What is Shonen Sunday? Shonen Sunday is one of the largest weekly manga magazines in Japan. Containing some of the latest and hottest boys' manga series in Japan, Sunday has hosted such notables as "Ranma 1/2" and the currently popular "Meitantei Conan."

Selected news from this issue:

It's been 9 months since "Ranma 1/2" ended. Now, Takahashi Rumiko's newest series starts in this issue of Shonen Sunday! Opening this week's magazine in full color, "Inuyasha" is the latest manga from the author of "Ranma 1/2," "Urusei Yatsura," and "Maison Ikkoku."

Selected Overview:
Inuyasha
Takahashi Rumiko

Overview of Episode One

The first page of this new series shows a strange young man leaping high above a burning village as he exults. He has long blue hair and triangular dog's ears, and is triumphantly holding a small marble-like object on a string -- the Shikon no Tama, the Ball of Four Souls, which he has just taken. With this, he thinks, he can become a true youkai (monster or supernatural being). But with a cry of "Inuyasha!" the village's blood-soaked protectoress, Kikyou, shoots an arrow into his chest and pins him to a tree. She retrieves the Shikon no Tama and instructs her younger sister to burn it with her body "so that evil ones cannot have it ever again," for she knows she is dying.
In modern-day Japan of 1996, birthday girl Kagome is about to turn fifteen. She plays with the Shikon no Tama (now on a keychain) with her cat, Buyo. Along with her mother, grandfather, and younger brother, she lives on an old Shinto shrine property whose history Kagome, for some reason, can never remember.
On the day of her birthday Kagome is called to an old, small shrine on the property by her brother Souta. The cat has gone into the shrine, which contains an ancient hidden well. As Kagome goes down into the shrine to rescue the cat, she hears a soft scratching from the well... and it's not the cat. Suddenly, she is seized by a strange and terrible monster: a six-armed woman with the lower body of a giant vertebrate centipede. The creature is after the Shikon no Tama, whose energy enables it to begin to heal its body. But Kagome fights free.
Kagome climbs her way out of the well, only to discover that the land has changed. An old familiar tree is still standing -- and slumped against it is a strange young man with triangular ears, an arrow protruding from his body. Even as Kagome ridiculously fondles the odd looking ears, she's captured by the local villagers. Kagome discovers she is in Sengoku-Jidai Japan (sometime around the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries).
The local protector of the village, an old squat woman, takes her in. The woman explains that Kagome looks much like the woman's elder sister, Kikyou, whose body had been burned more than fifty years before. But their conversation is interrupted with the arrival of the six-limbed woman-centipede, which still seeks the Shikon no Tama and is killing those in its path. Kagome learns that her only hope is to get the creature back into the old dry well, and dashes back toward it. Meanwhile, Inuyasha stirs from where he is pinned to the tree, and catches the scent of the woman who killed him....

Review of Inuyasha:

Fans of Takahashi Rumiko who are looking for the same slapstick comedy of "Ranma 1/2" may be disappointed with this new story, which has so far seemed closer to Takahashi's darker "Fire Tripper" and the brooding "Mermaid" stories. Still, flashes of classic Takashi humor manage to shine through here and there, and even "Ranma" started off serious and lightened up as it went along.
The heroine seems almost a little dull, judging from her delayed and subdued reactions to encountering a strange monster in a dry well -- but that may be simply a result of my having seen an enraged Akane kick Ranma through the ceiling far too many times. The story, however, has the faintly nightmarish quality of a good fairy tale. Inuyasha and his history also pose an interesting question mark.
Overall, the manga seems more serious and far darker than most of Takahashi's super-popular series. It is too early to judge anything much beyond that. The author notes that "Inuyasha" is based on past and present tales and legends, and hopes that readers will cheer on the new series even more than they did for "Ranma" and "Urusei Yatsura." Whether this will happen or not, only time will tell. But purely based on Takahashi's past works, following "Inuyasha" as it unfolds will almost certainly be well worth the reader's while.

Next: selected briefs!