarnation could be active during the events of the series.
    • What happened in five hundred years that demons seem to have vanished from modern-day Japan?
  • Fan Nickname: "Fluffy," "Fluffy-sama," and Sesshy for Sesshoumaru.
  • Fanon: Now has its own page.
  • Gateway Series: Inuyasha was a linchpin series for introducing anime aimed at older audiences to North America. This was especially the case in Canada; while Canadian channel YTV was airing plenty of kid-targeted shows in 2003, Inuyasha pulled in such good ratings on weekday evenings (along with Gundam Wing) that YTV would launch the Bionix block the next year, with Inuyasha as the cornerstone.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
    • Both the manga and the anime became very popular in North America during the early to mid 2000s; the series' Estrogen Brigade in North America is also much larger than its intended audience of teenage boys, and it was once considered the most popular girls' anime, matched only by Sailor Moon. The anime is particularly popular in Canada, as it and Gundam Wing helped kick off the airing of teen-oriented anime on the YTV network, and it helps that both shows were dubbed in English by The Ocean Group, which is a Canadian company.
    • The anime is very popular in Vietnam as chances you would see comments from Vietnamese speakers are high in the internet, and to the point the OST is also used in Vietnamese media and films (though it probably doesn't include credit and permission however).
  • Growing the Beard: Once Kikyo is revived (and, more importantly, we discover that someone turned her and Inuyasha against each other), a much more complex and intricate plot arose from what had previous been fully a Monster of the Week story. While it strongly contains the previous elements, the story would focus more on the group facing a far more intimate enemy than they had previously faced. And in Final Act, the anime began extremely fast-paced and didn't give the viewer enough time to digest all of the information being thrown around. However, after a few episodes, the pacing was fixed and the series handled the grand finale episodes quite decently.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • For people against the Sesshomaru/Rin pairing, the fact that the anime-only sequel has made Rin be Sesshomaru's wife and mother of their kids has said people struggling to watch/read any of their scenes in Inuyasha again, feeling that a disturbing light has been shed on all their interactions due to it that they won't be able to get over.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • During his first appearance, Sesshomaru makes the Nothing Woman take the form of Inuyasha's mother to extract the location of their father's grave from him. When Inuyasha claims he's not fooled since his mother is long-dead, Sesshomaru convinces him that he brought her soul back from the dead and gave her a new body, and Inuyasha seems to believe that such a thing actually is within his brother's power. It totally isn't, but later in the series when he gains mastery of Tenseiga, resurrecting the dead actually does become one of his trademark abilities.
    • Anytime Sesshomaru insults Inuyasha for being a half-demon has become pretty ironic now that Sesshomaru himself ended up having half-demon children in Yashahime.
  • Ho Yay:
    • Contrasting with Jakotsu's obsession with Inuyasha, his relationship with Bankotsu was much sweeter. Bankotsu himself held Jakotsu in high regards, and was PISSED when Renkotsu killed him.
    • Inuyasha and Koga, the former drops everything to argue with him like they have Belligerent Sexual Tension.
  • Incest Yay Shipping: The series has a legendarily huge and ship-happy fanfiction community, and the two most popular male characters are Inuyasha himself and his half-brother Sesshomaru (who also happen to share a classic shonen rivalry, with all the usual implicit homoeroticism). Do the maths, and rest assured that hundreds of writers have done so before you.
  • Informed Wrongness: Inuyasha, anytime Kikyo is brought up at all. Anytime Inuyasha thinks about Kikyo, in terms of wondering about her plans against Naraku and the time when Naraku seemingly killed her with miasma and he wondered if she was alive or not, he is automatically treated as the one in the wrong by Kagome who gets unreasonably jealous, and also by Miroku and Sango who act as if he is being unfaithful to Kagome and must apologize to her, even though there were no romantic implications to his thoughts about Kikyo. Even though Kagome realizes her anger is unnecessary, it doesn't stop it from happening repeatedly in the manga. Though this is ignoring how Inuyasha will get twice as angry whenever Koga flirts with Kagome, despite Kagome making it clear to Inuyasha several times she's not interested in Koga, it does little to stop his jealousy. Suffice to say that neither of them are good at keeping jealous feelings at bay. However, it does become galling when in both cases, Inuyasha is treated as wrong no matter what while Kagome is given sympathy by the group.
