| NOTE: This page is about Naraku, as his human core, Onigumo, was not voted Pure Evil, therefore only Naraku's information and crimes should be included here. |
| “ | I have often heard you humans refer to this as fate or destiny. Only the weak utter such nonsense. It is different for the truly powerful: they create this so-called fate or destiny with their own hands. | „ |
| ~ Naraku to Kikyō. |
Naraku is the main antagonist of the manga/anime series Inuyasha, being responsible for almost every atrocity and misfortune in the series. He is a spider hanyō born from the human named Onigumo, and various other yōkai.
He was directly responsible for many vile acts, such as the death of Kikyō. Naraku desired the Shikon Jewel, a jewel that would be able to grant him near-invincibility should he acquire all the pieces of it. He desired the jewel to purge his half-human self from his body, and enhance his strength even further.
He is voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa in Japanese, who also voiced Griffith in Berserk, and Paul Dobson in English, who also voiced Fagin in War of the Birds and Vearn in Dragon Quest: the Adventure of Dai.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- He is responsible for almost all of the tragic events in InuYasha and unlike other villains in the series, Naraku chose to discard any redeeming qualities that he could have had by rejecting his human heart.
- This is further proven by his sadism and his desire to cause as much pain and destruction as possible and hurt many people in his path, simply because he enjoys his villainy.
- He is a half-demon who wants the Shikon Jewal to become a full demon and gain more power, discarding his humanity. Also, while the heroes want find a way to make the Shikon Jewel cease to exist or at least to keep it purified, Naraku wishes to corrupt it for his own gain.
- He despises human feelings, especially the love for Kikyo that he inherited from Onigumo. Throughout the series he attempts to get rid of his own heart multiple times because he sees those feelings as weaknesses.
- He had his incarnations and subordinates try to kill Inuyasha and his friends repeatedly, usually while resorting to manipulations, taking advantage of their emotional or physical weaknesses (including planning to attack them when they are injured and barely able to defend themselves). Also, he keeps hiding or running away and avoids as much as possible doing the dirty work himself.
- He is also shown to be a treacherous demon, as he usually tends to betray his allies the moment he feels that they complete their usefulness for him.
- While there are moments when the heroes have comical and light-hearted moments, Naraku has none of those moments and tends to darken the story whenever he appears.
Background[]
- Despite being born from Onigumo's desire to claim Kikyo and inheriting his love for her, Naraku chooses to reject this and suppresses Onigumo's consciousness. Instead, Naraku feels deep hatred towards Kikyo due to his body being composed by numerous demons who want her dead.
- The first thing he did as Naraku was to turn Kikyo and Inuyasha against each other, by disguising himself as the other and attacking them in order to stop Kikyo from using the Shikon Jewal to turn Inuyasha into a human and to corrupt the Jewal with their grudge. This caused Inuyasha and Kikyo to become enemies for over 50 years.
- While posing as Inuyasha, he fatally wounded Kikyo, and thus she died in grief believing Inuyasha had betrayed her. This was against the wishes of Naraku's human heart.
- While posing as Kikyo, he attacked Inuyasha to bait him into attacking the village to steal the Shikon Jewel, which led to Inuyasha being confronted by the real Kikyo and being sealed to the Sacred Tree for 50 years.
- He disguised himself as a beautiful woman to trick Miroku's grandfather Miyastu and then placed a curse on him and the male members of Miroku's family called the Wind Tunnel, which is passed from generation to generation and kills the user in due time. This curse ended up killing both Miroku's grandfather and father.
Inuyasha[]
- He baited Sesshomaru into fighting Inuyasha, even giving him a human arm with a Jewel shard so that he could touch Tessaiga and a hive of demonic wasps called the Saimyōshō to use against Miroku's Wind Tunnel, the latter of which nearly killed Miroku.
- He put a Jewel shard on the forehead of Rōyakan (a gentle guardian of the forest) and made him attack Inuyasha against the wolf demon's will, since the shard would kill Rōyakan and he was unable to take it off himself.
