Dubbed

Think of this scenario: you find yourself binging the anime series Inuyasha in the midst of the summer COVID lockdown, and you want to respect the series’ canon by checking out the feature films released yearly alongside the airing of the series from 2000-2004. Then the day comes when you finish episode 55 and the time to watch Affections Touching Across Time has come.

Up to said 55th episode (I know people say that the movie takes place after episode 54, but I personally don’t believe that), the show is excellent, with solid – albeit imperfect – character depth and imaginative, well-balanced adventures in terms of pace and extrapolating factors that enhance the overall journey. The arc of Inuyasha mastering the use of Tetsuaiga’s Backlash Wave is a major highlight, one that directly sets up the outcome of this first feature produced by Sunrise and co. Now, anyone who has experience with films adapted from famous cartoons knows the drill – they either exist to close out the story, use bigger budgets to portray an extended episode, or bridge a gap between events/seasons. Affections Touching Across Time’s job is to do the latter two, although this case is probably no different with the following Inuyasha film installments. The film is merely a way to transition these fun characters to the big screen with a runtime range of an hour-and-a-half. This leads to potential in how well the scope and spectacle of the story is executed, as there are a handful of anime films that serve as examples for this: Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, The End of Evangelion, and The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya to name a few. Their stories may or may not impact the direction of their series’ counterparts, but they are enjoyable, nonetheless.

Affections Touching Across Time, however, does not fall into this string of appreciated or critically-acclaimed feature film transitions. If anything, the film is a laundry list of how NOT to direct such a story, especially is viewers not familiar with the property are thrown into the rhythm. The crew seemed to not understand how to do a proper Inuyasha film in the first place, and the end result is a screenplay that is of no more value than a by-the-numbers fanfiction. Yes, I said it – this film is literally FANFICTION of the highest degree. A bland villain, cliché conflicts, bad dialogue, and an insultingly uneven story. The level of incompetence radiating from this picture is as clear as the sky is blue.

For starters, the film opens with a demon-fighting sequence that radically jumps back-and-forth between opening credits as the editing struggles to find time to forcefully re-introduce the characters that I already know about. I get it, the film is introducing them in case some of the audience hasn’t seen the show before, but guess what? Actions speak louder than words! Cowboy Bebop: The Movie knew this and let its characters’ tactical methods and personalities present themselves without saying a damn word. The viewers can understand what they’re all about without having the information spoon-fed to them. _ATAT_not only does this poorly, but also has to quickly run parallel to the poorly-CGI’d opening credits. The opening moves too quickly, even for viewers not familiar with the series. What we are given are casual reminders of the gags and skills that our heroes are known for, with dry inclusions of Miroku’s pervertedness and Kagome’s “sit boy” command towards Inuyasha.

Eventually, the villain is introduced and as you’d guess first, his motivation is power. Just power. Oh, and Inuyasha’s father killed him, so the connection CLEARLY matters nudge nudge. Not only does the villain have no personality, but his disciples aren’t even remotely interesting. Meanwhile, you have Naraku from the series and Kagura, his disciple who is one of my favorite anime villains because of her choices in following her own recourse conflicting with her duties for Naraku. But the villain obviously temporarily overpowering the heroes leads to the film’s biggest offender: forcing the ‘metaphorical’ segment of Kagome being brainwashed into impaling Inuyasha on the same tree he was impaled on fifty years prior as Kikyo did. Oh, and look! She’s got the kimono and identical facial features of Kikyo! Tragic, huh? Not when the film plays off this chapter like cannon fodder.

This is a conflict that is visually and spiritually revisited in the series’ Tsubaki/Dark Priestess arc that handles it SO much better because of the stakes, atmosphere, and circumstances. In both cases, Kagome is brainwashed and being forced to kill Inuyasha. In the film, she does so similar to how Kikyo finished him off in the past. In the Tsubaki arc, Kagome manages to overcome the command but is still under a lethal spell. The latter is so much better that it hurts even more to remind myself that the film’s melodramatic fanfiction-esque sequence exists. Anyway, Kikyo arrives at the scene because the writers thought it’d be cool to have her confront Kagome and give exposition dump on the power of the sacred tree, since she forces Kagome back to the modern era where she realizes she can communicate with Inuyasha through the tree. I why this is, because the tree goes hand-in-hand with the Bone Eater’s Well, but the film drags on more than it should by trying so hard to further the emotional connection between Inuyasha and Kagome in the midst of a demon literally damaging the space-time continuum (which by the way completely destroys my theory on the series’ time travel logic, by having the events of the past directly affect the future, so thanks a lot!).

Adding insult to injury, the film poorly utilizes some of the series’ best or most interesting characters. Sesshomaru, Rin, and Jaken randomly appear for three scenes and do absolutely nothing other than giving Jaken one comedic moment and having Sesshomaru remind Kikyo that he will be the one to kill Inuyasha. Then they leave the film as, again, a demon is literally destroying the fucking fabric of space and time. The writing has no reasoning or balance in utilizing these characters other than for the sake of filling the runtime and having references. If a character is useful, the script decides they won’t be useful, cut and dry. Good lord.

At least the action scenes with Miroku and Sango are really cool, for the budget allows more fluid movement and extended screen time with their fight scenes. I also liked how Miroku had to go on offense against one of the villain’s disciples who copied Miroku’s wind tunnel, only to be killed by the thing out of their own naivety. THAT’S a faint glimmer of good writing in this trainwreck of a script – the scene isn’t over-the-top or spectacle-driven, it’s just a straight-to-the-point, tables-have-turned account. The only thing that ruins the levity is when Miroku says out loud to the viewers who haven’t seen the show that the same fate might catch up to him. No duh! As someone who has sat through enjoying 55 damn episodes you’d think I’d be up to date on that information! What’s left from the climax is an anticlimactic finale where the villain just simply dies and after less than a minute the credits start. No time to reflect, no time to grapple the circumstances of this adventure, nothing – just another shoehorned Myoga joke. Not even the My Hero Academia movies end like this. Oh, and there is another pointless scene, post-credits, where Kagome delivers another the film’s second unfunny “sit boy” command on Inuyasha.

The level of incompetence surrounding this film’s structure and direction is staggering. I’ve had a blast watching these characters throughout the series even through its handful of flaws, but this film is nothing compared to even the worst episodes of the show I have come across. As much as I respect the film’s look and attention to detail for the most part, and the music still slaps hard like in the series, this film has no idea how it wants to organize itself, which is the biggest problem. Humor pops up at inopportune times, the climax is bland, the dramatic beats are stale and expendable, the CGI featured is TERRIBLE, the villain(s) are poorly-written and underdeveloped even for a feature film where they are supposed to shine, and there’s too much wasted time spent doing pointless shit to bring the runtime to nearly 100 minutes. This is textbook fanfiction, and even if you want to watch this one to respect the series’ canon, just be cautious. The ride is rough.

P.S. I'm embarrassed that Starz only had the dub in their catalog. I like the dub voices of Inuyasha, Sango, and Sesshomaru, but that's it. Everyone else stinks, especially the dub voice of Kagome who nearly ruins such a good character.