My Thoughts on “Inuyasha: The Final Act”

Note: 

This was originally written and posted on DeviantART on Monday October 23, 2023. This is the last Inuyasha post that I wrote on DeviantART before I watched Yashahime and started reviewing that series. It’ll also be the last Inuyasha related post that I’ll post or repost for a while, unless there really is a third season to Yashahime, or they make another new Inuyasha series. Whether it’s a new spinoff or another sequel or even a straight reboot. They’ve been rebooting a lot of old anime lately. I don’t remember if I said this in the review of Season 2 Part 2 of Yashahime, but I would like to see an Inuyasha series that just centered around Inuyasha and his daughter Moroha. It wouldn’t have to be a full series, I was just thinking something along the lines of a miniseries. Miniseries are pretty popular nowadays. Hell, even so-called “full series” are really miniseries now. Either that, or an OVA or an ONA. I think that would be pretty cool. I even thought of the perfect title: Moroha & Inuyasha or Inuyasha & Moroha. 

I would love to see some more father and daughter moments between the two and see them kicking ass together considering that we didn’t really see them interact that much in the show since after they initially reunite with each other, they spend their rest of their screen time separate from each other. Moroha is off with Sesshomaru’s girls ♀︎, Towa and Setsuna, while Inuyasha is off with Kagome and his other friends doing something else. Then we don’t see them together again until final episode where Inuyasha is helping Moroha pay off her debt by killing all kinds of demons and collecting the bounties on them. Even then, we see only the end of that, after Inuyasha kills the last demon (or last few demons) to pay off Moroha’s debt, and then after her debt is paid completely, Moroha parts ways from her parents to go off on another adventure with Towa and Setsuna, which is what Season 2 ends on. 

So, I would see to a series with just Inuyasha and Moroha going off on an adventure together if the Inuyasha franchise continues after this, because they have a great father/daughter dynamic, and it’d be a huge waste not to do more with it. I mean, if we aren’t going to see much father/daughter moments or adventures between Sesshomaru and his daughters, we can at least see some with Inuyasha and his daughter since he seems to be much closer to her and wants to hang out with her and be there for her, owing to his human DNA 🧬. Whereas Sesshomaru is a full demon opts to just his distance from his daughters while occasionally helping them if they really need his help. Kind of what his father, Toga did with him and Inuyasha, and Sesshomaru acts a lot more like his father than Inuyasha does. 

I will say that I do think that Inuyasha: The Final Act is a pretty good finale for the original Inuyasha series. I like where everyone ends up by end except for Kagome. It still kind of rubs me the wrong that she abandoned her family in the present to go live in the feudal era with Inuyasha and the gang. I do think it’s interesting how Naraku is ultimately defeated in this movie. He gets purified by Kagome’s spiritual energy, and gets to die in peace. I’m not sure if he deserved a death that painless considering what a sadistic monster he was. If any character deserved to die an excruciatingly painful death, it was definitely Naraku. 

But, given the way they killed off Naraku in this series, there’s no way they can actually bring him back, which I hope they don’t do if Yashahime continues past Season 2 and has a Season 3, it would just cheapen his death and render all of Inuyasha and the gang’s accomplishments pretty much meaningless. Like, it would be sort of how Star Wars brought Palpatine back (as a clone mind you) just because they killed off Snoke and couldn’t come up with another cool new bad guy. So, they just reused the same one that worked before in both the original trilogy and prequel trilogy. “Somehow Palpatine returned,” except here, it would be, “Somehow Naraku returned.” But if he did come back, at least we’d get see Kagura again, she was one of my favorite characters from this series and it’s a shame she died. 

Some people like her as a item with Sesshomaru and probably wish he ended up with her instead of waiting for Rin to turn 18 and make her his baby mama. That’s the one thing that even people who like Yashahime didn’t like, that Sesshomaru ended up marrying Rin and having children with her, completely changing the dynamic of their relationship from being an almost father/daughter relationship with Sesshomaru being almost like a surrogate father to Rin to being a purely romantic one ❤️. It just comes across creepy 🤮, even if Sesshomaru did wait until Rin was of age to finally do the horizontal mambo with her and Rin herself looks like she’d be a good mom and sees to be a good mom in the one scene where we see her interact with her two daughters, Towa and Setsuna. 

