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Note: This covers the whole franchise
I began watching anime at a very young age but didn’t know what an anime actually was until my teenage years, where I got to watch InuYasha on YouTube, back in a time where a single episode was divided in at least three parts because the maximum amount of minutes per video couldn’t even reach the 10 minutes mark, the audio and the image usually weren’t aligned very well, most channels would usually take out the openings and endings to avoid any possible copyright, and I watched the latin america dub for that is my native language, which changed a lot of the original dialogue. And despite all that, I loved the heck out of it at the time.
It was combining a lot of different elements and genres to please everybody, it felt like a somewhat refreshing take on what the isekai trend was at the time for not being an isekai, and it was expanding on a similar concept handled by its author on a previous work, Fire Tripper, which received a pretty crappy adaptation. What was there not to like? The series featured a high school girl at the beginning of the new millenium, thus being somewhat relatable to the audience, thrown way back to an era completely different than hers, allowing the series to have both creepy, sad and comical situations from her perspective because of that, it was mixing contemporary and feudal times and it was a blast to see how different the two settings were, and it was an action adventure about searching a macguffin all around the country, filled with nightmarish demons everywhere, giving it a constant sense of urgency. Heck, it even had romantic polygons to please the shippers (usually girls) and badass characters from both genders of that time. It combined action, adventure, romance, comedy, horror and a cool mythological lore which all of that was based on, all of that with a mostly consistent tone with no mood whiplash.
Of course, when you look back at it, there were lots of stuff that weren’t explained in it and that didn’t make sense. The well was working whenever it felt like it, the constant time travel wasn’t affecting the present in any way, the modern elements Kagome was bringing to the feudal era shocking the people from that era was funny at first but it's something that just shouldn’t happen, her family not giving a damn about what could happen to her was pure nonsense, Kikyo was acting like a bitch towards the main group most of the time, and the coexistence of her and Kagome at the same time is hard to accept, the Tessaiga, just like the well, was working however the plot demanded, Naraku giving Miroku a technique that works against him without being able to take it away is plain stupid and as good at the characters motivations and reasoning seemed at first, they eventually come off as stupid the more you watch the show. It was still easy to shut off the brain and enjoy the epic dumb fun displayed on screen…for a while.
Despite its highs and lows, the first twenty or thirty episodes were pretty good not only for the mixed genres and elements but also because every character was important and somewhat tragic and every fight was creepy, intense and had lots of battle choreography and a basic strategy.
After that, the show becomes very repetitive, reuses scenarios and formulas too often, relies heavily on the already high plot armor, InuYasha, Sesshomaru and Naraku are constantly leveling up and making the fights too boring and tensionless and the secondary characters become mostly irrelevant and are reduced to spectators and commentators of InuYasha’s battles and never develop, Kagome is completely useless against normal enemies but overpowered against the main villain to the point of almost killing him a few times, and still not doing so because the writing is poor, Sango forgets her main objective for most of the series, Miroku comes off more and more as a pervert and even a cheater for still touching other women when he was already kind of Sango’s boyfriend, Shippo is reduced to a cute mascot in just two episodes. On top of that, the comedy never changes and the already bad exposition becomes plain terrible, and the romantic aspect, as complex as it seems at first, ultimately comes off as if InuYasha was a two timer that was playing with two different women at the same time and still getting jealous whenever one of them was around other men, before choosing his second option once the first died for good after four or so fake deaths, Naraku was doing everything out of jealousy, which is lame, and so on and so on.
Still, from episode 40 to 50 the show was still kinda watchable thanks to InuYasha slowly opening more to Kagome and her resolution on episode 49, the look into his past, Naraku almost getting the whole Shikon no Tama, and some of his incarnations having a little of personality, objectives and free will on their own.
However, after 50 episodes, everything bad about the show becomes even worse and the series constantly repeats itself with endless filler, and I’m not talking about the original anime content, which yes, it’s there, and it’s usually terrible, but also canon material where the gang still goes around fighting random one time demons in tensionless battles because InuYasha is too powerful by then, almost nothing in the show is worth watching from that point, and the series goes to shit. Even when they try to make you somewhat care with InuYasha’s demonic bloodlust and new techniques, all of that is mostly taken away for you to give a damn.
The show becomes good again for its one and only long arc from episode 102 to 123 because the plot was going somewhere, in a setting with its own lore, the fights were interesting because of the different fighting styles of the antagonists, every character had moments to shine on their own, the antagonists were interesting and had different dynamics between them despite being part of the same group, it has several highlights in terms of interactions among the characters and themes and there are negative consequences once the arc is over.
