Thursday, March 5, 2009

Memories of Inu Yasha, and of falling in love with manga













Ugh, school’s been a bitch recently. I don’t know when all the professors got together and decided that March was the new April, but it’s starting to tick me off. My course load was just as heavy last term, but I don’t remember being this swamped in the first half of the semester. Sigh, it’s almost as if they wanted me to actually learn stuff. They can be like that sometimes. Anyways, enough whining for now.

Inu Yasha (by Rumiko Takahashi, creator of Ranma ½, One Pound Gospel, Maison Ikkoku and others) is a series that I’ve read most of, but own very little of. I never buy the new ones when they come out (the series is really long and it’s been quite a while since I’ve read it), but I recently acquired the first four volumes in a trade, and I really enjoyed rereading them. It evoked pretty strong feelings of nostalgia for me because Inu Yasha was basically like my first manga love from way back when. So rather than try to review these first four volumes, or even (God forbid) the series as a whole, I’d like to reminisce a bit about what it was like to get sucked into the wonderful and strange world of manga when I was just a clueless kid.

I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but I think I was in middle school. It was summer vacation, and I’d stayed up watching television after everyone else in my family had gone to bed. Flicking randomly through the channels, it was the anime version of Inu Yasha, playing on Adult Swim, that captured and held my attention, probably because it just seemed so strange to me at the time. What exactly was this weird, un-cartoonlike cartoon? And why was it so intriguing? I don’t think I even really knew what anime was at that point, and I certainly hadn’t any interest in it. To me, anime was Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh, and it was for boys. But this Inu Yasha stuff was way different, and became almost immediately engrossed in the story. When the half-hour episode ended, the story was cut off abrubtly. I stayed up the next night to watch the continuation, but I didn’t talk about it to my parents or to any of my siblings.

It didn’t take long for my piqued interest to make the connection between the anime and the funny little backwards books in the back of the bookstore. So the next time the weather was nice, I asked my mother if I could go for a bike ride. I rode to the nearest Barnes and Noble, found the Inu Yasha books, and started at the very beginning. I read for hours, and I came back the next day. I came back as often as I could. I think my mom was vaguely pleased that I’d taken such an interest in bike riding. For my part, I liked the manga of Inu Yasha even better than the anime. I loved the art, the demon/ghost mythology, the backdrop of feudal Japan, the romance. I found it all irresistibly new and different and appealing.

I think I read over twenty volumes of Inu Yasha in that way, without anyone buy myself being the wiser. (I don’t even know why didn’t share any of this with anyone, but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that from the very beginning I always had the distinct sense that manga and anime weren’t exactly mainstream, and a part of my kid self didn’t want to admit that I liked it. There was a reason that Inu Yasha only played on TV after midnight, at least that’s how I saw it. I’ve always had a secretive, reclusive streak in me and this just really brought it out.) Although my obsession with Inu Yasha eventually died down a bit, though not before I’d read all the volumes in the bookstore, I wouldn’t soon forget the experience. From then on, manga has always been an interest of mine, which has grown with me over the years and which I don’t think will go away anytime soon.

Given our history together, I probably am not capable of judging this series with anything resembling objectivity. I know that it’s flawed, of course. The plot becomes very repetitive and endlessly cyclical as the series goes on, and it drags on way too long. Yet it was so thoroughly captivating for me when I first encountered it that I’ve never been able to regard it with anything less than fondness and affection. As the first manga I ever read and truly loved, I think it’ll always hold a very special place in my heart, and, now, on my shelf.











1 comment:

  1. What a very nice thought you have here. I myself have wonderful memories of InuYasha last year (2010) . . .and the first English dubbed episode I watched was episode 5 . . I told myself that if I I watched a single episode. ...I knew my curiosity wouldn't stop /.. so I turned off the television. .but then the weekends drop by and the anime was replayed from episode 5 until episode 9 . . . .and immediately, the story or anime catched my attention . . .it was a very interesting anime . I was following it . .and we both know that on the first season of InuYasha . . the bond between the protagonists are not as much strong as they are in the end. . .and then I recalled . the first episode I watched in Filipino dubbed on my childhood days . . .it was episode 140 . and back then. ..I wondered why a lot this so called anime InuYasha is very popular and has a strong sense to the youth . . . watching that episode didn't gave me any hints about my question . . .until I continuously watched the episodes until season 2 (where InuYasha and Kagome's bond had started . . (episode 48) .. ) I became addicted not just on the anime itself created by Ms. Rumiko and VizMedia . ... . I also became addicted to the managa. .when I told reached somewhere on season 3 where there are so many fillers . I decided to read the managa FROM the beginning . .it was a hard task .I had to read it almost 24/7 just to finish reading the online graphic novels . .my computer's not that fast in downloading stuff . so I had to wait for minutes . .sometimes. the page won't even appear and it pisses me off . instead of reading the correct story line .I managed to read from page 6 . .to page 5 . so sometimes. it's confusing . .but to tell you . ..I completely agree that the manga is way better than the anime. . .for me, it's because it's the original story-telling of the author . .sure Ms. Rumiko was one of the staff in creating the anime but still. . .her individual works are at its best already just on a piece of paper . ..and then .. I read the entire manga online for 6-7 days . non-stop . ..and then . throughout every chapter .I analyzed the story . . I analyzed each characters and compared their behaviours against the anime . .Kikyo's behavior in the manga were less bitchy than in the anime . . she was tored apart in the anime . (episode 47 . with the knife (that was not in the managa . and there were more sweet talks in the manga than in the anime between her and InuYasha . . )) . . .after reading the manga . I finished the anime . .even the Final act. ..I can't wait to watch it in American dubbed . I managed to watch only a few episodes of the English dubbed anime of the Final Act you see. .just like you say . it's the memories that kept me coming back to this obsession. (even if only a year has just passed getting to know the InuYasha companion)


    :-)

    A very nice blog I must say . thanks for posting it .

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