The Bone Eater's Well is one of the more pivotal locations in Inuyasha's
storyline and the means for Inuyasha and Kagome to travel back and forth in
time. Existing in both modern day and the Sengoku Period where most of storyline
takes place, we are introduced to it in the first episode when Lady Centipede
pops out and drags Kagome back in time.
It's original use in the Sengoku period was to dispose of the remains of slain
demons, hence the name Bone Eater's Well. Sitting in an open clearing, it's a
simple, square well with wooden boards around it to keep people from falling
in accidentally.
In the modern day it's got pretty much the same wooden rails around it, but
it sits inside a fairly creepy wellhouse on the Higurashi Temple grounds with
wooden boards placed across the top. Oddly enough, despite being having a
building built around it and 500 years having passed, there are big piles of
humanoid bones laying all around it. More than there are than back in the
Sengoku Period when they were supposed to be dumping bones in it. Hmmmm.
Over the course of the storyline it's been blocked on both sides with varying
degrees of success. Boulders, trees, vines/roots, and even grandpa's seals have
been used to block travel. None of the method's seem to last very long though.
Granpda's seals didn't seem to have any effect on Inuyasha (big surprise), and
Kagome's managed to find a way around blockages on the Sengoku side. I'm kind
of confused on the "rules" of what blocks actual travel though. In episode 20
Inuyasha plugs up the well with an uprooted tree. In the modern era that
renders the Bone Eater's Well inactive and it becomes a simple well - one
with a very solid bottom. Yet in the first movie when both the modern and
Sengoku Era side becomes plugged with roots and vines, Kagome is able to clear
it out by shooting a blessed arrow down it. Oh well, it's probably not worth
obsessing over.
