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Cast List: page 2

Book Fourteen:
Inuyasha, Who Seeks

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More or less in order of appearance, as far as I can tell.

 

Sakamoto, Jiro

Houjou's friend since childhood. Sakamoto has an older half-brother—practically everybody in this comic has or is an older half-brother—who had a collection of porn and softcore videos and magazines to which young Jiro had access, and which he rented out to his schoolmates. Now an adult, Sakamoto is the curator of the Edo University Museum of Japanese Culture, to which most of the members of the university's anthropology faculty are attached. This tells us Sakamoto is a bit of a boy wonder—which he is, he trained at the British Museum and he's already got tenure, even though he's only a little bit older than Houjou. He also has several failed marriages behind him.

Kagome-sama

Yet another link = yet another really long description.

Kikyou

Inuyasha's first love was a miko and guardian of the Shikon no Tama. The two were tricked by the evil Naraku into betraying one another. She sealed him in death with a magic arrow, then died of wounds inflicted by Naraku in IY's guise. After Kagome returned to their time with the Shikon no Tama, Kikyou was re-vivified as a vengeful spirit. Inuyasha died after he asked the Shikon no Tama to give her what was left of his life. She declared he had cursed her. Houjou has recurring dreams about her all the time.

Kaede

The younger sister of Kikyou. Kaede was a child when her sister, mortally wounded by the disguised Naraku, shot Inuyasha through the heart with a magic arrow, sealing him in death to the God-tree. After Kikyou's death, she took over the role of village priestess, healer, and protector. When Kagome (with the Shikon no Tama inside her body) was pulled through the well into the Sengoku Jidai, she was captured by villagers and taken to Kaede, who became her friend and protector. When Kagome released the mysteriously revived Inuyasha from the tree, Kaede provided the necklace of prayer beads that allowed Kagome to control the wild half dog-daemon with the subduing word osuwari—the command sit, as one would say to a dog. Almost immediately, a real affection developed between the elderly priestess and the hanyou. [In the original Inuyasha series, Kaede is the first person for whom Inuyasha displays unambiguous concern: even when his motives for saving Kagome are still unclear (is he worried about her, or about the SNT?), Inuyasha rescues Kaede from magically controlled villagers.] It was Kaede who set Inuyasha and Kagome to the task of reassembling the shattered SNT, and who became a mentor for the companions, her hut serving as their home.

Onigumo/Naraku

Onigumo was a thief who ran to Musashi domain after committing a series of crimes in another district. Hopelessly injured, burned beyond recognition, both legs broken, he was cared for in a cave outside the village by Kikyou and a less-than-willing Kaede. (Interestingly, although this took place at the time Kikyou and Inuyasha were planning his transformation and their marriage, he was unaware of Onigumo's existence.) Vile and evil, Onigumo became fascinated with Kikyou, but that fascination was expressed by a wish to see her corrupted. He revealed to Kaede that he, like other youkai and humans, had wanted to steal the Shikon no Tama, and taunted the child by telling her of his wish to see both the jewel and her sister tainted. As Kikyou's power weakened—a result, perhaps, as Naraku later speculated, of her attraction to the half-daemon Inuyasha—Onigumo was able to summon a hoard of evil youkai and offer them use of his body in exchange for the mobility to seduce and corrupt Kikyou. The youkai accepted his body but consumed and destroyed him, joining together with what remained of the thief's human body to form the consummately evil hanyou shapeshifter Naraku, a name meaning "hell" or "abyss." [Or "basement," if you ask Babelfish.] All that remained of Onigumo was a spider-shaped scar on Naraku's back.

In an attempt to taint the Shikon no Tama, thereby increasing its capacity for evil, Naraku tricked Kikyou and Inuyasha into betraying one another, and Kikyou into killing Inuyasha. Had Kikyou followed Naraku's plan and used the jewel to cure the mortal wounds he had inflicted on her, both she and the jewel would have been defiled. Instead, she went to her death, hoping to join Inuyasha in the afterlife, and the Shikon no Tama was burned with her body on her funeral pyre.

