Kikyo: The Character Who They Refuse to Kill Off

Foreword:

This was originally written and posted on DeviantART on Thursday August 26, 2021. The same day as the Kabul airport bombing by ISIS-K, that killed 183 people, 169 Afghan civilians 🇦🇫 and 13 American soldiers 🇺🇸. Once again, I’m reposting something that I wrote on the same day as a major historical event. The other one I wrote was the post that I wrote about China 🇨🇳’s relationship with North Korea 🇰🇵. I wrote that one on October 7, 2023, the same day as the October 7 attack on Israel 🇮🇱 by Hamas, which kicked off the Israel-Hamas War 🇮🇱. 

Technically that war is just called “the Gaza war” on the Wikipedia page, but I prefer calling it the Israel-Hamas War 🇮🇱 since it’s mainly a war between Israel 🇮🇱 and Hamas (as well as other Palestinian groups 🇵🇸 that are aligned with Hamas to stand up against Israel 🇮🇱), and that was the name everyone was using when the war started and the name that was on the Wikipedia page originally. If you’re going to call it “the Gaza war,” then you have to call it the Second Gaza War, since it’s the second major war in Gaza since the 2008-2009 Gaza War which was also between Israel 🇮🇱 and Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups 🇵🇸. 

As usual, the second war is worse than the first, you know, the Second World War, the Second Sino-Japanese War 🇹🇼🇯🇵, the Second Indochina War (AKA the Vietnam War 🇻🇳), the Second Gulf War (AKA the Iraq War 🇮🇶), the Second Congo War 🇨🇩. The Second Congo War 🇨🇩 happened before the Second Gulf War, but you know what I mean, you know what I’m trying to say. You’d also have to change the name of the 2008-2009 war to the First Gaza War, but that’s beside the point. You can read that post where I point out that I wrote it on the same day as the October 7 attack.

Well, I had my day off to cool off and recharge after I wrote two posts in a row: the Killer’s Game review and my post about Elvira Bary, a Russian-American YouTuber 🇷🇺🇺🇸 who I’m currently subscribed to but have some strong criticisms of. You can read those posts like clicking the links here and here. Since March is longer than February (even on a Leap Year), I’m going to try to pack more content this month than I was able to do in February given how short that month is. But, the length of the month wouldn’t have been a problem had I not delayed the review of The Killer’s Game for so long. Had I watched and reviewed that movie a lot sooner. 

I would’ve been able to review Man of Steel and Venom: The Last Dance (maybe not that last one), and maybe I would’ve been able to get this repost out in the month of February too. But, I’m going to try to review those two movies this month if I don’t bogged down in other stuff. I’m going to see if I can get Venom: The Last Dance on Blu-Ray 💿 or on 4K UHD 💿 next Wednesday, since my grandma gets paid the second Wednesday of every month. I was unable to access Fandango at Home on my PS4 to see if my aunt had added the movie on her account, so I’ll just have buy it on physical media if I ever hope to watch The Last Dance and review it for my blog. 

That is of course if Trump and Elon don’t cut Social Security, and my grandma gets even less money 💵 than she usually does. She did get an increase on the amount she gets from Social Security last month, but I don’t know if that amount increase will stand in the month of March, or going forward considering that, as I said, the Republicans and DOGE are trying to make cuts to Social Security. DOGE has already gained access to the IRS and now has the ability to people’s IRS data, which is supposed to be private under the current tax law and under the constitution presumably. The 4th Amendment is all about the right to privacy. So, DOGE is now in a position where they can decide how much people get in their tax returns each year, and who and what to audit and why. The Republicans have also passed a bill that will make cuts to Medicare and Food Stamps (SNAP), and they have their eyes set on Social Security. It’s next on the chopping block, and it’s a program they’ve wanted to make cuts to or even outright abolish for a long time. 

They’re just trying to make life for people like me and my family a lot harder than it has to be. All so that they fund tax cuts to the rich 🤑, the billionaires and corporations that all have their hands in Trump’s pockets at this point, the people who are the least in need of programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP, and Social Security. They think that just because they don’t need them, the rest of the population doesn’t need them. They should just fend for themselves, pull them selves up by their bootstraps, that kind of nonsense. 

They don’t care about the common man, they don’t care about the poor or the middle class, they just care about enriching themselves 🤑, and if the poors suffer, then that’s their problem. To think, I used to be in support of this kind of stuff when I was a teenager and a misguided libertarian, believing that libertarianism would be the answer to solving all of the world’s problems, if we just adapted free markets and everything was privatized, we’d all be good. But, I’m older now, I’ve seen the light, and I’ve seen the error of my ways. I know now that my way of thinking back then was wrong, and I was in support of things that were against my own self-interests, and were only in the interest of the top 1% of this country. The Trump administration is cementing itself as an administration solely for the rich 🤑. 

But anyway, back to something less bleak…for now. I also have some other posts planned that I’m sure you’ll like if you read my blog. No one’s reading my blog yet, but I have to write as if I have an audience (a reader base) that reads my stuff and I have to cater to. There’s a couple that I don’t want to spoil or give away, so you’ll just have to wait until I actually post them if you want to know anything about them. But there are some that I can talk about. I am planning on continuing the “YouTubers That I’m Currently Subscribed To” series that I started with the Elvira Bary post. I have my eyes set on Huey Li, a Chinese political YouTuber 🇨🇳 who may or may not live in the US 🇺🇸. I’m pretty sure he does, he wouldn’t be able to say half of the stuff he says if he lived in China 🇨🇳. 

He’s a YouTuber who I’ve only grown to like more and more each time he posts a new video. And I think I may have caught his attention when I posted a really long comment on his video explaining NATO is important in maintaining world peace and prevent a Third World War. In the video he made after that one, he talked about how a lot of people left “essay-length” comments, and he was no doubt referring to mine, my comment was one of those essay-length comments he was talking about. He also replied directly to my comment, so he definitely noticed me. His reply wasn’t bad, I agreed with what he said in his reply, which is why I gave his reply a like 👍, but I feel like he misunderstood my point about “large countries going to war with small countries.” 

I think he took it a bit too literally, but I did also kind of mean the actual geographical size of a country when I made that point in my original comment, so I can understand why he thought I was just talking about the literal size of a country being the sole determining factor in whether they’d be willing to go to war with another country. The example I gave was the United States 🇺🇸 and Iraq 🇮🇶 and Russia 🇷🇺 and Ukraine 🇺🇦. The US 🇺🇸 is bigger than Iraq 🇮🇶 both in terms of area and in terms of population, and Russia 🇷🇺 is bigger than Ukraine 🇺🇦 also in terms of area and in terms of population. I guess I could’ve articulated the point a lot better, I guess what I should’ve said was powerful countries going to war with less powerful countries. That word conveys what I was trying to say a lot better than just saying “bigger” or “smaller.” But, these are things are things that I could talk more when I actually write my post about Huey Li and his content. Since I got his attention, and he is vaguely aware of my existence, maybe I can get him to read my blog, starting with my post about him.

I also plan on writing a post about Kylie Boggly (spelt all lower case “kylie boggly”), an American YouTuber 🇺🇸 from the Midwest who mainly talks about lost media, weird Internet phenomena 🛜, weird individuals on the Internet 🛜, and occasionally Internet aesthetics 🛜. And I plan on writing a post about Dream Jelly, an American YouTuber 🇺🇸 who currently lives in Australia 🇦🇺, and makes nostalgic content, she talks about different things that would be nostalgic to people, especially those who grew up in the 2000s like myself. She did videos about classroom activities that kids in the 2000s used to do, at least in America 🇺🇸, she’s talked movies, TV shows, and video games that people used to watch and play in the 2000s, and she’s talked about stores that may be nostalgic to people who grew up in the 2000s, especially mall stores like Hot Topic and Spencer’s. I’ll most discuss more about that when I get to her. 

