Inuyasha Kanketsu-hen Ep. 12
犬夜叉 完結編 Episode 12 Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

As Inuyasha hides out thanks to the new moon having him in human form, Sango and Miroku battle a bone youkai and his humanoid daughter. Things are going bad so Sango poisons Hiraikotsu, which ends up slaying the bone youkai. Inuyasha and company arrive now that he’s normal again and he slays the daughter in an indirect fashion. Hiraikotsu is heavily damaged, but Myouga arrives and tells them of a youkai master named Yakurou Dokusen, who can possibly repair Sango’s main weapon.

Arriving at Yakurou Dokusen’s residence, the group discovers a ton of sake jars. In one, Yakurou Dokusen is poured out of and after finding out that Hiraikotsu belongs to Sango, he agrees to help her but she’ll have to defeat some youkai in another jar. She enters the jar and discovers the youkai are actually the pieces of Hiraikotsu. Hiraikotsu wants her to abandon Miroku but she refuses. Meanwhile, Yakurou Dokusen offers some medicine to Miroku to make using Kazaana painless but it won’t cure the terrible shouki injury. He agrees and takes the medicine, which is also a poison. Hiraikotsu senses Miroku’s determination to protect Sango and combined with her determination to protect Miroku, Hiraikotsu agrees to fight with Sango again. Thus her weapon is reborn and the couple are reunited.

Thoughts/Review:

I’ve mentioned this before, but the speed at which this series has to blow through in order to complete in the established number of episodes means a lot gets dropped. That’s unfortunate as this story really should have been two episodes — one for the bone demon and one for the repair. I missed Sango and Miroku going on their mission and doing their investigation before finding the bone youkai and the fight that then ensued. That kinda added to them as a couple and made Sango’s sacrifice of Hiraikotsu have more impact in my opinion. It also added to the couple’s connection at the end when Hiraikotsu agrees to fight with Sango again. Oh well.

Also, because the anime hasn’t had an ongoing thing with Miroku’s shouki injury spreading, the anime seems to just go, “Oh! Yeah, lets look at that again” whereas the manga had this be an ongoing concern.

I was glad to see most of the humor survive the episode. Shippou getting drunk got cut, but I suppose that’s due to not wanting to show a child, even a youkai child, drinking. They did let Inuyasha get drunk, which amused me, especially with the long suffering Kagome having to take care of him. *lol*

It is a shame that Takahashi-sensei waited so long to give Sango a bit of a power-up and to make some additional steps in Miroku’s and Sango’s relationship. I always liked Sango as a character and felt that she was sorely underused during the course of Inuyasha.

In the end, despite the cuts, I did enjoy seeing this episode. Time to press forward and see if I can get caught up. ^_^;