  • Iron Woobie: Inuyasha, Miroku, Sango, Kohaku…
  • Jerkass Woobie: Kagura, and Inuyasha. The former is forced by Naraku to do his whims and only can be free on death, all she wants is to be independent and free. The latter, has his mother dying at a young age, hunted down by both demons and zealot, demon hating humans from that young age, his own half brother despises him, a malicious Big Bad forces his first love to betray each other and that's not even getting into the constant abuse from his allies, justified or not. It's no wonder he's abrasive to everyone.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
    • Kagome is Type B: Because she is the easiest character for a girl to relate to, she is paired up with tons of characters while the author projects themselves onto her.
    • For his part, Sesshomaru is Type A: He is the most lusted-after male character, so girls usually pair him with a female character that they can relate to (usually Kagome) and project themselves onto the female as a sort of Wish-Fulfillment fantasy of putting themselves with him.
  • Les Yay: Episode 98. "Kikyo and Kagome: Alone in a Cave" (the title speaks for itself), focuses on the two putting aside their differences for once and working together to survive. The episode title alone sounds precisely like a fanfic prompt.
  • Like You Would Really Do It: To no one's surprise, our heroes were able to get the Sacred Jewel shard out of Kohaku's body without killing him.
  • Magnificent Bastard: See here.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • OSUWARI/SIT! In actuality, Kagome uses the control collar less and less over the series, not every time he says something off. It's also more played up in the anime than the manga, as she mostly stops using it the way she did earlier on around volume 7 or so.
    • Sango slapping Miroku for groping her. She stops slapping him after he proposes, which happens almost halfway through the story.
    • INUYASHA! KAGOME?!. The sheer amount of Say My Name reached the point of Adult Swim airing a promo that is just them calling out to each other.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Sesshomaru was adored and praised by fans long before he started petting the dog.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Naraku crosses it when he breaks up InuYasha and Kikyo, which leads the former to being pinned on a tree for 50 years and the latter to her death, as well as putting a curse on Miroku's family that slowly destroys them; and that's before he's even properly introduced. And once he is introduced, it's really hard to pick when he crosses in the main story, things like turning Kohaku into a Tyke Bomb to kill his own family and then uses that guilt to make him do his bidding, landing a mortal wound on Kikyo at Mt. Hakurei, having Kagura and Kanna killed because he had no more use for them, trying to have Kagome kill Inuyasha the same way Kikyo sealed Inuyasha and killing those allied with him once they served their use. It is taken even further by the anime, where he really crosses the line between The Corrupter and Evil Genius into an utter monster when it's revealed that 15 years ago he tried to kill a young priestess named Hitomiko just because of the small possibility she might pose a threat.
    • Taigokumaru, a nasty bat yokai who manipulates his own granddaughter to do his bidding crosses it when he reveals that he murdered his own son for fraternizing with a human.
    • Goshinki crosses it when he gloats to two orphaned village children about killing their parents earlier on and had planned to do the same thing to them had Inuyasha and his friends not came to save them at the very last second.
    • Renkotsu when he kills Jakotsu to get his Jewel Shard.
    • Moryomaru when he gloats about Kagura's death.
    • Gantenmaru and his men cross it when the former drains an innocent woman's essence in front of Inuyasha, killing her in the process and the latter cross it when they still help their boss even after he's revealed to be a blood sucking demon.
  • Narm:
    • A lot of the drama of "The Final Act" is hurt by Kohaku's heavy involvement. Not plot-wise (there's a lot to wrap up there), but because his English voice actor is a master of Dull Surprise.
    • It can sometimes be hard to take Kikyo's dub voice seriously as she's meant to be an 18 year old girl but sounds like she's in her 40s.
    • While the English main cast find their groove pretty quickly, some of the single episode characters end up with either Dull Surprise or Large Ham deliveries that just end up sounding goofy.
  • Nightmare Retardant:
    • The dog demon forms of Sesshomaru and his and Inuyasha's father can come off as more cute than scary due to the rather feminine-looking dog ears.
    • While the manga is good at producing frightening demons Magatsuhi's true face can be more Narmy than actually scary.
