Inuyasha and Sesshomaru’s Eyes

Foreword: 

 

This was originally written on Wednesday May 26, 2021. This is going to be my last post for the month of June. I know that I barely posted anything in the month of May, but I tried to make up for it this month by posting as frequently as I can. I think posted around 6 posts this month, and this one will make 7. That's way more than May, which I posted 3 posts. I'll try to keep this up next month, in July. I'm thinking of starting with my review of Transformers: The Last Knight, which is the last of the Michael Bay Transformers movies, and the last one I've written a review of, even though it really isn't that much of a review. You'll see what I mean when you read it. Then, I post the next entry in my series about East Asia. 

This one is going to focus on Taiwan 🇹🇼 again, but this is one going to be more about the history of Taiwan 🇹🇼, and how it became what it is today. It's a history lesson whereas the previous one was more about the political status of Taiwan 🇹🇼, and how it lacks proper membership in the UN 🇺🇳 and other international organization, and how it all has to do with China 🇨🇳. The one after that will be much shorter because it's basically talking about whether or not China 🇨🇳 could take Taiwan 🇹🇼 by surprise, or if Taiwan 🇹🇼 would see their invasion coming and have time to prepare. Then the last one after that will be about North Korea 🇰🇵 and its weird relationship with China 🇨🇳. That one will be interesting, especially in light of recent developments. Russia 🇷🇺 and North Korea 🇰🇵 have strengthened ties like never before, and have even formed something of a mutual defense pact with each other. Something that has some experts frightened, while others not so much. And it has them asking what China 🇨🇳 will make of it.

Of course, I'll post any review of any movie (new or old) that I happen to see, and have things to say about in the month of July also. The one I've been itching to do a review on is Mars Express, that French animated neo-noir cyberpunk type of movie 🇫🇷 about androids investigating crimes against other androids and cyborgs…maybe, while they simultaneously question their own humanity, or at least one of them does. I think the guy android ♂︎ thinks that he's human but he isn't, while the woman android ♀︎ doesn't. She already knows that she's an android and fully accepts it. 

It's a very Blade Runner or RoboCop inspired story, in fact the director of the movie said that he specifically inspired by RoboCop to make this movie. And also indie games, but I won't get into that here. Only his movie was meant to be a subversion on the themes presented in RoboCop, with how cyborg tries to get in more touch with his human side and not let his robot side completely take over. Whereas Mars Express is about an android that learns and comes to terms with the fact that he isn't human and is fully machine, and learns to accept it and move on with his life and continue doing his job, which is to investigate android crimes. Both crimes committed by androids and crimes committed against androids. No longer trying to be something that he isn't, just like his female android partner ♀︎ did. Or something like that. 

I don't particularly see how that's any different from the themes of either RoboCop or Blade Runner, especially since so many people think that the main character in Blade Runner, Deckard is a Replicant. A question that the sequel, Blade Runner 2049 intentionally and consciously doesn't answer. Instead, they got around answering the question of whether Deckard's a Replicant or not by making the new main character in the sequel, K a Replicant and telling you right from the get-go that he is a Replicant. Pretty much making the previous question of whether Deckard is a Replicant or not irrelevant. The question no longer matters since none of the events that play out in either the first movie or the second movies are reliant on knowing the answer to that question, and the answer doesn't matter at all one way or another. 

Rachel becoming the first Replicant in history to give birth 👩🏻‍🍼 is just as earth shattering and shocking for the Blade Runner world regardless of whether Deckard himself is a Replicant or not. A Replicant giving birth pretty much makes the question of whether some random Blade Runner himself was a Replicant or not irrelevant. In fact, him not being a Replicant makes it more shocking because that means that a regular human managed to impregnate a Replicant, even though Replicants were thought to be incapable of getting pregnant or being impregnated by a human. 

That's way more baffling from a scientific perspective than if two Replicants managed to have sex and have a baby together. You could make the argument that since they were both Replicants, their "biology" was compatible, and that it was conceivable that one day, two Replicants could and would conceive a child together. Especially as they got more advanced. But not a Replicant and a human. That was completely out of left field, and something that no body in that world could've imagined was even possible.

BTW Replicants, contrary to popular belief, are not actually androids. Replicants are something else entirely. They're more like synthetically grown humans, like they're biologically human, but they were bred entirely in a lab, and they were programmed somewhat. They're like programmable humans if that makes any sense. It's hard to really explain what a Replicant is because neither the two Blade Runner movies, Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 adequately explain what Replicants actually are. 

