Thankfully, Hulu and Viz post new episodes of this show on Saturdays, when I usually have nothing else to do, but still want to drink.  Right now many of the guys of DO XIII are on the couchbed, playing Dead Space and reading astronaut logs in funny voices.

Last time on Inuyasha, Kagura turned into a puff of feathers and smegma, Koga got the awesome Hot Topic jewelry of the dog face tribe, and Naraku’s heart is actually a baby inside a mutant demon/Frankenstein’s monster creature with Gamera’s hard candy shell.

Sesshoumaru is standing on the cliffs of thoughtful recappyness, reminding us that Kagura’s dead and he may or may not be sad about such a thing.  Happosai appears on a three-eyed cow and tells Sesh that his not-broken sword has been making noise and summoned him.  It is now time to reforge Tenseiga into a weapon.

…But Tenseiga’s a sword, right?  It’s already a weapon.  Why does it need to be reforged into a weapon?  Is it really just a sword hilt, and there are corndogs in the sheath? Seriously, the episode title hasn’t even appeared, and I need a new drink.  Whiskey, you are my true friend.

This week’s title is Meido Zangetsuha, which breaks the previous streak of “Character’s Metaphorical Object” titling we’ve had.  I guess we’ll never get to see Kikyo’s Baloney Sandwich then…  The closest thing I recognize from that is “Zangetsu,” which is the name of Ichigo’s sword in Bleach.  Let’s see, we’re talking about Sesshoumaru getting a sword…is Zangetsu a Japanese word for “obnoxiously powerful anime weaponry”?

Sango and PervMonk are hanging out in the rolling hills of suggestive fanfic shipping, catching us up to speed Sango’s little brother – he ran off to help Kikyo defeat Naraku by uniting the Shikon MacGuffin, which would kill him.  Then Sango grabs his butt.  This is important.

So Sango’s brother might die, Kagura is dead, and Kikyo absorbed someone else’s soul into her body…let’s see what high schools Kagome’s applying to!  And here, in the grand tradition of shojo anime heroines, we see her interact with “easily forgotten normal BFFs.”  I have seen your type in Sailor Moon and Pretear and Utena, and I’m not even trying to remember your names.

Cut to: Kagome at home.  Her grandfather is giving her a lucky charm, and telling her a foreshadowy story behind it. Apparently, when the Shikon Jewel was won, the winner made the “only correct wish” and everything was peachy.  Kagome, who has been spending about 20 years hanging out in an alternate dimension where this sort of thing is really important, smartly tunes her grandfather out, but wonders what the correct wish is.  (The correct wish is obviously for the High School Musical franchise to continue into College Musical.)

Upstairs in her bedroom, InuYasha pulls his best Edward Cullen, not only in that he comes in through the window to watch her sleep, but then blames her for being cold when he’s the one who opened the window.  Oh, InuYasha.  Isn’t it your fucking time of the month yet?

Shippo takes a laserbeam leaf to the face, and then the demon inn appears.  This next portion of the episode is brought to you by sweet, sweet Amaretto.

The demon inn is full of sexy ladies in kimonos, so PervMonk predictably is all, “Shit, bitch, let’s check in.”  But then the sexy ladies turn out to be foxes, who are trying to go up in rank for the Demon Promotion Exam.  How did my glass get empty so quickly?

The laserbeam leaf that hit Shippo is his exam ticket to get “promoted”.  A couple other fox kids show up and explain that since the Scoobies are such hero archetypes, they’ll get beau coup points for fooling them with foxy magic.  Shippo himself goes up 5 ranks just for smacking InuYasha around a bit.  Wasn’t this series supposed to make up for the fact that the original series was 9,000 episodes of running around?  We’re in episode 3 and we’ve already hit wacky filler?  REALLY?

Oh, I get it!  It’s a parallel!  Kagome’s freaking out about her exams in the real world, and now Shippo’s going through exams in this world, and getting so caught up, he forgets what’s important!  See, it’s funny because– whiskey! You came back!

InuYasha’s sword is made with Time Lord technology, because that sheath’s gotta be bigger on the inside.  Also, if I crossover shitty anime in my mind with good shows, it makes things more bearable.  Anyway, a demonette shows up to steal the demon power from InuYasha’s sword, and Shippo helps her because he’s a retarded mascot character who believes anything a villain of the week says.  Within the span of 2 minutes, max, the following happens:

1. Tetsusaiga runs out of demonic energy
2. The demonette fires said energy at InuYasha
3. InuYasha is believed to be dead
4. But he’s okay!
5. The demonette is sorry
6. But then she isn’t!
7. And she’s really a raccoon!
8. InuYasha gets his sword’s energy back.

Rumiko Takahashi, you are trying to destroy my liver.