I may also write a post about tonka joey 🦘, a YouTuber who I recently subscribed to, and who only does videos on fan fiction and other writing topics. It’s mostly her reading comments or posts on different websites like Reddit and Tumblr. My favorite of her videos are the ones where she reads reviews of movies on Letterboxd. Made me kind of want to open my own Letterboxd account. But, I’m not thinking of making it a part of the “YouTubers I’m Currently Subscribed To” series, I’m thinking of just making it a stand alone post, like a standard Status Update because I’m planning on just writing about this month-long event in the month of November that I learned about thanks to tonka joey 🦘 called NaNoWriMo. 

It’s sort of like Inktober but for writers and it’s in the month of November, hence the name, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, it’s a month where you have to write a 50,000 word manuscript in the month of November. So, you have to write a thousand words a day or several thousands of words a day to reach the goal of 50,000 words by the end of the month. But, it only really applies if you’re writing a novel or a novella or some other piece of fictional writing. So, not really what I’m doing here on my blog, even if I do write stuff that surpasses that 50,000 word mark by a long shot. But, I am thinking of getting back into creative writing again, so I may try this out some day, but I’m thinking of starting small with a short story, and then working my way up to novellas and then to novels. I need to reinvigorate my creativity. 

If I have time and if I’m able to, I’ll also review A Working Man ♂︎ when it comes towards the end of the month. That’s so far one of the few movies that I’m genuinely interested in watching this year, it looks like a fun time. A nice bit of escapism to get away for a couple of hours. If I’m able to see it while it’s in theaters, then I’ll review it this month, but if not, then it’ll just be yet another movie I’ll have to wait for until it comes on Blu-Ray 💿 or on VOD (video-on-demand). 

I’m thinking of checking out Novocaine (2025), an action comedy about a guy ♂︎ incapable of feeling pain, something works out to his advantage and makes him a formidable opponent when he goes against the bad guys of this movie, which appear to criminals, like mob guys ♂︎ or something. It stars Jack Quaid, Dennis Quaid’s son, which BTW, did you know that Dennis Quaid was in a Ronald Reagan movie where he played Ronald Reagan last year? It was called Reagan, and hardly anyone watched it. It only made $30.1 million 💵 against a $25 million budget 💵, it was panned by critics, and it was nominated for a bunch of Razzie awards including Worst Picture, Worst Actor for Dennis Quaid, and Worst Supporting Actor for Jon Voight among others. Not that the Razzies really mean anything anymore.

I’m surprised Jon Voight didn’t get nominated for Worst Supporting Actor for his role in Megalopolis, but maybe it’s a John Williams sort of deal where he was nominated twice for both movies. I’m not that surprised that Reagan didn’t do that well, and not a lot of people saw it (most of the people who did were pretty old). I mean, who would want to want to watch a biopic propaganda piece about one of the worst presidents in modern American history 🇺🇸? He’s quite literally the cause of most of the bad things facing America 🇺🇸 right now. He’s the reason why America 🇺🇸 went down a neoliberal path just like Britain 🇬🇧 did under Margaret Thatcher. 

Her and Reagan were bosom buddies, double teaming the US 🇺🇸 and the UK 🇬🇧, destroying each country with disastrous neoliberal policies, and ultimately led to their countries being taken over by right-wing populist authoritarians. Brexit 🇬🇧 would’ve never happened had it not for action taken and policies implemented by Thatcher. The only disagreement they had, the only thing Thatcher was angry at Reagan for doing was invading Grenada 🇬🇩 because Grenada 🇬🇩 was (and is) a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, and Reagan didn’t include the UK 🇬🇧 in the coalition to invade the country and topple the pro-Soviet communist government ☭. But, she wasn’t really mad about not being included in the coalition, she was more mad that he invaded a Commonwealth nation, and that he did it without giving her a heads up. 

He also laid the groundwork for Donald Trump, it was because of his policies and because of the changes he made to the Republican Party and to the conservative movement in America 🇺🇸 that someone like Trump could arise and reshape the party in his own image. But, even when you put all the bad things Reagan did aside, people just don’t care about Reagan anymore, not enough to see a movie about him. Not even the Republicans, who have largely moved on Reagan entirely. They’ve replaced him with Trump was their idol and the standard bearer of their party. They now see Trump as a symbol what it means to a Republican, and not Reagan anymore. Even if Trump would’ve never been able to become president at all had it not been for actions and policies implemented by Reagan decades prior. 

Trump even stole Reagan’s slogan, “Make America 🇺🇸 Great Again,” and Reagan stole it from someone else. Trump never came up with that himself. Just like how he never came up with the idea to annex Greenland 🇬🇱 and Canada 🇨🇦 himself, he stole the idea from other people from the past. But, I also think the movie failed because it just wasn’t a good movie. Put the politics aside, it just wasn’t a quality film, it was really poorly made, poorly acted, and probably has a lot of technical shortcomings. It wouldn’t surprise me. I can’t imagine Dennis Quaid’s performance as Ronald Reagan was all that great, especially if it was enough to earn him a Razzie nomination. 

But like I said, Razzies mean very little. I mean, they’ve nominated actors for performances in movies that I didn’t think were that bad, and were actually decent, and certainly didn’t deserve the title of being “the worst.” So, take the Razzy stuff as you will. At least Dennis Quaid got to be in a much better movie last year, The Substance, which I have not seen and don’t particularly have any interest in seeing despite how popular it is, and how any rave reviews it’s gotten. It even got a few Oscar nominations, not that the Oscars really mean anything anymore. But, I might change my mind on it, and if I do, then I’ll add it to my list and review it for this blog. 

At best, Novocaine (2025) could a really fun movie that’s worth watching and having good time with, and worst, it could be this year’s Argylle. If I do review Novocaine (2025), I’m thinking of also reviewing Novocaine (2001), which is a completely unrelated movie, they’re not connected in the slightest other than that they just happen to share the same title. Novocaine (2001) is a black comedy thriller about a dentist (played by Steve Martin) who is framed for murder by one of his patients who he was having an affair with, and he has to clear his name and prove that he didn’t do it and had nothing to do with that kid’s death.  

Or manslaughter I guess would it be because he’s blamed for the death of a teenager who committed suicide while under the influence of narcotics, and that teenager was a patient of this particular dentist’s narcotics that the kid was high off of when he died match the ones used by that dentist. It wouldn’t be murder since the dentist didn’t direct kill the kid (he didn’t kill anyone since he was framed), it would be more “accidental” since the teenager died while being intoxicated with narcotics that the dentists might’ve proscribed to him presumably (that’s what police would think. That patient BTW, the one that frames the dentist and the dentist had an affair with, is played by Helena Bonham Carter. So, she was in movies that weren’t directed by Tim Burton. Terminator Salvation wasn’t the only one.  

