I’ve often thought about what the best anime is for introducing people to the medium. Many anime are great for people who hate anime. But what about those who are curious but find anime strange? What about those who find the tropes of anime and the jokes confusing? What is the best anime for them?
Well, as you can see in the title, it is Inuyasha. I was fortunate to have Inuyasha be among my first experiences of anime, so I am a little biased. However, the series eases its viewers into anime. The series doesn’t have gratuitous fan-service or strange pervert jokes. The pervert jokes the series does have usually deals with Miroku’s mild antics. Inuyasha aslo builds on Japan’s deep and interesting folklore; it serves as a good introduction to the fabric of Japan. In many other anime, this fabric is treated as just a part of the environment. In Inuyasha, it is a part of the monster-of-the-week format, so it is more easily understood. This also provides background for the modern festivals Kagome, the heroine, attends. These festivals appear often in other anime.
The series introduces basic anime character tropes. You have the impulsive hero who is focused on getting stronger in Inuyasha; the hidden-power character in Kagome; the strong tsundere (at least toward Miroku) in Sango; the good-hearted pervert in Miroku; the cute mascot in Shippo; and the conniving life-ruining villain in Naraku. Inuyasha acts as most shonen heroes do when it comes to romance–oblivious and dense. That’s the thing with Inuyasha. Most anime tropes are there, but they are not taken to the extremes most other anime takes them.
For example, there’s the usual see-the-girl-naked-in-the-bath scene common to anime, but it isn’t the focus of an entire episode as it is with many modern shonen stories. Nor does it reoccur that often. Inuyasha isn’t out to see Kagome naked. Even the pervert Miroku doesn’t get into the panty-fetish you see in another anime. Yet, you can see the elements that underpin these modern scenes. It’s a way of weening into anime’s (tired) flavor of humor. Inuyasha does have its own running joke. Inuyasha does something dense or tone-deaf and Kagome orders him to sit (a magical incantation that forces him to the ground) and keeps ordering it until he’s deep inside a crater. Yet, for the most part the anime doesn’t take this gag too far as many others have done, such as Fullmetal Alchemist‘s short jokes. You also won’t see the accidental breast grab or other fan-service based humor in Inuyasha, which allows a new anime watcher to avoid some of the more off-putting aspects found in anime.
The art style is approachable too. Anime has its own distinct visual language and ways of showing a character’s thoughts and emotions. And both have a bit of a learning curve. Also, the style of anime’s designs–the large eyes, small noses, small mouths–take some time to get used to. Now, I know One Piece is among the most popular anime out there, but well, I find the art style hideous. I just can’t get past it. It is expressive, but it is so strange. For many new to the genre, shows like One Piece could be too large of a hurdle. Inuyasha, on the other hand, has run-of-the-mill character designs that most anime use as a foundation. This middle-of-the-road design–not strange like One Piece or personalized like in Clannad–gives new anime watchers a good introduction to how anime approaches design and animation. It gives a middle spectrum that allows beginners to have a basic standard to use as a reference point.
As for the visual language, Inuyasha has some if it–sweat drops and the like–but it isn’t festooned with such symbols. Some anime rely heavily on this visual nomenclature, which is fine for those who are used to it, but for beginners of all ages it can be tough to understand. Now, for those of us who’ve watched anime and read manga for a long time, it can be hard to understand how someone couldn’t understand a sweat drop or beady-eye gaze. However, I see many questions in my search analytics asking what these symbols mean, which is why I wrote several articles decoding them as I understand the symbols. They aren’t readily understood. Beginners have to look these visual words up just as you would have to look up an unfamiliar word in a dictionary. However, it can be a turn-off to have to look up every other word just to understand a sentence. So too with an anime. That’s why Inuyasha works well as an introduction. It punctuates its emotional sentences with a few visual words, but for the most part it relies on more naturalized (at least, as naturalized as a stylized medium like anime gets) expressions to get its point across. It eases the beginner into anime’s language.
Inuyasha introduces anime’s flavor of action, particularly the yelling. Heroes yell their signature attacks as a matter of course. Part of this is a hold over from manga. This helped clarify what was happening across pages overstuffed with action lines and frames. Of course, Inuyasha, as any good hero in anime does, seeks to become stronger. He gains different attacks to yell over the course of the story. Like most anime heroes, both shojo and shonen, he takes this to the level of obsession, even if his motivation–to protect those he cares about–is noble. That protective motivation characterizes most heroes for that matter.
Inuyasha also introduces beginners to Shinto and Buddhist beliefs that shape the background of anime. Kagome’s grandfather, for example, is a priest, and he’s often performing various rituals. Miroku is a Buddhist monk who uses talismans as part of his fighting style. This series treats these as a matter-of-fact, and it also doesn’t get lost in explaining how the exorcisms works. Many modern anime get lost in explaining how their magic systems and spiritual systems work. No so here. But Inuyasha does have many villains explaining their methods and motives. While this is tedious and considered poor writing–diatribes rarely work–for beginners this helps. It also is a common feature of anime and in the James Bond series for that matter.
So why do I think an older anime like Inuyasha is better for beginners than more modern stories like My Hero Academia or the ever-popular One Piece? Well, Inuyasha is a middling anime in the age of its art. It acts as a bridge between modern animation and the animation style of the 1990s and 1980s. The art style of those periods is distinctive (some would say dated). Inuyasha allows beginners to be comfortable with both modern and older styles, opening up a vast range of stories. However, the gap between the glossy modern style and the style of the 1980s is large enough that people who start with the modern may have problems watching the older style. It’s much like how many people today, who grew up on glossy, computer-painted movies, often can’t watch black-and-white films. However, by being stuck in the modern, you miss out on many great stories. It works the same way with anime’s styles.
Inuyasha tends toward the middle range in animation style, story, humor, action, and most other aspects. But it is a good all-around introduction to the medium because of this middle-road approach. It is a longer show, but it’s not so long that the idea of watching it through gives a headache like One Piece and Naruto. The series is by no means perfect, nor will everyone enjoy it.
Beginner anime are almost unnecessary. When I was growing up, anime wasn’t mainstream. Starting in the mid-90s, anime entered the American childhood thanks to Pokemon and the trend continued. Anime itself is more familiar than it was in the past; however, while these child-friendly series introduces the general visual language, they often lack the more specific anime tropes. Inuyasha, among other titles, provides a bridge from these titles to “true” anime. The series allows those who jump into the titles that require some anime fluency a place to land without falling out of the medium altogether.
I’m sure you can think of some other beginner anime. Inuyasha isn’t the only one. However, its middling qualities–art style, visual language use, length, humor–helps create a foundation for those interested in the medium but confused about its conventions. What other anime would you suggest to beginners and why?
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