We’re almost at the end of the episode when something that actually matters happens.  I’ve gotta admit, this was pretty badass.  Sesshoumaru and his party are with Happosai and his supercow in some sort of freaky sperm world.  Sesh wields his sword against a giant ogre and seemingly does nothing.  But then!  A giant crescent moon-shaped hole to the underworld opens up and sucks the ogre into it.  HOLY CRAP.

Happosai explains: Tenseiga is connected to the underworld, which is why he can bring dead people back from it (hey, maybe you shoulda tried that with Kagura, buddy, I’m just sayin’).  So NOW, he can cut a hole into the underworld offensively to have his enemies get sucked into the darkness.  And he’s got beef with Naraku.

Which is unfortunate, because the end theme has taught me that Naraku will be defeated by rapping pinwheels.

Next time on InuYasha – The Final Act!  Tetsusaiga’s turned to shit and InuYasha has to get energy back!  The dog-faced boy returns to fight somebody!  These plots may or may not have anything to do with anything!  Perhaps I’ll have Crystal Head Vodka by then!

This recap is brought to you by the fine people at Viz and Hulu for posting new, subtitled episodes of this series quickly.  Because lord knows I wouldn’t ever download this crap.  Er, any crap.  At all.  Never!

Last time on InuYasha, IY showed up at Kagome’s school for…something.  And there’s a horrible monster.  And Kagura betrayed someone over something…oh, who cares, it’s InuYasha.  They’ll give us 400 episodes to figure out what’s going on.

Kagura’s zooming around on her feather (as you do), thinking about getting her heart back from Naraku.  I’m assuming this isn’t a metaphorical heart, like the one Tony Bennett left in San Francisco, or a real, beating heart, but a shojo anime heart, like in Sailor Moon S.  Either way, she still seems to be doing okay without a heart, so who knows what the big deal about getting it back is.  Whatevs.

This episode is called Kagura’s Wind.  Episode 1 was Naraku’s Heart.  I wonder if every episode will be named thus, because eventually they’ll run out of characters and/or interesting objects.  If we reach an episode called Kikyo’s Baloney Sandwich, I’m done.

Ninja Chick with a Boomerang and NCwaB’s little brother are laying flowers on the graves of their family.  NCwaB wonders if it’s too soon to bring her weeping brother here, and the animators realize they’re dangerously close to character development.  Quickly, cut scene!

InuYasha, Kagome, and PriestPerv and possibly that little fox kid enter a horrifying cave and give us back story on an ancient priestess named Midori Sour.  She fought demons, and sucked their evil souls into her body, which forced her soul out into the Shikon MacGuffin.  This show is all her fault! Bitch.  There’s a hole in her statue, or possibly fossilized body, where the Shikon MacGuffin used to be.  They look inside and find a cocoon.  That’s not surprising; it’s a damp, dark cave, and no one’s been there in years, all sorts of bugs set up home– HO SHIT A FUCKING DRAGON CAME OUT OF THAT COCOON!  I mean, this is a shojo anime, I expected some sort of sparkly butterfly or something.

InuYasha calls it a Soul Collector and said he totally smelled Kikyo’s Paris Hilton perfume all over the cave, and chases the dragon down.  Our other heroes are kept from following him by a Deus Ex Barrier.  Kikyo’s hanging out in a waterfall, thinking about how Naraku’s smegma is so strong, even Kagome’s heroine purification powers couldn’t get the stain out.  She needs Midori Sour’s soul so she can stay alive longer.  But wait – I thought Midori Sour’s soul was the Shikon MacGuffin!  How did Kikyo get her soul from her caterpillar dragon?  …Whatevs.

Kikyo’s plan to kill Naraku involves – surprise! – piecing together the Shikon MacGuffin.  She wants to give it to Naraku so he can turn it into totally sweet goth jewelry, and as soon as he does, purify the jewel and Naraku at the moment they’re linked.  Then she turns into a jet and flies away.  NCwaB’s little bro has a piece of the Shikon shard in the back of his head, and he runs off after Kikyo, to help defeat Naraku and possibly die dramatically in someone’s arms.

Cut to: Gamera is awoken by a mutant demon/Frankenstein’s monster thing.  …Time for another drink.

Okay, Gamera is awoken by a mutant demon/Frankenstein’s monster thing.  md/Fmt wants Gamera’s hard candy shell, and so he tentacle rapes him for it.  Then there’s an evil baby!  These kids today and their shitty villains.  In my days, the villains were evil and hot.  And they had to walk uphill in the snow both ways without any shoes on to tentacle rape Gamera for his shell, and that’s the way we liked it.

