First Impressions / InuYasha

Summary:

While still reflecting on what happened to Kagura, Sesshoumaru is suddenly paid a visit by Toutousai who claims that Tenseiga has reacted to the change in Sesshoumaru’s heart and is ready to be reforged as a weapon. Kagome meanwhile is having more troubles with her studies, yet she still returns to feudal world with InuYasha. Shortly thereafter, Shippou suddenly gets tagged with a leaf on his head, and the group comes across an inn in the middle of the forest. Shippou soon learns that this is all part of a fox magic promotion exam going on, and although he initially wants to protect his friends, the prospect of advancement by attacking InuYasha is too good to resist. He eventually succeeds in getting the promotion he wanted, but in the process he really pisses off InuYasha. While running away, Shippou meets a kid named Mujina with a sword that’s able to absorb Tessaiga’s demonic energy. Mujina is able to get Shippou’s help with a story about avenging her dead father, but it turns out to be false, and Shippou has to be saved by InuYasha. Mujina is actually a tanuki in disguise, and InuYasha is able to shatter the special sword with one swing of Tessaiga. He then kicks Mujina away, but the existence of the sword still bothers him. At around this same time, Sesshoumaru is testing the new Tenseiga on an ogre, and one strike is all it takes to defeat it. Tenseiga is now able to open a rift to the underworld that pulls attacked enemies in, a technique known as the Meidou Zangetsuha.

 
Impressions:

For most of the first half of the episode, I didn’t mind the pacing. They didn’t jump around between settings too much, and all of the promotion exam stuff was silly, but not particularly rushed. However in the second half, the whole Mujina thing went by really quickly (it was pretty predictable too), and it felt like they just tacked it onto the promotion exam stuff given how there wasn’t much connecting the two plot-lines. I assume though that the now-broken sword will be important given how InuYasha was thinking about it at the end, particularly since that’s what the preview indicates as well. Speaking of swords, it was nice at least to see Sesshoumaru get a new offensive ability for Tenseiga and to see him to use it right away, though for an episode titled Meidou Zangetsuha, I thought they would have spent a lot more time on that part of the episode than on Shippou-related stuff.

20 Comments

  5. @Zero- all that Shippo stuff was in the manga, or at least the exam part, I don’t remember too much about the girl. Although it was almost like manga filler. For some inexplicable reason, I remember this bit more than what happened to Naraku.

    Ahnlay
    Reply

  11. i dunno…. i think for a great series like inuyasha, it certainly deserve better pacing , more episode and budget… i think is time for me to finally accept that it will only go for 26 episode T_T

    BlackSun88
    Reply

  13. Don’t worry, Sesshoumaru will (hopefully) get an entire episode to himself somewhere around episode 9 or so, and he’ll become a more permanent fixture in the story from there on out, so he’ll get lots of chances at screentime for the second half of the series (though his appearances between now and then are going to be a bit sparse).

    Patches
    Reply

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