This Week in Anime

Does Yashahime Recapture Inuyasha's Magic?

Nicky
I guess I can say that today we're going back to our roots! Long has been since the day that I used to turn on the TV to Adult Swim with the volume low (so I wouldn't disturb my parents) to watch episodes of Inuyasha while doing my math homework.

So just like everything from the 80s getting that reboot, characters having children and then the sequel featuring their "younger" kids is another common way to inject new blood into an already existing property. See: BORT (Boruto), son of NART (Naruto). Yashahime is no different, but it is interesting since it's not directly about Inuyasha but instead follows the two daughters of Sesshomaru, who was Inuyasha's full-demon older brother and rival in the series prior. Sesshomaru was an important character in the first series with his own arc and a fan favorite, but he's also pretty enigmatic, so upon hearing the premise this stirred up a lot of fan reaction.

While I'm not going to get into the details of the plot just yet, I was tentative but excited at the prospect of Inuyasha with an all-girl cast this time!

They also have really good designs that I think portray all aspects of the previous cast well, even in more subtle ways. This is also fine by me because the boys were also absolutely the most annoying part of Inuyasha for me. Having only three members of the cast to focus on cuts down a bit of the chaff.

Though, I would say that's pretty difficult in a series based on having 90% chaff.

We even get an early episode with the old cast doing the same stuff as always, trying to defeat a demon after the Shikon Jewel (even though that thing is dead). But, right from the get go, there's a lot of gaps in this premise. Where are Inuyasha and Kagome? Where's Sesshomaru? When we're introduced to the girls, they're all pretty much on their own. Setsuna and Towa were running through the woods until the day they were split apart. Also, who is their mother anyway?

To all this the show pretty much just says: "No."

It's not here to answer any of these questions right away but it is here to have a good time!

Setsuna challenges Moroha to a duel but eventually they stumble through a little thing called the Tree of Ages and through time where they meet up with Towa, who is excited to see her long-lost sister again. But the problem is that Setsuna doesn't even REMEMBER HER and promptly gives her the cold treatment.

Moroha reveals that Setsuna was most likely a victim of a Dream Butterfly that not only robbed her of her ability to sleep or dream, but also her memories. Towa, feeling guilty, becomes determined to return to the feudal era in order to be able to restore her sister back to her former self.

Yeah, most of the plot is front-loaded and then when it gets to the feudal era proper, the show falls more in line with the Monster of the Week formula and watching the girls hang out. Even the four perils don't really feel like a huge threat in comparison to the other rando monsters as long as they can be defeated in the span of 20 minutes.

The formula however is really good at letting us spend time with the characters, especially highlighting Towa's struggle to reconnect with her sister. So now that we've introduced the girls, let's get into what makes their personalities actually work with each other. Towa is first, as she's rather straightforward. She's kind, chivalrous, and diplomatic. It's obvious that Kagome's bro raised her right, she encapsulates a lot of the same modern values that Kagome has that made her a good heroine in a rather unkind world. Also she's got a cool glowing sword and a cool eye. (Okay, she's not the only one with a cool eye but that's MORE plot)

Towa is also kinda the de-facto leader of the group because she has a cool head but at other times her kindness and unfamiliarity with the feudal era makes her naive and an easy target. I also think her power to neutralize demons is a neat and non-confrontational way of dealing with things, like when a human monk gets possessed by a cat demon, even though it was also present in the first series. The other girls also have lots of different cool, inherited skills that we see used in unique ways.

Next is Setsuna, she's pretty stoic and like Sesshomaru, her circumstances are the most mysterious. Kaede, a mentor figure from the previous series, stated that Setsuna basically just showed up in the demon slayer village one day, possibly as some sort of rite of passage by her father.

I feel like that's an aspect that she more than likely took after her father and having been raised alone for most of her life unlike the demon slayers. To me, Setsuna represents a lot of the negative aspects of Sesshomaru – cold, practical to a fault, competitive – while Towa represents the more positive ones like having a deep connection to family that he gains throughout the series. Though, that doesn't make her a bad character, as it gives Towa a much-needed reality check and motivation to strive for as she tries to get her to warm up to her. Despite her cold exterior, Setsuna is also quite loyal, dutiful, resourceful, and also pretty good with a violin.

Oh yeah, she's also mostly mentored by Kohaku, who I really like having seen grown up into a responsible adult after spending so long being a bit of a minor-antagonist and also kinda a zombie (it's complicated).

