YMMV / Destiny of the Shrine Maiden

• Accidental Innuendo: The fact that Corona is currently 69th on the idol charts, and Reiko makes fun of her for that- specifically since 69th isn't a very good rank, rather than the number.. Even worse, she ended up having to prostitute herself for that, and might have taken part in the double oral sex depicted in the number.
• Awesome Music: The vocal soundtrack provided by KOTOKO (in particular the opening, "Re-Sublimity") is absolutely mind-blowing, with both supporters and detractors of the show giving nothing but praise on that. It's also widely considered as one of KOTOKO's best tracks, along with the ending song Agony and the insert song that plays during the duel between Souma and Tsubasa, Suppuration Core.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Chikane Himemiya was known as one of the biggest examples in anime history. Her detractors consider her Unintentionally Unsympathetic and argue that the fact that she ultimately got everything she wanted, even if she had to suffer for it, makes her a complete Karma Houdini whose negative traits (obsession, manipulation, violent jealousy, violation of personal boundaries) are unfairly trivialized and marginalized, and that Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female is in play; that a male character in a similar situation would not have received similar positive support and she is getting "special treatment" because her romantic interest is queer. Her supporters (or at least, the ones who do not attempt to marginalize the severity of her actions), argue that the character is more complex that and should be defined by her attempts to become a Silent Scapegoat rather than an act of horrible sexual violence.
  • Souma Oogami. Obvious and unnecessary Romantic Runner-Up, as well as a boring character who exists primarily to cause romantic complications and drama between the Official Couple, or a Nice Guy Butt-Monkey, whose contributions to fighting Orochi and helping Himeko are largely ignored by both the other characters and fans who feel their yuri is threatened by his presence, and ironically a much better match for Himeko than Chikane? Notably, without considering the queer nature of one of the two relationships at all, his relationship with Himeko lacks many of the unhealthy undertones that her relationship with Chikane does, as exemplified by his willingness to accept rejection and put her happiness before his own in the finale.
• Broken Base:
  • Chikane's rape of Himeko falls right into the fandom-scale Sliding Scale of Unavoidable vs. Unforgivable. Either the fandom believed that there really was no other choice for Chikane, or that was a deplorable case of Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female. The middle road does exist, believing that Chikane was really out of options, but out of the heinous things she could think of to make Himeko hate her and go on with her plan, she poorly chose rape, but there are just a few that take the stance.
  • The ending of the manga also slightly polarizes the audience, as its version of the fate of the girls can be interpreted as Hide Your Lesbians or Twincest, depending on how the epilogue will be interpreted.
  • The Multiple Demographic Appeal nature of the show. Debates can rage between those who think that the Humongous Mecha addition is okay or makes things cooler... and those who think that the Humongous Mecha addition is completely unnecessary (and is not at all up to snuff compared to other mecha shows in the early 00's when this show aired) and the show should've been 100% about Yuri.^note And for the Humongous Mecha fans, this makes the show enter the 'wishlist' to be included in Super Robot Wars, best known for ironing out some controversial elements of various problematic shows and thinking that Destiny of the Shrine Maiden also deserve such ironing out.
• Die for Our Ship: Oh dear, Souma. He's definitely in the wrong series, so he tends to get shoved aside to make way for the Official Couple. Ironic because he's the type of guy that would let them be together so long as his beloved is happy. Being a textbook Nice Guy (often considered boring) probably didn't help this case for the trope.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Chikane has justifications for many of her depraved actions, but there are still some who take it further and attempt to excuse them outright. Chikane herself views them as despicable and fully intends to die as a result of them.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • We know that at the end of the anime the adult Himeko meets the reincarnating Chikane and they fall in love again. But what is their age difference, if Chikane died when they were 16 years old, and the ending show her adult? Oh boy ...
  • Why does the father of the twins in the end of the manga have the same hairstyle as the Souma? They reincarnated in his daughters? But who then is their mother?
