With the publication of chapter 558 of Inuyasha in the weekly zashi, Shounen Sunday, the manga series has finally been completed. There will be no more. I won't say too much about the events of the final chapters except to say that I'm mostly happy. I say mostly, because the one magical event I've waited 558 chapters for never happened. But then again, that's what fanfiction and fanart are for.

You can see the last chapter of Inuyasha (and all chapters from 449-558 - volumes 46-56) on my site - [link] And, if you're one who wants to discuss the final moments of the series - you've read the scanlations and don't have to worry about being "spoiled", you're always welcome to join the discussion on the Adinuyasha list over on Yahoo groups - [link]

Of course, based on what Michihiko Suwa (the producer of Inuyasha from YTV-Japan) said at the Inuyasha "industry" panel at Animazement last month, we can expect the anime to resume. It originally stopped - went on hiatus, as Suwa-san said repeatedly - when the anime caught up with the manga. There is no official word on when the series will be starting again, but Suwa-san went so far as to discuss the time-slot he's hoping for.

To those in the Inuyasha fandom - you'll probably have mixed emotions about the final chapter. Inuyasha/Kagome and Miroku/Sango fans can breath a sigh of relief, although the final chapter wrapped things up in just 37 pages and seemed to rush over things most of us would love to see more fleshed out. But, overall, the ending was happy. That's all I'll say here for now.

I give a heartfelt thanks to ~Patches365 for taking time these past few years to provide us with weekly translations of the chapters. To *doggieearlover who took time from her busy schedule every week to do the html for the Adinuyasha.com website (even making last-minute changes when we discovered two-page spreads or extra pages). To *kojika for jumping in the past few months and translating the sound effects (sfx) in the manga. To all who helped me with the scanning, and to Bole for providing the webspace (and it's virtually unlimited bandwidth, which the site DID need with the over 2,000,000 hits in less than two years). And, to ~Devikuro her dedication to her own scanlations until real life made it impossible for her to continue - at which time I picked them up.

And, mostly, to Rumiko Takahashi herself for writing such an amazing series. I've never been drawn in by a manga/anime to this extent before, and I somehow doubt I will again. The good news - the final volume won't be released in English by Viz until around January 2014, with their current release rate. That gives us five more years to look forward to new volumes coming out here in the US, even though we've read the chapters via scanlations before.

Oh, and if anyone is going to be going to Otakon, Yamaguchi Kappei is on the guest list, and you can bet I'll be first in line to meet the voice of Inuyasha!