I have seen some people argue that Inuyasha (as well as Yashahime) is an isekai series, which is an anime genre which pretty much just involves someone being transported to a fantasy world. That’s what isekai is. If that’s the case, then I say that Inuyasha possibly the best isekai series there is. Even if it’s not fully isekai since it doesn’t take place in a fantasy world, it still technically takes place in our world, but in the past. It’s a time travel story ⏱️ basically. But, there are fantasy creatures and there’s magic in the past, whereas their aren’t so it still counts. There is an another series that I plan on watching that it is also considered isekai, The Vision of Escaflowne, along with the movie, just called Escaflowne. Isekai has become of those anime genres that people have become wary of because of how oversaturated it is. Pretty every major anime that comes out every season is an isekai anime. Barely any other genres are represented in this weird seasonal model that the anime industry uses to release their stuff. Not only that, but most of the isekai anime that we’re currently getting is pretty terrible, so the market is being flooded not just with isekai shows but bad isekai shows, and we’re getting them every season of the year. 

Speaking of which, I hate how anime now is released seasonally. I see all these anime reviewers talk about spring anime 🍃, summer anime ☀️, fall anime 🍂, and winter anime ❄️, it’s ridiculous. Who the hell thought that releasing anime like this was a good idea 😤? They release these new anime shows in bunches, like several anime in a week or month, for as long as a season lasts, and then they’re quickly forgotten about and no one really thinks about them again after they watch them. 

People usually only watch one or two anime that’s released in a single season of the year because there’s too much of it and there’s simply not enough time to watch all the anime shows that come during a single season of the year. A lot of shows get buried or overlooked because of this model that Japanese and networks and studios 🇯🇵 have decide release anime. It’s like anime is treated as a disposable commodity and not as piece of art that you can enjoy and savor one at a time and come to later on down the line when you feel like watching it again. It’s so backwards, and ultimately bad for the animators who have to work on this stuff, and bad for the industry as a whole.

Well, I managed to release two new reviews last week, a review for Man of Steel and a review for Akira (1988). I crazy that I managed to do them back-to-back, but it’s quite fitting. There is some similarities between Man of Steel and Akira (1988) if you really think about it (I see a little bit of Akira in Man of Steel), and perhaps Zack Snyder did take some inspiration from that movie when he made Man of Steel considering that he also likes anime (and possibly manga) as well as comic books and superheroes (particularly DC superheroes). Sucker Punch proved that. Man of Steel also had a pretty big budget of around, $225 million-$258 million 💵, which I think would pretty good budget for a live action Akira movie. 

It would be enough to do everything that you want to do with a live action Akira movie while also not going over that $300 million 💵 range. Don’t want this movie to end up costing as much as The Electric State ⚡️ (with a budget of $320 million 💵), or Fast X (with a budget of $340 million 💵), or Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (with a budget of $295 million-$387 million 💵), or Spider-Man 3 (with a budget of $258 million-$350 million 💵) since there’s no guarantee that it would make back its budget in the box office, especially if word of mouth ends up being bad or mediocre. Also, since I reviewed Akira (1988) as well as reposted this, it means I’ve filled my anime quotation for this month. Give those reviews a read if you’re interested, I’d really appreciate it. I’m really proud of how both of them turned out. 

Oh, and one thing I absolutely failed to mention in my Man of Steel review that I can’t believe I didn’t think of when I was writing it, Power Rangers (2017). I can’t believe I didn’t think of Power Rangers (2017) when I was talking about the product placement in Man of Steel and how it compares to other product placement in other movies. I named Transformers: Age of Extinction as an example of product placement done wrong, and why Man of Steel’s product placement really wasn’t as bad as people made it out to be by comparison when you compare what movies like Age of Extinction have done. But, I totally forgot about Power Rangers (2017) and didn’t think of it. It’s also a pretty good example of product placement gone wrong or done wrong, and also demonstrates why Man of Steel’s product placement really isn’t as bad by comparison. 