  • No Yay: Kikyo with Naraku, the one responsible for tearing apart her relationship with Inuyasha and eventually causing her death. Disturbingly, some people ship them.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Due to the long nature of the series, several characters whose prominence is in one arc and never appear again are this, including an old exorcist woman from the Demon head arc, several possible Ship Tease interests and a great deal of demons and villains whose traits are as or more so interesting than the main villain and his overall scheme; most particularly the Band of Seven.
  • Ron the Death Eater:
    • Both Kagome and Kikyo. See Die for Our Ship.
    • Inuyasha is also subjected to this for the same reasons, being portrayed as a callous bastard so Kagome can get her heart broken and run into the arms of Sesshomaru/Koga/Naraku/etc.
  • The Scrappy:
    • Hojo, for his inability to catch a hint that Kagome isn't interested in him.
    • Kagome's friends (Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi) can also count, as their sole purpose in the story is to keep pressuring her into dating Hojo.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat:
    • The Kikyo/Inuyasha and Kagome/Inuyasha shippers hate each other, and if they were given the chance they would take up arms and start physically fighting. Then the shippers for any of those three with Koga, Sesshomaru, Rin and/or Kagura (or any of those four with one of the other three) would get pulled into it for one side or the other, and it would spiral out of a two-sided war into a multi-melee brawl. About the only shippers that wouldn't get involved are for Sango/Miroku, as the most official and least ambiguous of the series' pairings that isn't really a threat to other pairings nor do others threaten it... but there are periphery fandoms for pairings like Inuyasha/Sango and Miroku/Kagome. And that doesn't even get into the fandoms for Kagome with one of the Band of Seven, Koga or Inuyasha with Ayame, any of the above with Naraku, or any of the same-sex pairings.
    • Any of the individual ships featuring Sesshomaru and Rin vs. Sesshomaru/Rin itself, especially towards the New Tens. With Sesshomaru/Rin being one of the bigger ships of the fandom, it was sure to catch some heat from fans who thought the relationship was Wife Husbandry in the making (mostly due to Values Dissonance), and some who simply preferred them with other partners. Sesshomaru/Kikyo and Sesshomaru/Kagura were often used as alternatives for the former, and Kohaku/Rin for the latter. Sesshomaru-related Ship-to-Ship Combat only intensified many years later when its anime sequel Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon revealed that Sesshomaru has two half-demon daughters with no mother initially announced, and further exploded when Rin was confirmed as the mother of Sesshomaru's children when the show did air.
  • Special Effects Failure: The effect used for Tears of Blood in Episode Ten of The Final Act borders on Conspicuous CG.
  • Spiritual Adaptation: This is pretty much Journey to the West but done as a Japanese period piece with its own folklore. Try think of Inuyasha being Sun Wukong, Kagome being Xuanzang, Miroku being Zhu Baije, and Sango being Sha Wujing.
  • Squick:
    • At some point, the group needs to drink a mix of blood from other dead animals that was first sucked and blended by Myoga, then spit out into bottles.
    • The press release for the upcoming sequel Yashahime reveals that Sesshomaru has half-demon daughters, leading fans to speculate on who the mother is. The possibility and confirmation of Rin being the mother produced this reaction for some people.
  • Stoic Woobie: Sesshomaru, believe it or not (See Page for full detail). His entire journey through the manga takes him from being Inuyasha's enemy to a reconciled brother via a series of increasingly dark tests of character designed to bring him first to emotional breaking point and then to within an inch of his life. He overcomes this status towards the end of the manga. In style.
  • Strawman Has a Point: Inuyasha often complains about the group's many divergences to investigate something or help someone unrelated to their quest to defeat Naraku and reclaim the Jewel shards. He is universally treated as an uncaring Jerkass and overruled. However, Naraku is an Evil Overlord out to rule Japan and probably more, and feudal Japan is a Crapsack World where humans and demons alike slaughter villages on a weekly basis. Stopping Naraku and getting his massive shard of the Jewel into safer hands would do a lot of good on its own, and it's rather unreasonable for the group to stop and help every single civilian in need at the cost of delaying their journey and putting themselves in danger.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Some fans were sad to see Koga leave the story simply because his shikon fragments were taken and would have liked to see him join in the final battle, considering he also held a strong grudge towards Naraku and had acquired another powerful weapon with his Goraishi. Takahashi may have wanted only the main characters to fight the final battle, though it appeared to come at the cost of contradicting Koga's personality up until that point as he had been just as eager as everyone else to finish off Naraku.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • It's never explained why only Inuyasha can follow Kagome through time, which wastes some very interesting plots involving other characters and how they react to the present, especially with very dangerous characters like Naraku becoming a threat in the present rather than the Monster of the Week that occasionally shows up. Justified in the first movie Affections Touching Across Time: that the tree and the gateway that was made from it, were a sacred tree of time, so being bond to the tree, as well as being in close proximity to it is what allows Kagome and Inuyasha to travel through time. It's still a waste of a good idea though.