I’m also considering watching and reviewing a movie called Rule Breakers, a movie about Afghan girls 🇦🇫♀︎ who join an international robot-building competition and are lead by this Afghan woman 🇦🇫♀︎ who wants to bring education to Afghan girls 🇦🇫♀︎ growing up in post-war Afghanistan 🇦🇫, which is of course ruled by the Taliban. Who have pretty much oppressed women ♀︎, stripped them of any rights they may have had under the US-backed government 🇺🇸 (the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 🇦🇫), including the right to an education, and have pretty much turned the country into a gender apartheid state, where one gender has all the rights and has preferential treatment, and has privilege within that society while the other doesn’t have any rights whatsoever, or very little rights, and is basically treated as second class citizens. 

Usually, it’s women ♀︎ who are oppressed and get the short end of the stick in gender apartheid states. They’ve been oppressed by men ♂︎ across the globe, with the Patriarchy, for well, thousands of years, since anatomically modern humans have existed. The gender apartheid in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 right now under the Taliban is worse than that of Iran 🇮🇷 or Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦. It’s worse to be a woman ♀︎ in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 right now than it is be a woman ♀︎ in Iran 🇮🇷 or Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦, if you can believe it 😰. 

It’s a kid’s movie, or a family movie (it’s rated PG), it was made by a small studio called Angel Studios, and it’s meant to highlight of the struggles of Afghan women and girls 🇦🇫♀︎ in the new Taliban-controlled Afghanistan 🇦🇫, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. That’s why it’s called Rule Breakers because they’re breaking the rules of the Taliban, those misogynistic losers 😒. It comes out on March 7, 2025, the day before International Women’s Day ♀︎ March 8, 2025. Makes sense right? A movie about women ♀︎ and girls ♀︎ struggling in a country that doesn’t respect them, and ultimately succeeding in the face of adversity, it’s perfect for Women’s Day ♀︎. So, it’s their release for International Women’s Day ♀︎. 

It also comes out the same day as Mickey 17, Bong Joon-ho’s latest movie (his first English language Hollywood film since Snowpiercer ❄️), which I’m also considering watching and reviewing, but only because it’s Bong Joon-ho, and he directed one of my favorite monster movies of all time, The Host (2006), which I’m definitely thinking of reviewing for this blog. March 7 is this week on Friday (March 8, Intl Women’s Day ♀︎, is on a Saturday), it is a theatrical release, but it isn’t a movie that I need to see right now. This is a movie that I can wait on for a little bit until it’s on Blu-Ray 💿 or on streaming or on VOD. 

It’s not a movie that my grandma would be too interested in watching, I probably wouldn’t be able to convince her to watch it because we like to go together when we go to the theaters. I don’t really see movies in theaters by myself anymore. The last movie I saw in theaters by myself was The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and that was in 2023, so it’s been a year. So, if I’m going to see any movies in theaters this month or the rest of the year, it’s going to have to be one that both me and my grandma want to see, something that we can both agree on, and A Working Man ♂︎ is the only one so far that she’d actually be willing to see. And if I had to choose between A Working Man ♂︎ and Rule Breakers, I’d choose A Working Man ♂︎. I’d rather watch an R rated action movie in theaters over a PG rated drama movie. If we had more money 💵, then I would be able to go to the theaters more often and I would be able to see both movies, but we don’t. 

So we have to be choosey about which movies we see in theaters because we have limited funds. I have a strong feeling that Rule Breakers is probably going to bomb at the box office 💣 unfortunately, I think it’s going to lose to Mickey 17, Mickey 17 is going to dominate the box office this weekend. It’s a science fiction movie from a well-known director, Bong Joon-ho and with a huge star in the form of Robert Pattinson. Of course, it’s going to do well, or at least do way better than Rule Breakers. It doesn’t seem like a movie that will make a lot of money 💵 or gain wide appeal, especially since hardly anyone’s heard of it, and the reason why hardly anyone’s heard of it is that no one really talking about. I haven’t heard a single person in the film community on YouTube or elsewhere talk about Rule Breakers. Not even people in the political space are talking about it even if the premise, the plot, the overall message is very political. 

Surely, people who are interested in foreign policy and geopolitics would be interested in a movie that has to do with Afghanistan 🇦🇫, even if it isn’t a war movie or a political thriller (a spy movie), and it’s about Afghan women and girls 🇦🇫♀︎ competing in an international technology competition. I only found about Rule Breakers because I kept seeing it in the email promos 📧 that Cinemark keeps sending me about which movies are now playing and which ones are upcoming, and Rule Breakers was one of the ones that was upcoming. It doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, it just has a IMDb page, which is really the only place where you can go to learn anything about it. 

I don’t even know what the critical reception will be, what few critics who actually see this movie, what they’ll think of it. What will the reaction from the Afghan community 🇦🇫 be? If anything, I could see this being the Hidden Figures of 2025, both in terms of content and in terms of reception, they’re both female empowerment movies ♀︎, they’re both about women of color ♀︎ rather than white women ♀︎ (Hidden Figures is about black women 👩🏾 ignored by history whereas Rule Breakers is about brown women 🧕🏽 who are rebelling against the theocratic, chauvinistic, patriarchal system of their country), Hidden Figures received mixed reviews (mostly positive from critics and mostly negative from historians), and I foresee Rule Breakers receiving mixed reviews as well. I’d be genuinely surprised if it received entirely positive or mostly positive reviews when it comes out because it seems like a movie that may divide critics, or a movie that critics will absolutely hate and tear into. It just depends on the quality of the film, and how it handles its messages. 

I’ve got some news topics that I want to discuss, it’s been a few weeks since my last repost, and I like to use these forewords as an opportunity to talk about the news topics that interest me the most, and there’s a lot of news that happened within the weeks after I reposted that post about the Inuyasha movies. I’ve already talked about one of them, the IRS, DOGE, Medicare, and Food Stamps stuff, but there are others. But, before I get to any of them, I should probably talk the post itself, just so that this foreword is sort on topic with what this post is about. 

I basically wrote this to vent about the way that the writers (including Rumiko Takahashi, the original author of the manga) handled the character, Kikyo, Inuyasha’s first love interest ❤️ before he met Kagome and fell in love ❤️ with her instead. It bothered me that they brought her back to life, and the way that they brought her back to life also bothered me. She gets brought back to life by this witch who defiled her grave, and created her a new body out of clay, bone 🦴, and grave soil because she wanted to use her…for something. 

I don’t remember exactly what that witch wanted to use her for because it’s been awhile since I’ve actually watched the show. I think she just wanted to be her servant or her bodyguard, or she wanted her to destroy the village, the village that her and her sister Kaede are from. I don’t remember, it’s really not that important since she was just there to bring to Kikyo back to life so that she could be in the show past the first episode and besides just flashbacks, and she dies by the end of the story arc that she’s in. This whole story arc where Kikyo gets resurrected spans two or three episodes I believe. 

They just brought her back for that one story arc, it would have been fine, but they just kept her around, she kept showing all, all so that Inuyasha can be conflicted about which girl he likes more, and feeling sorry for killing her, and all so that Kagome has someone to get jealous at and there can be some stupid love triangle ❤️ that the show (and probably the manga too) would’ve been better off without. They did cool and interesting stuff with Kikyo in the Band of Seven arc, I’m not discounting that, and I like that little interaction she has with Sesshomaru in the first movie, Inuyasha: Affections Touching Across Time, I’m not discounting that either. But, I feel like if they were going to kill her off (or have her die again since she’s already dead, she’s undead), they should’ve done it at the end of the Band of Seven arc, on the top of that cliff. 