I mean, Power Rangers (2017) was practically sponsored by Krispy Kreme, what with how many times they mention Krispy Kreme in that movie and the fact that big Macguffin of the movie, the Zeo Crystal, is literally underneath a Krispy Kreme establishment within Angel Grove, the one Krispy Kreme they probably have in that whole podunk town. There’s even a scene during the big action climax where Rita Repulsa goes inside the Krispy Kreme and starts eating the donuts 🍩, like the movie lingers on that for a minute or so. It’s crazy, I haven’t really seen anything like that before or since in a movie. 

Say what you want, but you can’t say that Man of Steel was sponsored by any one of the companies that were featured within it, or was as blatant about advertising them in the dialogue or in the actual scenes, whether it be 7 Eleven, Sears, U-Haul, Nokia, Canon, or IHOP. Maybe it was a little sponsored by IHOP, but the IHOP references in Man of Steel are not as bad as the Krispy Kreme references in Power Rangers (2017), like IHOP was not directly tied to the main plot of Man of Steel the way Krispy Kreme was to the main plot of Power Rangers (2017). 

Sure, Superman and Faora fight for a little bit inside the IHOP, but it’s not like the codex was literally inside the IHOP, and it’s not like there’s an entire 1 minute scene where Faora stops the fight just to get a plate of pancake 🥞 and the movie just stops to show her eating that plate of pancakes 🥞. Another thing I realized is that both Transformers: Age of Extinction and Power Rangers (2017) came out after Man of Steel. And they both did product placement worse than Man of Steel did. Even other movies like the genderbent remake of She’s All That, He’s All That and Space Jam: A New Legacy have worse product placement than Man of Steel. Space Jam 2 was just straight up a commercial for HBO Max (back when it was still called HBO Max 😒). 

I should review Power Rangers (2017) some time in the future though, no body talks about that movie anymore or really remembers anything from that besides the scene at the beginning where Jason (as in, Jason Scott) jerks off a bull 🐂 (mistakingly believing that it was a cow 🐄) as part of a failed school prank and the Krispy Kreme sponsorship. And I don’t think that movie is as bad as people made it out to be when it came out, in fact, if I remember correctly, I actually liked it and gave it a positive review when I saw it. 

I did review this movie previously back on DeviantART but I want to do a re-review, a complete reevaluation, rather than just repost that same review because it’s been 8 years since I’ve seen the movie and written that review of it, and I’m much older now than I was I wrote that initial review. I was still a teenager when I wrote that, and now I’m in my late 20s. I want to see what I would think of the movie while seeing it though a more mature lens. Will I still like it or will not hate it this time around? There’s one way to find, and that’s actually watching it again and writing my review. 

There are a few things that I want to announce here since this will be my last post for the month of April. I’ll start with the Predator: Badlands trailer first since that’ll be the shortest. Yes, Twentieth Century Studios (really Disney since Twentieth Century Studios is a fully Disney owned company) released the first trailer to Predator: Badlands, the upcoming live action Predator movie from Dan Trachtenberg, the same director as Prey (2022)…and also 10 Cloverfield Lane, though no really cares about that movie. It’s still pretty good though 👍. I do plan writing a dedicated post to the trailer since there is enough to talk about with that trailer that justifies it having its own post. I’ve already written a post about the trailer to Predator: Killer of Killers, an animated anthology film that is billed as a “secret project” that Dan Trachtenberg was working on while making Predator: Badlands. 

I guess it’s meant to be an appetizer before we get to the main course which won’t be out until November. But at least it’s coming out in theaters, instead of just being relegated to streaming like Prey (2022) was and Predator: Killer of Killers will be. Probably won’t get to see it in IMAX though since my grandma doesn’t like IMAX, and IMAX tickets are pretty expensive (more expensive than even just 3D tickets), so I’ll probably have to stick with a standard movie theater which is better than just watching it on a regular flat screen TV. I better stop here and just save the rest for the actual post, which will probably be out in the next couple of days. Oh, and the trailer to Wednesday Season 2 also came out last week, I’ll probably write a post about that too. That way I can increase the amount of Wednesday/Addams Family posts I have on my blog. 

