My Further Thoughts on "Yashahime"
Note:
This was originally written on Tuesday February 14, 2023, and was posted on DeviantART the next day on Wednesday February 15, 2023. I just recently got the second part of Season 2 on Blu-Ray 💿, and I started watching it last night, and I felt like I wanted to repost this review of the second part of Season 1 before I review Season 2 as a single whole. I'll save my thoughts on Season 2 for the review, so I'll try my best to not talk about it here too much. What I will say though is that I definitely like Season 2 a lot more than Season 1.
This is definitely one of those shows that gets better over time I would say. Even, with the two halves of Season 1, the quality significantly improved with Part 2 compared to Part 1. Not that Part 1 of Season 1 was bad, I did still like it, but there were things in Part 1 of Season 1 that I had issues with that were mostly corrected in Part 2. And of course, all of Season 2 is just perfect, like it's been pretty solid so far, some minor things that I have nitpicks about, but nothing brings down the season or the show for me. That's all I say about Season 2 for now until I get to the dedicated review itself. Enough dillydallying let's get on with the review. These are my thoughts on Season 1 Part 2 of Yashahime.
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It's been awhile since I've talked about this show, but that's only because it took me a long time to actually get my hands on the second part of Season 1. But, I finally got it recently after I saw it at FYE, along with Evangelion 3.33: You Can (Not) Redo. So, I got to finally see this season through to the end. Now, I'm ready to watch Season 2, when or if Viz Media ever actually releases it on Blu-Ray 💿. I still stand by what I said in my first "Thoughts on" on Yashahime, I will support the physical media releases the best I can, and not just result to streaming all the time. I really love physical media, and I don't want it to die, especially not any time soon.
I actually made a huge goof when it came to watching these particular episodes in the second half of Season 1: I watched them out of order. I actually watched Episodes 19-24 on Disc 2 first by mistake. I didn't realize it until I finished watching the episodes, and I took out the disc 💿. I was like, "Oh shit 😲, I just watched the episodes out of order 😨." To be perfectly fair, they put the second disc 💿 on the left side of the case, and in the first disc 💿 on the right side.
So, your first instinct is to grab the disc 💿 on the left side, rather than the right. It would've been a lot easier to differentiate them if they had a paper or a booklet on the left side of the case like they sometimes do. But no, they didn't, it was just the two discs 💿, and I ended up getting confused because of that. I immediately put in Disc 1 and watched Episodes 13-18 to rectify this. And I watched them with the knowledge of what happens later on. I knew exactly how the season ends, thanks to watching those last episodes by mistake.
But, I just watched them as if they were prequel episodes, and they showing what happened before I watched the episodes I watched before; which is funny because there is an actual prequel in the second half of Season 1 (on Disc 1 of this Blu-Ray release 💿). But, if they ever do release the second season on Blu-Ray 💿, and if they split into two parts like they did with this season, then I'll make sure I watch the Disc 1s first, and then the Disc 2s second, so that something like this mix up won't happen again.
Anyway, on to Part 2 of Season 1. Most of my thoughts on this show haven't really changed a whole lot since watching the first half of Season 1. I mean, it is the same season, so not a lot of things are going to change drastically. It's still going to be mostly the same. I will say that watching the second half of this season did get me to like the characters even more than I did before. Like, I like Towa a lot more in these episodes than I did in the episodes in the first half of the season. All of the issues that I had with her character in the first half are mostly gone in the second half. She still is my least favorite of the main trio. Like for me, it goes Moroha, Setsuna, and Towa, in terms of my favorite to my least favorite.
Speaking of which, I think these episodes really made me love Moroha even more than I did before, to the point she is one of my favorite characters now. She is so much like her father, Inuyasha, and yet so different at the same time too. I like that we get more of her backstory in these episodes, like we learn how she got the rouge and how she got into debt. She got into debt because of her master, whose name I forgot, but is a member of wolf-demon tribe led by Koga from Inuyasha. We learn in these episodes that Moroha was taken in by the wolf-demon tribe, and was raised by them after her parents parted ways with her (in order to protect her). That actually explains a lot why Moroha is the way she is, because she was raised by wolf-demons.
We even get some backstory with Setsuna, and we learn what she was doing and where she was living after she got separated from Towa. She went to live in this village made by half-demons for half-demons, and it's led by and protected by that same half-demon girl that Inuyasha and the gang encountered in "Inuyasha," the one that could create barriers. But, once it became apparent that she couldn't control her demon side for very long without a special seal from Miroku, and would become a danger to everyone else around her, she left that half-demon village to go live with the demon slayers and learn their ways. And that's why she's a demon slayer.
Even though, the prequel episode (or flashback episode rather) has a lot of material that we saw before in the first few episodes of the season and the series, it was cool to see. It's always nice to see the old characters from Inuyasha, even if it still bothers me that Inuyasha still has that bead necklace on after all these years, and Kagome still uses it to make him sit. The episode does fill in some of the gaps as to what was going around during those events when Inuyasha and Kagome and Sesshomaru and Rin's children were born, and they all had to part ways with them, and hand them off to other caretakers, or just abandon them out in the woods like Sesshomaru did with his two daughters.
We see how the character, Zero was involved in these events, and how the character, Riku kind of set a lot of these events in motion. Like, Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha might not have even ended up where they are, or ended up with any of the Rainbow Pearls if it wasn't for him setting some of those events in motion. Like for example, Moroha would've never gotten the rouge with the red pearl in it if Riku hadn't given it to that one demon inside of the shell 🐚, who he then told to give Inuyasha and Kagome.
