Kill The Past- Why I’m Not Excited About the Inuyasha Sequel

I cannot emphasize enough to you all how formative Inuyasha is to me. I cannot possibly impress upon you all enough how much this series means to me as a fan, a writer and student of manga. Inuyasha formed my manga fandom, set my tastes for bad anime men and gave me a purpose. 2 of the 5 men on my Lord/Master list (the characters I willingly refer to as Lord/Master) are from Inuyasha. Which is why it may be a shock that I am not excited about this rumored sequel floating around.

It started out with some art floating around by Rumiko Takahashi. It started with rumors and translations. It started with an idea. And then suddenly it was announced that the beloved series would be getting a sequel featuring some main character children and a new story set in Japan (not Feudal if time has passed…Edo, then likely). 

To understand the deep rooted apathy I have towards what should give me the hardest boner of 2020 you need to know about how Inuyasha started, ended, started again, ended with a wet fart and ruined it’s good will. The series began in the 90s and my fandom with it in the early 2000s. The series aired on television for years and the manga pretty closely along with it until the mid-late 2000s when we ran out of manga and Rumiko Takahashi’s armor began to crumble. Over and over again as a writer she admitted to not liking endings and over and over again heard her say that she doesn’t like ending worlds that she appreciates (look at Ranma ½) but we had faith in her. She’s a great mangaka and writer. We believed in her. The hiatus was painful with Toonami running on fumes and replaying the first season ad nauseam to fill the void which only angered more and more fans. 

The series went dead when I was in college with the occasional manga release but I was done; my love had run dry. 

When Inuyasha :Final Act was announced in college I should have been thrilled. Finally, closure. But no, we got for several episodes all the same issues we had in the main series, meandering plot, no end in site, recycled plot points and stagnant character arcs. Takahashi-sensei was clearly spinning her wheels narratively. And even though Final Act did end and did give us a canon conclusion to a beloved 20 year saga, the ending could never satisfy long-term fans and certainly couldn’t live up to the hype newer fans had from the older fans talking about what a masterclass the series was. 

That’s a common issue I’ve had with many of the “The main characters clearly had sex and have children now” sequels like whenever that Bleach sequel comes out and certainly like Boruto. Not to say those series are bad, they’re just fundamentally flawed for me. They have to take characters back to the start or throw them into the background. But here’s the issue, I’ve spent 20 years with Inuyasha and his dumb friends and his hot brother. I don’t care about whatever kid he has. That story is done for me. It’s hard to build up that will with kids of charismatic main characters. Look at how fans talk about Boruto. The big fights always have Sasuke and Naruto and the focus is almost always on the characters we grew up with: not the products of them having sex. 

This project frustrates me because of how interesting the world of Inuyasha was but how little faith and desire I have to return to that world now after giving Takahashi-sensei my childhood and heart time and time again only to be disappointed. I’m far more interested in new worlds, new ideas, new concepts; not having my nostalgia endlessly jerked off for a quick buck. 

Sometimes you just have to kill the past…so we can build a better future.

Now, I won’t shame anyone who is excited for this project; or any of the other titles I mentioned. That’s not what I’m here to do. I’m just here to mention why I personally am now running naked and enthusiastic in the streets (pandemic aside). We’ll see how this goes. Perhaps it’ll be good. Perhaps.