YMMV / Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • What exactly are Sesshomaru's motives? Why did he take his daughters from Kaede's village only for them to grow up without his supervision? Why is he trying to bring back Rin with the Tree of Ages? Why does he want his own daughters, plus his niece, to defeat Kirinmaru? The answers are: One, because his enemies are aware that he conceived twin daughters with Rin and he placed them near the physical Tree of Ages for their protection. Two, because she is his wife and he is trying to bring her back. Three, because Kirinmaru apparently hates half-demons and is trying to kill a half-demon who transcended time, which is what Towa actually is.
  • Why does Kirinmaru want to control time? Does he actually want to control time? According to Myoga, he isn't the type to make a conquest this scale. How concerned is he about the prophecy that predicts his downfall, and how seriously does it take it? When we actually meet him, he seems very disinterested in what's going on, including his own minions. Additionally, despite being warned of the prophecy, he makes no active attempt to try and avert it, such as by seeking out and hunting down half-demons. He also takes a rather blasé stance against the trio, even though he is well aware that they are his old rival's granddaughters and are commonly interpreted by everyone else as the ones who would fulfill said prophecy.
  • Is the Tree of Ages trustworthy? How much is it hiding from the girls? Is it telling the truth about Kirinmaru?
  • Is Riku really in love with Towa and helping her out of affection, or is he just using her for his plans? He's helped her and the other two girls several times, but he also has a hidden agenda and uses them to get what he wants. When Totetsu attacked, he risked his life to protect Towa and enable her to escape. However, Riku has also manipulated her several times into doing the dirty work for him. In one episode, he also explicitly states that he doesn't really know what love is and that he particularly despises the love between demons and humans.
  • What exactly are Zero's motives for endangering Rin and trying to kill her daughters? Is it to try and avert the prophecy that will lead to her brother's demise? To make Sesshomaru suffer for not being able to do anything to save his family out of revenge for Toga rejecting her? A combination of both? Or something completely different?
  • While claiming to be apathetic to what is going on, Sesshomaru's mother has been interpreted by some as having distracted Zero from entering the Underworld as a way to help her son. Furthermore, does she harbor any sort of dislike towards Izayoi and by extension Inuyasha and Moroha? Jaken and especially Zero seem to think so, while she herself is tight lipped on the matter, though noticeably having a frown when seeing Moroha next to her granddaughters.
• Americans Hate Tingle: While the series has been very financially successful in Japan, it's more of a Contested Sequel in North America and among English-speaking anime fans in general. Two major factors led to the show being doomed to have a divisive reception outside of Japan from the start.
  • One: it focuses on the children and family of Sesshomaru as opposed to the child of Inuyasha and Kagome, the protagonists of the previous series and one of the most popular anime couples in North American anime fandom. In doing this, many potential viewers were turned off from watching the show or only just tuned in to see Moroha.
  • Two: the potential, and in the end confirmation, of Rin being the mother of Sesshomaru's children. This not only alienated those who shipped Sesshomaru with other characters, but also, led to feelings of Squick from those who imagined those two characters as having a very different relationship. Needless to say, while said ship was already controversial in the (English-speaking) Inuyasha fandom due to the potential of it being Wife Husbandry, for it to be confirmed led some to refuse to watch the show out of moral principle.
• Angst Aversion:
  • The fact that Inuyasha and Kagome weren't around to watch their daughter grow up (with Episode 8 revealing she was taken from them already as an infant) has driven some of their fans away from Yashahime, finding it unnecessarily cruel for the previous main couple after they had gotten a happy ending, and leaving little room for redemption as, even if the show should end with them reuniting, it doesn't change that they still missed 14 years of their daughter's life. It thus leaves some viewers deciding not to watch the show or at most temporarily leaving it until the end to see what kind of reunion they'll have, if any. The reunion takes place in the second season.
  • Many also find it especially cruel for Inuyasha personally, who spent 50 years sealed to a tree in the original story, being sealed again for 14+ years in this story, giving his daughter the same lonely childhood he had. A small consolation is that he is at least not sealed alone this time but together with Kagome.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Mei Higurashi was just kidnapped by a group of delinquents and her adopted sister, Towa, is not being girly enough. She sees a three-eyed centipede demon along with Towa's bio sister and cousin (who is also Mei's cousin) arrive in modern-day Japan. Her adopted sister then gets possessed by said demon, and then she herself gets possessed. How does she react to the end of the night? "My sister is a badass, and I have two more older sisters!"
