Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Inu-yasha ::
Comparing the manga series Viz Graphic Novel collected edition Volume 1 and the episodes 1-4 on Japanese import DVD
by William the Bloody
Ah yes, once again in case you forgot, Rumiko Takahashi, the woman who both wrote and drew the manga comics, is a genius.
The story behind Inu-yasha is this: In 16th century Japan, Inu-yasha's attempt to steal the Jewel of the Four Souls (or Shikon no Tama) has been thwarted by Kikyo, a young priestess who puts Inu-yasha under a slumber enchantment. Kikyo only manages this at the cost of her own life. Her last request is that the Jewel is burned with her remains so that no other evil creature will attack the village to gain its power. In present day, 15 year old Kagome Higurashi has grown up on a shrine tended by her family. Everything here has a legend, which Kagome couldn't care less about until one day... She follows her cat into the mini shrine out back and something jumps out of the boarded up well inside and pulls her in. When she comes out of the well, it's the same place, but not the same time. Kagome was transported back in time to 16th century Japan, during an age of wars and magic and demons. One such demon, or half demon anyway, is of course, Inu-yasha. Kagome, while fleeing the demon that pulled her into this age, cries out for help and somehow wakes Inu-yasha from his magic induced slumber of 50 years. The demon rips into Kagome's flesh to reveal that in her side she had hidden the Jewel of the Four Souls. Inu-yasha rescues Kagome from the demon, only to turn on her himself, in order to obtain the Jewel. The new priestess Kaede, the young sister of Kikyo, gets a magic rosary onto Inu-yasha, which subdues him. Kaede recognizes Kagome as the reincarnation of her older sister, and tells her about the power of the Jewel and why Kagome must now protect it at all costs, as her sister had before. However, Kagome does not fully realize the extent of this danger, and the Jewel is stolen by a demon. In the effort to regain the Jewel, it is shattered into hundreds or even thousands of pieces in a huge magical explosion. Kagome, with her magic priestess abilities can sense the Jewel pieces and so she paired with Inu-yasha's brute strength and his desire for the full Jewel, must now work together to put the broken gem back together, lest even the tiniest fragment fall into evil hands.
Phew. You got all that?? And that is just the Reader's Digest version.
Fans of Takahashi's other work like Ranma 1/2 won't be disappointed because her wonderful characterization and interactions are still here. However, I have to warn you, that this series is much darker and more violent. Where Ranma played at cartoon-esque violence, Inu-yasha shows bloodletting, walking-dead corpses, dismemberment and more. The image of the village women being manipulated like marionettes with cleavers and scythes is down right chilling.
The manga series is quite remarkable. Her art and the story flow in perfect unison. Takahashi's talent for complex storytelling shines with very fast-paced panels and action. She really gets creative with ideas for evil demons; Mistress Centipede, the Crow demon who nests inside its victim and controls its dead body, and Yura of the Hair, is a particular favorite of mine. The layout of the panels are perfect and she knows just when to utilize breaking borders.
The anime series is even more so. Very rarely do I prefer a cartoon or film adaptation of a book to the original piece, but here? The cartoon series is pretty close to dead on with the comics, but each story needed a little padding to fill the time, and here they did it right. The comic book was so incredibly fast paced, that is was easy to just expand on the ideas already there and use camera movement and art direction to compensate enough to fill the time. The animated series also adds small bits here and there, which are useful, insightful, and in no way, obviously padding or a waste of time. One of my favorite additions within the cartoon, is when Inu-yasha is initially struck down by Kikyo. There is nothing wrong with it in the comic, but the cartoon just gave it so much more. The whole art direction of that one particular scene was beautiful. I also enjoyed the way Yura of the Hair translated onto the screen. They managed to animate with her a certain grace and poise in her movements, a fluidity with her connection to her hairs that you just can't get in the comics. The sound effect of her hair strings as she manipulates them is great. The animation in these first few episode is fantastic (later it does go down hill a bit, but I'm not talking about those episodes here). The series does suffer from recycled music clips, though, shame on them. At least for this series, the music isn't bad. Also, it suffers from a few too many flashbacks. The comic managed to get most of them across with thought balloons, but the cartoon has full flashbacks a lot. How many times do we need to see that same clip of Kagome get out of that well?
Inu-yasha the manga series volume 1: A
Inu-yasha the anime, episodes 1-4: A+
