Hello, once again. Antoni, here, with another fan fiction “recommendation”, you will see why I put that in quotation marks. Let’s now switch our attention to what I consider my Inuyasha OTP, Inuyasha/Ayame, as I will be taking a look at The Blue Twin, which was written by Never Surrender, published on September 29, 2005, and last updated on December 9 of that same year. It’s rated T. It’s in English. It’s Drama/Romance. It has 23 chapters, and, obviously, the main pairing is Inuyasha/Ayame. Other characters involved are Miroku, Sango, Kagome Higurashi, Shippou, Kouga, Kaede, Sesshoumaru, Jaken, Myoga, and Kirara. There are also some OCs namely Kori, Kome, and Yume, more on them later.
I did encounter this fanfic a few times and I was kind of excited to take a gander at it considering how much of a die-hard Inuyasha/Ayame shipper I am. With that said, let’s get on to what I thought about this particular fanfic.
It’s a warm and peaceful day in Feudal Japan, where not much is happening. That is until someone who looks like Inuyasha, except with blue hair and attire, arrives, thus leaving Kagome, Shippou, Sango, Miroku, and, especially, Inuyasha in utter shock. That someone in question is his long-lost twin brother, Kori, and he is really excited to see Inuyasha after several years. Sesshoumaru, on the other hand, is less than enthusiastic. Along the way, there are new relationships to be made with Kouga and Kagome, Inuyasha and Ayame, and Kori and Kirara, who can somehow turn into a humanoid form, Miroku being wed to Sango, thus bearing his first child, some deceptions, broken relationships, and even a kinship to be formed between Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha, and Kori. By and large, the story was rather enjoyable, as I did enjoy how the characters interacted with each other. There was one major headscratcher, though, and it was, how on earth did Kirara obtain a humanoid form? Was there a certain power which made her do so at will? Are there any conditions she has to go through for it to happen? It was not thoroughly mentioned nor explained how that happened because in the original anime she can only go from her little cat form to her big, battle cat-like form with blazing flames. The fourth chapter, as proclaimed by the author, was a filler chapter and that was not really necessary other than to drag the main story’s plot. Speaking of filler, there were times some scenes did feel like filler, but it was not too much. At times, the story can be melodramatic, but it’s well-balanced with some humor, action scenes, and a few touching moments found in the climax and especially the ending. There are also some character deaths to be found in this fanfic but despite all that, I thought there were some moments in the final few chapters which were rather touching, sweet, and left a smile on my face.
The characters were still quite enjoyable to witness. Inuyasha still has his trademark impulsivity, sarcasm, brashness, and overall jerk with a heart of gold nature. In spite of all that, he also shows a good amount of compassion, especially with Ayame. He was very much in character all throughout the fanfic. Not to reveal any major spoilers, but let’s just say I was really happy when Kori took off the beads of subjugation from Inuyasha.
Now we get to the main OC of this fanfic, Kori. In terms of design, I cannot really imagine him with blue hair but the blue haori I can certainly envision. Personality-wise, he is the complete opposite of Inuyasha. He’s jolly, sweet-natured, lovable, and happy-go-lucky as opposed to Inuyasha’s occasional crabbiness and sarcasm. He bears a sword called the Ketsaiga, which can only kill fifty demons. There are times he can be annoying but not on the level where it is obnoxious. His brand of annoying is kind of endearing, as he has lived in the North all of his life, has only heard about certain key events in passing, and has never left his territory. Yet, how he manages to know all of these key events and people like Kouga, Sesshoumaru’s mokomoko and even Kikyo is beyond me. I can forgive the occasional annoyance I have with Kori, as he is at least entertaining and does not take too much screentime. When reading his dialogue, I kind of imagine Brad Swaile or Samuel Vincent voicing him on the English side and Tomokazu Seki on the Japanese side. By and large, he is a pretty fun addition to the cast and he works well off of Inuyasha.
Ayame has toned down her high strung nature yet still keeps that strength within her, which makes her consistently awesome. It was a bit of a shame that she entered somewhere in the ninth chapter because I would’ve loved to see a lot more of her in the previous chapters and let her grow from there. In spite of all that, she still proves herself to be worthy of Inuyasha because of how strong of a character she is and I have been rooting for them to be together. Like I said, what happens to them in the climax and even the ending is really heartwarming, adorable, and sweet.
Kirara does serve her purpose as the team mascot and main source of transportation and here, as mentioned earlier, she has a humanoid form. Again, why she ended up having that I will never know. It’s safe to say that she is loyal, smart, and she proves herself to be a capable, strong fighter in both her cat-demon form and her humanoid form.
Sesshoumaru keeps his brand of coldness and indifference in this story, as he initially wants nothing to do with either Inuyasha or Kori. Throughout the story, he eventually warms up a little bit more to the point where he can tolerate both Inuyasha and Kori. What happens to him in the climax as well as the end shows a nice development to Sesshoumaru as a character, as it did shed off his initially cold layer.
It’s kind of clear that Never Surrender is not a fan of Kagome, as evidenced when she did start off as seemingly kind and supportive of her team. However, when she ended up going out with Kouga, she has a 180 with her personality. She acts more clingy towards Inuyasha even though she is in a relationship with Kouga and bore their child. Yes, I am not a Kagome fan either, but I would not write her character like that on a consistent level. She did take a level of being a manipulative person with a hint of being a jerkass, but at least she is not demonized so much.
Kouga also does go the jerkass route, due to his jealousy and obsession over Kagome. He serves his purpose as a rival to Inuyasha so well and I dare not spoil their epic battle.
The other characters do vary in terms of quality. Miroku, Sango, and Kaede provide a sufficient amount of plot development as well as emotional support for the characters. Shippou does come off as the clingy tag-along kid, which is a shame because there are times in the TV show where he can be kind of entertaining. Kaede is still the wise old lady. Myoga’s presence does not add so much to the story. Finally, Jaken is still the entertaining butt-monkey of Sesshoumaru. At least the other OCs like Kome the orphan hanyou and Yume, Miroku’s and Sango’s daughter, were pretty entertaining.
Even though I did enjoy the story, there were some technical issues. The most egregious one in several chapters was all of the spelling and grammatical errors. For example, “Were you going” should have been “Where are you going”. There were also sometimes where misplaced punctuation marks did dampen my reading enjoyment as well as some inserted author’s notes within the story. So, I really suggest that Never Surrender come back and fix these issues. At least, there were some moments where the layout was legible and clean, I will give this author that.
Overall, despite some issues that I have with this story, I still enjoyed it, as an Inuyasha/Ayame shipper. Sure, there were times that I felt that some of the moments in the story were melodramatic and kind of over-the-top, but at least it had sufficient action, humor, and interest to not make it too much of a dirge. With that said, I give this story a grade of C+. The technical errors bogged this story down, there were some plot holes which kind of bothered me, and some of the characters’ motives came off as kind of dumb for the sake of drama. Will I still recommend this to Inu/Aya shippers? Maybe, but I am sure that there are other fanfics more worth your time.
Well, that’s all for now. Be sure to tune in later for yet another Inuyasha/Ayame fanfiction recommendation, Wolf Dog written by BonaFideGarbage. Until then, this is Antoni wishing you all a most blessed Holy Week.
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