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The Isekai Anime Where Grief Is the Villain

MeloMikal

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Inuyasha is more than just a romance anime

Loss Shapes Every Relationship in Inuyasha

Inuyasha is often remembered as a fantasy romance anime, but beneath the love triangles and action is a much deeper story about loss, grief, and emotional trauma. Every major relationship in Inuyasha is shaped by what its characters have lost from Inuyasha’s lingering pain over Kikyo, to Kagome being torn between two worlds, to Sesshomaru, Sango, and even Naraku carrying their own forms of grief.

In this video essay, I break down how loss defines every relationship in Inuyasha

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20 Comments

@MeloMikal Creator 9 months ago Pinned

I hope you all enjoy the video and HAPPY HOLIDAYS! 🎄

@KoongYe 9 months ago

What I think this anime excels at is the atmosphere. The scenery, music, the artstyle all are so wonderful even now.

@ladyaceina 9 months ago

naraku has one of the best villain lines of all time

"if the bonds between you where so strong WHY WHERE THEY SO EASILY BROKEN"

@jackofcades 9 months ago

Naraku being referred to as a Sengoku incel is the most accurate description of his character I've ever heard

@Crux_JCr 9 months ago

A love triangle between a demon, a time traveler, and her zombie psychic vampire preincarnation along with a perverted monk a shape-shifting fox and a huntress seeking to avenge her clan.

@IamHattman 9 months ago (edited)

As an anime, Inuyasha has that dog in it.

@1356IM 9 months ago

The Inuyasha/Kagome/Kikyo love triangle honestly feels like a litmus test of how well people understand love and grief tbh...

All three characters get a lot of crap, but the whole point of the triangle is that it's messy, and none of them really know how to work around that.

They even acknowledge it to each other that they don't know what to do with these feelings, and that it's nobody's fault things are like this.

It's a brutal honesty that helps carry the triangle, and especially strengthens Kagome as a character since she's the one who helps the other two acknowledge and process their grief (even if it's in spite of her own feelings).

@sanostargalaxy 9 months ago

Inuyasa was always critisized back in the day, but i remember when it dominated anime fanfiction numbers. It WAS aired on adult swim an adnormal amount of times. I used to be known as an Inuyasha girl in school, it makes me happy to hear people still think about it these days.

@SariaSpeaks 9 months ago (edited)

I remember watching this anime as a small brained teenager and realizing there was a ton of complex nuance I legitimately wasn't old enough or mature enough to understand yet, including Kikyou's motivations and Inuyasha's whole deal with her, so literally years later having forgotten all about it, this was a very cool breakdown of the whole series.

@Lucy-vx2ls 9 months ago

This is the most beautiful analysis of InuYasha that I've ever seen.

@peachtea296 9 months ago

My boyfriend passed away recently, and your analysis of the “love triangle” as instead grieving your first love is just beautiful. I had finished this anime not long before he passed, and I never saw it that way before. It’s interesting how we draw these parallels between our real life experiences to ones we see in anime and media :)

@YuubiTimberwolf 9 months ago (edited)

Naraku is one of my favorite villains, he is the embodiment of blind hate, he lost everything, twice!! and decided to fully crash out, not just lash out at Inuyasha and everyone he knows, but everyone who happens to come into view to him.
He just wants this pain and grief to be gone, by erasing everyone and everything reminding him of that, including himself.

A villain motivated by a path of SELF-DESTRUCTION is something so rare, the latest case of such a villain is in Digimon Time Stranger and is done not even half as good as Naraku!

@elizabethescalante8114 9 months ago

I freaking BAWLED at the end when Miroku and Sango got their happy ending and had their babies!!!!! 🥹😭🥹😭

@PrincessStarbits 9 months ago

As a woman and one of fears when it comes to loving someone is that you don’t know if they haven’t gotten over their ex and not truly moving on

@ekd1852 9 months ago

Its been a long time since I finished Inuyasha and i still remember the characters and villains. I often forget the series is an isekai similar with other older anime isekai series I remember like Aura Battler Dunbine and Magic Knight Rayearth because of how different they are compared to most modern isekai.

@CioChoux 9 months ago (edited)

Thank you for this video! I never really did quite understand why Naraku had to "separate" himself into other forms/persons (besides wanting more manpower under his employ). Until you mentioned that he wanted to be rid himself of these other perosonas/feelings/aspirations.

@Soy_boi 9 months ago

Now if only they had left the Sesshomaru and Rin plot line there and had not created a sequel 😭

@Crystal-Is-Ok-Again 8 months ago

Clicked because Inuyasha. Nice to see the fandom is still alive (I think)

@AndrewTurpel8LivesVideos 9 months ago

The Shikon jewel is a contender for one of the best McGuffin's ever written. It consistantly acts on a clear and thematic evil intent, feeding on people's grief to maintain itself; it has those faux purified and corrupted states to mislead the reader into thinking it's an indifferent force when it's the main manipulator; and it especially hides its actions behind Noraku so that it's beleivable when Inuyasha and Kagome never realize its true nature until the end of the series.