They should’ve had her die there for real, and kept her dead because it would’ve been a gut punch 🙁😭, and it would’ve been a fitting send off for that character. A bittersweet one, as Inuyasha would finally get the message that he needs to move on, he needs to move on from Kikyo and let her go. He can’t keep clinging onto a dead woman ♀︎ he met decades prior to the events of the series, and must fully embrace the living woman ♀︎ that he sees before him and who he also loves deeply 🫂. Even if that living woman ♀︎ is kind of controlling and abusive towards him 😬. Okay, maybe Kikyo would have been a better match for Inuyasha, but still, she was dead. She was an undead apparition brought to life through dark magic, cursed to walk the Earth 🌏, only able to keep herself alive by consuming the souls of people who died. It was never going to work out between her and Inuyasha with her in that state. 

Maybe if she were still alive, it might’ve worked, but she isn’t. It’s a tragic romance ❤️, it’s what could’ve been had the two of them not been manipulated into killing each other (Inuyasha killed Kikyo, but Kikyo just pinned him to Tree of Ages 🌳 and put in a state of suspended animation). That’s why her dying on Mount Hakurei for real would’ve been so impactful because it would’ve felt bittersweet and given you conflicting emotions like on hand, it sucks that she died again and that Naraku won and got what he wanted, but other hand, it’s good because she got to life after being brought back to life against her will, she could rest peacefully again, and Inuyasha would be freed from that burden of being tied to a woman ♀︎ who had killed decades ago, and could finally move on. But on the other hand, Kikyo was a better match for Inuyasha than Kagome was, and now that she’s gone, he has to settle with Kagome who is a bit too abusive, a bit too controlling, a bit too possessive. That moment loses all of its emotional impact when you know that she comes back in The Final Act. At least, they gave her a real end in The Final Act, at least they let her die then for real this time. 

It also bothered me when they brought her back, at least in likeness, in Yashahime, that really irked me in a serious way. Like, seriously, you just had to make the Tree of Ages’ 🌳 personification/avatar look like Kikyo and sound like her, just so that you have her in the show in some form. Just so that it could even more of a nostalgia fest that brings back all the old characters than it already was. They shouldn’t have brought her back, they should’ve just had the Tree of Ages’ 🌳 physical form be something else. Let the character rest in peace for God’s sake. But, the Kikyo wasn’t the only thing that I had a problem with while I was watching the show and that I talked about in the original journal, I also had a problem with those damn beads, the Beads of Subjugation. 

It bothered me they kept them on Inuyasha’s neck even after he had been redeemed and he had no desire to hurt or kill anyone who wasn’t evil and wasn’t trying to hurt or kill him and his friends (his found family), and really just used by Kagome to control him, to make him do what she wanted him to do, and to punish him whenever he gets out of line, when he says something slightly mean or rude. It kind of makes Kagome seem a bit abusive, like the worst kind of girlfriend (or wife) you can possibly have. That’s why I was happy in the third movie, Inuyasha: Swords of an Honorable Ruler (AKA the best one), when Inuyasha lost the beads during his confrontation with Sesshomaru when he was being possessed by So’unga, and didn’t have them for the rest of the movie, and why I was so upset in the after credit scene when Kagome put them back on 😤. It was all Rin’s fault for giving her back the beads when they came off of Inuyasha’s neck. 

It’s even worse in Yashahime because they reveal that she still kept the beads on him, even after they got married and they had a kid together. Why? Has Inuyasha not proven that he loves her and he won’t do her harm and won’t go back to his old troublemaking ways? Sure after he becomes her husband and he becomes a father to her child, she would remove those awful beads, but no, she has to keep on a tight leash because he is her dog 🐕, who has to be obedient or else 😒. I know for a fact that I’m not only one who feels this way about Kagome. 

She is one of the most polarizing characters in the show, if not, the most polarizing character in the show, even though she is the main character. Inuyasha’s not the main character despite his name being in the title, Kagome is, the show is from her perspective, she’s the audience surrogate, she’s the character who we’re supposed to identify with and who we’re experience this world, this alternate Feudal era Japan 🇯🇵 with demons (or yōkai as they’re called in the Japanese version 🇯🇵). There are people (like myself) who think Kikyo was better for Inuyasha, even if she was undead and probably should’ve never been resurrected. This is all an issue with the writing, and how they decided to portray these characters and how they decided to depict their relationships.

Now that I got that out of the way, I can talk about what I really wanted to talk about here: the news. There wasn’t a lot of stuff happening on the domestic front, it was just more of the same DOGE bullshit, them gaining access to Americans’ 🇺🇸 personal data, firing federal workers haphazardly (and trying to rehire some of them frantically like the NNSA workers who they fired and tried to get back but couldn’t because they deleted their emails), and cutting or outright shutting down government programs and departments left and right. 

Elon appeared at CPAC with Javier Milei, Argentina 🇦🇷’s crazed anarcho-capitalist president, who gifted him his chainsaw to use a photo-op while on stage. It’s just as stupid and reckless as when Trump danced on stage with a sword in his hand after he was inaugurated as the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force. Speaking of which, Trump being a jackass, saying stupid stuff, and taking over things that he shouldn’t have control over like the Kennedy Center and the US Postal Service 🇺🇸, yes, Trump personally owns the Postal Service now, he has total control over it. He also began purging the military of anyone who isn’t sufficiently loyal to him, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the first female Chief of Naval Operations ♀︎ (and first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ♀︎), Lisa Franchetti. She was fired simply because she was a woman ♀︎, and there is no place for women ♀︎ in the top leadership of the Pentagon under Pete Hegseth. 

Kash Patel got confirmed as the new FBI director, the measles outbreak in Texas got even worse, people are actually dying now, and RFK Jr. is using his new position as the director of HHS to downplay the severity of outbreak, and getting rid of all the mechanisms necessary to deal with it or any infectious diseases. Epidemics and pandemics will become more common place in America 🇺🇸, diseases that we had previously eradicated with vaccines 💉 will now come back. Planes ✈️ are falling out of sky and malfunctioning left and right due to Trump and Elon firing the FAA administrator and several FAA workers. The plane ✈️ and helicopter collision in Washington back in January happened just a few days after Trump fired the FAA administrator. 

Prices are still going up and not stopping, especially eggs 🥚 which are going up due to an ongoing bird flu outbreak which is slowing down and is only getting worse and will get worse now that we have a couple of unqualified science denying lunatics in the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture. Plus, since Elon used DOGE to shut down USAID 🇺🇸, farmers are going bankrupt from not being able to sell their crops to other countries who were receiving aid through USAID 🇺🇸. That too will cause grocery prices to go up. On top of that, the Republicans have banned pretty much all Town Hall meetings, like Republican lawmakers have decided to end all Town Hall meetings in their districts so that people can’t protest them or the federal government 🪧. Very dystopian of them. 

In the face of all this, the Democrats are proving how utterly inept and incapable they are of being an opposition party. I can’t believe James Carville suggested that the Democrats wait until Trump’s approval ratings cater to actually do anything to oppose him, what a stupid suggestion. As if approval ratings mean anything to Trump at this point. He’ll just ignore them or lie about them, say that they’re higher than they actually are. It is as if James Carville doesn’t know that the world has changed and that American politics 🇺🇸 doesn’t work the way it used to when he was a political strategist for the Democratic Party. If anyone should retire, it’s him since he was one of the main people who advocated Biden drop out of the race for being too old. The dude ♂︎ is old too, he’s 80 years old, just barely two years younger than Biden. 

