Volume 13

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The Inuyasha Narrative, Part 13: The Unruly Souls of the Band of Seven, Part I
	Translation provided by: Robby Stine of Kanabits

The Joy of Creating the Band of Seven

The Band of Seven fulfilled an important role in the story, which was a bit of excitement on the cast’s journey to Mount Hakurei. And I thought if there were seven, I could introduce them one by one as needed. I don’t often do teams, and I had a lot of fun thinking up the different members. I didn’t do any character design sheets for them, though Ginkotsu turned out pretty interesting, I think.

Bankotsu, Strong Enough to Face Inuyasha

If we’re going to discuss each member one at a time, we should of course start with Bankotsu. He’s the last of the group to make his appearance, so I thought he should be fairly young and cool. He is the group’s leader, after all. I was careful not to make him someone readers would be disappointed in. I mean, he is the one that’s going to fight Inuyasha, so he’s got to be tough. He’s got Banryu, this huge sword, so he had to be strong enough to swing that thing around single-handedly. I suppose I wanted something different from the other members. Each member has a unique weapon that distinguishes them from the others, and I wanted Bankotsu’s to be the most straightforward. Same with his fighting style. He’s all about physical strength, as is Inuyasha. Bankotsu needed to strong enough face him. All in all, he was a powerful leader.

Jakotsu Was Originally a Woman

I originally had the idea of there being one female member of the Band of Seven, and that’s who Jakotsu was supposed to be. But when I thought about Jakotsu fighting Inuyasha and the others, something seemed a little off, and that’s how Jakotsu came to be the character as you know him. His kind of character was a first for me, so I had a lot of fun with him. As for his sword, Jakotsuto, I made a paper model of it once to see how it would move. I cut out a bunch of crescent shapes, linked them all together, and tested it out. I wanted Jakotsuto to be the kind of weapon no one had ever seen before.

Inuyasha was Jakotsu’s type, but Sesshomaru was not. And he almost lost his life for that, didn’t he? That said, he actually may have been a pretty good judge of character.

Bankotsu and Jakotsu had a lot of scenes together. They made a good pair and were fairly popular together as a result.

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