They even contradict themselves because in the first Blade Runner, Deckard refers to Replicants as machines, and yet in the behind-the-scenes documentary on the movie, Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner, they say that the Replicants aren't machines and aren't androids, that's specifically what they said. So, who's telling the truth? Who's right and who's wrong? Deckard, the veteran Blade Runner who's job it is to know what Replicants are and what separates them from regular humans, or Ridley Scott, the director of the film? Even though Ridley Scott was not at all involved in the writing process, and really just the director, directing someone else's script that he had no hand in actually writing. I'll let you decide. But, they aren't androids, which is the main point. It's funny that the first Blade Runner movie was based off a book 📖 called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 💭🐑, and yet they changed the androids to where they aren't androids, but something else entirely. 

But, anyway, back to what I was saying about the themes of Mars Express. The only difference between this movie and the movies that inspired it is that the androids are the protagonists and the message seems to be that androids and AI are actually good and we shouldn't demonize them or anything. Can't say I fully agree with that message if that is indeed what the message is. I'm just going off that interview that the director, Jérémie Périn said about the themes and message of the movie. 

The other thing that sets Mars Express apart from either Blade Runner or RoboCop is obviously that it's set on Mars—hence the title, Mars Express—in the year 2200, long after it has been colonized and a society has been established on there. I still haven't been able to get my hands on it because I hadn't the money 💵 to buy it. But, our payday is coming up in a week or so, so I might be able to buy it then. But, whenever I do buy it and watch it, I will write a review of it, and I will post it on here. 

I also have interest in reviewing Deep Blue Sea because I've been on this shark kick 🦈 lately that started out as a Jaws kick, and I've been especially interested in talking about it because it's 25th anniversary this year, and the fans have been talking about it more and more. The reason why is that they want the original ending of the movie to be released to public, the one where Saffron Burrow's character, Susan McAlester survives and becomes Thomas Jane's character, Carter Blake's love interest ❤️. The two share a kiss at the end of this now legendary alternate ending 👩🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏼.

To the point where they've started a petition to convince Warner Bros. to release that ending as a deleted scene on a new 25th anniversary 4K release 💿 of the movie. They've also been posting about it on social media, like on X (formally known as Twitter 🐦), to talk about the ending, and other deleted scenes involving Susan that were not necessarily included on the previous DVD or Blu-Rays 📀💿, and of course demanding Warner Bros. to release that ending. Something the movie's director, Renny Harlin and Thomas Jane have both publicly supported. It's turning into a real Snyder Cut type of situation. How many of Warner Bros.'s movies at this point have weird alternate cuts that are nothing like the theatrical cut and haven't been released to public? Because it seems like all of them. I will address the whole Susan thing in my review when I eventually get to it. 

I'm just waiting until I can get the movie on Blu-Ray 💿. But, if not, if I'm able to acquire the Blu-Ray 💿 in a timely enough manner, then I'll just watch it on streaming. It's on Max right? I mean, it's a Warner Bros. movie, and most of Warner Bros.'s movies are on Max, formally known as HBO Max. So, I wouldn't have too much trouble finding it and watching it. If they release a 4K release 💿 of the movie, then I'll buy it and watch that, as long as it comes with a Blu-Ray disc 💿, which it may not. I mean, the Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire 4K release 💿 didn't come with a Blu-Ray 💿 included, so I wouldn't be surprised if a potential Deep Blue Sea 4K release 💿 didn't come with one either. It seems like they're starting to stop selling 4Ks 💿 with Blu-Rays 💿 included, just as they stopped selling Blu-Rays 💿 with DVDs 📀 included. 

But, what about this post? What do I got to say about this one? I've already talked about other stuff, but not the topic at hand. Well, the reason why I wrote this post back in 2021 was because I was watching Inuyasha at the time. I think I might've still been in the middle of watching it or I had just finished it, I don't exactly remember. But, I still had Inuyasha on the mind, and I wrote this based on an observation that I made. 

I noticed that Inuyasha had big round eyes while his older half-brother, Sesshomaru had smaller slanted eyes, and how that small little detail that would go missed by most people, informs a bit about their  characters. It tells you right away that Inuyasha is a good guy, and Sesshomaru isn't really. I mean, don't forgot, Sesshomaru started out as a villain. It was only as the series went on that he sort of mellowed and was humbled that he became more of an antihero. Until finally, you get to Yashahime, the successor series to Inuyasha, and Sesshomaru is a straight up hero. A hero of few words, but still a hero. 

This was all kind of based on a thing I remember RedLetterMedia talking about in their review of Avatar, the James Cameron movie from 2009. The movie that Avatar: The Way of Water 💦 is a sequel to, and is still the highest grossing movie of all time. That one. That was one of the reviews they did with the Plinkett character, the same character that they used as a conduit in their reviews of the Star Wars prequels, the things they're most famous for and made them popular in the first place. They also did a review of Titanic (1997) with the Plinkett character as well, but that one isn't relevant to this discussion.

