About a year ago, when Rumiko Takahashi finally ended the Inuyasha manga, I speculated about whether they would ever do a new anime series to finish up the story. I was dubious. It seemed to me that if anyone wanted to do that, the sensible thing would have been to start it before the manga ended, while the fans were still interested.

Well, it turns out that there will be a new anime series starting this Fall (which probably means they have been working on it for at least six months.) It will feature the original cast and is intended to complete the story. (It will probably take at least 2 years to cover the remaining 21 volumes of the manga–unless, unlike the first series, they do a lot of cuts.)

The big question is, does anybody care? The manga ran for so long that even many of its most dedicated fans gave up on it.

Nevertheless I’m going to give the new series a chance. I thought that the original series was very good in many ways. The problem was that it ran on too long and failed to provide a satisfactory ending.

While it is always possible that the second series will be a disaster, it is also possible that the two series together will amount to a great story, flawed by excessive length. A partial win, in other words. And heck, if I’ve already invested the time to watch 167 episodes, I suppose I might as well give them a chance.