If you’re going to say people shouldn’t have certain jobs simply because they’re too old then Carville has got to go. Cancel that podcast you’ve got going on because you have no idea what you’re talking about. The only Democrats who are actually willing to fight are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Jasmine Crockett, and a few others like Sheldon Whitehouse and Al Green, but they’re being held back by the actual leadership in the Democratic Party, who are mostly the old guard and the ones who are young are impotent. Sorry, Hakeem Jeffries. 

The Democrats are better at governing than the Republicans, but they’re way worse at messaging, and they’re way worse at being the opposition, even if the American people 🇺🇸 are craving for an opposition party with actual teeth, that will fight the good fight, and actually stop some of what Trump and Musk are doing. Or at least raise awareness of it. I bet they wouldn’t even do anything if Trump decided to outlaw the Democratic Party entirely, and start assassinating Democratic Party politicians like this is Putin’s Russia 🇷🇺 or something. Ah well, at least more people are starting protest 🪧 now, though we’ll see how long that lasts. We’ll see how long until Trump outlaws any protests 🪧 especially those against his regime and violently cracks down on them. 

The biggest news topic for the past few weeks has been on the foreign policy front, and that’s the peace negotiations between the US 🇺🇸 and Russia 🇷🇺 over the war in Ukraine 🇺🇦. Not between Russia 🇷🇺 and Ukraine 🇺🇦, between the US 🇺🇸 and Russia 🇷🇺. Putin and Trump are deciding the end of the war and the future of Ukraine 🇺🇦 without Zelenskyy or any other Ukrainian politician 🇺🇦, no Ukrainian diplomat 🇺🇦. People on the pro-Ukraine 🇺🇦 side were hoping that Trump would actually include the Ukrainians 🇺🇦 in these so-called “peace talks.” Trump even said he would include them in the negotiations. But I knew better 😑. I knew that Trump is a pathological liar, and that he was lying about negotiating the peace talks in good faith because he doesn’t care about Ukraine 🇺🇦. 

He doesn’t want Ukraine 🇺🇦 to win the war, or give them a seat at the table and letting them have a say in how this war ends and happens to the territories Russia 🇷🇺 stole from them. He wants Russia 🇷🇺 to win, and he wants Putin to win because he knows that if aligns himself with Putin, then he’ll have free reign to be a dictator himself and to invade and conquer whatever countries he pleases. That’s what was this is really all about. It’s about reorienting the US 🇺🇸’s alliance system to favor autocracies instead of democracies, so that Trump will be able to be a dictator and will be able to turn the US 🇺🇸 into an empire (some would argue that it already is an empire, but you know what I mean hopefully), invading Canada 🇨🇦, Greenland 🇬🇱, Panama 🇵🇦, Mexico 🇲🇽 and of course Gaza. 

I am embarrassed to admit that I watched Jake Broe again, even though I said I wouldn’t anymore because I saw him a joke, but I only did because I wanted to watch videos of people discussing the disastrous meeting between Zelenskyy, Trump, and Vance, and none of the pro-Ukraine YouTubers 🇺🇦 that I actually like (namely Sarcasmitron and Lazerpig 🐖) have been talking about any of this. In that video, Jake pretty much made the exact point that I made, in fact I kinda stole it from him, except he didn’t mention Mexico 🇲🇽, he just mentioned Canada 🇨🇦, Greenland 🇬🇱, Panama 🇵🇦, and Gaza. But, make no mistake, Trump does want to invade Mexico 🇲🇽 as well, he’s talked about wanting to use military force against Mexico 🇲🇽 (in the name of stopping drug cartels) and that no doubt include an invasion or an incursion of some kind. And I won’t be surprised if he tries to annex Mexican territory 🇲🇽. 

He said that Trump is doing this, he’s rushing through these peace talks, trying to undermine Ukraine 🇺🇦 and help Russia 🇷🇺, and end this war as quickly as possible so that he won’t have to think about it anymore, he won’t have to deal with it, so that he can focus on the real project he wants to pursue which to expand America 🇺🇸’s territory. He wants to end the war in a way that benefits Russia 🇷🇺 and Putin, so that he can do what Putin did in North America, Central America, and of course the Arctic with Greenland 🇬🇱 and in the Middle East with Gaza. Don’t think that just because he hasn’t been talking about them as much as he was when he first took office that he doesn’t still have these territorial ambitions and he wants to pursue them, and don’t assume that he won’t military force because he will. 

Trump began the peace talks with Russia 🇷🇺, the first initial round of talks between the two countries, Russia 🇷🇺 and the US 🇺🇸, in Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 (I said United Arab Emirates 🇦🇪 and Qatar 🇶🇦 in the foreword of the Inuyasha movies post, but I corrected it to say “Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦”), and what shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone but apparently was for some reason, Ukraine 🇺🇦 was excluded from the talks. It was just two big powers coming together, and discussing how to carve up territory together. This is how Trump and Putin want the world to be, they just want the world to be a world where big powerful countries dominate the world and smaller less powerful countries have no say and are at the mercy of those bigger and more powerful countries. 

This is what I meant about in the foreword of my Behind Enemy Lines review when I said that Trump, Putin, and Xi want to end the current unipolar world and replace with a multipolar one, they want to create a world where every great power has a sphere of influence, and that smaller countries are not “real,” and they have no real right to sovereignty. They’re just play things, chess pieces ♟️ to move around a geopolitical map. Now, we’re seeing that play out, we’re seeing Putin and Trump trying to make that reality. 

It’s also incredibly fitting that the first meeting Russia 🇷🇺 and the United States 🇺🇸 since the 2022 invasion was in Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 because Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 is not just an autocratic state, it’s an absolute monarchy with an abysmal human rights record, it’s not just a pro-Russian state 🇷🇺 that a leader who is as murderous and criminal as Putin in the form of Mohammad bin Salman, but is also a state that is pro-Trump. The Saudis 🇸🇦 like Trump, MBS likes Trump, despite what he has said about Gaza because he helped them out in the war against Yemen 🇾🇪. When the Saudis 🇸🇦 decided to intervene in the civil war in Yemen 🇾🇪 in support of the government there, Trump gave them weapons, even when Congress tried to stop him due to the Saudis 🇸🇦 killing civilians in their airstrikes, Trump vetoed it and kept selling them weapons anyway. 

Then, sometime after this first round of talks, Trump dismantled the task force responsible for enforcing the sanctions on Russia 🇷🇺. Meaning that he’s effectively lifted the sanctions on Russia 🇷🇺 without actually officially lifting the sanctions on Russia 🇷🇺. Then, if that wasn’t enough proof that Trump was pro-Russian 🇷🇺 and pro-Putin, the US 🇺🇸 voted against the UN resolution 🇺🇳 to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine 🇷🇺🇺🇦, joining such countries as North Korea 🇰🇵 (who is now a co-belligerent in the war fighting on Russia 🇷🇺’s side), Belarus 🇧🇾 (who has been involved in the current phase of the war since the very beginning as they allowed Russia 🇷🇺 to use their territory as a staging ground for the invasion), Mali 🇲🇱, Nicaragua 🇳🇮, Eritrea 🇪🇷, and Sudan 🇸🇩. 

