Inuyasha the Movie: Affections Touching Across Time

Kagome is a schoolgirl in modern Tokyo who passes through a well at a shrine into Sengoku era Japan. There she gathers shards of the Shikon jewel with the half demon Inuyasha and their companions. In this film an enemy sealed five hundred years ago by Inuyasha's father is released: Menomaru. Toshiya Shinohara directs. The source is Rumiko Takahashi's manga and the television series made from it. The series' central idea is not time but belonging. Inuyasha is half human and half demon, belongs fully to neither, and every conflict in the show comes out of that division. The film returns to it through his father's legacy. It appeared in the middle of the series and was designed to sit between the episodes airing at the time; it does not advance the main story and functions as an independent chapter. Rumiko Takahashi is among the best selling authors in the history of manga; Ranma and Urusei Yatsura are hers as well, and Inuyasha is one of her longest series. The feature scale is noticeably better than the television animation, particularly in the fights and the background art. Who it is for: viewers following Inuyasha and anyone who likes late nineties Japanese fantasy anime. Who it is not for: do not start here. The characters and the rules are unexplained and the story adds nothing to the main narrative.