  • Miroku and Sango seem unmoved by the fact that their friends, Inuyasha and Kagome, have been missing for 14 years. There haven't been instances of them or their children searching or even interacting/offering to take care of Moroha during their absence. They just went about their lives, business as usual. It takes until Episode 16 of Season 2 for Sango to even ask about Inuyasha and Kagome and to take action in response to it.
• Arc Fatigue: The first eight episodes are a prologue to reach the In Medias Res of the start. Many fans wondered what happened with the original cast and why the trio don't seem to care about what happened to their missing parents. It rubbed fans the wrong way. The fact that the main plot of finding the Dream Butterfly doesn't feel as compelling doesn't help either (granted, Setsuna doesn't find it compelling either, and tells Towa as much).
• Ass Pull:
  • The New Moon never affected Towa because she was in the present era, and it never affected Setsuna because the Dream Butterfly ate her dreams away. Unless something happened with the moon between both eras, there is no way it couldn't affect Towa in the present. And the explanation that Setsuna can't get affected by it because she doesn't sleep feels weak when you remember that Inuyasha didn't sleep during the New Moon either.
  • The reveal that Sango and Miroku have been alive and well all along has left many viewers question several things, such as why they didn't take care of Moroha when Inuyasha and Kagome were sealed away, or at least went looking for her as she was alone from a young age (after being sold by her former mentor), or why they're not out looking for a way to save Inuyasha and Kagome themselves. The implication that they've been staying complacent on the sidelines for 14 years while all of this went on strikes many fans as strange.
  • Similarly, Episode 15 of season 1 ends with the reveal that baby Moroha was given to Koga's clan, with Koga and Ayame themselves taking her in. In Episode 16, it turns out Moroha got sold by her mentor at a young age and was left alone afterwards, with no mention of how Koga and Ayame, who supposedly raised her, were fine with this.
  • Sesshomaru took Towa and Setsuna away from Rin immediately after birth and placed them in the forest to fend for themselves, apparently as some form of "rite of courage" ordeal that had never been mentioned as something the Dog demon clan did at any point during the original show (Inuyasha in fact was raised by his mother for several years, and wasn't separated from her until she died of unknown causes), and while it's stated that Jaken puts up a barrier to hide them from dangerous demons, there is still no explanation given as to how two literal infants survive all on their own for four years.
• Broken Base: Episode 15’s reveal that Rin is Towa and Setsuna’s mother has invoked this, where fans are either absolutely thrilled by the revelation or absolutely angry.
• Better on DVD: The first season benefits greatly from binge watching for two main reasons: First, the slow burn, Monster of the Week storytelling that the show starts with works better in chunks as you get to know the characters. Secondly, since a second season was announced after the first season ended, the viewer isn't left wondering how the story can wrap up by the finale when it gains its momentum in the last quarter, which was a concern during the initial weekly airings.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Yashahime had long kept it a secret as to who Towa and Setsuna's mother was, with Rumiko Takahashi and Sunrise even telling fans "the mother will surprise you", until Episode 15 casually revealed the mother to be Rin. The statement that Sesshomaru's children were half-demons and the mother wouldn't be a new character had pretty much every fan thinking/fearing the mother would be Rin before the first episode even aired.
• Contested Sequel: While the anime has done very well in terms of ratings in Japan, it's much more contested among critics and many long-time Inuyasha fans. The main complaints are how the overall plot is not nearly as engaging as Inuyasha's was, as well as how the main cast of the first series is all but ignored, to the point that their own children don't seem to care what happened to them, unless it is directly involving the plot. Many fans are considering this series Fanon Discontinuity, although there are also many who felt the show improved in the show's second season and decided to stay on-board.
• Critic-Proof: Despite being such a contested sequel series among longtime Inuyasha fans and critics, the series does very well in Japan when it comes down to ratings. By the end of the first season, it was the fifth highest watched anime, competing with longtime series such as Sazae-san, Chibi Maruko-chan, and Detective Conan.