The next announcement I’d like to make is that since the live action Lilo & Stitch movie is coming next month, I’m going to review the 2002 animated original. I’d rather rewatch that movie than watch the live action remake which I’m still pretty skeptical about. I’ll only give that movie a chance if other people who just as skeptical of it as I am say it’s good. Though, I doubt many of them will watch it either. I’m even going to have a Hawaiian themed wallpaper on my laptop 💻 for the month of May for the occasion. I will also mention the direct-to-DVD 📀 sequels that have been made out of Lilo & Stitch, as well as the video game, Disney’s Stitch! Experiment 626, and the TV series, Lilo & Stitch: The Series. 

I’m also thinking of reviewing Tron: Legacy and the 1982 original so that I’ll be all caught up for when Tron: Ares comes out. Even if that movie looks to be more of a soft reboot that, while acknowledging the first two, mostly does its own thing. I wrote a post about the trailer if you’re interested. But, even if I don’t get to those movies in May, I always wait until June or any month afterwards since Tron: Ares doesn’t come out until October. But, I want to review the first two Tron movies while they’re still on my mind when I want to watch them and have things to say about them. I mean, I already wrote down some notes for things to say in the review for Tron: Legacy at least, but I want to strike while the iron is still hot if that makes any sense. I’m also thinking of reviewing Chicken Little 🐓 as well in the month of May if possible, I’ve got a lot things to say about that movie. Just with Tron: Legacy, it’ll be a rewatch for me since I’ve already seen Chicken Little 🐓 in the past, but it’s been awhile since I’ve actually watched it. 

I also have plans on watching and reviewing Geostorm, the directorial debut of Roland Emmerich’s long time friend, producer and writing partner Dean Devlin. I’ve already mentioned it in my last couple of posts, including the Man of Steel review and the foreword of the Godzilla vs. Kong review. My interest in the movie was renewed after watching Carnage Count’s video on it. No one else is reviewing it or talking about it, not even PointlessHub even though it’d be perfect for his channel given how much talks about Roland Emmerich and disaster movies, and this is a disaster movie that’s tangentially related to Roland Emmerich by way of his friend and colleague. So, I gotta be the one to do it. I don’t currently own it, and it’s on available on streaming for free, so I’ll either have to buy it or rent off of Fandango at Home or Apple TV+, or I’ll have to buy it on Blu-Ray 💿. I think I’ll wait to get it on Blu-Ray 💿 off of Amazon, if I have to buy it anyway (even if I am using my aunt’s account) I’d rather get a physical copy and not digital since a Blu-Ray disc 💿 doesn’t require Internet 🛜 to work. There’s no guarantee when I’ll be able to get it though, so just know that I plan reviewing it in the future. 

In addition those reviews, I also plans of continuing the YouTubers I’m Currently Subscribed To series. The last two entries were on Elvira Bary (a Russian-American YouTuber 🇷🇺🇺🇸) and Huey Li (a Chinese-American YouTuber 🇨🇳🇺🇸), you can go read those if you want. I was planning on writing on either kylie boggly or Dream Jelly, but I’m thinking of writing one on LazerPig 🐖 because I’m feeling inspired after I saw his most recent video on Cultural Marxism. Don’t worry, he wasn’t saying it was real, he was debunking it. He’s not a right-wing weirdo or Trump cultist. 

He did also use the video to get some other political things off his chest since he’s mostly a military history channel and talks about tanks and jets. I promise that after I write the post about LazerPig 🐖, that I’ll write one of these on a YouTuber I’m subscribed to that isn’t overtly or tangentially political. I don’t want YouTubers I’m Subscribed To to just be about political YouTubers because I’m subscribed to a lot more than political YouTubers. So, after the pig 🐖, expect me to write about some non-political YouTubers in the future. 

I’d also like to take this time to apologize for not reviewing the PS1 Bruce Willis game, Apocalypse (1998). Not to be confused with Armageddon ☄️ of course, which also starred Bruce Willis. I first mentioned it in my post about the CN Groovy for Atom Ant ⚛️🐜, and I said that I was going to review it. I was going to review that game this month, but I ended up slacking off and getting caught up in other things that I never got around to it. Hopefully next month, in May, I can get around it too, but I won’t make any promises. You might be wondering how exactly I’m going to review that game consider it’s on PlayStation 1 and I don’t have a PS1, nor do I have an emulator, easy, I’ll just watch a longplay of it on YouTube. That’s I did when I reviewed Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc. You can read that one if you want. 

