From the back cover:
Trapped inside the holy shield of Mount Hakurei, Inuyasha’s demonic power has been stripped away, leaving him vulnerable. Will Miroku’s wind tunnel prove strong enough to break the barrier and free Inuyasha? And will Inuyasha’s strength be enough to defeat the leader of the Band of Seven, who has absorbed the Shikon Shards from his fallen comrades and become an even more formidable foe? A fierce battle is about to erupt—and Naraku is about to make a shocking appearance!

Review:
The Band of Seven arc draws to a close in this volume with a series of battles that are fun to read, despite Inuyasha just doing Wind Scar over and over. Jakotsu continues to be amusing, taunting Inuyasha with pervy comments while fighting him, and there’s some interesting stuff between the brothers, too.

As is usual for this series, there’s a lot of gore and random body parts flying around, but one particular scene takes the award for most disturbing imagery when a cave of proto-babies is uncovered during the search for Naraku. I wonder sometimes if Inuyasha shouldn’t be classified at least a little as horror, what with all the freaky stuff Takahashi seems to delight in drawing. I’ve also contemplated keeping a severed head tally box, but that just seems tacky.

Anyway, things culminate in dramatic fashion and I actually cheer the villain’s return by the end of the volume. I’m sure Inuyasha and friends will make it through, seeing as how there’s, like, twenty more volumes of this series, but I can pretend their peril is truly reason for concern.

From the back cover:
Inuyasha and comrades are deeply entrenched in the battle of their lives as they fend off the vicious attacks of the undead assassins known as the Band of Seven. But Inuyasha gains some unlikely allies when his brother Sesshoumaru and feral rival Koga get entangled in the skirmish. As the Band of Seven’s numbers dwindle, their attacks become increasingly more desperate and push Inuyasha’s new comrades to their limits. All comes to a fiery climax as another of Naraku’s malevolent plots is revealed!

Review:
InuYasha is a lot of fun when one gets on a roll with it, but sometimes I find it hard to even remember what happened a volume ago. Probably because foes keep on getting partially vanquished and then returning to fight again, it becomes hard to keep things straight. It does make a difference to read a bunch of volumes at once, though, so I’m probably going to go ahead and devour the rest of my InuBacklog.

The battles begun in the last volume continue here—Sesshoumaru is a complete badass in his battle, and Koga less so, though they each succeed in taking care of one of the Band of Seven (the former with help from Kikyo.) Miroku and Sango also have a little side bit of their own which was interesting, as they’ve gone off to investigate a cave that might be Naraku’s hiding spot.

What always amazes me about InuYasha is how fast of a read it is. It might take me a couple of hours to work my way through one of the more text-heavy shoujo titles that I love (or even Maison Ikkoku, also by Takahashi) but these volumes go by so fast because you’ll get a full page where all that happens is two combatants hit their swords together and someone dodges a gout of flame. It doesn’t actually require much mental effort to process that sort of thing, but it can be surprisingly enjoyable.

From the back cover:
In the face of a too-tempting reward, Miroku’s eagerness to investigate the cursed castle of a giant oni or “ogre” is at odds with the reluctance of Inuyasha. Is Naraku’s absence from the scene a sign of increased demon activity to come? Next, in a more lighthearted vein, a misplaced monkey-god makes mischief. Later, the reappearance of demon-slayer Sango’s little brother, Kohaku, is just the start of new complications. Who are these enemies, and what is the source of their fascination with Inuyasha…?

Review:
I can’t believe it’s been nearly two years since I last read any InuYasha! This is a volume I didn’t review when I first read it in 2006, since I didn’t start writing them until the following month, so I’m going ahead and doing it now. The next two volumes have already been reviewed here and here.

It was a little hard to get my bearings at first, coming into the middle of a story about an ogre, but it was in this volume that the Band of Seven arc got underway, so it was a good spot from which to resume the series. The best part of the volume was the battle between Inuyasha and Jakotsu, who I liked as much for his ruthless fighting as for his propensity to comment on Inuyasha’s prettiness.

I also liked the couple of chapters dealing with the monkey sprites in search of the holy object containing their monkey god. They were pretty cute, but my favorite bit was one of their pranks (getting Inuyasha to accept a rock which became a boulder that adhered to his hand) resulting in a grumpy Inuyasha getting poked with a stick by curious village kids.