Yuka, Eri, Ayumi
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Yuka (由加, Yuka), Eri (絵理, Eri), and Ayumi (あゆみ, 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.
Although the trio is always together, each girl has a specific personality:
Yuka, who possesses dark brown chin-length hair, is more fiery spirited than the others and is not afraid to share her opinions. She is also an instigator of events and can be quite nosy on certain issues. Although all the girls tend to talk quite a bit, it seems that Yuka pulls rank amongst them with body language alone and she is usually given the vocal stage. Usually not noticeable but present more often than once, Yuka also has a bit more of a tan than the other two, which identifies her as more of the outgoing sort.
Eri, who traditionally wears a yellow bandanna and has shoulder-length black hair (highlighted gray instead of like Kagome's rich blue), is a tad milder than Yuka. She listens to conversations while giving neutral input, and after getting wrapped up in an issue she will tend to agree with or even mimic Yuka, which gives Kagome a bit more than she can chew at times.
Ayumi has shoulder-length, mild brown highlighted hair which she keeps well maintained in a wavy/curly fashion and held back with a black broach at the back of her head. She is the only one who does not have bangs, which along with a middle hair parting to reveal part of her eyebrows gives her a more mature look, and her voice is always warm and calm. She is the study-bug of the group, who finds several subjects easy to grasp while her friends flounder for a foothold in the same fields. She also seems a bit more detached from the group, thinking and listening to what everyone has to say, yet despite doing so she seems to wander off of the discussion's line of logic and baffles her friends. She seems the wisest of the three, and is never pushy which Kagome appreciates. Another defining feature is that she is shorter than everyone else, whereas Kagome, Yuka, and Eri are at eye level with one another.
All three of the girls are minor characters, and while being identifiable by their personalities and hair styles they all share the same brown eye color, facial compositions, and school uniforms. Being modeled after a basic character design (considering their rarity in ever being seen) they would look remarkably similar if drawn without hair.
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 stereotypical 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 talking 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, presumably because 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, also Sota), Rebecca Shoichet (2nd, 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
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi do not have names in the original manga; they are referred to with pictures of their heads in place of names, or not referred to at all.
- "Yuka" is also the name of one of the friends at school of Akane Tendo (from Ranma 1/2, another manga of Rumiko Takahashi).
- "Yuka" translates into three meanings: "Flower", "Superior", and "Gentle". "Ayumi" means "Stroll". And "Eri" means "Blessed Prize".
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