There’s one last announcement that I want to make before I finally close this out, my Ruby Gloom review is now my most popular post. It overtook my Fifth Element review, and currently sits at 290 views. I don’t know if any those views trickle down to the rest of my blog, I doubt it, but at least one of my posts is actually getting views. Ruby Gloom must be really popular for a review of it to accumulate that many views over the course of a few months. Guess people really love their gothic Canadian cartoons 🇨🇦. It must also be the only post of mine on this blog that actually shows up in the search results. I really do hope that my blog gains more traction that people actually read my other posts. I don’t want my Ruby Gloom review to be the only post on this blog that gets any sort of views. 

Oh, and while I’m mentioning stuff, I completely forgot that I mentioned Dune: Part One in this review. I did watch Dune: Part One right around the time that I watched Inuyasha: The Final Act, and I didn’t like it. The fact that I didn’t even bother watching Dune: Part Two even after it got all that praise and awards attention should tell you that. I liked Inuyasha: The Final Act way more than Dune: Part One. Denis Villeneuve is the most overrated director working in Hollywood working today. Even more overrated than Christopher Nolan or Quentin Tarantino.

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(This is the cover art for the Blu-Ray release 💿 of Inuyasha: The Final Act.)

 

I just finished watching Inuyasha: The Final Act, the final season of the original Inuyasha anime series, and what a ride it has been. I didn't have to wait as long to watch it as the fans of the show did when this stuff was originally airing. The original series run ended in 2004, and The Final Act didn't start airing until 2009. So, they had to wait about 5 years to get the final conclusion to the story. I, on the other hand, only had to wait a few months until I had the financial means to purchase it. It's actually pretty fitting that I'm writing this because I also watched Dune yesterday, and that was a film who's story is yet to be completed, while this show's story is complete.

Right off the bat, After watching The Final Act, I can safely say that I know what one writers of Inuyasha who was interviewed on that one special feature on the first disc of the First Inuyasha Blu-Ray set meant when he said the first couple of episodes felt rushed. They go through a lot of story within 5 or 6 episodes, and they don't give you a lot of time for it all to marinate and let it soak in for the viewer. But, the season does eventually find its footing, and it does adopt a slower pace that flows more naturally, and when it does, it is pretty satisfying.

I guess I shall get into the character deaths first 💀, since a few of them do exemplify the rushed nature of the early half of the season, and it is an important topic to bring up when talking about which characters lived and which characters died 💀. Most of the character deaths in The Final Act were pretty expected, like the characters that did die weren't that surprising to me. It was pretty predictable if you had been watching the entire series from beginning to end like I was, and you got a sense of where it was going based on how certain things were progressing.

The deaths that were the most expected were the deaths of Naraku's incarnations, mostly because I spoiled about their deaths while searching for Inuyasha videos on YouTube 😑. But, even then, with the things were going, it was pretty easy to guess that they were all going to die, especially Kagura. Kagura was basically dead meat the moment that Hokudoshi was created, there was no hope for her and her character arc was going to end as tragically as it began.

Her death is probably the most emotional out of Naraku's incarnations who died, because she was the one Naraku incarnation that was the most sympathetic. All she wanted was freedom, the freedom to determine her own destiny and make her own choices and not being a pawn or a henchman to Naraku. But, the tragedy of her character is that she never had any choice from the moment she was created, she was always tied to Naraku, and Naraku always had her on a leash. So, the only freedom she could get was death 💀.

The thing that I liked about the way her death was executed was that Sesshomaru was with her when she finally died. It was pretty obvious that Kagura had some sort of feelings toward Sesshomaru, with how highly she thought of him and how she went out of her way to be with him and see him, even if it was her last. In the end, Sesshomaru returned the favor and went to see Kagura in her final moments, allowing her to die in peace 🪦. Hokudoshi's death, on the other hand, was rightfully satisfying. He was a creepy and conniving bastard, and definitely deserved to die. He was even too evil for Naraku. He basically let him die, and made no attempt to save him because he was plotting to betray him and take his place Starscream style.