There were others, but those were the main notable ones who voted against. Iran 🇮🇷 surprisingly did not vote against the resolution, instead abstained, despite Iran 🇮🇷 supplying Russia 🇷🇺 with weapons since the later half of 2022. I mean, I guess they’ve always abstained whenever these resolutions to condemn the war come up, but you’d think they’d change their stance they’re directly supplying weapons to one side, but I guess not 🤷‍♂️. Surprisingly, or surprisingly (depending on your point of view), Israel 🇮🇱 also joined the countries that voted against the resolution. Probably because they’re engaged in their own cruel war where they’ve targeted mostly civilians and have been accused of war crimes and genocide, and they have a pro-Russian prime minister 🇷🇺 who also has aspirations of being a dictator. 

Before the UN vote 🇺🇳 took place, Emmanuel Macron visited the White House to try to talk Trump out of siding with Russia 🇷🇺 and to convince him to maintain support for Ukraine 🇺🇦, and give them a real say in the peace talks. This meeting really didn’t produce anything of substance, Trump did not back down from his pro-Russian stance 🇷🇺 and in fact doubled down on it, and all we got were some awkward interactions between him and Macron, then grabbing each other’s hands and legs and everything. Then after that, we get the meeting in the Oval Office between Zelenskyy, Trump, and Vance. 

This meeting was initially meant to discuss the mineral deal that Trump wanted to make with Zelenskyy to give the US 🇺🇸 unfettered access to Ukraine 🇺🇦’s vast mineral resources (which Trump for some reason referred to as “raw earth minerals” instead of “rare earth minerals”) in exchange for what would inevitably be useless security guarantees. And of course to give off the false impression that Trump has any real intention of letting Ukraine 🇺🇦 have a say in how the war ends. This was just to give off the appearance that he was letting Ukraine 🇺🇦 have a seat at the table, when the real decisions being between him and Putin. This also comes after Trump called Zelenskyy a dictator, which he obviously isn’t. If he was, Trump would be kissing his ass because Trump only respects dictators, he doesn’t respect democratically elected leaders, and he wants to be a dictator himself. 

But, it turned into a verbal attack on Zelenskyy, where Trump and Vance were dressing him down, yelling at him, scolding him for every little thing and trying to humiliate him on the world stage. Then, when it was all said and done, they kicked out of the White House, and that mineral deal was off. Now, the US 🇺🇸 will not negotiate at all with Ukraine 🇺🇦 or give any security guarantees, it will just be a discussion between the White House and the Kremlin. Which, we all should’ve known was going to happen, but too many people were seemingly shocked and surprised that Trump is acting in a way that benefits Russia 🇷🇺 and Putin and hurts Ukraine 🇺🇦 and Zelenskyy. As some people have pointed, Trump has been pro-Russia 🇷🇺 this whole time. He’s had connections to Russia 🇷🇺 since the 1980s since the days of the Soviet Union ☭. Of course, he’s going to do everything he can to help them and not Ukraine 🇺🇦. As Rick Wilson from the Lincoln Project said in his video on the meeting, don’t be surprised if soon, Trump announces arm sales to Russia 🇷🇺. 

The whole meeting was pretty shameful, I didn’t watch the whole thing, but the parts I did see of it were pretty embarrassing. It’s enough to make you ashamed to be an American 🇺🇸, that our president is shaming and selling out an ally to a mass murdering dictator. Putin is a war criminal, no mistake about that, he has killed, tortured and raped thousands and thousands of Ukrainians 🇺🇦, most of them being civilians, and he has kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children 🇺🇦 and given them to Russian parents 🇷🇺. He has also poisoned his political opponents, even when they were in foreign countries like the UK 🇬🇧, and has engaged in high levels of corruption, during his time as the president of Russia 🇷🇺. So, he is a criminal in the traditional sense as well as being a war criminal. And that’s the guy that Trump has decided to side with. 

Probably the most embarrassing part, at least to me, was when they had Real America’s Voice 🇺🇸 reporter Brian Glenn ask Zelenskyy why he wasn’t worn a suit, saying that him not wearing a suit was disrespectful to the dignity of the Oval Office, and a lot of Americans 🇺🇸 have a problem with him not wearing a suit. That guy ♂︎ is also Marjorie Taylor Greene’s current boyfriend, so no wonder why he’s such a freak. But, you want to know what’s really disrespectful to the dignity of the Oval Office and to the office of the presidency? Letting a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who staged a violent insurrection against our government become president again four years after that failed insurrection and after that felony conviction, and letting an unelected billionaire (who also doesn’t wear a suit when he’s in the White House) run an unconstitutional department to cut or shut down government programs and agencies, gain access to the Treasury’s payment system, and gain access to Americans’ 🇺🇸 personal data. That’s what’s really disrespectful. 

So now, Trump has pretty much destroyed the transatlantic relationship, our relationship with Europe and Canada 🇨🇦 (more on that later) has collapsed. NATO hasn’t been destroyed yet, but Trump is certainly working on it, he is undermining it pretty much every day that he talks bad about Ukraine 🇺🇦 and sides with Russia 🇷🇺, and gives Russia 🇷🇺 what it wants. I won’t be surprised if he pulls the US 🇺🇸 out of NATO, something he wanted to do in his first term but couldn’t because there still sane people in his administration. 

It won’t matter if Congress passed a law saying that the US 🇺🇸 cannot withdraw from NATO without Congressional approval, he’ll just do it anyway without Congress. He’s already violated the constitution and gone against Congress numerous times, he created a new department, DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) purely with an executive order and not through a Senate confirmation which is how it’s supposed to be done. Congress has abrogated its responsibilities and let him do whatever the hell he wants so far, what would stop them or him now? Meaning that Europe will be on its own. They’ll have to support Ukraine 🇺🇦 and shore up their own defenses by themselves without the US 🇺🇸’s help. The US 🇺🇸 has pretty much switched sides and joined the side of Russia 🇷🇺, North Korea 🇰🇵, China 🇨🇳, Belarus 🇧🇾, and Iran 🇮🇷. 

Luckily the Europeans are slowly but surely waking up to this. They’ll newly elected chancellor of Germany 🇩🇪, Frederich Merz has said repeatedly that Europe needs to distance itself from the US 🇺🇸 in light of them siding with Russia 🇷🇺, and adopt a more independent foreign policy to defend Ukraine 🇺🇦 and to defend European democracy and sovereignty. But, considering that the pro-Russian 🇷🇺 far-right populist party, the AfD, won a lot of seats in the Bundestag (that’s Germany 🇩🇪’s parliament), I wonder just how of his pro-Ukraine 🇺🇦 agenda Merz will be able to implement. But, the Europeans are the only ones who are starting doubt the US 🇺🇸’s reliability as a security partner and are starting to distance themselves from it, as Australia 🇦🇺 and the Philippines 🇵🇭 are forming closer ties with one another other to defend themselves from China 🇨🇳 now that the US 🇺🇸 is becoming authoritarian and is siding with authoritarian countries like China 🇨🇳. 

Trump is as pro-China 🇨🇳 as he is pro-Russia 🇷🇺, so is Musk. All that “tough on China 🇨🇳” BS was just for show. As long as its dictatorship, Trump wants to be aligned with them. Which makes that whole argument that Trump is just doing all this to try to pivot to Asia all the more stupid. I won’t be surprised if Japan 🇯🇵 joins Australia 🇦🇺 and the Philippines 🇵🇭 in their little alliance, and if they end up distancing themselves from the US 🇺🇸 too, especially if Trump does anything to alienate them like suggesting the US 🇺🇸 own Okinawa because it once belonged to the US 🇺🇸, the US 🇺🇸 occupied it for 27 years after World War II until 1972 when they gave Okinawa back to the Japanese 🇯🇵. Just like he “suggested” the US 🇺🇸 own Gaza and use it for real estate. 