• Damsel Scrappy: Rin can come off as this by this sequel as she has been cursed and placed in a tree for 14+ years to keep her safe, and much of the plot revolves around her being trapped there and if she can be saved, while Inuyasha and Kagome apparently got sealed away solely to keep them from inadvertently killing her.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Moroha, despite more or less being the least important to the central plot of the main trio (especially when compared to her cousins), has become the most popular of the trio in the English-speaking fanbase due to her fun personality and quick wits, as well as being the child of the original series' main couple Inuyasha and Kagome.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • The Rainbow Pearls became a source for such theories when it was revealed that Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha have one each. Fans even began to speculate that their parents, and the entire original cast, had been trapped inside the pearls and everyone's memories of them were sealed, in order to explain why Kohaku and Hisui didn't recognize Moroha or Setsuna as their friends' children.
  • Kirinmaru and Osamu Kirin being the one and the same brought up theories on the latter's identity, which doesn't help that both share the same voice actor. This leads to speculation if Kirinmaru found something he enjoys in the modern world. To contrast, Kirinmaru seemed so disinterested to the point he doesn't remember his subordinates' names. Osamu Kirin however, enjoys his time in modern-day Japan, and if they truly are the same person, then Kirinmaru has possibly found something he wants to do rather than taking over his old rival's domain. Season 2 would reveal that Osamu Kirin is a being created from one of Kirinmaru's body parts, this one being his arm.
  • Who or what is Riku? With people wondering if he's a human with spiritual abilities or if he might be a demon or even a half-demon like the protagonists. Another question is what his possible relationship to Kirinmaru might be. Since they're both introduced in the same episode and both mentioning their dislike of grapes in addition to having the same shade of red hair and green eyes, it has led many people to theorize that he might be Kirinmaru's son since having descendants seems to be a running theme of the series. The end of season 1 reveals that he is a being created from a piece of him, in this case Kirinmaru's horns.
  • Before it was confirmed, and among a few even after, there was some speculation that if Rin isn't the mother of the twins, then Kagura must be. Evidence used for this has been that the twins apparently bear some physical resemblance to Kagura and appear to have some similar powers, not only to her but others of Naraku's offspring as well. A second group believed Kagura or someone else had to be the mother because Rin "looked too young" to be, and that her child-like design was part of the "clues" that she wasn't the mother, because they didn't want to believe the story would dip into that territory.
  • Even aside from people who can't stand the pairing of Rin and Sesshomaru itself, there are also fans who think the twins' character designs don't make sense as a product of those parents. In particular the distinctive red streaks in their hair (that are visible even in their human forms) can't possibly come from either parent, as neither one has a similar detail in their own hair. To say nothing of all the different powers they possess that doesn't come from Sesshomaru. Thus there is speculation of them having a different or more convoluted parentage as opposed to what is presented.
• Fan-Disliked Explanation: For some fans, the statement by Jaken that "Rin must have been 18 years old back then," at the time she gave birth, is unbelievable. For those fans, this disbelief is based on the character designs making certain characters, including Rin, look too young to them. In a post-Season 2 interview, one of the animators even admitted that they had made Rin too young-looking and that she "doesn't appear mother-like next to Towa and the others, no matter what" and thus decided to "give her smaller eyes" in the final episode to make her appear older. It also makes very little sense that Inuyasha and Kagome, who were 19 and married at the end of the original show, would somehow wait 7-8 years to have kids at almost the same time as Rin. This is what makes said fans call out the Fridge Logic or simply more reasons they consider Yashahime a non-canon sequel.
• Fanfic Fuel: The premise alone invites this, but with how second season's first ending sequence plays out with the girls in the modern era, one wonders how the trio would be like if they were normal girls in the modern world.
• Fan Nickname: "Treekyo" has been the go-to name for the Sacred Tree's unlicensed use of Kikyo's image. It becomes even more fitting when you realize that, "木" the last character in the kanji for the Sacred Tree's name (ご神木) can be read as "ki". Making it a pun that works in both Japanese and English.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Between the confirmation of a controversial ship Sesshomaru and Rin, the Arc Fatigue, the treatment of the original cast and a storyline that is considered by many to be quite weak compared to the original, there are many fans who don't consider Yashahime to be a canon sequel to Inuyasha. Being an anime original with only light involvement from Rumiko Takahashi certainly helps this along too.