During the fifty years between the deaths of Kikyou and Inuyasha and the return of the SNT to the Sengoku Jidai era, Naraku engaged in mischief of one kind and another. Among other deeds, he cursed Miroku's family by placing in the right hand of Miroku's grandfather the black hole that one day would consume both Miroku's grandfather and father, and be borne by Miroku himself until the final defeat of Naraku and lifting of the curse. After the reappearance and shattering of the SNT, Naraku began collecting shards and manufacturing his own companions. The story of the quest for the Shikon no Tama is also the story of defeat and destruction of Naraku, who died with Inuyasha during the act of purifying and destroying the jewel.

The name Onigumo ("ogre-spider") is actually the name of a particular type of spider (Araneus ventricosus) found in Japan.

Centipede Woman

Part giant centipede, part courtesan, the Centipede Woman had been killed, perhaps by Kaede, and her bones thrown into the Bone Eating Well, where they were swept away into the time stream, passing through Tokyo at the precise point on Higurashi Kagome's birthday that the girl went into the well house to look for Buyo the cat. The power of the Shikon no Tama hidden in Kagome's body caused the carcass to regenerate, and the Centipede Woman burst through the boarded-up well, grabbed Kagome, pulled her into the time stream, and got our story rolling. Kagome's latent miko powers manifested themselves—she blew the creature's arm off with her bare hands, and the girl escaped into the well in the Warring States (Sengoku Jidai) era. Some hours later, the Centipede Woman regrouped and attacked the village where Kagome was being questioned by Kaede. Understanding the creature was after her, Kagome lured her away from the village by running toward the forest where Inuyasha was still sealed to the tree by Kikyou's arrow. Somehow—perhaps in response to the threat to Kagome's life—Inuyasha was awakened, although pinned to the tree, unable to move. He was therefore a witness as the creature bit into Kagome's side and the Shikon no Tama flew out in a trail of blood. The Centipede Woman swallowed the SNT and was transformed by its power. After Kaede and several villagers were unable to subdue the creature, Inuyasha convinced Kagome to remove the arrow from his chest, breaking the seal and freeing him to kill the monster.

Corpse-Dancing Crow

Crow daemon, a minor youkai that managed to steal and swallow the Shikon no Tama, after which it grabbed a village child for a quick snack. Inuyasha tore it apart, but it began to regenerate, the pieces of its body flying back together. The resourceful Kagome tied one of the creature's own legs to an arrow so that the power of the SNT would carry the arrow to its mark, and the arrow destroyed the daemon—and shattered the Shikon no Tama as well.

Rip Van Winkle

Washington Irving. Catskills. Little men bowling. Look it up. Yes, of course Houjou would have read it.

Shippou

Orphaned fox daemon and trickster who became one of Inuyasha and Kagome's companions, treating the two almost as parents.

Miroku

Buddhist monk with both strong spiritual powers and an eye—well, actually usually a hand—for the ladies. The men of Miroku's line were cursed by Naraku with an extradimensional void (like a black hole) in the palm of the right hand. Both his grandfather and father were swallowed by their cursed hands, as would Miroku have been had Naraku not been defeated. A close friend and companion of both Inuyasha and Kagome, Miroku loved Sango, another companion, with whom he conceived a child on the night of Inuyasha's death. The two married and had numerous other sons. Miroku became a scribe in the household of the local daimyo, who was a Houjou and therefore a relative of Inuyasha (both incarnations). The histories he prepared for his patron have made him famous to the present day as a historian. Toward the end of his long life, he founded a monastic order that in modern times maintains a hospital and a research center, as well as quietly carrying on the youkai exorcism and extermination service that was most likely an offshoot of his wife's family business. Within a few years after the end of the quest for the Shikon no Tama, he began writing down stories of his travels with Inuyasha. These stories—the so-called Miroku scrolls—disappeared during the difficult years at the turn of the twentieth century, to be rediscovered by Sakamoto Jiro more than a century later, in a private collection in Kobe. Sakamoto immediately alerted his friend Houjou Inuyasha to their discovery. Assistant Professor Houjou is considered to be the world's foremost authority on the Miroku scrolls, partly because not that many people are particularly interested in them, while Assistant Professor Houjou is very interested in them indeed. Miroku is buried on the grounds of the monastery he founded. His grave is visited regularly by both Houjou Inuyasha and Houjou Kagome, and in spite of being dead for a few hundred years, he remains a valued confidant of Inuyasha, who has been dead a few hundred years himself and doesn't see the issue, if there is one.