Though strangely, we don't see much of Sango and Miroku even though they're around and not dead?

God, I love my feral child. She's really energetic, but rarely successful, so she's a joy and a riot onscreen.

Unfortunately for her, she's also totally stuck in the bounty hunter gig economy and demons have a habit of turning into dust.

She really inherited the best aspects of her parents' personalities. Everyone can immediately tell that she's their daughter, it's really sweet. She also got all their OP powers though, so she has to get hindered otherwise she'd just steal the show. I like that she's basically just along for the ride.

Oh yeah, she also bought a bunch of shit using her uncle's card before she left so we still get lots of fun anachronisms, like bringing in a WHOLE BIKE!!

There are call-backs, and then there are a few episodes that are basically just copy-pasted from it's predecessor. Like the one with a child trying to avenge his turtle father – isn't it essentially the same as Shippo's backstory? There could be that I didn't catch, ecause I'm not going to remember hundreds of episodes of Inuyasha that I watched a long time ago. I find this stuff to be the weaker material as it feels a bit lazy, even if I enjoy seeing all the different designs.

The rest of the writing feels pretty variable though, it's pretty much all dependent on whether you like the individual episodes. I wouldn't call any of them skippable per se, given that it's only one cour so far and it's pretty comfy with its setup. I think part of the comfort is that even if this is slow for two cours, it's actually much more efficient compared to Inuyasha's hundreds of episodes without anything significant happening.

I will say, it's pretty cozy to put on in the background every week. The animation isn't stellar but it looks clean enough and I enjoy the flashy moves and bombastic music for the action sequences. Since it's intended for a young audience, it's not really that violent. Parents or older fans could definitely watch this with their kids and family, which I think is mostly the intent given how most of the struggles are family-related. Even if you may have to come to terms with the eventuality of explaining to everyone that the girls' mom MIGHT be Sesshomaru's previously adopted daughter, whom he raised since she was like...five...which I HOPE isn't what the show is supposed to be going for!! We see (what I presume is) her all grown up, in suspended animation.

It's kinda hard to know given that the girls are half-demons and how demons work in the series. For now I'm just gonna assume that Sesshomaru spawned them out of some dirt or something and put all other options FAR out of my mind in fear of being it too weird.

Especially when there's a possibility that time travel is involved? There's a lot of up-in-the-air elements even halfway through the series. The world of Inuyasha is full of strange elements of surprise that add this kind of mystique, even if it's also equally bullshit. Like the episode where they bring back the concept of New Moons and Towa ends up losing like all of her power! Somehow I forgot that happened in the original series. This only effects Towa though, since Moroha is only a quarter demon and Setsuna is something something Dream Butterfly.

They're also not the only ones interested in them and we have no idea how the girls got them other than Moroha, who stole it off of one of the Four Perils' corpse. There's also this man who introduces himself as a pirate, who not only has a pearl but seems to be the one actually putting the bounty on the Four Perils so the girls can do all the work for him.


I appreciate his eyeshadow game though.

Yeah, I'd say the overall reasoning behind the central plot is actually the weakest stuff in Yashahime, even if it takes the most time to explain. The girls don't really seem as motivated about all that compared to fixing Setsuna or making money, which I think are much more relatable motivations anyways. They turned down the official call to battle, since the girls rely much more on their wits rather than brute strength. I expect they will have to find a better way to appeal to Father Floof's good nature more than anything. Of course, this is all speculation. My favorite moments have all actually been pretty standalone. I really enjoyed the episode with the twin demons stuck together in an eternal battle for dominance, mirroring Towa and Setsuna or Inuyasha and Sesshomaru's struggle.

I actually liked that episode too because it's actually two demons that are symbiotic! Both also highlight the relationship between the sisters well. I guess you can say that pond is more like a puddle though. Inuyasha has never been deep so I don't really expect Yashahime to dive deep. As I said, your enjoyment is going to depend on how much you like the characters or how interesting you find the episode. I say that it's just decent enough at what it does to be investing. If it were a paper, I'd give it a C+.

If you're not strapped for time and want to kinda sit back and turn your brain off for 20 minutes, even the average bite-sized stories are pretty satisfying every week. It maintains a lot of positive aspects of the original such as the cool moves, the comedy, and the melodrama, but it sheds a lot of the baggage as well as being shorter. I'd say whether you're an old or a new fan, it's worth a shot to see if it's right for you.

Also, for the love of god, protect my feral gremlin trash daughter, Moroha, at all costs.