This screenshot demotivational poster is super highly Anti-InuKag. For those of you who like this pairing, please take what I have to say with a fine grain of salt. As for the rest of you, my beloved Anti-InuKag friends, revel in my evisceration of one of my biggest NOTPs of anime as well as my evisceration on my least favorite anime “heroine” of all time.
I may come off as fussy and I may come off as snooty, but I never understood the appeal of InuKag. Even when I was a 13-year-old seventh-grader back in 2005, I just did not endeavor to understand why is it that this “couple” is so well-loved, especially considering the times Kagome constantly “sat” Inuyasha and their relationship demonstrated loads of unhealthy patterns.
One example I will always go back to when I was a thirteen-year-old lad was when I was spending my Christmas break in Los Angeles with my parents and younger siblings that I caught the second Inuyasha movie “Inuyasha: Castle Beyond the Looking Glass” late at night on Adult Swim. I know that any hardcore InuKag shipper would squeal in delight with this particular moment. However, all I felt was sheer indifference and just shrugged my shoulders with a blank look on my face.
On a narrative standpoint, yes, Kagome was brought into Inuyasha’s life because she accepted him as a hanyou, despite Inuyasha wanting to become a full-fledged yokai. When Princess Kaguya chanted her spell, due to her knowing what Inuyasha desired to be, Inuyasha was about to transform into the full yokai he wanted to be. This spurred Kagome on to be released from her being captured, for the umpteenth time and so much being for her being a “heroine”, in order to make Inuyasha snap out of his about to be complete transformation. She does this by kissing him, thus breaking Kaguya’s spell. Therefore, this completes the trope found in fairy tales with love’s first kiss being the be all end all action of the two protagonists finally affirming their love for each other.
However, since this is InuKag we are talking about, it did not surprise me that they went back to their old bickering, squabbling, and grumbling ways, which went on and on and on, thus making InuKag a classic example of a couple whose relationship goes one step forward and one-hundred steps backwards. Moreover, the emotional ramifications of what Inuyasha and Kagome have been dealing with together throughout the series, the movies, and even the first episode of the sequel are nothing short of pernicious in terms of severe trust issues and a bevy of unhealthy cycles in constant repetition, especially with Inuyasha still having the Beads of Subjugation on his collar for years to come.
The kicker is that the ending showed Inuyasha and Kagome still in denial about their growing feelings for each other, even though Kagome’s wish to encounter Princess Kaguya was fulfilled. It did not also help matters that she sat him and Shippou told Inuyasha to grow up with the locket showing Inuyasha’s and Kagome’s face from the photo booth on show. This just showed that Kagome seemed to be always on the right and Inuyasha was always on the wrong, even though Kagome is quite the manipulative, mopey, low-down shrew.
I know I can hear the hardcore InuKag shippers crying for my blood when I say this, but I am still convinced that InuKag is worth rooting for by any stretch of the imagination. Even though this scene was made for Inuyasha to have found someone still alive to accept him as a hanyou, this does not excuse this fart of a couple from going back to old bickering ways. Hence, I am still proud to brand InuKag as one of my biggest NOTP for life.
I hope you all enjoyed this and I will see you in the next submission. Take care and stay safe, everybody.
Inuyasha and Kagome from Inuyasha belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Sunrise.