The only country Trump hasn’t alienated or distanced from is India 🇮🇳. Him and Narendra Modi have a great relationship. He made a successful weapons sale (which included F-35s) to India 🇮🇳 during all the drama involving DOGE and before the current drama with Ukraine 🇺🇦. The reason why is simple really. It’s because Modi is pro-Putin, India 🇮🇳 is pro-Russian 🇷🇺 and has been for many years, going back to the Soviet era. They’ve bought weapons and equipment from Russia 🇷🇺, Russia 🇷🇺 is the main supplier of the Indian military 🇮🇳, and since the start of the invasion, they’ve been buying Russian oil 🇷🇺🛢️, albeit at a discounted price. 

Modi has even allowed Putin to recruit Indian citizens 🇮🇳 to go fight in the war in Ukraine 🇺🇦. Like Trump, Modi is a wannabe dictator, and has been actively trying to roll back Indian democracy 🇮🇳. India 🇮🇳 has some of the worst democratic backsliding in the world. Of course, Modi and the Indian government 🇮🇳 as a whole doesn’t have a problem with the US 🇺🇸 switching sides and Trump siding with Putin because he supports Putin too. They’re all big bosom buddies, it’s an unholy alliance between Trump, Modi, Putin, and Xi. Dictators gotta stick together. 

Oh, and by the way, since I mentioned Gaza, Israel 🇮🇱 cut off all aid to Gaza, and the ceasefire between them and Hamas is starting to falter. So, the war may resume pretty soon, and this Israel 🇮🇱 will have full and unwavering support from the US 🇺🇸, and the US 🇺🇸 will even directly intervene to take over the Gaza Strip and place it under US control 🇺🇸 for the sake of land development. So yeah, all you people saying that Trump is better for Palestine 🇵🇸 than Biden, you’re all idiots. Kamala Harris would’ve been so much better for Palestine 🇵🇸 than Trump is right now, in fact, she would’ve been better on everything. If Harris were president Putin would’ve lost the war in Ukraine 🇺🇦, we would still have all of our allies, and we would still have a government that functions properly and serves the people. How anyone could’ve voted for Trump over her is baffling to me. People just don’t do their research or think that far ahead before they vote, and they’re easily fooled by empty promises from a guy ♂︎ like Trump. 

The big news yesterday, by the time I’m posting this, was that the tariffs on Canada 🇨🇦, Mexico 🇲🇽, and China 🇨🇳 have resumed after Trump paused them back in February. He didn’t rescind them, he kept them in place, and now they’re going back into effect. This will mean that pretty much every good coming in from Canada 🇨🇦, Mexico 🇲🇽, and China 🇨🇳 will be more expensive, meaning that prices will go up even higher, except now it won’t be food that will be more expensive, but non-food items like plastics and electronics. 

Everything that’s manufactured in China 🇨🇳 and Mexico 🇲🇽 will cost more now. All three countries have announced retaliatory tariffs as this has now turned into a full-on trade war once again, and of course the Canadian people 🇨🇦 will continue boycotting American goods 🇺🇸. They never stopped boycotting American goods 🇺🇸 after Trump first implemented the tariffs and then subsequently paused them, but they’ll do if even more now that they’ve gone back into effect. 

The premier of Ontario Doug Ford is even talking about cutting off power to the northern states in response to these tariffs, because all of the northern states get their electricity ⚡️ from Canada 🇨🇦, and specifically, from Ontario. He already floated around this idea before Trump took office, and after Trump first threatened to impose tariffs and called Canada 🇨🇦 the 51st state, but now the tariffs are on, he’s really considering doing it. So, I guess Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, and all of those other states just won’t have electricity ⚡️ anymore. Thanks Trump, your economic and diplomatic skills really helped them out with that one 😒. When the US 🇺🇸 enters a recession, you’ll know who to blame. 

One last thing I want to talk about before I finally wrap this baby up is that I found this video on YouTube a couple of days ago that was a parody or a meme of this PC game called Papers, Please 📄. It’s a puzzle simulation game that’s supposed to be a political commentary and critique of the US immigration system 🇺🇸, except it doesn’t use the US 🇺🇸 or any other real countries, it uses fictional countries. The main one that the game focuses on is Arstotzka, a very dystopian country that is a clear stand-in for the US 🇺🇸. You play as an immigration officer and you must decide whether to accept or deny people into the country based on their passports and whether or not they have the proper paperwork 📋. The game originally came out in 2013, and was critically acclaimed, being hailed as an “empathy game” of sorts, and as one of the greatest video games of all time. 

Well someone recently took that and made a parody video out of it called Papers, Please 📄: USA Edition 🇺🇸. It was not set in the country of Arstotzka, but in the actual United States 🇺🇸, and it was meant to poke fun of and critique the Trump administration, especially for its immigration policies. As well as comment on other political goings on in the US 🇺🇸 as of late. It even featured someone doing a Trump impression, which was pretty well done, one of the best Trump impressions I’ve ever heard. The things said in that video by that Trump voice definitely sound like things he would say. The video was so good and so convincing and accurate to the game, that people in the comments were saying that it should be an an actual mod. I’d highly recommend you watch it because it is one of the best political satires of the current moment that you will ever see.

— 

 

(This is a wallpaper image for Inuyasha showing the character of Kikyo with one of her Soul Collectors, those creatures that she uses to collect the souls of the recently deceased to maintain her body and keep herself alive on this plane.) 

 

 

You know what I noticed? It's that the character, Kikyo from Inuyasha and Yashahime (kind of) just will not die. Initially when I thought about this, I was thinking of titling this journal "Kikyo: The Character Who Refuses to Die," but as I thought about it, the title "Kikyo: The Character Who They Refuse to Kill Off" makes way more sense. Because I get the feeling that Kikyo kind of wants to die.

You know, she died once, and was brought back by some witch, and is wondering around the Japanese countryside as a ghostly specter without a real purpose or reason to keep living other than to kill Naraku, who tricked her into nailing Inuyasha to the Scared Tree with one of her arrows 50 years prior to the series's main events (at least, in the feudal era portion, the present day portion is set 500 years after the feudal era stuff). You kind of got the sense that she didn't want to live in that continued miserable existence (you know, essentially being in limbo as an undead entity) and that she wanted to die, which is why she went to confront Naraku at Mount Hakurei in the first place, to die.

But, sometime shortly after that, she's brought back to life again, this time by Kagome (her modern-day reincarnation), and continues existing, but she has to live in hiding because Naraku wants her dead more than anything (other than reassembling the Sacred Jewel and tainting it with his evil aura) and judging from I've seen in the last episode I watched last night, she's going to try and confront Naraku directly again and try sacrifice herself so she can die. And judging from the last time she tried to sacrifice herself, I'm guessing it's going to fail yet again, and she'll probably be brought back somehow, probably in The Final Act (which came out 5 years after the main series's original run).

I mean, it's kind of messed up that Kikyo keeps dying and keeps being brought back by the writers (including the original author of the manga that this whole show is based on). Even Kikyo's own little sister, Lady Kaede knows that this whole thing is wrong and that Kikyo probably shouldn't be alive for much longer. Even fucking Yashahime, the sequel series to Inuyasha, had to bring her back somehow. I mean, it's not exactly, like she's not really back for real, but her image is back because the Sacred Tree creates an avatar for itself that looks exactly like Kikyo to communicate to Towa and Setsuna and tell them about their mother, Rin and the main villain of that series, Kirinmura.

