Madame Exorcist

was an admittedly mediocre exorcist who first appears exorcising a weasel demon in a field. She helps Inuyasha and his group in cleansing a castle of an evil demon head which plagues its residents. She later runs into Inuyasha and his friends again and they work together to confront an "invisible" demon who is stealing from wealthy townspeople. Although Inuyasha, Sango, Miroku, Kagome and Shippō all believe the female exorcist to be a fraud, apparently, with the fallout from the destruction of Mount Hakurei, demons flooded out to wreak havoc on the people of Japan. This created a sizable demand for Madame Exorcist's services, and she tells them that she was forced to come out of retirement and has been kept quite busy by the large work load.

Personality
Madame Exorcist is a very vivacious old woman, who is highly aggressive towards demons and engages in every job she takes on with boundless energy. As an elderly person, she considers it her duty to criticize young people like Inuyasha and his friends, who she views as being inexperienced and naive. However, they view her as naive in turn, due to her inability to sense demonic auras and being an altogether questionably effective exorcist. Nevertheless, Madame Exorcist gets along very well with them, and is very social, though she has a bad habit of spraying Inuyasha with her salt whenever he does something she finds disagreeable. She also teases Sango and Miroku about their relationship.

Despite the view by Inuyasha's group that she is a fraud, Madame Exorcist apparently is unaware of her relative mediocrity, and genuinely believes that she is a legitimate and effective exorcist. Normal humans also are unaware that she is not a very capable exorcist, and one way or another she always earns her fee. Madame Exorcist has a genuine interest in helping people, and she believes that it is her duty and destiny to travel the country exorcising demons. She considers herself a serious professional, and views Inuyasha's group as "comrades", though they remain skeptical as to how powerful she actually is. Despite seeing herself as a capable exorcist, she takes her jobs seriously, and does not fall prey to overconfidence. As such, she is not above seeking outside help from others if she deems it necessary.

She is also a consummate businesswoman and her desire to help people is buttressed by her own robust profit-seeking tendencies. Even so, she is not greedy and is perfectly happy to split the profit from her jobs with Inuyasha's group when they help. In light of her inability to make effective use of her spiritual powers, her remarkable financial success as an exorcist leaves Inuyasha and his friends continually baffled.

Powers & Abilities
Madame Exorcist's powers are viewed with skepticism by Inuyasha and his group, who suspect she is a fraud, since she is not able to sense demonic auras and her spiritual energy is negligible. However, it seems that her powers do exist, it's just that they work differently than other humans. Whereas most spiritual persons, whether monks or priestesses, externalize their powers, it seems that Madame Exorcist internalizes her powers&mdash;although she cannot activate her purification salt or do much harm to demons, nor sense their auras (something which even ordinary humans can do if the aura is strong enough), her spiritual powers are concentrated in her own body, rendering her completely immune to demonic powers and perhaps also being responsible for her unusually youthful level of fitness. Although her powers are unorthodox, she is ironically quite powerful.


 * Spiritual Powers: Despite the fact that Madame Exorcist has shown almost no skill in using her powers, she was immune to the paralyzing spell of the Oni's head, even though both Miroku and Sango were. If Madame Exorcist was truly a fraud, this would not be possible. The likely explanation is that though Madame Exorcist lacks spiritual perception, she herself is able to thwart demonic energy, rendering herself "blind" to it, which has equally positive and negative effects on her efficiency as an exorcist. For while her spiritual "blindness" means she cannot sense demonic auras or sense where demons might be hiding, she is remarkably unaffected by them. When Inuyasha and company arrive at Demon's Head Castle, the aura is so thick that it actually affects the mood of the group; Madame Exorcist, by contrast, remains in good spirits and says she senses nothing, baffling Inuyasha and his friends. Demonic powers also therefore do not affect her. In some ways, it could be considered that Madame Exorcist's spiritual powers create a sort of "barrier" around herself that prevents demonic energy from affecting her, but as a consequence, her powers remain locked inside, and her offensive capabilities as an exorcist are muted, though her resistance is impeccable.
 * Weapons: Madame Exorcist carries around a staff with many bells on top of it. Like Miroku's it can do significant damage to demons if it makes contact. However, despite her being in vigorous health for her age, she seems to have little proficiency in combat. She also carried around salt ash that could stun weak demons temporarily; if infused with greater spiritual power, such as by Miroku, it can be as powerful as a sacred sutra.
 * Concealing Talisman: Madame Exorcist has a charm that she claims can conceal someone's presence from detection by demons. While the accuracy of that claim is never directly proven, she and Shippō develop the novel idea of combining her talisman with his fox magic to render a person completely invisible. Because this innovative strategy is surprisingly successful, it is likely that the talisman does indeed have some inherent power and might be capable of producing the effects she had described (i.e. rendering someones "presence" undetectable, but not invisible). However, much like Madame Exorcist's salt ash, while the talisman may be legitimate, it is possible that it requires someone with control of their powers to activate effectively, such as Miroku with the salt ash or, in this case, Shippō. It is also unclear what Madame Exorcist meant by the talisman being able to conceal someone's "presence", and whether it referred to someone's aura or scent, as the only thing that it is specifically said to not do, is actually render someone completely invisible.
 * Physical prowess: Despite her advanced age, Madame Exorcist possesses extraordinary speed, dexterity, and stamina. She is able to fight and run just as hard as a young, experienced demon slayer like Sango. She performs stretches to remain spry before exorcisms and seems incredibly healthy.
 * Observation skills: Although she cannot detect auras with her spiritual powers, she is nevertheless quite intelligent and capable of deducing subtle things through simple observation. Not long after meeting them, she is able to tell quickly that Sango is in love with Miroku and that she was nervous about him being alone with the Princess of Oni's Head Castle. She also has good tactical sense, able to analyze a situation and come up with a plan and act accordingly. However, she is somewhat oblivious to her own external weakness and Inuyasha's group's skepticism in her powers, even believing herself to be far more powerful than Miroku, unaware that her powers are rather unconventional. Her unique immunity to demon auras, physical fitness, and fearless personality compensate for this relative weakness however.

Media appearances
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Manga

 * Chapter 228
 * Chapter 229
 * Chapter 230
 * Chapter 231

Anime

 * Episode 85
 * Episode 86
 * Episode 136

Trivia

 * Madame Exorcist's inability to use spiritual powers, along-side her deep-rooted belief that she possesses spiritual powers (and on an upper-level of spiritual powers, too), goes-hand-in-hand with Kagome Higurashi's grandfather, Grandpa Higurashi; a Shinto priest, who steadfastly believes that he is a priest of great spiritual prowess, despite of all of the evidence that he lacks any spiritual powers beyond what all normal humans have.

}}Haraiya Exorcista 江湖术士