In his review of Avatar, Plinkett talked about how the Na'Vi were designed specifically to garner sympathy from the audience, and the design of their eyes was part of this. They gave them big huge round eyes which subconsciously gave off a sense of innocence, like the way the eyes looked told you that they were the good guys and that they could be trusted. He called this design approach, Disney Eyes™ because this whole design philosophy of giving good guy character big round eyes came from Disney animated movies, particular those from the Renaissance era; the Disney Renaissance era that is. 

He also observed that a similar approach was kind of taken with the Prawns in District 9 (which also came out in 2009 coincidentally enough), as despite them being gross-looking bugs that do gross things, you still sympathized with them because they had big round eyes. This is corroborated by the fact that Neill Blomkamp talked about how he told the designers to give the Prawns big round eyes so that it would be easily to sympathize with them and side with them over the humans. Because the whole plot of the movie—similar to Avatar in a lot of ways—is about the aliens being mistreated by human beings. 

The humans are the oppressors, and the aliens are the oppressed, and the whole thing is supposed to be a metaphor for refugees and how refugees are often not welcomed and mistreated by the host country and the people that bring them in, or that they enter into. The Prawns didn't ask to come to Earth 🌍, they drifted by accident, and instead of showing them compassion and understanding, we subjugated them because although they were bigger and stronger, and more technologically advanced, they were disorganized and aimless because they're a eusocial species (like ants 🐜 or bees 🐝), and their top leadership died out. 

So, it was easy for the humans to overpower them and mistreat them because they didn't have the will to fight back. They were incapable of thinking for themselves or doing anything unless they were commanded to by some higher power, like a king or a queen. Just like how ants 🐜 or bees 🐝 or termites can't really do anything without their queen. Their biology became their greatest weakness once they showed up on Earth 🌍. Avatar is much the same way, where the aliens are at odds with the humans, and we're supposed to side with the aliens over the humans. 

Except, in Avatar, the humans came to their planet (or moon technically), and started extracting and exploiting their natural resources without any regard for how it would effect their world. Humans were the invaders, and the Na'Vi were forced to fight back to defend their world, especially once the humans started taking more and more of their land to extract for their moon's natural resources. It's all meant to be a commentary or a critique on colonialism, and how advanced civilizations mistreat less advanced civilization, and either to oppress them or wipe them out. And also how corporations often exploit the natural resources of our planet without any regard for how it will affect the environment and our ability to live within it, all for the sake of profit 🤑. 

It's very simplistic in its message, and isn't anywhere as nuanced as District 9 was with its message, but that was that Avatar was aiming for with its message. To critique and denounce colonialism and environmental exploitation. And the design of the alien species in both movies played a huge role in delivering their respect messages. In the case of District 9, Neill talked about how when you're designing a creature to be scary or intimidating, you have a bit more freedom in how you can design it, using the Xenomorph from the Alien movies as an example. But when you're designing a creature to be sympathetic, relatable, and endearing, you have less freedom in how you can design it since there are only so many ways that an audience can connect with a non-human creature and sympathize with them.

The opposite of this are characters with small beady eyes, which suggests that they're bad. They're evil and they're untrustworthy. If a character in a movie has small beady eyes like that, that usually means that they're the bad guy. The examples that he gives of this are the Predator (or Yautja) in the first Predator movie, and the Orcs from the Lord of the Rings movies. There were other examples too, but I don't really remember them. 

While I don't really like RedLetterMedia, and I don't like their take on the Star Wars prequels, that is one thing has stuck with me all these years, and that was one that I remembered and noticed about Inuyasha and Sesshomaru after I watched Inuyasha or while I was watching Inuyasha. So, I decided to write this, and write about how Inuyasha and Sesshomaru's eye designs subtly inform the viewer about the nature of their characters. Of course, I think it should be bear mentioning that anime and manga kind of did the whole Disney Eyes™ thing first. They've doing this sort of thing of giving good characters big round eyes and evil character smaller beady or slanted eyes since they first started. So really, it should be called Anime Eyes™.

As for why I'm posting on my blog now is that I've posted a few Inuyasha related posts here on my blog, and they've all been review of Yashahime, and I want an Inuyasha related post on my blog that isn't about Yashahime. I also haven't been posting a lot of anime related posts on my blog lately, and I wanted have another anime post on here. It's really as simple as that. Without further ado, I'll let you read what I had say about Inuyasha and Sesshomaru's eyes. 

 

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(This is some Inuyasha fan art, showing Inuyasha and Sesshomaru’s faces side-by-side. I’m showing this to better illustrate what I’m talking about here about the differences between Inuyasha and Sesshomaru’s eyes.)

 

If you look at Inuyasha and Sesshomaru’s eyes, they are the same color but you’ll notice that Inuyasha has these very large, round eyes while Sesshomaru has these smaller, narrower eyes. That’s kind of interesting, it definitely sets the two apart. Usually, in anime, when a character has big round eyes like that, that means they’re a good guy, and if they have smaller, narrower eyes like that, that usually means they’re a bad guy, or an anti-hero, or someone’s who’s not purely good.

