Five years after the 167-episode Inuyasha series finished airing in Japan, and one year after Rumiko Takahashi finished the manga, we finally have a new Inuyasha anime that will finish the famous feudal fairy tale…
The first new episode of Inuyasha Kanketsuhan (The Final Act) aired a few days ago. Although no TV English dub release has been announced yet, the new episodes will be available subtitled on Hulu and the Shonen Sunday web site only a few hours after the Japanese airing. This is a good move by Viz to keep fans watching the official releases until they possibly put the series on TV or DVD.
Without any recap, the first new episode jumps right into the story where episode 167 left off. This lack of recap points to the fact that probably only hardcore fans of the original anime, or those who have read the manga, will be interested in this sequel. Inuyasha is a series that is full of different simultaneous subplots going on between its many characters, so even casual fans will probably need to refresh their memory of the latter part of the series if they wish to tackle this sequel many years later.
As for my initial impressions, first of all it was great seeing the Inuyasha cast again. I was a hardcore Inuyasha fan for nearly five years, and although my interest in it dwindled while reading the latter volumes of the manga, I still love the characters. I love the seiyuu in Inuyasha too, and I was thrilled that Sunrise managed to reassemble the entire cast. It was great hearing Kappei Yamaguchi, Satsuki Yukino, Houkou Kuwashima, and the rest after so long ^_^ They seem to be keeping a lot of the background music used in the first series too, as I recognized many familiar tunes while watching the new episode. Do As Infinity performed many songs for Inuyasha in the past, and they’re back again with a good opening for The Final Act. AAA is new to the Inuyasha front, but I personally like the new ending they provide.
New opening “Kimi ga Inai Mirai” by Do As Infinity
New ending “With You” by AAA
The music, character designs, voices, and just about everything in the new Inuyasha series seems to be just like the old series, making it seamless to go from episode 167 to episode 1 of The Final Act. However, I did have one issue with this new episode which I hope does not last – it was extremely rushed. That first new episode was like, chapters 359 to 370. They skipped things, rearranged the order of events, and tweaked other events (and the scene with Kikyo was from chapter 375!) It would be too much to discuss everything that was changed or skipped in these chapters but you can skim through their pages on One Manga to see what I mean. Chapters 357 and 358, though a filler story, were skipped altogether.
Although I know I’ll enjoy watching new Inuyasha anime after so many years, I’m kind of scared that Sunrise only has 26 episodes with which to cram 20 volumes worth of material. For the first series, not counting the anime-only filler episodes, we had about 150 episodes for 36 volumes. If we only have 26 episodes for 20 volumes, they’re gonna have to rush and cut out a lot of scenes and/or unimportant chapters. I hope it slows down later on but after seeing the preview for episode 2 of The Final Act, it looks like that episode will include at least five chapters and will rearrange the order of events.
But anyway, great to have more Inuyasha anime. I just hope they slow it down a bit =)
yeaah , i noticed that too.
it’s very rushed, especially the part where sango found out that kohaku regained his memory. woowww , that was sooo ruushed.
where can i watch the inuyasha episode 2 final act preview?
I agree that it was rushed, and I wish they were given more episodes (say, 52), but at the same time, I’ll take pretty much anything. As long as it’s InuYasha and new. It’s awesome.
@ Sarah
When I watched episode 1 on Hulu, the preview for episode 2 came on after the ending song.
Hahaha, to think we’d come to the point where we’d complain about animators rushing through a major show :P (Yea, I know its different circumstances from other major titles… but yea :D)
I have watched very little of Inuyasha but was interested in that they seemingly kept the same art style, a very nice touch. Also keeping the cast intact really does make a massive difference in continuing a show (I’m looking at you FMA: Brotherhood and Hajime no Ippo).
I’ve watched the first 5 episodes. They skipped so many key things from the manga that I would’ve really liked to see in the anime. For example Chapter 470. They made a stupid Shippou episode, though. What a waste. Very SAD T_T
I agree, by the feel of it they are going at a fast pace. Perhaps VIZ just isn’t interested in another two or three seasons but whats to wrap up the show for a nice DVD box set and make room for more movies which people might be turned off from buying if the series isn’t done yet.
Though let us hope that the final episode of the final act will be a bit more of a extended epilogue to what we got in the manga.
I’m a huuuuuge InuYasha fan so I’m satisfied no matter what happens cuz InuYasha will live on for eternity in my mind and in my heart. ^_^
im huge fan of inuyasha ; i watched it when it came out in 1993 . so im pretty much happy that they decide to finish it cause i was countlessly complaining how they never did the ending at all for it . so im happy i havent’t watched the final act episodes but i cant wait to.
:)
@ mika
The Inuyasha anime didn’t come out in Japan until 2000, and in America in 2002, so I’m not sure where you got 1993 =P But yeah, The Final Act will finish by mid-March. I’m pretty sure it will follow the manga but we’ll see.
Its to bad InuYasha The Final Act only is gonna have 26 Episode’s.
I just wish they could find a away to keep it going. I enjoy InuYasha, I love the story line on it. Well its a very well made show.
InuYasha (character and series itself) never ceases to amaze me! I’m so glad/happy that I don’t have to wait that long (5 years or so) to watch the whole series. I was formally introduced to InuYasha by Animax-Asia this year at its earliest episodes ( I was never interested when it was aired on my childhood days [2001+] because I never got to watch it from the beginning and there were yet online InuYasha episodses. Since it’s an anime where there are so many cliffhangers that I couldn’t wait ’till the next episode comes, I paced up watching online. I continued watching online (the original English cast is different from the Animax-Asia dubbers I realized then) and since I was really hanged by the series,esp. when they put filler episodes on the 4th season,unknown to me as to how had Kohaku survived, resisting the temptation to read spoilers, I couldn’t wait that I paused for a week so I could read manga scans online from Chapter 1 to Chapter 558. Non-stop reading from morning ’till night, I finally finished reading the manga after 1 week then resume on the anime up to the final act. I’m very contented I got to live up to the very day when I would watch a streaming anime, English dub such as the InuYasha series not to mention knowing the whole story by reading the manga. I complained a little as to why it must (TFA) must only be 26 episodes, but then I understand that the anime must at once come to its conclusion and if it had been more than 25, (maybe 52 eps. +) then, maybe even now, I wouldn’t be still finished watching the anime . . . :)
Well i hope soon it will be another anime to continue the anime series. I would love to see rin and sessuaramu together when she finally grows up. But an overall Inuyasha was awesome!!!!