(Including Inuyasha: the Final Act)

Vast, sprawling, a quest to retrieve a powerful magical jewel, a struggle against a rising malevolent power, a tragic love story, a strange love triangle, two sweet love stories, rivalry between half-brothers, a journey of self-discovery for the title character, a journey of growth for the protagonist, all told in beautiful cel animation with overlays of luminous CGI effects over 167 episodes plus the 26 episode conclusion of the story Inuyasha: the Final Act produced five year after the original series ended.

The character who is arguably series's protagonist in not the eponymous half-demon Inuyasha, but Kagome Higurashi, a 15 year old school girl from modern Japan, who in the first episode is dragged into a well at the shrine kept by her grandfather and back 500 year in time by a centipede demon awakened by the Shikon Jewel, a powerful magical item which Kagome unknowing has carried within her body since birth.

After she is rescued from the centipede demon by awakening Inuyasha, another demon steals the Jewel, now freed from Kagome's body, but in an attempt to kill the fleeing demon, Kagome shatters the Jewel with an arrow, and rather than simply falling to earth the shards scatter throughout Japan. Even tiny fragments of the Jewel have great power, particularly in the hands of demons, and thus begins the quest to recover the shards.

Episodes which advance the long-arc stories of the quest to recover the Jewel and the fight against the supremely powerful malevolent half-demon Naraku, and the resentment of Inuyasha's half-brother Sesshomaru over the way their father settled their inheritance (two magical swords with very different properties) upon them, are interspersed with episodes revealing various characters back-stories -- Inuyasha and the tragic priestess Kikyo, whose reincarnation Kagome is recognized to be by many of the more spiritually perceptive characters; Miroku, the monk, bearing a curse placed by Naraku on his father and his descendants which also provides him with a weapon; Sango, daughter of the chieftain of tribe of demon-slaying humans; and Shippo, an orphaned fox-demon -- side stories, some dark, many comic, and brief returns by Kagome to modern Japan to keep up her school work and get supplies from her remarkably understanding family (the well functions as a time-like worm-hole between two points in time 500 years apart, so that time advances equally at both ends, though only Kagome and Inuyasha are able to traverse it).

The animation is beautiful. The voice acting very well done. The suite of incidental music used throughout the series is quite good, while the opening and ending title music, which varies with season, varies in quality and style (I quite liked the orchestral-only opening and ending titles of season 6, but some seasons' J-pop opening and closing titles were good, others not.)

A bit of a time commitment, but another must-see series, if you have the time and either a Hulu subscription or the willingness to put up with commercials to watch it free on Viz.

Ratings (out of 5, 1 being worst, 5 being best)