- While posing as Kagewaki Hitomi, he called the strongest demon slayers to his castle (including Sango, her brother Kohaku and their father) and then told several demons that the demon slayer village was unprotected. This resulted in the demons attacking the village and killing everyone in it (except Kirara).
- When the demon slayers he called arrived at his castle, he sadistically took control of the body of Kohaku (Sango's younger brother) and forced him to kill all the other demon slayers at the castle against the latter's will, with Sango being the only survivor.
- He told Sango that it was Inuyasha who destroyed the demon slayer village and even gave her a Jewel shard for her to fight him, resulting in Sango attacking Inuyasha to get revenge. It's even pointed out that Naraku expected for Sango to die fighting Inuyasha.
- He had a demon take the body of Miroku's guardian Mushin so he could lower Miroku's guard and get him killed, and even tried to distract Inuyasha and the others so it would happen.
- After Kohaku died of his wounds at Naraku's castle, Naraku revived him with a Jewel shard, erased his memories and made Kohaku his servant to use against Sango. While brainwashed by Naraku, Kohaku was ordered to attack and kill villagers and attempt to kill Sango again, with him murdering an entire village during this.
- He also threatened to get Kohaku killed if she didn't steal the Tessaiga from Inuyasha, having him threaten to kill himself to force her to do so.
- To acquire a new body after being injured by Kagome's arrow, he magically imprisoned demons inside a mountain against their will then forced them to fight each other to death, with the winner absorbing the body of the loser. He promised that the victor would be freed from the mountain, but in the end he absorbed the last demon standing to gain a strong new body.
- He ordered Kagura to slaughter most of the wolf-demon clan, and then tricked Koga into thinking Inuyasha did it, causing Koga to attack Inuyasha in rage.
- Through Kagura, he also gave Koga a fake Jewel shard made of poison which put Koga's life in danger and almost caused him to lose his arm.
- He had Kanna steal the souls in a village to turn the inhabitants against Inuyasha and his friends. She also tried to steal Kagome's soul and steal the Jewel shards she had.
- In another attempt to kill Inuyasha, he ordered Goshinki to slaughter an entire village just to lure an injured Inuyasha there.
- He had Kageromaru and Juromaru try to kill Koga and Inuyasha's group, with Kageromaru eating Inuyasha's insides and attempting to eat Kagome more than once.
- He made a giant Soul Collector chase Kikyo around and attempt to absorb all of her souls to kill her.
- Shows no care for any of his subordinates, not even for his own incarnations, as he abuses, tortures, and kills them when they fail, disobey, or question him.
- He gives Kagura the worst treatment, due to holding her heart in his possession, and would torture her by squeezing it if she fails or rebels against him.
- He initially didn't tell Kagura anything about Inuyasha's Wind Scar, as he wanted to test how deadly this attack was, clearly not caring if Kagura would survive or not.
- Despite Hakudoshi's initial loyalty, Naraku sees him merely as an expendable pawn from the start. He even uses him to escape from Kagome's arrow, which ends up hitting Hakudoshi instead, and shows no care when Hakudoshi is hurt because of him.
- He later gave Kagura her heart back, but ruthlessly killed her with his tentacles for disobeying him, even poisoning her with miasma.
- He killed Kanna while placing her on a dangerous mission, and was also disgusted when Inuyasha and his friends showed sympathy towards her.
- He had Tsubaki curse Kagome and take control of her body while she was still conscious to make her try to kill Inuyasha with an arrow, so that Inuyasha would relive the day he was sealed to the sacred tree by Kikyo.
- He also was planning to kill Kagome should Inuyasha try to run away, forcing Inuyasha to have to choose between his life or Kagome's.
- In his first attempt to get rid of his heart (which still had Onigumo's love for Kikyo), Naraku creates an incarnation that he leaves behind with no face or identity. Confused and without a purpose, this incarnation ends up killing several innocent people to steal their a faces and their goods, burns down an entire village for fun, and tries to capture Kagome thinking she is Kikyo.
- Naraku later decides to reabsorb this incarnation and mercilessly kills it, after realizing that he still needs his heart to connect his body.