    • Similarly, one anime-only Filler depicts an attempt to create fake Shikon jewels. Being a Filler, it is never referred to again and comes off as inserted in.
    • For how lengthy and filled with characters and sub-plots the series is, we never get any chapters about Inuyasha's parents when they were alive, which many fans would have certainly liked to see. They did eventually have an appearance in the third movie Swords of an Honourable Ruler though.
    • Sesshomaru only transforms into his epic dog form a total of 3 times in 167 episodes. He doesn't need to do it every time he fights, but it would have been nice if he did it at least a little more often. Inuyasha doesn't even get a dog form probably because he's half human.
    • Early in the series, the heroes learns that Naraku has a vast majority of the Jewel shards, causing their goal of "gather the Jewel shards" to forever become intwined with the goal of "destroy Naraku". Given that Naraku's Joker Immunity is a major reason the series suffered such Arc Fatigue, some feel it would have made for a better franchise if there was no Big Bad like Naraku, and focused more on Monster of the Week-type stories like the earlier parts of the story before Naraku was introduced.
  • Too Cool to Live:
    • The Inu no Taisho, the third film shows how much more powerful and wiser than both of his sons, while being entirely badass as he was at his death thralls to save Inuyasha's mother. In his rescue attempt, he had used his two swords to mow down an army of soldiers and omniyoji with ease, revived Izayoi with the third, shot down with arrows and spent his last moments fighting a samurai in a collapsing buying castle. This is after suffering fatal wounds from a powerful lightning spewing dragon demon of the highest caliber that he barely managed to seal away.
    • Also Ryuukotsusei is this, being the killer of the aforementioned Inu no Taisho, a genuinely strong demon and was so strong that he had to be killed by his own power.
    • Kikyo despite her having powers and abilities that far surpass Kagome, she sacrifices herself for Kohaku in order to break a weakness for Naraku.
  • Toy Ship: Rin and Kohaku, Shippo and many random village girls he comes across.
  • The Un-Twist: "Goryomaru is Moryomaru?!" Honestly, guys? Having the same face and names differing by one letter aren't enough, apparently!
  • Vanilla Protagonist: Kagome, as the average modern teenager, via whom the audience mostly experiences the plot, travels through the exotic feudal-era landscape and characters she's surrounded by.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion:
    • Jakotsu and Hiten are the most notable cases of this trope from within the series.
    • It's very easy to mistake Shippo for a girl at first, in both the manga and anime. His voice in Japanese and most dubs doesn't help, since he's mostly voiced by actual girls.
    • Sesshomaru is also very feminine looking and some mistake him for a woman.
  • Viewer Name Confusion: The credits refer to the Infant as "Akago", causing fans to believe that to be his name. In truth, "Akago" is just the Japanese word for "Infant".
  • Wangst:
    • Kagome whenever Kikyo is brought up. Any conversation between Kikyo and Inuyasha is treated as an illicit affair, with Kagome wondering if she'll always be in "second place", even though Inuyasha only shows concern over Kikyo's wellbeing and not any lingering romantic feelings, and he and Kikyo only discuss Naraku and his plans. Despite the fact that she complains a lot about it, if she goes overboard, she stops herself. Although that doesn't stop it from happening a lot...
    • Another case could be made for Sesshomaru's constant dwelling on how his dad didn't give him the sword that he wanted when most of the other characters have problems that are much worse then that, even him.
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The series was aimed at boys in upper elementary or junior/high school, Shonen Sunday's target demographic. In the United States and Canada, the anime had to air late at night and be aimed at a late teenage/college-age audience due to its violence and nudity. The fact that Kagome is attacked by a bare-breasted centipede youkai in the very first episode of the anime made this unavoidable.

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