Yuka, Eri, Ayumi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi are three characters in the anime and manga series InuYasha. They are good friends of Kagome Higurashi, and all four of them attend the same middle school in Tokyo.
While Kagome struggles to keep up with school because she is often away in the Feudal Era, Yuka and Eri seem to share the same fate: after every test, they get together and talk about how badly they did on the exam. Ayumi, on the other hand, always scores well on tests and doesn't seem to notice her friends' difficulties with academics. The three girls are usually willing to assist Kagome by providing notes on the classes and helping her with homework, provided that such help doesn't compromise their own ability to study.
While Kagome has matured beyond her years due to her adventures in the Feudal Era, Yuka, Eri and Ayumi remain typical teenaged girls, whose main concerns are schoolwork and boys. Though they appear to have known Kagome for years, Kagome's sudden onset of various, conflicting, and often ridiculously unlikely illnesses does not seem at all strange to the trio. In fact, they do not even bother to visit Kagome when Grandpa tells the school that Kagome has had a relapse or fallen victim to some new disease. The only time her friends have visited her when she is 'ill' was in Episode 89, "Nursing Battle of the Rival Lovers", because Kagome had an 'ordinary cold'. Kagome's apparent ability to completely recover from all symptoms of these illnesses at will, and just in time for major exams, does not seem unusual to the trio, either.
Though the trio has yet to realize it, Kagome has often felt a keen sense of distance between herself and her friends, largely due to Kagome's newfound maturity and the increasing volume of time between Kagome's returns to the modern era. In episode 128, it is revealed that Kagome has a far greater attachment to her companions in the Sengoku Jidai than to Yuka, Eri and Ayumi after everything she has been through; her friendship with them is now mostly founded on her need for their notes to keep up in school since she is often away aiding Inuyasha. They almost found out Kagome's secret when they enrolled her in three extra-curricular activities and four demons were walking around.
Among the three friends, Ayumi seems to be the only one who has hope for Kagome's relationship with the 'two-timer' (Inuyasha) from the beginning. She appears to be the hopeless romantic of the group. Yuka and Eri are more reluctant to accept her relationship with Inuyasha, based on the fact that Kagome's broad, abstract descriptions of the situation have painted him as an unfaithful, selfish thug. Though they eventually encounter Inuyasha later in the manga and the anime and deem him worthy of Kagome, their main objective seems to be convincing Kagome to dump Inuyasha and pursue a relationship with Hojo, whom they have deemed the school's most attractive and desirable male. They indicate on more than one occasion that this relationship is the natural order of things, being that Kagome is the most beautiful and desirable female in the school, even after the onset of her many "illnesses".
In episode 160, Yuka, Eri and Ayumi follow Kagome home as Kagome was angrily looking for InuYasha for accidentally ruining her bicycle. The girls wait in Kagome's room just as InuYasha was heading into the window. Kagome went from angry to scared and frightened when she saw InuYasha taking with her friends who knew him from the festival. Kagome was afraid they'll find out that InuYasha is a half-demon, but her friends told Kagome that InuYasha is alright. Kagome was relieved that they accepted InuYasha, no matter what happens. Kagome and InuYasha made up after that and headed back to the Feudal Era. During the closing credits of the final episode, Eri, Yuka and Ayumi are seen walking with Hojo since they now see Kagome and InuYasha as the new "perfect couple".
[edit] Voice Actor
Japanese
- Yuka - Kaori Shimizu (also Kikyo's shikigami Asuka)
- Eri - Yuki Masuda (also Kikyo's shikigami Kochō)
- Ayumi - Nami Okamoto
English
- Yuka - Saffron Henderson (1st), Rebecca Shoichet (also Sota)
- Eri - Jillian Michaels (also Shippo)
- Ayumi - Cathy Weseluck (also Kagome's mother)
Latin American
- Yuka - Xóchitl Ugarte
- Eri - Gaby Ugarte
- Ayumi - Rossy Aguirre
[edit] Trivia
- Yuka, Eri and Ayumi don't have names in the original manga.