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Depending on whether you consider a permissible happy ending to be a reincarnation as a new person, or strange hints of turning girls into "too much" loving sisters, the end of the series can become that. In addition, if we interpret Himeko's words as a sign of preserving their personality after reincarnation, this makes the ending of the anime completely happy (where the Orochi was destroyed permanently and Himeko and Chikane could finally be together forever no matter how many times they reincarnate), and the end of the manga even more embarrassing. There's also the matter that it's an ending where a rape victim forgives and gets together with her rapist, and they reincarnate together for all eternity, which needless to say makes it downright horrifying for those who don't approve of Chikane and Himeko's relationship. However, future works like Shattered Angels, Zettai Shoujo Seiiki Amnesian and Himegami no Miko show that Chikane and Himeko reincarnated several more times, each time without the threat of the Orochi, and usually have better relationships than in the original manga.
• Fair for Its Day: Many people who watch the show nowadays are left wondering why would it ever be seen as a major step forward for the Yuri genre, as it revolves around a toxic relationship and features sexual assault between its main characters that is forgiven rather easily. The series was released at a time where Bait-and-Switch Lesbians was the norm, yet it dared to have its female lead reject her male love interest to be together with another woman. For all the problems the characters faced, the ending of the work declared that their love was real even though they were both women, which contributed towards making Yuri works more popular among the general public, but once the genre became more widespread, as well as progressive and concerned about realistic relationships instead of idealized ones, the nature of those "problems" made the work be condemned as toxic and dated.
• Funny Moments: When Himeko and Chikane arrive at Souma and Tsubasa's battle at the end of Episode 5, Tsubasa's mecha turns its head to face them in a humorously Quizzical Tilt.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In Episode 5, during Chikane's argument with Souma about protecting Himeko, Souma loses his temper and asks why Chikane doesn't revive Ame no Murakumo to solve all their problems. He apologizes, realizing he went too far, since Himeko and Chikane had already tried and failed, but it later turns out that Chikane can't revive Ame no Murakumo due to her past self's hatred of the god. Obviously, Souma couldn't have known about this, but his question stings a bit more than he intended when you consider this bit of information.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • One of Girochi's Megaton Knuckle forms is to turn his whole mecha into one big Rocket Punch. An interesting twist for its time. Years later, the same technique became the basis of the more widespread Big Bang Punch.
  • Chikane was known to steal Himeko's Sacred First Kiss while the latter's unconscious and then there's the things she did in Episode 8. Both of her voice actresses in both languages later on got landed in the same role of a good lady who got her Sacred First Kiss stolen by force (while conscious) and the very scene became more memetic than anything Chikane could achieve. (Pick one: "You thought your first kiss would be Ogami, but it was I, Chikane!" OR "You thought your first kiss would be eternally with Himeko's, but it was I, DIO!")
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Girochi is voiced by Julio Bernal, whose Star-Making Role was in Aggretsuko as Haida, a poor, timid guy who wants to date with Retsuko, but he is unable to do so for many reasons. In this series, he voice a guy who not only blatantly flirts with one of the female protagonists, in this case Himeko, but he also even sexually harrass her. In fact, he even sounds like an evil, lecherous version of Haida.
• It Was His Sled:
  • Most people who haven't seen the show already know it for Chikane's infamous rape of Himeko during episode 8. Even if they don't know about that particular part of it, people are well aware that Himeko and Chikane become romantically involved; for most of the first few episodes the series seemed more Pseudo-Romantic Friendship driven.
  • For that matter, the simple fact that the show is famous for being part of the yuri genre spoils that the Love Triangle will not involve Souma and Chikane being attracted to one another.
• Incest Yay Shipping: Due to the fact that the ending of the manga depicts the reincarnation of the twins in a rather ambiguous manner◊, including The words "now we will always be together" and a strong Incest Subtext, some readers interpreted their continuation of their relationship in a new life already as Twincest.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The ending image with Himeko embracing Chikane has been parodied oh so many times with other couples replacing them. It has been said that a yuri ship is not official until someone draws them in a "miko embrace". Heck, sometimes the image shows up in-universe, like it did Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
  • The notorious rape with flute from the manga (the "prop" is not used in the anime's equivalent scene) also turned into a meme as YFR, which is now used as a comic call to provide it in some discussed yuri work.
