As for Naraku, he has got to be one of the most STUPID super villains to ever grace a manga/anime. On at least three occasions, he has the power to kill the heroes without breaking a sweat, but instead he lets them live. I’m aware that he was doing it for laughs and/or manipulating them, but Takahashi doesn’t make it come across as well done, putting him on the same level of a random James Bond villain.

A shame. This had the potential to be something. Not necessarily on the level of Death Note or Fullmetal Alchemist, but much better that what it turned out to be.

I expect that in Ranma 1/2. Ranma 1/2 is an episodiac comedy comic, one that happens to include crazy martial arts. It is, effectively, the most awesome sitcom ever made. If things changed too much from mini-arc to mini-arc, that would be an advanced warning of Cerebus Syndrome, and, in turn, not necessarily a good thing.

Inu-Yasha is a plot based comic(nominally). WHY WON’T PLOT HAPPEN?! I dropped it during the whole ” person who was actually two people, one a sickle-weasel, one a beastman” arc and never looked back. Instead, I read a basic summary of the whole thing on Wikipedia every once in a while til it ended. It was a breath of fresh air, as it was just like reading the comic, only condensed. Like soup, if condensed soup didn’t need to be uncondensed to taste good. Which means it isn’t like soup at all, come to think.

Compare that with Dance in the Vampire Bund. There’s a good manga. A bit heavy on the loli-fanservice for your tastes, I think, Monsieur Dinosaurio, but an excellent story and plenty of good moments, both grittily violent and sweet and touching. The story moves. Don’t know a thing about the show, and I heard it has literally nothing in common with the manga by the author’s request, but I think the manga is now one of my favorite manga of all time.

The Inu Yasha anime is about to end. The manga ended about two years ago.