Or he hadn't told Kagome about the comet ☄️, then Inuyasha would've never helped Sesshomaru destroy it, meaning that it might've crashed into Earth 🌏, and unleashed the demonic force it had inside of it. BTW, I'm still not completely on board with Riku and Towa as a romantic couple 🥰. Mostly because Riku's sort of a bad guy (he's starting to become more of antihero on the path of a redemption arc, but still), and he lied to Towa on quite a few occasions. Plus, he's technically way older than her, despite appearing the same age, so there's that too. I just don't think Towa even needs a love interest 🥰, and she certainly doesn't need this guy as her love interest 🥰, but that's just me.
But, he isn't the only one who set a lot of these events in motion, as Zero too also caused a lot of these things to happen. If Zero hadn't threatened to kill Sesshomaru's daughters, then he would've never taken them away and put them next to the Sacred Tree. If Zero hadn't hired that one fire demon 🔥, then Towa and Setsuna would've never gotten separated. And of course, if Zero hadn't told Kirinmaru about the prophecy, and caused Kirinmaru to become desperate and try to kill Inuyasha and Kagome's daughter along with Sesshomaru, then Inuyasha and Kagome wouldn't have been separated from their daughter, and they wouldn't have been trapped inside of that pearl by Sesshomaru. All of the steps that Zero took to prevent this prophecy and prevent her brother's death, pretty much set it in motion to happen, and made it an inevitability. It's leading to his undoing, and her own undoing. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Speaking of which, Kirinmaru has actually kind of grown on me. I still don't really think he's as great of a main villain as Naraku was, like those were some pretty big shoes to fill and Kirinmaru still doesn't quite fill them. But, he is still a pretty cool character in his own right. I like how honorable he is, and how he chooses not to fight his enemies when they're poisoned or injured. He definitely enjoys the challenge, the thrill of the fight, and at least, tries to play fair. This is in stark contrast to Naraku, who had no sense of honor whatsoever; I mean, Naraku was literally a career criminal before he became a half-demon.
Kirinmaru even apologizes for killing Setsuna (or seemingly killing her), and gives his condolences I guess. In all honesty, it seems like his sister, Zero is the worst one out of both of them, like she's way more evil than he is. She's certainly more vindictive and revanchist than he is. Speaking of which, we learn in these episodes that the Rainbow Pearls did actually come from Zero. She accidentally created them when she cried 😭 at Sesshomaru's father's death, and her tears 💧 landed on the Shikon Jewel. That is what Sesshomaru meant when he said that they were Zero's tears 💧, he meant it literally. It also cool to see Sesshomaru's mom again, and to hear her roast Zero, and put her in her place 😄.
We get more insight into Kirinmura's character, besides just his personality, such as the fact that he may exist in the present simultaneously as he does in the past, and he may be able to communicate and see through his present self. In the present, he appears as one of Towa's teachers, and he sees that the demon comet ☄️ is appearing Earth 🌏 in the present, even as it did in the past. This is very intriguing because it suggests that Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha may not be the only ones with the ability to travel through time ⏱️, or at least, see through time ⏱️.
We get to see more of Miroku in these episodes, and we get more insight into his and Sango's relationship, but also his relationship with their kids. We learn that no, Miroku and Sango didn't just pawn their kids off on Kohaku, they did in fact, raise their own kids, even after the events with Inuyasha, Sesshomaru, Kagome, and Rin and their kids. Kohaku is just training them to be demon slayers, that's all. However, Miroku's son does resent him on some level because he views him as some sort of a coward, who always runs away from a fight, and relies on him to defend to him instead of defending himself.
And also because Miroku is off by myself, doing some type of training to attain higher power, and also because Miroku has done morally questionable things to get money in the past. It's clear that Miroku, on some level, does have some insecurities about not having his wind tunnel anymore despite wanting to get rid of it for all his life and succeeding at that, and not being able to fight demons as much as he used to. But, his relationship with Sango still seems to pretty healthy and stable, at least by their standards. And he does clearly love his kids, and does care about Setsuna, and watches over and protects her as if she were one of his kids.
I would say my favorite episode in the second half of this season would have to be the "battle royale" episode as I call it, where Setsuna, Moroha, and a few of the demon slayers (including Miroku's son) conspire together to try to get the demon slayers jobs in the Tokugawa Shogunate, by accepting to battle each other for the amusement of daughter of this chieftain or something. And they have to try to keep it all a secret from Towa, so Towa won't get the wrong idea that it's real, and ruin the whole plan.
It goes about as well as you would expect, you know Setsuna and especially Moroha aren't very good at keeping secrets or good at lying, and Towa has a thing about sticking her nose in things that she was never meant to stick her nose in. This was a really fun and inventive episode. All the time, I was watching that episode, I was rooting for Setsuna and Moroha and for their plan with the demon slayers to work. And I was bit bummed when it didn't work out for any of them, and it turned out in the end to all be for nothing. That was my favorite episode in the second half of Season 1, and perhaps my favorite episode of Season 1 overall.
This season ends on quite a cliffhanger. It definitely does a good job of making you want to watch the second season, and see what will happen next. Even if, spoiler alert ⚠️, Setsuna's not actually dead, and is still probably alive. And even if she isn't, and she is dead for real, she won't be dead for long. They're not just going to kill off Setsuna just like that, at the end of the first season. There's more of that character that they had in store.
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Link to "My Thoughts on Yashahime So Far":
https://jedithescribe.blogspot.com/2024/03/my-thoughts-on-yashahime-so-far.html
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