Thread:Super Shmevan/@comment-4576906-20200512210056

Sorry for all the message spam on your wall! I just want to keep all these discussions separated by topic so it makes it easier to refer back to them in the future, if need be.

I wanted to talk to you about the time the InuYasha series takes place. While I've outlined a rough approximation here, I'm really getting tempted to come down on a hard date (albeit with the "circa" caveat). We can put it to a vote, if you prefer, but I'd like to run it by you first to see what you think.

So as I laid out in the above article on the Sengoku period, a samurai tells Jakotsu that "a spectre over a decade old wouldn't be familiar with this new type of weapon", which means that the series takes place within 10 years of the introduction of the matchlock gun to Japan (1543), i.e. 1543-1553.

However, there are two other factors which I think can help us place the series more specifically. The first is Amari Nobunaga and Kagome's reaction towards him, and how that relates to the person he's confused for, Oda Nobunaga. Putting aside Kagome's history test scores, I think that we can gauge something from her reaction. Kagome at first believes that Amari Nobunaga is Oda Nobunaga, to which Amari Nobunaga contemptuously replies that he does not want to be confused with the likes of him, calling Oda "a big idiot". During his teenage years, Oda Nobunaga is known as the "Fool of Owari". The fact that Kagome thinks teenaged Amari N. is Oda N., combined with Amari's disgust at being confused with him, strongly suggests that during the series, Oda N. is a teenager. As Oda N. was born in 1534, his teenage years (1547-1553) coincide perfectly with the 1543-1553 range we have based on the rifle information. If we were to assume (and it would just be an assumption) that Amari N. and Oda N. are not just close in age, but the same age, and that Amari N. is the same age as Kagome and Inuyasha (physically, at least), then all four of them would be 15 in 1549 (coincidentally the same year that Oda Nobunaga gets married and orders 300 rifles for his armies [Nobunaga was one of the earliest innovators to employ rifles in his clan's army]; the factors around Amari N. and Tsuyu-hime shows that they are also just of marrying age, as well.).

The final clue, in my opinion, is just a logical one. First, Kagome lives in 1997; when she time travels, it would make sense if she traveled in a whole number. The well transporting her 450 years into the past makes more sense to me than it transporting her some irregular number like 452 or 449. Plus, the InuYasha series loves "50 years", and other nice, round numbers like 10, 100, or 200. 450 seems like the mostly like number, which would bring Kagome back to 1547. The most likely window then is 1547-1549, much tighter than 1543-53 or 1547-53.

Based on all of our canonical information, we can safely deduce that the series takes place during the years 1547-1553. However, I'd like to pinpoint it to 1547 precisely. Although it's a safe bet, it is just an educated assumption, so I'd like to put "circa 1547/c.1547" just so we're not going too far out on a limb, and to let readers know that it is only an approximate date. 