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Inu-Yasha - The Movie - Affections Touching Across Time Director: Toshiya Shinohara Number of Items: 1 Format: Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 100 minutes Studio: VIZ VIDEO Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2004-09-07 Buy from Amazon |
 "Very Good ; Mystery of Kagome's Father Solved?"Inuyasha: Affections Touching Across Time is a very good movie. Not knock-your-socks-off WOW! GREAT! The character renderings are different from the anime. In this film they are not as well done, and certainly inconsistent. In some frames they are perfect, in others a little off. The backgrounds are excellent, though; I am sure many backgrounds were just borrowed from the series. In Affections, Inuyasha is cruder and meaner to Kagome and Shippo than he is in the series. It is not until just past the middle of the movie that the great stuff starts to happen. Two powerful subplots, one involving Kirara's bond with Sango, the other Kagome's bond with Inu (hence the film's title), had me constantly removing my glasses because of the tears pouring out of my eyes. The main villian Menomaru and his two hench-wenches Ruri and Hari are foreign demons from "the continent." (China) The story is nicely tied in with the Mongol invasion in 1281 that threatened all of Japan's culture and was stopped only by a sudden and tremendous typhoon. In the movie, the Mongols were accompanied by demons, and were fought off by Inuyasha's powerful dog-demon father. Menomaru is the vanquished demon Hyoga's son, and he is back for revenge. Unfortunately, Menomaru is a lame villian. He has moth feelers and uses moths to steal souls to make him stronger. He looks just like the villian in Sailor Moon's Promise of the Rose. His formidable female helpers are the real baddies. Oh, they are bad. And they look gorgeous. Now, about Kagome's Dad. He is never shown or mentioned in the anime. But in the closing credits, you can clearly see a very young (sixteen or so) Kagome's mom dressed as a maiko, or apprentice geisha. The father of the children could be a wealthy patron. That is how she supports the family and her father. It is not only Kagome's ojiisan who is keeping the traditions of Japan alive. Speaking of extras, the extras in Affections are amazing. The Japanese closing credits show the pictures (of what happened after the movie ended) larger than the English ones. There is a long feature called All About Inuyasha. It goes through the entire series from start to finish and is narrated by several characters, including Myoga, Hachi, Kaede, and Rin. Also, Sesshoumaru and Kikyo meet for the first time in this film. Although their exchange is brief, I am not giving anything away by including this short, great line, one of the best in the film: Jaken: Lord Sesshoumaru, is it wise to let that woman live? Sesshoumaru: You fool, she is dead. Jaken: HUUUUUHHHHH?????  "Amazingly Fantastic! (does that make sense to you?)"I started watching InuYasha, beacause a friend told me about. Than I heard of the movies! I was so excited to see them, but I figured out that they were only out in Japan. I'm a big anime fan, so I bought a Shonen Jump magazine. I was flipping through it and saw and advertisement for InuYasha the movie, and it said, "If you missed it in theaters, catch it on DVD!" So I bought it. This is what I say to InuYasha fans, IF YOUR INTO THE SHOW, BUY THE MOVIE!!!!!! I'm not joking! Oh yeah, the second movie is coming out after Christmas. "WHAT?!?!?! You haven't seen Inuyasha the Movie?!?!?!"If you haven't seen this movie you don't know what you're missing out on!!! Inu-Yasha the Movie-Affections Touching Across Time is one of the BEST anime MOVIES ever! Truth to tell I've just finished watching it just 10 minutes ago. Last week I was stupid and clueless, i've never heard of "inuyasha"! My friend insisted that I watch this movie and i'm glad she did! Inuyasha the movie is about how a powerful demon from a foreign land was locked away by Inuyasha's father. The powerful demon's son, Menomaru absorbs the remains of his father's power and Inuyasha and his friends have to stop Menomaru before it's too late. The graphics were AMAZING. It was better then yu-gi-oh, and dragonball Z, and it ranks up there with rurouni kenshin and fushigi yuugi! (for me that's saying alot) It has an intricate plot, you'll be sitting on the edge of you're seat. It also has a little romance and astounding characters. Believe it or not moths play a part in this movie along with tree roots, and a glowing purple globe. Look this is what was on the back of the movie (and still is):D "Even better than the Television series! Affections Touching Across Time takes InuYasha to another level!"-Animerica Even if you haven't seen the television series (like me) You'll understand everything! What are you waiting for? Go watch it!!! "The Movie Delivers"[Contains minor spoiler information] There is always a problem of striking a balance in a feature made from a successful series. You have to explain everything well enough for newcomers to figure out what's going on, but you can't do that excessively or you will lose the interest of the hard-core fans. The rather oddly named "Affections Touching Across Time" manages to strike a near-perfect balance, and as a result this is anime that really delivers. As noted by Amazon and other reviewers the plot of the movie would have also fit in as a well-done multi-part episode of the regular series. The events in the movie appear to occur between the end of the second season and the beginning of the third, since Inu-Yasha has learned how to use the "backlash wave" with his sword. Sesshomaru, however, does