The audience for Inuyasha the Movie 2: The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass is even narrower than you'd expect. It’s not for people who've never seen the TV show - that’s a given. You'd expect it to be aimed at hardcore fans of the show, but I don’t think they'll like it either. Inuyasha the Movie 2 is only for religious zealots devoted to the church of InuYasha that absolutely refuse to recognize something bad even when all logical evidence points towards this logical conclusion or indiscriminating fans who only vaguely remember it.
16-year-old Kagome (voiced by Moneca Stori) was transported back in time to feudal Japan where she found half-demon Inuyasha (Richard Ian Cox). setting him free from the tree he's been pinned to by the priestess he loved - and who would be reincarnated as Kagome in the present - the two search for the shards of the powerful Shikon Jewel. They're joined by a cursed, lecherous monk named Miroku (Kirby Morrow) and demon hunter Sango (Kelly Sheridan). With their greatest foe, Naraku (Paul Dobson) defeated, our heroes disband until a mysterious deity named Kaguya (Nicole Oliver) emerges from a magical mirror. Allying herself with the remnants of their enemies, she plans on destroying the world.
There’s nothing in this movie that advances the plot or is better in any way than a regular 5-episode arc of the television show. For a theatrical release, this is a serious offense. We get no character development, no new revelations about our heroes. The film sets itself up as a game-changer. Regular demons are one thing, but evil moon princesses from ancient legends that want to kill everyone on earth?! That’s something you'd expect to get excited about, but no. Like so many of these movies based on television shows based on manga, the film's just an excuse to make money. They don’t do anything you haven’t seen before, and when you get back to the TV show, it's like none of this ever happened.
You’re far more likely to see this film on DVD than on the big screen, but I just can’t let this damper my criticisms. There are points where the animation looks WORSE than what you're accustomed to. At least two fights in this story should be epic but aren't. All our heroes at their most powerful face off against the biggest bad guys in the series’ history and it's a total letdown.
This plot desperately needed something to energize it. Kaguya doesn’t really do anything particularly impressive until about an hour in and until then, you’re just kind of bored. It hints at something special. Inuyasha fighting a dragon, characters fulfilling their quests and then not knowing what to do with themselves anymore, even elements of science fiction with time paradoxes and time displacement initially get you excited, but they’re tiny ripples in an ocean of mediocrity. It leads to a giant betrayal of an ending. THEY MIGHT AS WELL HAVE MADE THE WHOLE THING A DREAM!
The heroes are not more interesting than they were on TV, the villain introduced is barely a character. There is one brief action scene that’s pretty cool. The rest of the film is quite chatty. The drama and the romance is just the same stuff you’ve seen over and over. The animation is just average. I can’t say that I hated, or even really disliked The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass but feel the need to punish its laziness. If you do watch the film, however, stick until after the credits, for an extra scene.
