When I started reading the Inuyasha manga, I didn't have the idea of writing an in-depth meta analysis of its queer themes and narratives in mind. I simply wanted to relive my childhood. Yet here we are. I was surprised at how easy it was for me to identify said themes while reading, so I knew I had to take one for the team and write something on it. The most curious thing about the whole situation is that a story in which heterosexuality and gender binaries are so prevalent could hold such a rich queer intertextuality. We're talking about the same manga in which the sole gay character is a breathing, walking stereotype; he's a villain with a perverse infatuation with the main male characters. He looks and acts feminine, and is often condemned for being attracted to males. Meanwhile, Miroku, an actual sex offender is exempt from said prejudice just because he is a heterosexual male that preys on women. Anyway, the point is that heterosexuality and the gender binary are the norm of the Inuyasha universe; we are presented with an (not that) intricate love triangle between the main character, a priestess and her reincarnation. The main villain's — again, a heterosexual male — motives revolve around said priestess. Everything that strays from the strongly established status-quo, everything that is remotely queer, is condemned.

There are no allusions to any characters being anything but straight or cisgender and there is no apparent queer subtext anywhere to be found.

Except, there is. In a way.

The narratives presented in Inuyasha are vast. I won't go as far as saying that they are all well written, because that is far from the truth. Half of the characters don't have real motivations and just tag along the main characters because they can. Two of them, however, are very interesting to look at from a queer perspective. Inuyasha and Sesshomaru. The thing is, we can't really look at them as intersecting, neither as parallels. If we decide to read Inuyasha's character as queer coded, we can't do the same for Sesshomaru following the same narrative. The situation applies the other way around (although no matter how we decide to read the narrative of the series, Inuyasha is still part of a marginalized group.)

That is, I think because they are foils to one another — on the one hand, Inuyasha's queerness is reinforced by Sesshomaru fitting neatly into the box that he was put in. On the other hand, Inuyasha might be the catalyst of Sesshomaru's queerness. But more on that later.

Inuyasha is a hanyou; half human and half youkai. After his mother's death he is pretty much on his own. Neither humans nor youkai are especially kind to him: the first fear him while the latter consider him weak and unworthy. At the very beginning of the manga the Inuyasha we meet is an outcast with no place to go and nobody to call family — all of this because of his nature. It's pretty easy to understand why his goal is stealing the very artefact that can transform him and make him a part of one world, not both. But Inuyasha has two choices: at first he intends to use the Jewel to become a full youkai, but his plans change when he meets and falls in love with Kikiyou. As a result of Naraku's plan and Kikiyou's apparent betrayal, Inuyasha abandons said plan and decides that being a full youkai would suit him better. After all, being a youkai comes with power, power that can assure Inuyasha that he won't be betrayed by humans ever again.

Perhaps some of the queer themes of this narrative are apparent, perhaps some are not. Let's go a bit more in depth and see what we can find.

Inuyasha is different. He is neither one nor another and no matter where he goes, there isn't really a place for him to fit in. A community of hanyous, a gathering of people just like him is unheard of. Therefore, his two options are living among humans, who hate and distrust him or youkai. The thing is, his only connection to the youkai world is gone; his father, the Inu no Taisho, died shortly after his birth, leaving Inuyasha in the care of his mother and her only. We don't have a lot of information about Inuyasha's childhood, but we know that he lived with his mother among humans until her death. His mother was a person of importance, or at least rich enough (that we can deduce from the clothes she is depicted wearing), but that didn't ensure Inuyasha's acceptance among humans. He was forever regarded a freak of nature and bullied.

In appearance, this is the textbook narrative of race/species based discrimination, but the fact that Inuyasha gets a choice is what makes it a queer narrative. Inuyasha lives in a fantasy world, full of youkai, magic and powerful artefacts, such as the Sacred Jewel. With the help of the Sacred Jewel he can become one or the other, fully human or fully youkai. His choice is mostly influenced by external factors; at the beginning of the story we don't see an Inuyasha who put much thought into what this choice truly entails; his reason for wanting to become a full youkai is that it would ensure his survival. And then, when he falls in love with Kikiyou, he is swayed into making another choice which, although very different from his initial one, leads to the same outcome: acceptance.

