Volume 4

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The Inuyasha Narrative, Part 4: The Freedom of the Sengoku Era
	Translation provided by: Robby Stine of Kanabits

The Sword-fighting Opera I’d Always Wanted to Draw

Up until the start of Inuyasha, my creations had mainly been comedies, so I really wanted to try something, I dunno, more story-focused? Or at least something where I didn’t always need a punchline. And also, I wanted to try something in the Sengoku era, but even more so I wanted this, like, operatic adventure with a lot of swordplay. I’d always loved kimono and other traditional Japanese clothing, so I wanted an opportunity to draw them. And you can’t have traditional clothes without swords, and that’s where the swordplay came from. So traditional clothes played an important role in Inuyasha’s development.

My First Long Running Story Without Laughs

Looking at what I’d done up until that point, there was Urusei Yatsura, which was science fiction, with characters from all sorts of places. And then there was Ranma 1/2, which was peppered in Chinese aesthetics. So when thinking of what to do next, it seemed high time for a Japanese story. I also wanted to try something new. I was well aware that my readers tended to change with each successive title, so even though it would require some work, I wanted to do something that would feel different from Ranma 1/2.

Inuyasha is not as funny as Ranma 1/2, but then of course it wasn’t supposed to be a comedy. I guess my readers had expected at least a little bit of comedy, though. When Inuyasha first began, we did have some complaints about that. It was a bit of a thing (laughs). People were asking where the jokes were. I think people just associate my name with comedy, so they went into Inuyasha expecting that and were disappointed. The shift from comedy to adventure was the change I had been looking for, I guess. To me, it wasn’t something I’d considered too deeply, I was only guided by the desire to make something Japanese.

The Sengoku Era is a Blank Canvas

When I started drawing the Sengoku era, trying to express that these were pre-Nobunaga times was difficult. The castles then didn’t have towers, so that’s how I drew them, but that’s hard for most to pick up on. But what can you do? As for people’s daily lives, I consulted old illustrations and drawings, but I can’t confidently say that I represented the era perfectly. It’s probably as accurate as the story needs it to be, though. I never explicitly stated the era or the year, so the Sengoku era provided a good blank canvas for the creation of the manga.

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