Fire Tripper
炎トリッパー
Faiya torippa

Suzuko seems like an ordinary girl, but she has a strange memory of being trapped in a burning house. One day while walking home from school, she sees a little boy she knows named Shuhei showing off his stomach. When she asks why he's showing some boys his belly, he tells her that he was showing them a scar from getting his appendix removed. Suzuko tells Shuhei that she'll walk him home, and on the way a large gas explosion occurs in front of them. When Suzuko awakens she realizes she is on a battlefield littered with dead bodies. Some vagrants see Suzuko and attempt to rape her until they are stopped by a young warrior named Shukumaru. Shukumaru takes her back to his village where she sees him give a bell to a young girl named Suzu.

When Shukumaru tells Suzuko that she needs to change into some new clothes, she comes across Shuhei's shirt. Suzuko realizes that she must have accidently brought him with her when she travelled through time and attempts to find him, but can not.

Suzuko soon realizes that she is in fact the little girl in the village named Suzu, and that she was born in Shukumaru's time. After saving Shukumaru from a falling log that was set on fire, she realizes that fire allows her to travel through time. Now in present day, she takes Shukumaru home to clean his wounds and notices he has a scar at the same place Shuhei had his appendix scar. Suzuko realizes that Shukumaru must have been seperated from her in mid-time switch earlier and that he had been raised in the past all along. Shukumaru tells her how much he's enjoyed his life, so Suzuko doesn't feel guilty about what happened. Suzuko and Shukumaru use the same gas explosion that sent them back the first time to travel back to Shukumaru's time and live happily. If you're a fan of Takahashi's Inuyasha manga, then you'll certainly enjoy this one.

Chapter Details

	Published In: Shonen Sunday Zokan 1983 #8 Rumic World Vol. 1
	Publication Date: August 1, 1983
	Pages: 4 (full color) 50 (black and white)
	Anime Adaptation: Firetripper OVA
Notes: Many ideas and plot-devices in this story prefigure those that would later be featured in Inuyasha. The time loop that is depicted here is also revisited in Takahashi's MAO. Shukumaru (宿丸) - The "Shu" in Shuhei and Shukumaru are written differently. An older meaning of the Shuku (宿) in Shukumaru is "outcast". Particularly outcasts in the Kyoto region between the Kamakura and Edo period. It is a term that would specifically be used for people who were exiled from their village. Akauma (赤馬) - Viz uses the literal translation as this character's name, "Red Horse." “The 16th century during the civil war?” - The Sengoku period (戦國時代, Sengoku Jidai, "Warring States period") is a period in Japanese history of near-constant civil war, social upheaval, and political intrigue from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the feudal system of Japan under the Ashikaga Shogunate. Various samurai warlords and clans fought for control over Japan in the power vacuum, while the Ikkō-ikki (peasant, commoner and merchant revolutionaries) emerged to fight against samurai rule. As fans of Rumiko Takahashi’s works already know, this is also when Inuyasha takes place. “Yuck! It tastes awful!” - Millet is a basic grazing food that grows rapidly and is ready to eat within five to seven weeks after sewing the seeds. Millet has been cultivated in Japan since roughly 4,000 BC in the Jomon Era (縄文時代) (14,000 – 300 BC). Published between Urusei Yatsura chapter 193 and chapter 194.