• Fridge Brilliance: Early on, there are talks of a prophecy in which Kirinmaru would be slain by a group of half-demons that transcended time, obviously talking about our main characters, but in early parts of Season 1, he seems less than interested in stoping it while his minions are taking more of an active role in preventing this. But then when you start to learn about him more, it clicks. Kirinmaru is a Blood Knight who seeks thrills in battle and overcoming unsurmountable obstacles. If a prophecy says that he would be killed by these half-demon princesses, then he would be happy being bested by strong opponents, half-demon or not. And if he wins, then he just overcame a prophecy that told him he would die and he would wear that badge with honor.
• Growing the Beard: While not necessarily enough to convince those who had dropped the show during Season 1 or could not accept the Rin/Sesshomaru pairing, there is a consensus among many that Second Act is a notable improvement over the first season owing to a change in directors to someone who worked on the original anime, a more streamlined plot with less filler, Moroha's Butt-Monkey status being considerably played down while still being a humorous character, and development of all three main character's motivations and personalities.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Meta example. Dub fans noted that Kirby Morrow sounded a bit off in his reprise of Miroku. A while later, news broke out that he had suddenly passed away, leading to speculation that he was dealing with health issues during recording. In a tragic coincidence, this even occurred two years after Kouji Tsujitani, the original Japanese voice actor of Miroku, lost his life to a stroke. Both voice actors also died at relatively young ages, Tsujitani passed away at 56, while Morrow died at 47, drawing comparisons to the fact that for much of Inuyasha, Miroku's fate was to die young because the Wind Tunnel in his hand would eventually consume him.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: If you consider Inuyasha the Movie: Swords of an Honorable Ruler canon, then Inu no Taisho's question to Sesshomaru before he leaves becomes this. After 200 years, Sesshomaru does have someone to protect, and he's trying to save Rin yet again.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Some fans have noted the hilarity of Willow Johnson voicing the Spirit of the Tree of Ages (who took Kikyo's appearance and voice to communicate with others) in the English dub.
• I Am Not Shazam: None of the three main characters in this series are named "Yashahime". In actuality, this title is a reference of their characteristics (half-demons and cultural "princesses").
• I Knew It!:
  • Episode 15 confirmed fans' presumption that Rin was the mother of Towa and Setsuna.
  • Episode 23 confirms that Osamu Kirin and Kirinmaru are one and the same, with the both of them seeing the Grim Comet from both Fedual and Reiwa Eras.
• Incest Yay: Towa's affection for Setsuna gets seen as a one-sided crush by a few fans. Despite only being recently united, Towa is constantly on the lookout for her, wants to be close to her any chance she can get, and when Kirinmaru kills Setsuna, Towa flies into a rage while calling her "my Setsuna".
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Yashahime is supposed to take place roughly twenty years after Naraku was defeated in Inuyasha, but you wouldn't really know that looking at most of the past characters. Except for Kohaku and Shiori, every returning character looks exactly the same as they did in the original series' epilogue, which was 17 years prior in-universe. This was especially egregious with Miroku, Sango, and Shippo, as during the final arc they still looked like the teenagers/little kid they did in the parent show. Miroku did have a new design in Season 1, which gave him a mullet, but during the final arc changed back to his old hairstyle and clothes, simply re-using his classic character design wholesale. Only Kohaku received a major redesign to make him look older (older than every other cast member, in fact, outside of Kaede), while other previous-child characters like Rin simply had their original heads pasted on adult bodies.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Some fans aren't really that interested in the plot centering around Sesshomaru's daughters and are more interested in watching because of Inuyasha and Kagome's daughter, Moroha. It helps that Moroha has an incredibly fun and likable personality in general that has already earned her the top spot in many internet polls of favorite Yashahime characters. This makes their reunion all the more sweeter.
  • There are some dub fans who watch the series simply because the original English cast reprise their roles, including David Kaye who has not been in any anime since he moved to the United States.
  • There's an incredible amount of fans who seem to only wait every episode to see any hint of what happened to the main characters of the original series, and constantly wonder where are they, regardless of the fact that the series was since long stated to be focused on the three main girls.