• Moral Event Horizon: While this trope is used in-universe, and only succeeded after Chikane attempts to blow up the Earth and laughs about it, to invoke it for Himeko, for a lot of the audience, Chikane succeeded in crossing it as early as the moment she raped Himeko.
• Narm:
  • The scene in which Chikane slays the followers of Orochi becomes hilarious when one notices that Nekoko the Cat Girl has an arrow in the ass. It's even more awkward when one sees that Corona has an arrow on her boob... when a few minutes before Nekoko had compared her chest unfavorably with Chikane's.
  • And right before that, Girochi attempts to restrain Chikane in chains... and all the needless, horribly animated bouncing she displays as she's "trapped" distracts the viewer.
• Never Live It Down: Episode 8. Speaking about this anime will always involve a warning about this particular episode and people will tend to say that it was always a bad turning point, even for those who liked it and even when it first came out. And honestly, Chikane herself will never live down her actions in that episode as a result.
• Once Original, Now Common: The series is seen as a big landmark within the Yuri Genre. Prior to that point, most works somewhere in or adjacent to the genre made heavy use of Bait-and-Switch Lesbians, But Not Too Gay, or simply featured it for quick scenes of titillation rather than any kind of character-building—the ones that didn't tended to be niche mangas a step above doujins. An anime series that was explicitly and centrally about the romantic relationship between two girls, with an actual big-budget plot to go with it, was revolutionary. But nowadays, at least one show with a focus on sapphic romance tends to come out every anime season, and plenty of other shows will feature or imply it at some point. Consequently, a fan of the genre watching the series today would probably just be put off by the many elements within it—the Hide Your Lesbians, the absolute heaps of melodrama, the massively toxic overtones in the main relationship, the Romantic Runner-Up who just makes the main relationship look even worse, and the relationship's use of sexual assault that is promptly forgiven by the end—that writers of later works such as Bloom Into You or YuruYuri staunchly avoided.
• Older Than They Think: It's well known that many of Kaishaku's later mangas have expies of Himeko, Chikane and Souma (in a lesser degree). What isn't as well known is that those three are expies themselves, being based on Kurusu, Kiraha and Ogami from an older manga called The Cross Triangle.
• Ron the Death Eater: While it's true that Chikane could enjoy some Draco in Leather Pants treatment, the inverse works too: some can be too eager to solely define Chikane by her actions in Episode 8 (though there is a good reason that episode was controversial), therefore marking her as a complete bitch all along rather than a Fallen Hero, despite Chikane herself being genuinely nice to others when she could keep her cool together.
• Values Dissonance: The show, made in an era when same-sex relationships were taboo rather than mainstream, seems to treat the more problematic elements in Himeko and Chikane's relationship (stuff like Chikane sexually assaulting Himeko, and Himeko still pining after and making excuses for Chikane, despite, well, the aforementioned sexual assault), behavior that would at best been seen as extremely abusive and unhealthy in a heterosexual relationship, as somehow more "acceptable" out of some misguided belief that same sex relationships are or should be held up to very different standards from straight ones, even when it comes to what is considered abusive or problematic. Even without accounting for physical molestation and sexual assault, Chikane's feelings for Himeko are often seen as marred by obsession and possessive jealousy by modern audiences due to the series emphasizing dramatic tropes and developments like Star-Crossed Lovers over realistic relationships, which was pretty normal at the time for this kind of work. Because of that, Souma is often seen as the better lover among the two despite being the designated Romantic Runner-Up, since his relationship with Himeko is built on support, compassionate friendship, and mutual respect.
• Values Resonance: Chikane's Mind Rape by Sister Miyako where she was haunted with her feelings for Himeko might be viewed as Wangsting or eventually leading her to commit some hypocritical acts, as viewed in the past. Nowadays, however, where there are many LGBT people coming out of their shells, revealing how much they have to hide their sexuality under pressure of many homophobic crowds or some people admitting being confused with their own sexuality... Chikane's Gayngst became much more relatable.
• The Woobie: Poor Himeko. She's incredibly shy and goes through so many Break the Cutie moments. And then there's the fact that she was raped by the love of her life.

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