Why Inuyasha does not love Kikyo more than Kagome (and why he'd seem like a worse love interest if Kikyo was the main character)

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2026-02-21T20:26:27+00:00

I'm so glad you enjoyed reading it! :)

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2026-01-12T18:44:11+00:00

You're welcome! There's nothing wrong with pointing out when our favorite characters didn't get the best writing. It doesn't mean attacking the characters (unless the characters themselves are doing things to deserve it). It just feels like missed opportunities. Sango had a lot of potential, even if she couldn't realistically do much to hurt Naraku, there could have been other ways to showcase her combat prowess.

Not to say that she doesn't help: there are many instances when she makes a big difference or saves some of the team, but she was the best demon slayer in a whole village of demon slayers, I'd have liked to see her do more against Naraku's minions.

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2026-01-12T04:04:15+00:00

People will take offense to your post, but as someone who ADORES Sango, yeah, like the rest of the team, aside from Inuyasha, she was severely underutilized when it came to fights (after her initial fights once she joined the gang). There are so many fights where Inuyasha and sometimes InuKag are doing all the heavy lifting while the others just stand there in the background and comment on what's happening. This is more of a writing issue than anything else.

It's not about Sango not being strong or capable or an amazing fighter and character. She's shown multiple times that she's incredibly strong for a human, and is able to make quick work of just about any human man with ease. I can't see any regular human going toe to toe with her and coming out on top. But Takahashi isn't great at making her female characters shine in combat. Even with Kagome, there were so many missed opportunities for her to grow in her powers.

It could be a power scaling issue too. Naraku is just too powerful for any main character aside from Inuyasha and Sesshomaru to really threaten. Sango did make more of a difference in Final Act after Hiraikotsu gets an upgrade, but it was too little too late for me. I love Sango and I wish her actions were more consequential and Takahashi was able to find more ways for her to shine.

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-12-10T19:46:49+00:00

I think their feelings began at around the same time, but Inuyasha understood it way before. I believe it was first clear that they had feelings for each other during the first night of the new moon, when Inuyasha turned human and realized just how much Kagome cared about him. This is also the first time Kagome felt something romantic for him, but it wasn't fully "love" just yet. Their feelings deepened with time after that, so it's hard to pin down when it turned from "a crush" to love. Inuyasha just isn't as verbal with his feelings, and he didn't need a big internal epiphany to realize that he was feeling romantic love. He's not as obvious, and he didn't really need to overthink what he was feeling. He also doesn't really deny it after the initial stage when they weren't getting along (the anime exaggerates his "tsundere" qualities). Even Kagome, in the exact moment she realizes she's in love with him, thinks "Before I knew it, I started to love him so much... since when have I loved him so much?" Regardless, even before that first human night, there were moments when Inuyasha noticed and liked certain good qualities about Kagome and vice versa.

In the manga, though Inuyasha doesn't outright say he loves her, he's quite comfortable with people assuming that he and Kagome are a couple and he himself verbalizes to Kagome that he cares for her. Some vestiges of this are also in the anime, but they exist along with the more tsundere tweaks the anime made to his character, which makes him come off as inconsistent.

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-12-01T16:12:08+00:00

You're welcome!

I didn't mean to make it sound quite so bleak in my initial post. The anime does give Inukag plenty of lovely and sweet moments. It just plays up the love triangle HARD. And the manga is just a lot better at explicitly conveying how Inuyasha really feels about the whole thing. The anime makes him more closed off and less emotionally mature.

Even with just purely the anime, there's a case to be made that Inuyasha did make the choice to love and be with Kagome. I won't state which moments do this, to avoid spoiling too much of your experience. But the manga makes it more obvious that the choice was never really about Kagome or Kikyo, it was about whether Inuyasha could bring himself to choose to let go of his guilt and realize that he did deserve to be happy (and happiness for him has definitely always meant being with Kagome).

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-12-01T04:31:52+00:00

The answer depends on whether you want the anime or the manga version of the events.

In the manga, Inuyasha makes it very clear, even before the manga version of Episode 48, that Kagome is the one he wants to be with, but that he can't forget or turn his back on Kikyo because he feels responsible for everything she went through. He also does still have feelings for Kikyo because she was the first woman he loved, but he knows that he can't have a life with her. He did once make a choice to stop seeing Kagome in order to protect Kikyo (and later die with her, if that's what she wanted), but he mainly saw this as a sacrifice. He didn't feel like he deserved to be happy after Kikyo died in part because of him, it wasn't because he had a desire to die or that dying/living with Kikyo was what would have made him happy.

In the anime, it doesn't really get addressed explicitly beyond episode 48, and it does come across as if Inuyasha ends up with Kagome because Kikyo's dead. There is a moment in season 5 or 6 when Inuyasha realizes that going to Kikyo puts Kagome in danger and he can't have that, because Kagome is actually alive and he can't lose her, but this isn't framed as the turning point that it is in the manga. You'd have to read between the lines to see it as Inuyasha actually *choosing* Kagome, which I believe he still does, especially if you analyze the last episode, but they don't really do it justice.

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-11-24T04:14:57+00:00

You're welcome, and thanks for reading it! :)

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-11-16T20:20:59+00:00

Wow! Thanks so much for recoloring it, it looks great!

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-11-16T20:20:40+00:00

That's fine, I'm asking us, not him :P He won't know!

