The first thing I feel like turning to is Rumiko’s classic series Inuyasha, specifically its 2 lead protagonists, Inuyasha and Kagome.
Inuyasha is a very powerful warrior; there is no doubt about that. In fact, he is physically superior to all humans. He runs fast enough to cross water, jumps ridiculous heights and distances in a single bound, can lift his weight a hundred times over and has a punch feared by many demons. His half demon body is incredibly resilient to all forms of damage, and heals back very quickly. Heightened senses allow him to sniff out whatever he seeks, hear sounds better and see that far-off object just a few seconds earlier, in addition to much better at night. He wears a robe that is more effective than any human armor, and effectively renders him immune to fire. He possesses a certain cunning to which he may owe more victories than his actual power. He has a few demonic tricks up his sleeve, as well as a ridiculously large sword with many tricks of its own. He grew up an outsider in an era where surviving on your own meant being so tough you can break a bar of tool steel over your head, and it shows in his pain tolerance, determination and general lack of fear. He has had 150 or so years of experience under his belt, but his body is equivalent to the age of 15. (I should probably mention that although the modern coming of age in Japan is 20, it was between 12 and 16 for boys and between 12 and 14 for girls in ancient Japan) If there is any weakness at all in his fighting abilities, it is that he has great trouble fighting at a distance without unleashing a massive barrage of demonic power or a large rock; that is, it is difficult for him to launch a ranged attack without causing some sort of area damage. This usually won’t matter unless Kagome is standing right next to his enemy or something, and we all know how frequently THAT happens! As a result of his abilities, any fight with a less than omnipotent demon is boring, unless the demon is so pathetic it’s funny.
However, before he met Kagome, Inuyasha never trusted humans (which explained why he swallowed Naraku’s deception so easily) Rejected from both the human and demon societies, he couldn’t even chill with his own half brother. As a result, he utterly lacks social skills (in the Japanese version, he doesn’t use ‘honorifics’, a portion of language equivalent to our ‘Sir’, ‘Ma’am’, ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’. The use of honorifics in Japanese is much more frequent than in English. In fact, Inuyasha goes as far as adding on teme (bastard) or a suffix translating to ‘hag’ to names) and has a bad temper causing him to be ticked off at all times. While these usually do not prove that amusing in the feudal era, imagine what he’s like in Kagome’s modern Tokyo, where he has to catch up on 500 years (550, if you count the time he was nailed to a tree) of social change, not to mention disguise his appearance. He’s practically clueless. Some of the best episodes take place in the modern era. One that jumps to mind is the ‘culture festival’ arc. It involves a small group of demons being set loose on a (you guessed it) culture festival at Kagome’s school. Since everybody’s dressing up, Inuyasha does not need to hide his ears. However, it also makes the demons harder to find. I’ll skip to the climax here: Kagome is the female lead of a romantic play, and Hojo (some fella with a crush on Kagome) is the male lead. In order to speed up the demon hunt, Kagome decides to skip right to the end of the play, where the leads reach their happy ending (an embrace). Now, Inuyasha has no way of knowing that this is a play. However, after seeing the wolf demon Koga in action, he knows better than to let some random guy hit on his woman. So, of course, he interferes, intercepts Kagome, and starts to question Hojo, seemingly dooming the play. But Kagome improvises. She gives him a ridiculous name (I remember it being Piccolo, but don’t quote me on that. I just remember it started with a P and had something to do with Pickles, or some kind of food) and asked that he play along. She then made up some trash about being unable to escape true love; she must join her demonic lover and bade Hojo’s character to leave her to her fate. However, Hojo (not being the smartest kid in school) refused and instead challenged Inuyasha to a duel (basic suicide) Hojo drew his crappy plastic medieval short sword, and Inuyasha drew Tetsusaiga (aka Iron Crushing Fang) Things were not looking good for Hojo, but he didn’t know it. Fortunately, one of the demons (Giant Watermelon Monster ROFL!!) burst up through the floor. Both men agreed to attack it instead of each other. Hojo charged….and Inuyasha unleashed the Wind Scar. There wasn’t anything left of the demon, and the back wall took major damage. To seal the deal without further catastrophe, Kagome wraps up the storyline, hops onto Inuyasha’s back, and he jumps through the newly created hole in the wall. Well, that’s inaccurate. There was more hole than there was wall. Anyways, funniest episode ever. And all because of Inuyasha’s cultural and social ignorance.
Now let us examine the female protagonist, Kagome Higurashi. A 15 year old girl from the modern era warped back 500 years, she has the great fortune of possessing spiritual powers. Her arrows have immense purifying powers, which can destroy demons and cleanse that which has been tainted. Her archery skills improve from the beginning of the series, and she is proficient at shooting down her opponents. Her real talent, though, is her ability to detect shards of the Shikon, as well as evil, demonic auras. Her social abilities are superb, regardless of the era. She is usually the one who is breaking up fights and resolving them peacefully. Her will is as strong as her compassion, and she often goes out of her way to help others.
However, this also a fault of hers. Because of Kagome, precious time that could be spent looking for the shards of the Shikon is spent helping random people. While there is usually some reward, it is sometimes a trap of Narakus or occasionally a wild goose chase. And her combat skills…..are lacking. She’s not exactly helpless at close range, but then again, many of Inuyashas side quests start when some demon snatches up Kagome. There are way too many of these incidents to list them all, but I think Koga’s kidnapping and subsequent claiming her as his bride stands out the most. That and that one with the boar demon who brainwashed girls with that magic golden tiara. Also, she lacks the following abilities:
1. Able to break metal with bare hands
2. Able to lift/carry objects several times heavier than self
3. Able to run crazy fast
4. Able to cause mass destruction
5. Able to make crazy jumps
6. Able to not care when hit over the head with a large log
7. Able to detect blood and carcasses from a fair distance
The list goes on. Now, I hate to sound like a woman-hating, chauvinist, misogynic bastard, but the truth of the matter is sometimes she’s nothing more than a damsel to be saved. I have no doubt that she despises this, and she deserves a great deal of credit for constantly trying to improve herself.
Now, while each of the aforementioned characters seems to be prime examples of a balanced character with unequally distributed abilities, I could have mentioned only one and it would have been just as good an example. However, there is a particular reason I used this pair: Kagome seems to be almost everything Inuyasha is not. She is polite, well tempered and very sociable. He is rude, constantly angry, and goes around calling people bastards and hags. Kagome can purify things, but her powers of destruction are extremely limited. Inuyasha has no problem destroying things, whether it is crushing demon skulls with his bare hands or destroying massive demon hordes in a single swing of the sword, but cannot purify things as his powers are demonic in nature. Kagome is no more durable than the average human being. Inuyasha has been received many injuries that would prove fatal to humans, sometimes 4 or 5 at a time. I think you see my point. The other team members fill in gaps neither Kagome nor Inuyasha occupy. Although now that I think about it, Shippo’s useless, Sango could easily be replaced and Miroku…..well, I could see Kagome learning to use those ofuda thingies. Also, Inuyasha could totally have lopped his hand off and wield it the same way Kratos from God of War uses Medusa’s head. (personally, I think that would have been cool, but it wasn’t exactly my call to make)