Sango

The pretty young daemon exterminator whose younger brother, Kohaku, was possessed by Naraku and killed their father and comrades, while wounding Sango and himself. She joined in the quest for the Shikon no Tama seeking revenge on Naraku. The close friend and confidant of Kagome, friend and companion of Inuyasha, she became enamored of Miroku, and he of her. On the night of Inuyasha's death, the two conceived the first of many sons. The mover and shaker of their household (despite her almost constant state of pregnancy), she re-established her family's extermination business, all the while keeping her very large, very male ménage in line.

Houjou, Hideto

Great-grandfather of Houjou Inuyasha. A young general in the Imperial Army in the late 1930s, he joined the rest of the general staff in encouraging the Emperor to pursue its wars of expansion culminating with Japan's signing of the Tripartite Pact, the dizzyingly disastrous success of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the advent of the Atomic Age, and deaths of millions of people, among them his youngest child and only son, Hiroshi. After the birth of Hiroshi's posthumous son, his widow returned to her family, leaving Hideto with the task of Yoshi's upbringing. During the remainder of his lifetime Yoshi, his bride and their son made their home with Hideto during the times they lived in Tokyo. In their absence, he was attended by one or another of his surviving daughters or granddaughters. He had passed the century mark when he quietly joined his illustrious ancestors, and at least one of his descendents, shortly after his great-grandson's disastrous visit to Monte Carlo.

Auntie Barbra

Houjou Koinu's formidable Kiwi (New Zealander) nanny (and, we can guess, frequent co-conspirator), the beloved of Auntie Terra (his less formidable English co-nanny), Auntie Barbra counts as one of the bevy of women who try to protect Houjou from the world, even though she is, as Koinu puts is, still technically a man. Auntie Barbra and her charge express their considerable love and respect for one another through cheerful mutual rudeness using the most obscene and outrageous language possible.

Auntie Terra

I forgot Auntie Terra. Houjou Koinu's less formidable English co-nanny is sweet, motherly, and magickal in a homey, everyday sort of way, and what's more, she knows how to treat a female impersonator.

Weird Little Guy in the Antique Store

Cities throughout the world are pockmarked by little antique stores and bookstores presided over by weird little men. If you find such a store, the thing you want will be magical and will cost you either nothing or all the money you have in the world, which you must pay without holding anything back. The weird little guy will quiz you, and perhaps caution you; you must take what he says to heart or disaster will strike. But you won't, and it will. After you leave, it is unlikely you will be able to find the shop again, and passersby will tell you that the vacant lot where it once stood has been empty for years.

Toutousai

Youkai swordsmith who forged the great swords Tenseiga and Tessaiga. He refused a commission by Sesshoumaru to craft a sword more powerful than Tessaiga, insisting that the great dog daemon Inutaisho had intended his elder son to wield the life-giving Tenseiga. It was Toutousai's rejected apprentice, Kaijinbou, who eventually created the evil sword Toukijin.

Yuki

Sakamoto Jiro's middle-school girlfriend. We never actually see her, but we hear a lot about her good points.

Teachers, villagers, passersby, and other random sorts

There's a bunch of them. I'm not going to try to name them all. Do you see how long this list is already? Doesn't this seem insane to you? Probably I should have left out Rip Van Winkle. Well, what's done is done.

 

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