- He had Kagura kidnap Rin and had Kohaku hold her hostage in a place surrounded by demons in order to bait Sesshomaru into searching his castle and fighting him, so that he could absorb Sesshomaru and gain the powers of a full demon.
- When this failed, he took control of Kohaku's body to make him kill Rin, so that he would have time to escape the castle and to bait Sesshomaru into killing Kohaku, which would create animosity between Sesshomaru and Inuyasha's group.
- He used Jewel shards to resurrect the Band of Seven, a group of mercenaries who have killed thousands, to murder as they please as a distraction while he hid and experimented to strengthen himself inside Mount Hakurei.
- He promised the Band of Seven they could keep the Jewel shards if they eliminated his enemies, but he actually planned to take back all the shards and kill them again from the beginning.
- After Bankotsu was defeated by Inuyasha, he mocked Bankotsu for staying in Mount Hakurei to avenge his fallen comrades instead of running away with the Jewel shards, which infuriates Inuyasha and he even defends him saying that while Bankotsu was a villain, he was thousands of times more decent than Naraku.
- He manipulated Saint Hakushin's vulnerabilities to bring him to his side and used him and his barrier to protect himself while he hid inside Mount Hakurei.
- Once the barrier around the mountain was removed, Naraku's miasma infested the air and killed all the trees and likely other beings who lived in there.
- He also turned the inside of the sacred mountain into his "belly" to be able to perform the improvements in his body.
- Once his new body was complete, Naraku left and decided to bring down the entire mountain in an attempt to trap and kill Inuyasha's group.
- With the destruction of the mountain, all of Naraku's demons who were inside it left and killed everything in their path, destroying entire villages.
- He captured Koga inside Mount Hakurei and planned to absorb him to gain his full demon powers.
- He got rid of his own heart (and Onigumo's love for Kikyo) and draw Kikyo to the sacred mountain to eliminate her. Once his new body was complete, he attacked Kikyo and pushed her off a cliff into a river of miasma.
- He had Kagura and the Infant kidnap Kagome, then attempt to corrupt her so that he could use her to locate the last Jewal shard.
- He had the Infant, Kagura and Hakudoshi killing several innocent monks, priests and demons (including Shinsen and Kanta's father) to search for the Netherworld, where the last Jewal shard was.
- He had Kanna and Kohaku give the Infant to a princess and trick her into believing that it's her baby, who was actually stillborn, to keep Naraku's heart safe.
- During this, Kanna killed all the people present during the birth of the stillborn baby and spared only the princess.
- He had Kohaku pose as a servant in the castle where the Infant was hidden and watch over him, but when Princess Abi attacked the castle, he controlled Kohaku, forcing him to kill everyone around the Infant to get him back.
- The massacre Kohaku was forced to commit in the castle, along with Sango's appearance, triggered Kohaku's memories of murdering his fellow demon slayers and his father, making him have a mental break down and try to commit suicide out of guilt.
- He incited Princess Abi's attacks on villages to gather blood to feed Tekkei (with numerous people being slaughtered in the attacks), even giving Princess Abi a trident that could protect her from the Tessaiga. But, from the beginning, he was planning to betray them and kill Tekkei to use her blood to access the Netherworld.
- In the Netherworld, he takes advantage of Inuyasha's group fight with Hōsenki, who doesn't want to give the last Jewal shard to anyone. He stays hidden watching the fight and shows up when Hosenki's adamant armor is weakened and forcefully extracts the shard from his body.
- To avoid being hit by Kagome's arrow in the Netherworld, Naraku uses his connection to Hakudoshi to escape, showing up inside his barrier while Hakudoshi is still recovering from being hit by a similar arrow, causing Kagome's arrow to hit Hakudoshi instead.
- After discovering that Kikyo survived his attack on Mount Hakurei, he tries to lure her out of hiding by having Hakudoshi and Kohaku kill a Rat demon, take his box and unleash an endless hoard of rat demons that devour anything in their path, destroying numerous villages.
- Upon nearly completing the Shikon Jewel, he tried to destroy Kikyo's village.
[]
- Naraku on the Villains Wiki
- Naraku on the Inuyasha Wiki