And the reason why the Sacred Tree chose her as the basis for its human form is because her arrow penetrated its bark, and therefore her essence imprinted onto the tree. It's kind of stupid, and unnecessary, and it's really just an excuse for the writers to have Kikyo in the sequel; even if it is just her image. I mean, I know Kikyo is supposed to be a really tragic character, but god damn! Why can't they just give this character some real closure and let her and her image rest in peace? If it were up to me, I wouldn't have brought her back at all, and if I did, I would've had this whole story arc/plot thread resolved as soon as it came up. Instead, the writers just dragged it on for several seasons including The Final Act.

But, back to Kikyo's second "death" at Mount Hakurei. I was not at all shocked that she wasn't actually dead from Naraku's attack. I knew that she was either still alive or if she was actually dead, she wouldn't be dead for long, and that they would bring her back somehow. I mean, I know she's in The Final Act after all. It's all very predictable, and I was not fooled for a second. All I got to say is that Naraku sure isn't a very thorough dude. I mean, this is by the far the woman ♀︎ that he's the most determined to kill, and yet, he didn't check to make sure that she was dead when he stabbed her at Mount Hakurei? He didn't stab her multiple times or obliterate her with a beam of energy to really make sure that was no chance that she could survive or be revived? That's kind of dumb and sloppy of him.

But then again, this is the same guy ♂︎ who was stupid enough to keep Sango's little brother, Kohaku alive by putting a Shikon Jewel shard in his back (instead of just adding that shard to the collection to create the whole jewel) when there's a huge chance that he could regain his memories and betray him 🤦‍♂️. Come on, Naraku! That is an incredibly asinine decision on your part, you're just creating more potential enemies for yourself in the future, when you need as many genuine allies as you can get; not that he even had that many. I mean, Naraku is kind of a dumb villain isn't he? Like he makes a lot of dumb decisions that end up biting him in the ass in the end. All because he's arrogant and cocky, and thinks he'll always succeed and come out on top no matter what he does (even though he pretty much fails over and over again despite all his amazing powers and evolutions/upgrades), and doesn't think anything through or isn't thorough enough? Like no wonder this guy ♂︎ ends up losing to Inuyasha and the gang in the end.

Speaking of things that the writers dragged on for way too long in the show, there's also that stupid love triangle between Inuyasha, Kagome, and of course, Kikyo. It's your typical male and female protagonist ♂︎♀︎ start having feelings for each other, but then an old flame from one of the protagonists' past shows up to stir things up, and the other protagonist gets jealous and then blames the other one. It's pretty uninteresting and one of the weakest aspects of the entire show, but there a lot of people who were invested in it; a lot of shippers. I mean, there are people who think Kagome is better for Inuyasha, and there are people who think Kikyo is better for Inuyasha, and think Kikyo is just better in general.

I don't know about all that, but I'll give you one reason why Kikyo is better than Kagome: she didn't put those beads on Inuyasha's neck, you know, the Beads of Subjugation. She almost did, she thought about it, but when the time came, Kikyo decided against it probably because she knew that it was wrong and a show of a lack of trust; and she wanted to gain Inuyasha's trust, and him to gain her trust. I mean, why couldn't Kagome have taken those beads off after they defeated Naraku? I mean, I'm sure at that point, Inuyasha had proven himself to be reformed and to be a good guy.

The beads are only meant to keep a bad demon from causing harm, and Inuyasha at that point in the series (The Final Act), had no intention of harming humans intentionally. So why keep the beads on him? Even after they've gotten married and had a kid? Probably because Kagome knows that the beads are great way of controlling him and punishing him for petty things like she usually does 🙄. Like Kagome uses those beads against Inuyasha even when he didn't do anything wrong, and it's because of Kagome's own anger, jealousy, and insecurities, she'll still make him sit; she even does it by accident or does it while she's intoxicated and not thinking clearly like in that one episode where she, Shippo, Sango, and that raccoon guy ♂︎ (I forget his name) all get drunk from that Sake mist, and she gets jealous when the obviously also drunk Sango flirts with Inuyasha, who's sober for some reason, along with Miroku. They're the only ones not affected by the Sake mist while the only two girls in the group, and the two comic relief sidekicks are affected.

And she never once apologizes for it when she sobers up. Probably because she was so drunk from the Sake mist that she literally doesn't remember, and also because Inuyasha didn't demand an apology from her for what she did to him, probably because he probably knew that if he did, she'd get pissed at him. Even though, she's the one who hurt him physically with drunken sit command, and he did nothing wrong. Inuyasha was rejecting Sango's advances on him, he wasn't playing along or flirting back or anything like that. He was not engaging with her at all because he knew she wasn't herself, and that she wasn't acting like herself because she was drunk from the Sake mist.

She's made him sit so many times that when Sango tries to do it, the guy's completely traumatized and fearful, like he had post-traumatic stress from the amount of times she's made him sit. You know, it's kind of a toxic and abusive relationship of you really think about it, and Kagome is the abuser while Inuyasha is the victim. I mean, if the genders were reversed, Kagome would be portrayed as a bad guy, the whole time would be way more uncomfortable to a lot of people, and rightfully so.

So, why does the show always take her side in this little love triangle? Like whenever Inuyasha goes to talk to Kikyo, and Kagome gets jealous, the other three characters, Miroku, Sango, and Shippo, always take her side. They never take Inuyasha's side or consider his feelings or his side of the story. It's pretty much: Inuyasha's always in the wrong and Kagome's always in the right 🙄. and it gets more infuriating in the last season, after Kikyo's revived for the second time (by Kagome no less), when Inuyasha is just talking to Kikyo and not kissing or hugging her. Like she tells him some vital information about Naraku, that they were leading them to a trap and she gave him an arrow to give to Kagome to use on Naraku.

Then, when Inuyasha goes to visit Kikyo and doesn't find her, and then meets back up with the group, Kagome automatically assumes that he's lying to her even though he's telling the truth that he didn't talk to Kikyo; and of course, Miroku, Sango, and Shippo all take her side, even though she's in the wrong and Inuyasha's in the right. Or when Inuyasha is in the present, trying to make money to replace Kagome's bicycle (which he broke by accident), she sees what happened to her bike like it's all twisted up and stuff, and she gets really pissed off. She's like really searching around him for to punish him, and when she hears him in the shed, she immediately makes him sit, causing him to destroy the shelf and break this vase that belonged to her grandfather and had sentimental value when he falls on it from the sit.

And then, to make all worse, when she goes to check on the shed to find Inuyasha and sees the broken shelf and broken vase, she blames Inuyasha for it, all of it. Even though, it was her sit command that caused him to fall on top of the shelf and break everything, including her grandfather's vase. She takes absolutely no responsible for it. So, yeah, Kagome is kind of horrible sometimes, and the whole love triangle between her, Inuyasha, and Kikyo is trash, utter trash! It brings the show down every time it's brought up. On top of Kikyo is better than Kagome in that she's not an abusive partner, and has enough conscience not put those beads on Inuyasha. Kagome kept them on even though she didn't need at a certain point.

Anyway though, enough ranting about things I don't like about Inuyasha, that was just something I noticed about Kikyo and her character arc while watching the sixth and final Blu-Ray set of the complete series. Do you agree or no? I'm sure at least one person sees where I'm coming from with all this.