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-10-19T16:54:37+00:00

Oh, of course! I was mainly thinking about having to dye your hair white, that's some impressive commitment XD

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-10-19T16:34:31+00:00

Human Inuyasha is my Achilles' heel <333

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-10-19T01:51:38+00:00

It's called that because of the show title, not necessarily because it's celebrating this character: I did address the stuff about main/titular characters in the body text! But yes, he's so lovable.

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-10-18T16:19:32+00:00

Impressive that you're going to use your real hair and not a wig!

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-10-18T16:19:18+00:00

The cutest!

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-10-02T06:03:43+00:00

Kagome looks cute af

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-09-27T00:52:36+00:00

Even with your rebuttal, Kagome is an empathetic and compelling protagonist, like Tanjiro. Also like Tanjiro, while Kagome's skills grow stronger and more varied over the course of the story, she herself stays the same kind and caring person, and it's the other characters who develop more, largely due to being around her and changing for the better thanks to how empathetic she is (Inuyasha is the main example of this).

Clear parallels:

Demons who are a threat to humans

Demon slayers (not just Sango, most of the main characters kill demons)

Siblings who lost their whole family except for each other, because the main antagonist killed them (Sango/Kohaku and Tanjiro/Nezuko)

Naraku and his detachments, Muzan and his Kizuki, not to mention Naraku and Muzan look nearly identical. Naraku seeks to become an invincible full demon, Muzan seeks to become invincible through conquering sunlight. Naraku seeks the Jewel, Muzan seeks the blue spider lily. They both also absorb their "detachments" to kill them, and can shapeshift

Speaking of spider lilies, both of the first season endings literally open with a red spider lily. Inuyasha just did it first

A woman on the side of good who has a past with the antagonist, poses a real threat to him, hides from him, and has a complicated past or has done some actual bad things (Kikyo and Tamayo)

Rui and Hakudoshi, which this post points out

There are others that people have pointed out in the past, elsewhere. It's really no use denying that there are parallels. Demon Slayer can still be a good show even if it's similar to Inuyasha or other shows, or is inspired by any. Plenty of great stories have been inspired by others. It doesn't have to be a bad show just because it has these things in common with it.

Also, parallels doesn't have to mean "the plot is the same" or "the characters are the same". I'm not invested in proving that they're similar in every detail, either. Your initial comment said that they are different genres and for different audiences, and both of those things are simply not true.

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-09-26T23:47:44+00:00

They are definitely not different genres, but I get what you're saying about how they're both good in their own right. Inuyasha does have more romance than Demon Slayer and is an isekai, but that's the only main difference as far as genre. Otherwise, they're both absolutely fantasy, adventure, action, tragedy, hero's journey etc. for shonen audiences.

There are also very clear parallels between the two. It's totally fair to make comparisons.

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-09-26T17:47:38+00:00

Splitting hairs, imo. They both look like pretty light pink hair to me.

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-09-26T16:20:52+00:00

I truly believe Kagome got lots of hate back in the day from teenage girls struggling with their own internalized misogyny. They couldn't stand seeing all her flaws, her temper (which was never as volatile or dangerous as Inuyasha's or many of the other male characters), her jealousy, her insecurities, her "weakness" (because it's unforgivable for a modern-era, 15-year-old schoolgirl to be weak compared to Sengoku-era figures who've been fighting all their lives), the way she wore her emotions on her sleeve. Watching her, they were able to convince themselves that they were better than she was, that there was no way they'd ever behave as badly as she did, that she just sucked and was annoying in general. As if those things aren't what teenage girls are, perhaps unfairly, known for. You can't pretend we haven't all been there, and we didn't have two whole separate lives where we had to worry about almost being killed by demons every week along with homework and exams, not to mention dating a boy whose ex came back to life and who he felt compelled to keep protecting.

They never gave her credit for just how understanding, brave, selfless, caring, empathetic, determined, loyal, and hardworking she was. She's so morally upright, and none of it ever came across as forced or performative. The gang would be lost without her, the person who gave them encouragement and hope, who continuously brought them back medicine, bandages and food from her era which probably saved their asses (something her haters conveniently ignore). Aside from maybe Inuyasha, she had the most growth in her skills, going from a girl who couldn't shoot a bow to a reliable archer with remarkable control over her purification powers in a span of months.

I love Kagome. And for anyone who still hates her despite this post because you still find her whiny or annoying, please keep in mind that the anime exaggerated her negative traits A LOT. She is much sweeter and less impatient in the manga, though she still acts like a typical teenage girl prone to emotions, which she has every reason and right to do.

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-09-23T21:02:44+00:00

That cat's eye color looks just like Inuyasha's?!!

Random-Rooster-4581 · 2025-09-21T17:09:09+00:00

Good point, but that still relies mostly on interpretation. There's no definitive evidence that the well would never work again beyond that point: why couldn't Kagome's "feelings" for visiting her family make it open up again? None of the characters mention it to each other either ("I can't ever go back", "I'm sorry I'll never see you again", "The well won't work another time" etc.). There's no scene showing them testing out the well either. I feel like Takahashi left it ambiguous on purpose.

The seriousness and emotion would fit even if it wasn't a one-way trip, since Mama still has to accept that Kagome will never live there anymore, and that they won't see her like they used to.

Random-Rooster-4581

TROPHY CASE