Meanwhile, Koga’s in a graveyard with his comedy relief cohorts, after some ultimate weapon of the dog face tribe, because he wants to kill Naraku, too.  There’s so many damn people trying to kill Naraku, in fact, I can’t help but feel like I’ve stepped into a bad anime adaptation of a Tarantino movie.  Maybe it’s the alcohol talking, but InuYasha would be well-served to have Samuel L. Jackson in it.  There, I said it.

Koga and friends get smacked back by Stone Golem Cerberus, who’s all, “You are not dog face enough to get the magical steel press-on nails weapon.”  Also, the steel press-on nails are full of souls.  Seriously, do people in InuYasha just leave souls lying around everywhere?  What is this, Bleach?

Koga tries to kill Stone Golem Cerberus with his bejeweled Uggs, and fails.  Just when he’s about to reach the steel press-on nails, Stone Golem Cerberus breathes fire at the comedy relief, who are so incompetent they don’t even know how to run away.  Koga turns away from the weapon and saves them.  SGC taunts him for doing so, and Koga gives generic hero speech #44 about how the weapon is useless if he’d have to turn his back on his friends to get it, and I said, “Oh, look, it’s a test to see if he is pure of heart enough to take it.”  Hooray for tropes.

Koga wins the steel press-on nails and gets the souls of the dog face tribe to hang around.  He defeats the SGC, and then the steel press-on nails disappear inside his body.  …Ouch.

Kagura’s still flying around on her feather! Considering the episode’s named for her, we’re about halfway through and only saw her for about 10 seconds so far.  She runs into Naraku floating around in his pretty pink soap bubble.  The sky must look really weird in InuYasha land.  Naraku says he’ll free her and give her her heart back.  That’s nice of him.  He’s a villain?  Really?  You kids today and your shitty villains and your pierced scrotums and Blu-Ray DVDs.

Naraku holds out his hand and there sits a bloody, beating heart.  Huh, so I guess it was a real heart after all.  It magically appears back into Kagura’s body, and she’s all, “OMG AWESOMESAUCE!”  Then Naraku tentacle stabs her and pumps her full of purple smokey smegma.  LULZ!

Meanwhile…somewhere, Sesshoumaru is wandering about and runs into md/Fmt, who knows he’s InuYasha’s half brother.  Sesh is all, “If you know that, you must be Naraku’s heart.”  Really?  People don’t know that the two white-haired pretty boys who always fight are related? Interesting.

Back to Kagura, who is now doing the “I’m free, and it’s okay that I’m mortally wounded, really,” monologue as she sees butterflies and her vision blurs in and out.  It looks like a character is just about to have a moment!  Quickly, cut scene!

Back to Sesh, fighting Naraku’s heart monster.  Heart monster has Gamera’s hard candy shell, so Sesshoumaru is about as effective as Magikarp in a fight against Sephiroth.

And back to Kagura!  The animators forgot to take their Ritalin this week, folks.  She’s wandered into a field of white flowers.  Yup, she’s a goner.  Bleeding to death and walking into a field of flowers?  She might as well have spent her last few scenes fluffing the pillows in her coffin.

Sesshoumaru!  His sword is stuck in Naraku’s heart’s hard candy shell, but then a blood-covered flower petal floats over from Kagura, and he’s all, “Hey, I know her,” and Naraku’s heart is all, “LULZ, she dead,” and Sesh is all, “Oh no u din’t,” and breaks his hard candy shell.  He can do that now because…?  Love?  Whatevs.  Naraku’s heart disappears in a puff of smoke, shaking his fist and saying, “I’ll get you next time, Gadget!”  Sesh’s sword breaks, but he can’t worry about that because Kagura is dying somewhere and he has to go to her for some reason.

Here is a screencap of the very next shot.

I’m not sure if alcohol is the cause of or solution to that.  Better safe than sorry, though.  Time for drink #3.

Kagura!  She’s bleeding blood into the flowers, turning them red around her, and bleeding purple smokey smegma into the air again, which she had stopped doing in the previous shot.  Sesshoumaru shows up and is all, “I smelled you dying, so I thought I’d drop in.”  This is about as tender-hearted as he gets, folks.  A dramatic wind blows up flower petals, so it’s time for her to die in a puff of smegma and feathers.  The blood from the daisies is all gone now.  Whatevs.  The Scooby Gang appears just after she dies and asks Sesshoumaru if Kagura was in any pain when she died.  I mean, she got her heart put back into her body right before she was horribly stabbed and pumped full of smegma, then used her strength to walk to a dramatic place to die.  I’m sure she was fine.

End credits.  These are the most hardcore pinwheels ever, motherfucker.

Next episode preview – That little fox kid has a wacky adventure or something!  Seriously? Episode 3 and you’re already onto filler?  REALLY?