Alright, I just spent a good part of a day geeking out over InuYasha trying to place its exact time in history. Time well spent, I say, because I love Inuyasha and Japanese history.
Here are the results, but be forewarned I might get wordy...
We'll start with placing InuYasha. In Episode 8 of the anime and chapter 19 of the manga we run across a young man named Nobunaga. Anyone who knows anything about Japanese history knows about Nobunaga. If not they're googling it right now. Well stop because I shall tell you who he is.
Oda Nobunaga was born in 1534 during the Muramachi era (1338-1573). Later in his life he would become famous as the first man to initiate and nearly achieve the unification of Japan under the Shogun rule. Before that however he was known as
Owari no outsuke, or the fool of Owari. Owari was, of course, the place where he was born and where his family ruled as
shugo or military governors. I don't have many specific examples of what he did that earned him that title, but the one I do have happened at his father's funeral; during the funeral Oda Nobunaga threw ceremonial incense at the alter. From what I can tell that sort of bizarre behavior was the norm for him. His behavior was so terrible that his tutor, the man who had been at his side since he was born, Hirate Masuhide, commited
seppuku, or ritual suicide, because he felt he was a failure for being unable to correct Oda's behavior. Oda later built a temple to honor his teacher, but it seems his behavior never truly ended.
The Nobunaga of InuYasha was not that Nobunaga. I don't think he was anyone important at all. But he does help us place our heroine in the time line because he did know Oda Nobunaga. Our Nobunaga says something along the lines of, "I won't be mistaken for that fool of Owari!" in both the anime and the manga, though he talks about him more in the anime. From that we can assume that Oda hasn't done anything along the line of unifying Japan, because if he had our Nobunaga wouldn't have been so offended. But at the same time our Nobunaga does know of him, so he isn't some snot nosed brat nobody has even heard of yet. Oda had his coming-of-age ceremony in
1547when he was 13, and his teacher, Hirate Masuhide mentioned above, commited
seppuku in
1553 when Oda was 19. After 13 years old he would begin to make a name for himself, but before 19 his name wouldn't be cast in a positive light. From that we can assume Kagome and InuYasha met our Nobunaga sometime between then.
For the fun of it we'll say Kagome popped out into the past in 1550, becuase I like round numbers.
This obviously isn't a final date, and It's only supported by one loose piece of evidence. If anyone knows of any other historical references made within the manga or anime I'd love to hear of them so I can solidify my argument or revise it completely.
Also, this really had no impact on anyone's writing, nobody cares about exacts dates, its just a bit of fun that I worked out on my own. I can only confidently place Kagome in the Muromachi era.
I was going to do another section from episode 26 and chapter 94 of the anime and manga respectively, where I explain how Midoriko lived in the late Heian (794-1185) to early Kamakura (1192-1333) eras, but I've talked enough already. If enough people want to know I'll add it later.
I hope there's at least one history geek out there who enjoyed this as much as I did
