InuYasha was typical spunky male with oversized weapon, Kagome was a bland twig with too many powers than she deserves, and Sesshomaru is the obligatory bishounen put there for fan-service. Later on in the series, there's a real lack of substance, aside from the "story thus far" section, which basically just vomits up the background information. To newcomers, it isn't as accessible; to seasoned readers, it's annoying. Takahashi's females all look the same: stick-thin with black hair and a totally blank, uninteresting face. That, and it takes so long for the story to really develop and get going that I don't think Takahashi even knew what she was doing any more, and just had to keep dragging it out.
"Yay, Naraku's dead!"
"No, he isn't! He's back again!"
"But he got shot with a sacred arrow! He should have been-!"
"Just play along! We get treats the longer we dance!"
And the ending for the anime; if you managed to last through endless Demon-of-the-week-gets-pwned and "character development" scenarios, your reward was the gang swearing to beat Naraku and then running down a road to nowhere.
What I find to be its biggest flaw is it isn't sure whether it's shounen (young men) or shoujo (young women) manga. Yes, as I said, there are definite shounen elements but considering Takahashi has more experience with shoujo, ultimately the love triangles between InuYasha, Kagome and Kikyo generally take over, and it all comes across as an uneven mixture of both genres.
If you want shounen with lots of romance and a well-crafted plot, read Rurouni Kenshin. If you liked InuYasha, you may just like this even more. I won't force you to do so, in case anybody gets the wrong impression, it's merely a suggestion.