Inuyasha is essentially forced into changing his entire being and radicalizing himself in order to gain acceptance and in order to survive. This is, in my opinion, a queer experience. Inuyasha can't hide his queerness like a human in our day an age would; his acceptance and well being are not dependent on a well kept secret, but rather on needing to change his entire being in order to fit a certain mold.

It is only when he meets Kagome that he begins to embrace his queerness and accept himself as he is, realizing that he doesn't necessarily need to fit into an already stablished box, but rather, build his own with the help of the people that accept him for what he is and care for him. The queer narrative surrounding Inuyasha is that of having to deny one's queerness in order to gain acceptance and safety and then coming to terms with said queerness after finding people willing to accept it.

Sesshomaru's queer narrative is a bit different. He doesn't have to make a choice, and he doesn't have to make a place in the world for himself, as he already has one that he fits into.

One way of reading his narrative would be by tying it into Inuyasha's — Sesshomaru spends the better part of the series fighting Inuyasha, deriding and degrading him for his queerness, until he gradually comes to accept it and perhaps even respect it. Viewed like this, his is a story of acceptance and learning to tolerate, and while yes, it is a valid interpretation, it doesn't do any justice to his very complex and intricate character. Although Sesshomaru is perhaps the most intolerant towards Inuyasha out of everyone else, you can apply this narrative to most of the characters to some extent.

So lets shift the perspective a bit.

Inuyasha is queer, in the sense that he is neither fully youkai nor fully human, but in relation to Inu no Taisho, Sesshomaru is the queer one. His father left him and his mother for a human with whom he had a child, fully aware that the child would not fit into the very tight box that was imposed by society — either human or youkai. To said child he left a very powerful heirloom. Moreover, he loved said child.

Now, we don't really know what Inu no Taisho and Sesshomaru's relationship was like. and we have no idea what kind of childhood did he have, and I'm definitely not going to go the headcanon route here. What we know, however, is that Inu no Taisho left Sesshomaru Tenseiga, a sword which had no apparent value to him. He left a sword that didn't cut to a youkai whose ambition was to better his father in power. He left Sesshsomaru the Tenseiga in order to teach him the value of human life. In order to change him.

And here's the thing: Sesshomaru is pissed. Maybe not so much at Inuyasha as much as he is at his father, but Inuyasha is the product of his father's straying from the norm. A norm that Sesshomaru clearly abides to and tries to preserve. He doesn't understand his father's infatuation with a human, why he left his mother and his title and most importantly, he doesn't understand why his father wanted him to stray away from the norm as well.

The message left to Sesshomaru is pretty clear: you are not accepted the way you are. If you want to prove yourself, you have to get away from yourself and become someone else entirely. Yes, Sesshomaru's growth as a character results from starting to value human life and protecting those weaker than him — essentially from his letting go of his prejudice and hatred, but we're not necessarily judging the morality of the narrative (since we're not reading as an extension to Inuyasha's).

For a Sesshomaru early in the series, this kind of growth seems unthinkable. He wants nothing but to prove that he is more powerful than his father simply because his father deemed his natural state insufficient. Sesshomaru's narrative can be summarized as: fuck you for trying to change me, I am more than enough the way I am. It is also a narrative of coming to terms with one's self and letting go of the toxic people (or in this case, their expectations) in his life.

I think what triggers the change in Sesshomaru and his growth is precisely the fact that he gradually lets go of his negative feelings towards his father and grows to value human life on his own, through people who show him kindness and respect, and not because he is expected to do, otherwise deemed unworthy of his father's affections. In that sense, Sesshomaru's character development does not negate his narrative in any way. He lets go of the expectations put on him and finds his own path. Said path takes him on a route that he chose for himself, and I think he's content with that — he made that choice, not his father.