Episode 164

Possessed by a Parasite: Shippo, Our Worst Enemy! is the one hundred sixty-fourth episode of the InuYasha anime.

Summary
Naraku walks through a snowstorm into a cave. Within the cave is a dark glowing gem. When he takes the gem, a voice asks, "who dares to disturb my sleep?"

Inuyasha has tied Shippō up to a tree. As Miroku, Sango and Kagome argue with Inuyasha about a fox demon that is plaguing the village, the demon arrives.

Miroku and Sango warn Inuyasha to stay back, saying it is a fox deity, not a demon, and that it's been corrupted somehow. Sango and Miroku fight the creature and a parasite comes away from the fox deity. Sango destroys the parasite.

Sango tells the others about the parasite, saying that its behavior was abnormal. During the night, Inuyasha slays several more of the parasites. Shippō becomes infected by a parasite demon. Sango and Miroku chase after Shippō in an effort to save him, but Shippō escapes.

Shippō wreaks a kind of havoc throughout the area, playing nasty pranks and destroying things along the way. Sango and Miroku find Shippō, but he tangles them up in sticky rice.

Inuyasha and Kagome try to find Shippō before the villagers can hurt him. Shippō escapes, and causes a bit of trouble for Kagome and Inuyasha before escaping again.

Inuyasha becomes entangled with Miroku and Sango. The three escape. Sango makes dumplings tinged with paralysis poison in an effort to stop Shippō, but it is only partially effective. This gives Inuyasha a chance to cut the parasite away from Shippō.

Everyone takes off after the parasite to stop it before it can find another creature to possess. Along the way they come across a large bunch of the parasite demons. Miroku absorbs all the parasites with his Kazaana.

Kikyō shoots down some parasites, thinking to herself that she has slain a lot of them recently.

Sango again comments that there is something abnormal about the situation with the parasites. Miroku wonders if Naraku is involved somehow.

Naraku walks along a path, holding the gem he picked up earlier and chuckling to himself.

Trivia

 * The bamboo copter Shippō uses in this episode highly resemble Take-copter from Doraemon series.
 * The things that Shippo vomits up after Sango drugs him look suspitiously like the Susuwatari from the Studio Ghibli films "My Neighbor Totoro"(1988) and "Spirited Away"(2001).