The Naraku incarnation death that I was the most caught off-guard by was Kauna's death. I mean, I knew she going to die, they were all going to die, but I didn't expect the way it played. They really turned her into a sympathetic character in her final moments, and even had Inuyasha and the gang taking pity on her and trying to stop her from killing herself by following Naraku's orders. But, in the end, Kauna gained a little tiny bit of emotion, feeling sorry for the death of Kagura and starting to doubt Naraku, and she gave Kagome that hint she needed to figure the key to stopping Naraku.

But, of course, being that this is Naraku, and that he never had any parental or familial feelings towards his incarnations, he replaced them all with another incarnation with very little thought. One last incarnation by the name of Byakuya, who is admittedly a pretty entertaining character in his own right. I like how nonchalant he is about everything, like he's a little casual in his demeanor, and he always makes off-hand comments about the characters for doing certain things or making certain choices that don't make sense to him. Like, when he criticizes the main heroes for going inside Naraku's body in the final battle instead of destroying his body from the inside.

The next death that was kind of expected as Kikyo's. I already wrote a journal a few months ago talking about how the writers and the original manga creator refuse to let Kikyo die, and while most of that does stand (my opinions haven't really changed a whole lot on that), they do give her a pretty definitive end. Kikyo is indeed dead for real by the end of The Final Act (though she does die towards the middle, and not the end end), and it is as emotional as you expect. Her death hits everyone hard, especially Inuyasha and Kagome, who by far have the deepest connection to her.

So, the Kikyo that appears in Yashahime is not the real Kikyo. The real Kikyo is dead and is not coming back, at least any time soon. The Kikyo that appears in Yashahime is just an imitation of her, an avatar created by the Sacred Tree to communicate to Towa and Setsuna, Sesshomaru's twin daughters. The reason why the Sacred Tree uses Kikyo's image is that her spiritual energy or her essence imprinted onto the bark of the tree when she launched her arrow into Inuyasha's chest into the tree, pinning him to it, 50 years prior to the events of the original Inuyasha series in the Feudal era.

So, Kikyo is not alive or back from dead, despite what some people might say, but I still don't like that they keep bringing her image or essence or presence back into the franchise. Just leave that character and her image/essence/presence alone already, we get it 😑. Kikyo is a dead horse that the writers and the original manga creator keep beating and won't let go for some reason.

The next few character deaths are also bit expected, and one of them is a bit of a cop out in my opinion, so I go through them pretty quick. I knew, that at some point, Kohaku was going to lose his jewel shard and he was going to die at least temporarily. I knew that he was not going to stay dead for very long because he appears in Yashashime, and I've seen clips from that show, so I've been spoiled on a lot of plot points from Inuyasha, thanks YouTube 😑. And even with the way his death and resurrection were executed, I still think bringing him back was a cheat, a cop out of the highest order. I think that he should have stayed dead.

Why? So, that this show would not end with such a neat bow tied at the end, that at least one of the protagonists would permanently lose something to Naraku, and never get it back through any magic or sorcery or whatever. Having Sango lose her brother, perhaps for the greater good of stopping Naraku by purifying him with his shard when the Shikon Jewel to fully assembled, would've been way better for the story and Sango's character arc. It show that the fight against Naraku had consequences, and that not everything would be hunky dory after he was vanquished. But, that's just me, I'm a little messed up like that where I want characters to die and stay dead instead of having them live and have a happy ending.

The last character death that I will talk about is the man himself, Naraku. Obviously, Naraku was going to die, he's the main bad guy of the entire series, and bad guys usually die in shows like this, the good ones at least. I was just waiting to see the way he died, and I was kind of surprised with how it played out. I did like that it took the combined effort of all the major characters to bring him down, instead of having it just be Inuyasha who takes him down.

Inuyasha was not the only one who had beef with Naraku, and wanted him dead. Sesshomaru had a beef, Sango had a beef, and Miroku had a beef. The only one that was missing was Koga, but I didn't really have a problem with him not being there. His character arc was pretty much complete once he lost his jewel shards to Naraku, and there was no use in having him linger on in the show. Plus, he has a pretty happy ending at the end, with him becoming the chief of the wolf tribe, and marrying that wolf girl who appeared in the original series run; finally getting over his crush on Kagome.

