First Impressions / InuYasha

Summary:

After Kikyou heals Miroku, she and Kohaku leave InuYasha and company. The two then encounter giant spiderwebs that Kikyou knows are coming from Naraku. As it turns out, Naraku has figured out Kikyou’s purification plan and has gone back to get his human heart for its negative properties. He now uses spiderwebs to capture Kikyou and to lure both InuYasha and Kagome in, and he shows Kagome the scene of Kikyou and InuYasha from 50 years ago so that Kagome can feel Kikyou’s love for InuYasha. When Kagome regains consciousness, Kikyou explains what Naraku is up to and offers her bow to Kagome to purify the contamination inside of her. When Kagome touches the bow though, the string breaks, and Kikyou confirms that Kagome has been contaminated as well. The only way to save Kikyou now is for Kagome to go retrieve a bowstring kept in a nearby mountain mausoleum, though Kikyou warns that Kagome has to truly want to save her. Kagome thus sets off with everyone except for InuYasha and Kikyou, who end up going after Kohaku. Kohaku had been attacked by Byakuya, but he was saved by Sesshoumaru and is gone by the time InuYasha and Kikyou arrive.

Kagome’s group meanwhile reaches the mountain, but Kagome soon finds herself separated from everyone else. She then encounters a faceless spirit who takes on Kikyou’s appearance and leads her to the bow. Kagome is able to leave with the bow, but on her way down the mountain, she gets sidetracked by the sight of InuYasha and Kikyou together. This Kikyou implies that Kagome doesn’t truly want to save her, and Kagome then finds herself hanging off the side of a cliff. Looking down at her is Kikyou, and she wants the bow. The spirit of the mountain also appears and suggests that Kikyou will take the bow, abandon Kagome to die, and go off with InuYasha. Kikyou then suggests that Kagome is the one filled with jealousy and hatred and is only pretending to pity her. Kagome, however, thinks that Kikyou is afraid of her, and she recognizes that Kikyou and InuYasha have a past together that she can’t trespass on, but she points out that she’s also spent a lot of time with InuYasha and that she knows sides of him that Kikyou doesn’t. All of this causes Kagome to realize that she’s in the same position as Kikyou, and she refuses to abandon her. The spirit then tells Kagome that she can now climb up with her own strength, and Kikyou subsequently turns into an illusion of spiderwebs. Kagome becomes freed from these spiderwebs, but she finds herself in free fall.

 
Impressions:

While I can appreciate the general idea of Kagome coming to terms with Kikyou and Kikyou’s relationship with InuYasha, I thought the pacing of everything leading up to it was awful. It might not have felt so bad if you were familiar with the manga, but for me it made things really confusing to follow because it felt like they were jumping from one realization or event to the next (even with transitions) without pausing to let the audience catch its breath, so to speak. That really ruined for me what could have been a solid episode, particularly since I thought the scene towards the end where Kagome made her speech and realizations was actually pretty good. I enjoyed seeing Kagome get some more screen-time again, and I liked the music they paired with the scene; if only they had done a better job of getting to that point. On a different note, I saw the preview that went with the English version stream of this episode, and it looked like a ton of spoilers about what’ll happen with Kikyou. Sheesh, maybe that’s why they don’t show previews in the NTV broadcast version.

25 Comments

  2. Well, I did torture myself with the manga, & I’m still confused…to the point to where I don’t even know what they skipped. They was in & out of chapters, then back in them so fast that I couldn’t keep up. It kinda makes me wish I didn’t read the manga 🙁

    Megas
    Reply

  4. I don’t get it, if naraku gets his human heart back, doesn’t that mean he won’t be able to kill kikyou again?? isn’t that why he removed his human heart? why the rush getting it back again!!

    Leon
    Reply

  16. Miroku X Sango is everything I care about, Inuyasha can go into threesome with zombie miko and schoolgirl archer as far as I am concerned (that would count as too many fetishes lol).
    Also, lol-ed @ comment by that new Naraku henchman/offspring that it would suck to be kiled by passer-by 🙂 – the passer-by was ofc none other than Sesshomaru.

    ewok
    Reply

  21. Man I take it you won’t blog episode 8 where Kikyo died. One of the best episodes of Inuyasha ever. Glad they slowed down the pacing for it. It would have sucked if they only spent a little time on Kikyo’s death scene.

    sealouse
    Reply

  25. Okay. I loved naraku eversince ep 21 but know i love him even more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Finaly Kikyo is going to die, my one wish.The other part of my wish was for kagome to become evil and serve under naraku.
    Anyway what happens in ep 08. is that Kagome falls from the sky, but InuYasha catches her. Naraku recaptures Kikyo, who has been connected to him through his spiderwebs, rendering her spiritual powers useless. He intends on taking Koga’s shards, but is dusturbed to discover that his spiderwebs are purified when he makes contact with Koga’s pure shards. InuYasha and Kagome arrive and while InuYasha battles Naraku with his dragon-scaled Tetsusaiga, Kagome aims her bow at Kikyo to save her life, but Kikyo tells her to wait before firing her arrow. Naraku drops Kikyo from his grasp, and his body opens, revealing the Shikon jewel inside. Inuyasha catches Kikyo, but Kikyo tells Inuyasha to leave her in order to save Koga’s life. Koga tries to get the sacred jewel from Naraku’s body, but the jewel disappears and Koga is trapped. Miroku uses his Wind Tunnel to suck away the miasma to free Koga, while Inuyasha helps Koga break free from Naraku’s grasp. Koga loses his shards, but he remains alive, as Kikyo intended. With the Shikon Jewel now inside Kikyo, she has Kagome shoot her with the bow from Mount Azusa. Kikyo purifies the jewel, and fires the jewel from her body at Naraku to try to purify him as well. However, he succeeds in defiling the jewel, and Kikyo is left dying. Kikyo is able to purfiy the core of the jewel, which Naraku is unable to defile, but at the expense of her life. She tells InuYasha that she is a normal woman now, and he kisses her one last time before she dies in his arms. Inuyasha tells Kagome when she goes towards him that he didn’t want Kikyo to suffer any more sorrow, and that he wanted to protect her forever, before a scene of the twinkling stars ends the episode.

    Shikon
    Reply

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