Overview

The Japanese & English InuYasha logos

InuYasha is a shōnen action adventure romantic comedy, with elements from the horror genre. The story begins in Tokyo, Japan with a junior high-school girl named Kagome Higurashi, who, on her way to school, heads to the covered well on the family property (which happens to be a Shinto shrine). She does this to retrieve her cat, Buyo, from the well, since her brother was afraid to go inside. When she approaches the well a centipede demon (dubbed "Mistress Centipede") bursts from the well and grabs her. The demon claims that Kagome possesses the Jewel of Four Souls (四魂の玉 Shikon no Tama), and attempts to seize it. When she drives the demon off by an unknown and mysterious power, the very confused Kagome emerges in the Sengoku period of Japan. Kagome wanders and meets an old miko (Shinto priestess) by the name of Kaede, who claims that Kagome is the spitting image of Kikyo (Kikyō), her elder sister (and powerful priestess) who had died and had her body burned with the Jewel of Four Souls, taking it with her into the afterlife. Kaede relates the story of how, 50 years earlier, a han'yō, also a half demon, named InuYasha had tried to steal the Jewel from Kikyo, mortally wounding her in the process, but Kikyo had managed to strike him with a magical arrow, sealing him to the Time Tree and into an enchanted and supposedly eternal sleep, retrieving the Jewel before she finally died.

It turns out that Kagome is the reincarnation of Kikyo, and that she does possess the Jewel of Four Souls, embedded inside her body. When the centipede demon rips it from her and swallows it, granting the demon a great boost in power, Kagome is forced to pull out the arrow and awaken InuYasha so he can defeat it.

Soon after they recover the Jewel, it is lost again, and Kagome accidentally shatters it into pieces as she tries to recover it. The pieces scatter far and wide, and the story tells of Kagome and InuYasha's adventures as they search for the shards of the Jewel. As they search, they meet new characters who either join them on their quest, or oppose them for various reasons. Throughout the story, Kagome and InuYasha come closer and develop feelings for each other, though the romance remains as a side plot for most of the story.

Short summary

The short version is that Inuyasha is the story of the characters Inuyasha-a half demon, and Kagome-a school girl, and their quest to fill 150+ episodes with entertaining stuff to watch through a variety of plot devices. Okay, okay It's the story of Inuyasha, Kagome, and a gigantic cast of supporting characters and their quest to retrieve the pieces of the shattered Shikon Jewel and ultimately defeat the series' ubervillian Naraku. Short of writing a thousand-foot long summary, that's as indepth as I'll delve into the plot of Inuyasha here.

As for the main characters we have polar opposites - Inuyasha is a 17 year old half-demon. Born from a human mother and a demon-lord father, Inuyasha grew up shunned and excluded from both human and Demon society. Foul mouthed and quick to anger, Inuyasha calms down a bit over the course of the series - but never completely. Kagome is a 15 year old schoolgirl who's sucked back in time by a giant centipede so it could take the Shikon Jewel that resided inside her. Yeah, I know... Anyway, she's the reincarnation of the priestess Kikyo - Inuyasha's lost love. Compassionate and intelligent, she keeps Inuyasha in line when he acts up by using a spell that was put on him that puts Inuyasha on the ground whenever she tells him to "sit".

That doesn't do Inuyasha, either the show or the character justice, but it's about all I wanted to put up on the front page. For more info on Inuyasha you'll just have to poke around the site.