not carry his second sword for reasons unknown (maybe he hides it somewhere?). There is original soundtrack music, most of which is very good, but much of the background music is straight out of the series, or a cut from the series with some minor adaptation. This isn't a problem since the music is truly excellent. The animation is where the movie really outdoes the series. There is greater depth, richness of detail and color, and the occasional use of computer technology. The characters look a bit different, but it's not so different that it ought to be criticized by hard-core fans. It should be mentioned that the movie *has* been formatted for television viewing, it's not in letter box format (you can confirm this by watching the Japanese promotions, portions of which *are* in letterbox). All the major protagonists from the series (Inu-Yasha, Kagome, Miroku, Shippo, and Sango) are given moments to shine in the movie. It might also be said that the worst aspects of each protagonist are "toned down" a little for the movie (as is the amount of blood spray during combats). Some of the other major players appear, such as Sesshomaru and Kikyo. The major antagonist Menomaru and his helpers Ruri and Hari are - like the three antagonists in the Cowboy Bebop movie - a bit bland and, despite their great power, not particularly frightening, as some of the worst demons on the series are. The choice of a moth demon was odd - a rather nasty one had already appeared on the series. There is only the occasional hint of the kind of demonic morality/viewpoint of demons that you see quite often in the series, such as when the one side-kick demon says something like "You're a handsome one, young Monk. I think I'd like to dig out your heart, and eat it". There is a sub-plot involving Sango's animal companion, who is taken from her by Ruri and Hari and must be rescued, which I suspect younger viewers will enjoy. The combat between the demons Ruri and Hari, and the humans Miroku and Sango, is relatively more interesting than when Inu-Yasha and Kagome fight the main antagonist Menomaru. The movie does a good job of showing the problems of humans fighting demons in combat (the demons don't tire, while the humans are soon gasping and perspiring), as well as the weakness of many demons (being in large part immortal, they are arrogant, careless, and overconfident). The young fox demon Shippo, who rarely is useful in combat on the series, displays more ability in the movie, even claiming to have killed three demons himself in the climatic battle. You also get to see minor protagonists such as Kagome's family, which is nice, since they all but disappeared after the first season of the series. Her mom, brother, and grandfather all appear in the movie. There are a few eyebrow-raising moments and loose threads in the movie that don't add up. 1. Kikyo, Inu-Yasha's first love, appeared to be much taller in the movie than she is in the series. In the series she has to stand on tip-toe to kiss Inu-Yasha - in the movie she often looked at least a foot taller, almost as tall as Sesshomaru (!?). 2. It's not clear where the jewel shard in the giant scorpion at the beginning of the movie came from, since Menomaru had only one, and it's inside his chest until much later. 3. Menomaru is brought back to life by a jewel shard immediately after the Shikon Jewel is shattered, but the events of the movie have to have been months or a year or more later. The movie ignores this considerable period of time. Where and how did Ruri and Hari appear from? 4. It didn't make sense for Kikyo to give a jewel shard to Kagome and then proceed to tell her she has to return to her own time and never return. In the series Kikyo desires for the jewel to be restored so she can destroy it, and the demon Naraku. Sending Kagome back to the present with the shard would make that impossible. Unless, as Sesshomaru speculates, she is testing Kagome and knows she can use the sacred arrow to return to the feudal era. Except if that's true - 5. - how does Sesshomaru know about the confrontation between Kikyo and Kagome? And it is hard to believe that Kikyo would show no reaction to his "warning" that only *he* would kill Inu-Yasha? And how can Sesshomaru *still* think he can do that, given the power of Inu-Yasha's sword? The DVD includes some nice extras. In addition to the Japanese promos, and the original ending-credits, you get a 30 minute long series of highlights from the first two seasons, that is very helpful in explaining much of the motivations of each character. It doesn't have an English dub, unfortunately, only subtitles (and at times it has that shrill shout-in-your-face style of anime that doesn't translate well to western culture - the Simpsons did a great parody of it). The Japanese promotions for the movie contain a few clips that are not in the US release. Either the footage was edited out before the movie was released in Japan (distinctly possible), or the US version is not identical to the Japanese version. Examples include Kagome swinging a *sword* at Inu-Yasha (this never happens in the movie when she is under Menomaru's control), and a scene where Kikyo and Sesshomaru are speaking to each other and you see the two of them *simultaneously* with Jaken and Rinn hiding behind some bushes (this too never happens in the movie). There is plenty of character art. Some of these appear to be identical to those found on some of the regular DVDs, but much of it is original. "5...5?! I can only go up to five?! "This is a great movie! That's putting it lightly too. Inuyasha is a great series and the movie does a great job at complimenting that. (Whatever that means...) Can't wait for de next one! |