But, the part that I didn't really expect when Naraku is finally defeated, is that he merges with the Shikon Jewel, as a desperate, last ditch effort to save himself from the barrage of Inuyasha, Sesshomaru, Sango, and Kagome, and then when once Kagome's sacred arrow pierces the Shikon Jewel, he dies and his soul goes into the Jewel. There he lingers on in a sort of purgatory inside of the Jewel, until Kagome makes the "one correct wish" and literally wishes away the Shikon Jewel, his soul finally disappears, and he finally dies while at peace. Which basically kills any chance of him coming back in Yashahime. If he did come back, he probably would not be a villain, since he lost any and all reason to be evil once the jewel was purified (he along with it), and he finally came to terms with his unrequited love for Kikyo being the main motivation or driving force behind his actions all along.

But, that still would be kind of interesting though. A reformed Naraku coming back from the dead, and fighting for the good side alongside Inuyasha and Sesshomaru. If that's the case, then maybe, Hokudoshi would be the main returning villain that they would have to team up to stop, since I do have a theory that all of Naraku's incarnations are intrinsically connected to him. So, if Naraku somehow comes back to life, then they all come back to life. Meaning that hypothetically, Hokudoshi could return in adult form to wreck havoc on Feudal Japan, finishing what he started.

One last thing I would like to touch on before I wrap this up is I'm not sure how I feel about Kagome choosing to live in the Feudal era at the end. I mean, I know that she loved Inuyasha and Inuyasha loved her, but still, she basically gives up everything, and abandons her family to go live a time period that she's not even from and was not meant to actually live in. That's too much of a fairy tale ending to me, and I don't really like the implications of it. I would've been more okay if Inuyasha chose to live in the present with Kagome, instead of Kagome choosing to live in the Feudal era with Inuyasha. Or maybe, Inuyasha and Kagome could've worked something out and found away for them to live in both worlds. But, even those are too much of a fairy tale ending. I know, I know, it's "Feudal Fairy Tale," but that doesn't mean it has to have a clichéd fairy tale ending like this.

But, overall, I enjoyed it, I enjoyed Inuyasha: The Final Act. It brought the series to the proper conclusion that it deserved, and it ended it in as satisfying as it possible. If you're someone who just started watching Inuyasha, or you're almost to the end, you can be assured that it does end in a satisfying way that will make you feel like your investment was worth it. It definitely made this whole ride worth it. After finally finishing the whole thing, I can safely say that Inuyasha is now one of my favorite anime shows, and one of the best that I've ever seen.

I still think that the show peaked with the Mount Hakurei arc, that was easily the best story arc in the entire series and the Band of Seven were definitely the best villains. Nothing, including this, was able to top that in my opinion, even though this was pretty good as well. My older sister definitely has good taste, and I'm glad that we finally agree an anime show. We even agree that Sesshomaru is by far the best character in Inuyasha. I still think they should've made a spin-off series of him, whether it was a prequel or a sequel. I would also like to see new Inuyasha video game for the next gen consoles, but that's a whole other story.

Speaking of which, I'm not sure if I'll ever watch Yashahime or not. I'm not completely sold on the idea of it, and I didn't like some of the creative choices they made that I saw from the clips that I saw. The villain and the conflict of Yashahime is certainly less interesting than the villain and conflict in Inuyasha. I mean, Inuyasha was kind of just an episodic demon-of-the-week show early on before it finally settled on Naraku as the bad guy.

But even then it was way more interesting and fun to watch than Yashahime is in its early seasons/episodes. But, I shouldn't judge too harshly since I haven't actually seen it and only seen short clips of it. However, if I do decide to watch Yashahime, I will not do it immediately after finishing Inuyasha. The next show I plan to watch after Inuyasha is either Cannon Buster, an original western anime series on Netflix or Dorohedoro, a fully Japanese anime series that is also on Netflix. I'm still undecided yet, but, Inuyasha was definitely good though.

