Kikyou, the tragic miko
Name: Kikyou/Kikyo (it can be spelled both ways, I guess)Name meaning: Chinese bellflower. When spelled Kikyo, it means behavior, one's daily life.
Age: She was around 17 when she died, but since it has been 50 years since then… I guess she’s… 67 now, right?
Hair color: Black.
Eye color: Brown.
Gender: Female.
Race: Human.
Status: Miko (priestess)
Weapons: Bow and arrows, spiritual powers.
Relations: Kaede’s older sister.
Enemies: Naraku.
Usual Outfit: Kikyou wears typical miko clothes – white, long-sleeved blouse, called chihaya/haori and red hibakama/hakama over her legs.
Seiyuu: Hidaka Noriko (Japanese), Willow Johnson (English), Letícia Quinto (Portuguese)
Kikyou used to be the miko who guarded the Shikon no Tama (Jewel of Four Souls), and protected her village from evil youkai who tried to steal the jewel, for it would give them powers that would go beyond their own comprehension. There was one hanyou (half-youkai), however, that Kikyou would never kill: Inuyasha.
At first, he didn’t quite like her, for she kept him away from the Shikon no Tama, which he wanted to steal so that he could turn into a full–fledged youkai. However, as he noticed she would never kill him like she did to the other youkai, he started following her everywhere she went, and they became friends. That relationship later led to a romance, and then Kikyou agreed to let Inuyasha use the jewel to transform into a human so that he could always be with her. That’s where Naraku gets in.
Naraku also wanted the jewel for himself, but he wanted it to be corrupted, for only then it would reveal its real beauty. He then had this idea to make Inuyasha and Kikyou hate each other, so that the kind priestess who kept the jewel pure would corrupt it with her own hate. He transformed into both, Kikyou and Inuyasha, and made them believe that one had betrayed the other. Shifting into Inuyasha’s shape, he attacked Kikyou and got her deadly wounded, but minutes before she died, she used her spiritual powers to pin Inuyasha to the God Tree, and asked her younger sister, Kaede, to burn the jewel with her remains. Inuyasha then was sealed and Kikyou died, taking the jewel with her to the other world.
Fifty years later, Kikyou’s reincarnation, Kagome, unseals Inuyasha, and a mononoke named Urasue resurrects Kikyou using her bones and burial land. At first, Kikyou wants to kill Inuyasha because she believes that he killed her, but as she learns Naraku was the one who actually did it, she starts plotting revenge against him. As her own soul has already reincarnated, Kikyou has to steal dead people’s soul to keep her clay body moving, and she does that with the help of her Shinidama-chuu.
Kikyou is probably the most dramatic character from Inuyasha, and is for sure, the one with the saddest past. She has turned into a vengeful woman, full of hate for the man who killed and brought her apart from the one she loved. However, Kikyou seems to have kept some of her kindness inside her clay body. She wanders around from village to village, helping the sick and wounded people with her spiritual powers, and she seems to have a soft spot for children. Plus, she has mixed feelings for Inuyasha, for she hates and loves him at the same time, and Inuyasha also seems to have feelings for her, but he’s also in love with Kagome and can’t decide on one of them… That makes Kikyou hate Kagome as well, and take her as a personal enemy.