April 2022

Happy Four-Year DeviantArt Anniversary to me, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and artists of all ages. It’s your old pal Antoni here, and I am very elated, happy, blessed, and joyous to have spent four years on DeviantArt making mostly fan art-related content for all of you. I know I was supposed to have released this on the actual day of my four-year DeviantArt anniversary, which was five days ago, but I had a lot of errands to attend to ranging from starting my new semester in university to pumping out more Inuyasha x Ayame or InuAya month content. Nevertheless, when it comes closing out the chaotic yet exciting decade in my life known as my twenties, I figured that I would compile thirty pieces of the work that I have done which have reflected me as a content creator, an artist, and as a person. I have selected pieces of fan art that revolve around my Inuyasha AU headcanon The Splendid Seven starring Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha, Ayame, Shuran, Hakkaku, Ginta, and Shunran and featuring Ichise, Ran, Kiba, and Cheza respectively from Texhnolyze and Wolf’s Rain as their best friends for life; my animated jungle brother AU headcanon starring George of the Jungle, Basuli, Tarzan, and Maugli and featuring Namontack, Kocoum, and Hercules as their husbands; my comic jungle brother AU headcanon starring the Dell Comics version of Tarzan, Kavandavanda, Malb’yat, and Arok and featuring Conan of Cimmeria, Ka-Zar, and Zula as their best friends for life; and Robin x Raven as well as Zuko x Katara who are my number one OTPs respectively from Teen Titans 2003 and Avatar: The Last Airbender on a double date. Therefore, the theme I have may be more than just having muscular warrior men flaunting their bulging muscles, but also the importance of strong family ties, unconditional love, and boundless allegiance to each other. The Splendid Seven: Seven Powerful Yokai Warriors, One Tightly Knit Family The Splendid Seven is at the forefront of my fan art-related content because I always believed that Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha, Ayame, Shuran, Hakkaku, Ginta, and Shunran deserved more genuine and animosity-free relationships, more formidability and unity as a septet of powerful Yokai warriors, and, most of all, a much better show than the one they had in canon. Besides, the less said about three certain pairings I despise the most which Sesshoumaru might have theoretically found himself in but Inuyasha and Ayame were not as fortunate to have ended up in, Inuyasha’s three fake friends and one abusive life partner who I truly abominate, the wasted potential the likes of Shuran, Hakkaku, Ginta, Ayame, and Shunran had as characters, and the animosity permeating between Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha the better. With every rewatch I have endeavoured myself with Inuyasha, I cannot help but keep reminding myself that Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha, Ayame, Shuran, Hakkaku, Ginta, and Shunran deserve so much better. Hence, having them team up in my AU headcanon was actually the best move I have ever made, and I have not looked back in the slightest. This started with my undying love for Inuyasha x Ayame and Ginta x Shunran as my number one Inuyasha OTPs of all time thanks to InuAya’s magnificent strength and GinShun’s charming lovability, and I have made their families grow, with InuAya receiving the lion’s share, but I hope to do more Ginta x Shunran art as well as have their family grow too. In fact, Inuyasha x Ayame and Ginta x Shunran are my main pairings in my Splendid Seven AU headcanon, with Sesshoumaru x Ayame as my liked pairing on an innocent crush basis as well as Shuran x Shunran and Hakkaku x Shunran also qualifying as innocent crushes. Combining their romantic love life was the fascination I had with Sesshoumaru’s and Inuyasha’s strong brotherly bond; Shuran’s, Hakkaku’s, and Ginta’s durable brotherhood; Sesshoumaru’s, Shuran’s, and Hakkaku’s formidable bond as a brotherly trio; Inuyasha’s and Ginta’s supportive bond as a brotherly duo, and Ayame’s and Shunran’s unconditionally loving sisterhood. Taking it up a notch, I also made Shuran, Hakkaku, and Ginta Sesshoumaru’s and Inuyasha’s adoptive brothers, thus being raised by Toga the Dog General, InuKimi, and Izayoi, and Shunran Ayame’s adoptive younger sister, thus being raised by The Wolf Elder. It is even worth mentioning that Hakkaku and Ginta have a lot more edge to their characterisation, thus gaining in formidability, resilience, and toughness in stark comparison to their canon portrayal in the show and in the manga. Even better is having Inuyasha being raised by Ayame’s grandfather and the Wolf Yokai warriors of the North, South, East, and West as a means to grow into a full-fledged Yokai warrior, grow from rambunctious boy to a muscular warrior of a man, and be the strong husband he is meant to be for Ayame, thus being a strong leader to The Splendid Seven and to the Northern Yoro Tribe alongside Ayame. Extending from this would be The Splendid Seven’s strong and supportive friendship with Kuranosuke Takeda, Hiten, Toran, Ayumi, and Karan which is just as rich and tightly knit as well as the strongest friendship they have with Ichise, Kiba, Ran, and Cheza, in which The Splendid Seven and The Fine Four join forces as The Excellent Eleven, and the former would be just as supportive of Ichise’s and Ran’s as well as Kiba’s and Cheza’s romantic relationships. All of these interpersonal strengths would also hold up when Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha, Ayame, Shuran, Hakkaku, Ginta, Shunran, Ichise, Ran, Kiba, Kiba, and Cheza start their own families, with Sesshoumaru being a single dad to three loving daughters and four courageous sons, Shuran being a single dad to seven fierce sons, Hakkaku being a single dad to seven appreciative daughters, Inuyasha and Ayame being parents to seven strong sons and seven determined daughters, Ginta and Shunran being parents to seven handsome sons and seven charming daughters, Ichise and Ran being parents to seven stealthy sons and seven knowledgable daughters, and Kiba and Cheza being parents to seven stoic…