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Note: 

Something I forgot to mention in the main journal is the voice change for both Sesshomaru and Kagome. As you likely know, if you are a fan of Inuyasha, Sesshomaru was voiced by David Kaye in the English dub. He was perfect in the role, he really provided the perfect voice for Sesshomaru that really embodied that character and who he was, and in my mind, he is Sesshomaru. However, they did not hire him to reprise the role in the English dub for The Final Act, instead, they got a new guy named Michael Daingerfield to voice him.

I definitely don't like his voice as much David Kaye's, and at first, I was a bit distracted that it wasn't David Kaye voicing him in the English dub for The Final Act, especially when I saw clips of it on YouTube. I like things to stay consistent between new installments of movie franchises or between new seasons of shows, unless they have a legitimate reason to change an actor/actress or change something else. And I don't feel that they had a legitimate reason to change Sesshomaru's English voice in The Final Act because the previous voice actor was still alive and would've probably been willing to reprise the role if they had asked.

But, when I actually watched The Final Act on Blu-Ray with my PS4, I got used to it after a while. I didn't care as much that it was a different voice actor because I was so sucked into the story and the characters, and eventually it kind of started to sound like him. Now, while I still prefer David Kaye's voice, I think that Michael Daingerfield did a fine job giving his own vocal take on the character. And the same goes for Kagome's English voice actress.

She is voiced by Monica Stori in the English dub for the main Inuyasha series (the original run from 2000 to 2004), and she is voiced by Kira Tozer in The Final Act. Like with Sesshomaru's English voice actor, I was also a bit distracted when I listened to the voice for the first time on YouTube and it wasn't the same as the main Inuyasha series. I didn't really like the new voice that much, I wished that they had stuck with the original English voice actress, which is the way I felt about Sesshomaru's English voice actor.

But, like with Sesshomaru's new English voice actor, once I actually started watching the season for real (and not just watching clips on YouTube), I got used to the new voice for Kagome and I stopped caring because it kind of just started to sound like her anyway after awhile. So, I think that Kira Tozer did a decent job, but I still kind of prefer Monica Stori because that was the original English voice and that was the voice that I got used to.

As for the other English voice actors and voice actresses, most of them returned to reprise their roles from the original Inuyasha series run. I heard that the English voice actor for Kohaku was different in The Final Act, but I didn't notice any difference. His voice sounded the same as it did the original series run, and if it was a different voice actor, then he did a good job sounding like the previous guy. But, Inuyasha, Miroku, Sango, Shippo, Koga, Jaken, Rin, Naraku, Kikyo, Lady Kaede, etc., they all have the same English voice actors and voice actresses as in the original series run.

Of course, they were going to keep the same voice actor for Inuyasha, what did you think they would replace Richard Ian Cox? No, get out of here. He is the definitive English voice for Inuyasha, and it's hard to find someone else who can voice that role in English better than he can. Plus, Inuyasha is the main protagonist of the show.

He is the titular character, and is the face of the whole franchise. I know, some would argue that Kagome's the actually main protagonist of the show, but no, Inuyasha is, stop kidding yourselves. If she was the main protagonist and absolute main character, why would they call it Inuyasha? Why not call it Kagome? So, no, Kagome is not the main character, Inuyasha is. She is a main character, not the main character.

So, if the English voice for him wasn't good, then the entire English dub would've fallen apart, but luckily it didn't and they found the perfect guy to voice Inuyasha. I wish they took the same care for Sesshomaru, the undisputed best character of the entire series, and entire franchise of Inuyasha, and carried the same voice actor for him from the original run over to The Final Act.

But, they didn't, and Sesshomaru has two English voice actors, and I definitely prefer the original over the new one they got for The Final Act. Even though, the new one didn't do a bad job. I know, this is very nitpicky, but voice acting is important in animation, both in western animation and Japanese anime 🇯🇵 and other eastern animation 🇨🇳🇰🇵🇰🇷. And before you ask, yes, North Korea 🇰🇵 does produce its own animation, so it does count as eastern animation. Yes, most of, if not, all of North Korea 🇰🇵's animation is just political propaganda (just like every piece of media that country produces domestically), but it still counts 🤷‍♂️. The voices bring the characters to life. They turn them from just drawings on a page or on a screen to actual living beings that a viewer or an audience member can relate to. So, it is a point worth bringing up.