Of course, that isn’t always the case, especially in anime shows and movies that try to go for a movie realistic look with their character designs, but Inuyasha definitely stuck to that rule. Inuyasha of course is the main character of the show, he’s by far the main hero, so it makes sense why they gave him larger eyes because he’s supposed to be a more sympathetic character or a more relatable character.

Sesshomaru on the other hand, is definitely not a hero, or at least, not a pure good guy like Inuyasha. He starts out as a villain when we first meet him. He spends a good chunk of the first season or first couple of seasons trying to kill Inuyasha, and take his sword because he believed that the Tessaiga was his birthright, and their father, Tōga should’ve never given it to Inuyasha, who he considers to be an inferior being due to him being a half-demon. Sesshomaru was a bit racist like that. But then, when he meets Rin, he kind of mellows out and becomes more of an anti-hero type character, where he does heroic things sometimes, but even when he does, he doesn’t really do them for righteous or just reasons.

He often does “heroic” things for selfish reasons, for personally gain, or does it to advance his own self-interests in someway (like experimenting with his sword, Tensaiga), or he just does it to protect his own friends, the only ones who he really cares about and who really care about him, and those are of course, Rin and Jaken. So, it definitely makes sense why they gave Sesshomaru the smaller, narrower eyes, it reflects his character, it reflects who he is just with the character design in the face alone.

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Note: 

 

Something else I noticed when comparing Inuyasha to Sesshomaru is that Inuyasha acts more like a dog than Sesshomaru does, even though, Inuyasha is a half-demon and is therefore half-human 👤, while Sesshomaru is a full-blooded demon 🐕. He even wears shoes for Christ sake, while Inuyasha doesn’t. Why is that? Why does Sesshomaru act and dress more “civilized” when he’s a full dog demon, while Inuyasha doesn’t, when he’s a half-demon? That just seems like a weird creative choice on the part of the writers of this show, and of the original manga author herself.

I mean, if you really wanted to drive the point home that Inuyasha is half-human, and therefore, more like us, while Sesshomaru is a full demon and is less like us, why not have Sesshomaru act more savage and feral? Why give Inuyasha all the dog behavior and dog moments? I mean, I guess, the fact that Sesshomaru acts more cold and distant towards humans, and is more willing to kill humans than Inuyasha is, is their way of showing that he isn’t like us at all. And I also suppose that the reason why they have Inuyasha act like a domesticated puppy dog some times is more for comedic effect, but I don’t really think that works.

Inuyasha seems like the more feral of the two, I mean, Inuyasha lived in the woods for most of life as a vagabond after his mother died. He doesn’t wear shoes, he’s very rude and abrasive, very much a delinquent, and he can’t keep his demon side under control unless he has his sword, Tessaiga. While Sesshomaru can control his demon side since he’s a full demon. Plus, Inuyasha’s demon side is just a bloodthirsty feral beast that just kills anything in sight, while Sesshomaru’s demon side is just a more angrier version of him, not much different from his usual self.

Inuyasha doesn’t seem like he would easily fit into human society (either in the feudal era or the present day), despite being more friendly towards humans than his older brother. Sesshomaru seems like he could fit in with human society if he didn’t have a demon superiority complex, and didn’t feel so distant from humans, except Rin and Inuyasha’s human friends, Kagome, Sango, and Miroku. I feel like it should be the way other around where Sesshomaru is the more savage and feral one while Inuyasha is the more “civilized” one, but it isn’t, and it’s weird to me.

I guess one could say (I’m sure someone has made this point at some point) that the show and the manga are trying to tell a social commentary about stereotyping and assumptions about people with Inuyasha and Sesshomaru. The idea that the guy who is full beast, and we expect to act more beastly, but is actually more civilized and proper than most humans, while the guy who is half human and therefore much closer to us, is actually beastly and less proper.

But, come on, you just pulled that out of your ass to give something a deeper meaning that probably doesn’t have one. They probably just made Inuyasha the more “savage,” “beastly,” and “dog-like” one to make him a scruffier, scrappier protagonist, and to tell jokes about him a dog; while they made Sesshomaru, the more “proper,” “civilized,” and arguable more polite one (although he is very rude and blunt, especially with his enemies), and the cold and distant older brother to better contrast him with Inuyasha.

Anyway, that’s just a random observation I made about these two characters after revisiting some clips from the show on YouTube, and reading the comments below, talking about dog-like Inuyasha and Sesshomaru are. Sesshomaru doesn’t really act that dog-like, while Inuyasha acts very dog-like and is treated more like a dog than Sesshomaru is.