I mean, the silly comedy, despite being mostly absent, was still there, the exposition was still terrible and the writing was still not the best, since the characters seemed to be stupid at times and the way Naraku was even able to get in Hakurei and become more powerful is a stretch, but as a whole the show was once again almost at its initial level.
But after that the show becomes mediocre at best once again before ending incomplete thanks to all the horrible filler and the repetitive situations and outcomes, at least the artwork remains pretty good up until the end despite the large number of episodes, thanks to the improvement of the original character designs of Takahashi with sharper lines and more facial variety, even if it meant killing the resemblance between Kagome and Kikyo in the manga, which is a big plot point and even if it was easy to tell which enemies wouldn’t last much because of their uninspired designs. The backgrounds were well made although typical and repetitive, the motions were good at first but almost non existent once the battle choreographies were replaced with big light beams of different colors that could kill hundreds of enemies at the same time, and the special effects were very good for the time. The transition from hand drawn to digital was done well despite losing a bit of impact in the character designs and shading.
As for the sound, the voice acting is ok, the sound effects good, the music is very good but not very memorable because, despite being a good composer, Kaoru Wada tends to repeat himself with his works.
Whatever happens afterwards in the manga is pretty cool on paper with newer revelations, powers and incarnations, but the events kept playing out in the same old tired ways, the resolutions were too simple, the power ups were getting out of hand, and the finale was disappointing and had some silly things such as Kagome finishing high school only to leave her family forever and going back to the feudal era, somehow not breaking the time continuity while doing so.
By the time the sequel came out, the visuals and sound were good but the adaptation was so rushed it only made the already poor writing even worse thanks to its super fast pacing, plus lots of people didn’t care about it anymore at that point, because lots of cooler or better similar shows came out between the two series.
There are also four movies in the franchise, but none of them is truly special and they reuse the soundtrack of the series and reflect well the state of the show at the time. They have better visuals than the series but they are simple what if stories that don’t add much nor are very remembered. The first one is (not) remembered for rehashing content from the series, it has lots of action for every character but not much of a plot and it came out after season 2 when the series was already losing steam. The second one is remembered for killing off Naraku in a very disappointing way in ten minutes and because the main couple kiss YAAY, but it’s otherwise a stupid and mostly boring what if scenario where the characters introspect about what they are going to do next before going back to the same thing as before and where the plot gets completely undone by the time the movie is over. It came out after the third season when the series was already shit.
The third one, which came out after the Shichinintai arc when the show was good again, is the best and the only worth talking about, it has great visuals, minus the horrible CGI at the end, it has the fastest pacing and the highest stakes and amount of action with most main characters involved, as well as the most serious tone, it also deals with a somewhat internal conflict within the main demon family in the show and expands on its backstory without contradicting what was stablished in the main series but it is still nothing special, it has nothing to do with the Shikon no Tama and the resolution is simple and obvious, plus it uses simple and somewhat boring elements from the show such as an arm making you able to wield a sword you normally couldn’t use and a demonic sword mind controlling someone. It also has some issues regarding the internal logic of the series, such as:
-The well keeps working however it suits the plot
-Kagome’s spell was useful for once, but the necklace breaks and gets repaired, which shouldn’t happen
-Sesshomaru is able to touch Tessaiga, which shouldn’t happen
-The Tenseiga has abilities non present in the main series. Ironically the movie anticipated the sword getting more abilities later on, and managed to build Sesshomaru’s subtle development, so it’s not completely a minus
And the fourth is easily the worst as it came out after the series was over and sums up the worst aspects of the series and its fillers. It wasn’t the worst in terms of visuals, it’s actually the best in that regard, partially for being animated by Sunrise themselves, which meant not suffering of the lesser character designs from the previous movies, animated by Kyoto Animation. But in terms of story it was about protecting little kids from one dimensional villains, which feels wrong for InuYasha and is much less exciting than saving the whole world from powerful demons, it happens in its own simple setting with its own simple lore, which is told instead of shown and is also literally disconnected from the world around it. But it’s biggest issue is that it has too many characters at once without being well excused by its plot, as it was the case in the third movie, the main ones all conveniently gather in one place and disappear once the script says so because they are no longer required instead of having good reasons for that, the enemies are hyped up as literal gods but they are defeated very easily after powering up, which is lame and the movie is full of forgettable kids with two words of characterization, plus a good chunk of the duration is wasted on silly comedy around them. I mean the comedy is present in all of the movies, thrown in unappropiate moments and very silly ways, but the fourth one takes it to a whole new level.
Then eleven years after the sequel ended, a complete cashgrab of a sequel came out and most people didn’t care about it, again, and was even called BoruYasha by some. Yashahime was completely boring and uninspired, despite having a good artwork, its visual presentation is boring, simple and lacks the cool details of the original, the sound is nothing special because the voice acting is still just ok and most of the soundtrack is rehashed from the original series, and the effects are just ok.
The series relies heavily on rehashing stuff from the original to the point of even causing serious retcons. The well worked because of the Shikon no Tama? Not anymore. Characters died or disappeared on the original series? They are here because why not, InuYasha and Sesshomaru were able to use powerful swords and techniques because of their connection to said items and because they learned how to use them? These three girls can use them however they want with no explanation from the get go and the way their powers work are changed at the end. Did you like how Kagome was bringing stuff from the modern times to the feudal era? Towa does the same.
Do you want an ongoing plot? Too bad because most of the show is wasted on stand alone missions that are resolved too easily and have no connection to the main objective before the series ends incomplete and leaves you waiting for a second season, which causes the main battles and events to play out with an even worse pacing and writing than Kanketsu-hen’s. And yes, InuYasha suffered from that as well but it wasn’t a 24 episode series thus it undeniably had more relevant stuff in it, despite also having more terrible filler.
Do you want good characters with good personalities and backstories? Not here because Moroha has the personality but her backstory is very poorly written nonsense, Setsuna has the looks and backstory but is the most boring of the three because of her amnesia and cold attitude, and Towa doesn’t have anything in her favor, she’s the most inconsistent and stupid of the bunch, she’s presented as a tomboy yet becomes a typical girly high schooler when she goes back to her time, and spits boring moral speeches that usually cause more harm than good, while also doing the most stupid things such as giving her pearl to a fishy guy she likes because she spoke to him a few times.
On top of that there are horrible fillers in the series and also very bad messages, such as putting an addiction to a cellphone (which is never shown clearly in the series) in the same level as a toxic and possesive love, or the brooming present in the series that was criticized by most, even if it was still well received by some shippers. Age is not the problem here, since Sesshomaru is a young demon and girls becoming wives and giving birth when they are teens wasn’t considered weird in that era. It’s the betrayal of the character dynamics what caused the complaints. Rin was supposed to be sort of a daughter to Sesshomaru, slowly making him care about humans, not a love interest to bear his children and not seeing him ever again, with no build up towards that change, thus it was Usagi Drop all over again.
It is also inconsistent in some elements, such as Setsuna losing control of her demon powers because she’s a half demon, but not Towa and Towa losing her powers once a month like InuYasha because she’s a half demon, but not Setsuna. There’s also the fact that Moroha’s shortcomings for being a quarter demon work however it suits the plot at the moment.
Plus the fights are boring and the enemies are defeated way too easily, except for the epic final fight which still suffers from being way too fast paced, with asspulled powers that are changed from how they were throughout the whole series, and the characters’ motivations and courses of action changing a lot in just two episodes, before leaving the series incomplete with the expectation of a sequel that who knows when it’s going to come and if it gets any good.
I will at least accept that there are a few decent things in Yashashime, the main antagonist is a honorable and respectful warrior that seems to have good motives behind, but is boring as a villain because he’s nowhere near as schemy and backstabbing as the cowardly bastard Naraku, and he doesn’t achieve anything at the end and his objectives remain unknown because of the open ending. The lore is expanded in the series and although it feels kinda like the needless continuations of Dragon Ball at times (because they introduce stuff that was supposed to always be there even if it was never mentioned in the original series), it was still pretty cool and does fit the initial concepts, and the older cast overshadows the newer one with just a few minutes of screentime, and the motivations behind the whole thing are not (just) unrequited loves and complicated love polygons.
Thus, nostalgia aside, the franchise was nothing special and was beloved at the time because we didn’t know better, and rewatching the franchise made that perfectly clear, my ratings for the different entries are as follows:
-A somewhat generous 6/10 for the third movie for being the best and most consistent entry in the franchise, yes, this is as highest as it gets.
-A 5/10 for the original series and manga, for being overall cool and starting strongly, but also dragging the plot a lot with poor writing before finishing in a disappointing way.
-Another 5/10 for the first movie for having cool action but not much plot.
-A 4/10 for Kanketsu-hen for messing the adaptation of the final parts of the manga with its super rushed pacing and another 4/10 for the second movie for being a boring build up to a finale that erases its whole plot.
-And finally a 3/10 for the first Yashahime season and the fourth movie, for being the worst and most stupid entries in the franchise.