  • There are fans who do approve Sesshomaru and Rin's relationship, and are surprised and happy to learn that Rin is indeed the twins' mother when she is old enough. It's now a matter of how it happened.
• Like You Would Really Do It: At the end of the first season, Setsuna is killed by Kirinmaru. But she’s a main character, she can’t die that easily.
• Magnificent Bastard: See here.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "It's totally Rin" ^Explanation Due to how the series has a 15+ year Time Skip, fans immediately pointed towards Rin as the potential mother of the twins, since, if 20 years have passed, she would be old enough to bear children at the time and she's the only human Sesshomaru tolearted back in the original series. Come episode 15, Rin would indeed be confirmed to be the twins' mother.
  • Where are your parents? ^Explanation Fans noted how the parents of the three main girls', plus Hisui's own, were conveniently and suspiciously missing from the plot, making fan theorize on where they might be.
  • "Kagome didn't care about history." ^Explanation In Episode 1, Towa expressed concern that her presence and bringing objects from the future can drastically change history. Fans had a good laugh with this as they remembered all the times Kagome casually revealed information about the future to people of the Feudal Era and brought a variety of snacks, books and medicine to share with her friends.
  • Sesshomaru may be Towa's father, but he ain't her daddy. ^Explanation Sota's close relationship with Towa compared to the absent Sesshomaru has drawn comparisons to a certain meme from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
  • Rin Timeline Math ^Explanation After it was revealed that Rin is the mother of the twins and Sesshomaru's wife, it has been an ongoing debate to map out how old Rin was at the time of their birth.
  • "Where is Shippo??" ^Explanation  For most of the show's run, Shippo was the only character from the original cast who hadn't appeared or even been mentioned, leading to this frequent question. He finally shows up in the second half of Season 2, but by then people decried it as too little too late.
  • "Moroha is canon, the story is not." ^Explanation  The fact that Rumiko herself designed Towa, Setsuna and Moroha, with the former two having been designed "without the mother in mind", has been used by detractors of the show to declare the kids as canon while claiming that the story, which was mainly written by Sunrise, isn't.
  • "Towa and Setsuna make no sense" ^Explanation  Towa and Setsuna are supposedly half-demons born of a full demon father and a human mother much like Inuyasha was, and yet display design traits and powers that make no sense such as inexplainable red streaks in their hair that stay even in their human form. It all leaves some viewers wondering if there's more to Towa and Setsuna's parentage than what's been claimed, or if there will simply be an eventual Ass Pull to explain the traits and powers away.
• No Yay: Rin being revealed to be the mother of Setsuna and Towa is seen as this to a portion of the fandom since Sesshomaru met Rin when she was a young child, watched over her for a year and continued to visit her in the village and give her gifts, making it give off heavy grooming implications. The marketing for Yashahime did not help as Rin was continuously promoted as a child next to Sesshomaru (and continued to be so afterwards as well), with the second opening of Season 1 even comparing their adult and child interactions together next to explicitly romantic moments of Inuyasha and Kagome, which really raised some eyebrows at what they were implying. It all makes it this trope for many who had originally viewed their relationship as that of an adoptive father/daughter one. Many viewers were left reaching for the Brain Bleach.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: Yashahime has become infamous within the Inuyasha fandom for making Rin the mother of Towa and Setsuna, leaving people either celebrating or feeling utterly revolted, and it's basically the most known thing about the show that either "makes it or breaks it" for the fandom.
• Periphery Demographic: Yashahime is considerably Lighter and Softer than Inuyasha was, and Rumiko Takahashi herself has stated she wanted the series to be targeted more towards young girls (in Japan, it even aired in the same slot as Pokémon: The Series). Considering that a majority of Yashahime's audience grew up with Inuyasha, however, it likely leaves a lot more late teens and adults watching it than young girls.
• Replacement Scrappy: Many consider Takechiyo to be this for Shippo as the small shapeshifting cute character, that is not as likeable. At the very least, he's not around all the time as Shippo was. He's much more snarky than Shippo but has even less of a purpose, basically being the trio's main mode of transportation.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Latin American fans were not pleased that none of the cast members in the dub of the original anime were even called to reprise their roles. Laura Torres (who voiced Shippo) posted a video to declare herself angry about it and considered it a lack of respect to the fans and her fellow cast members, while Gabriel Basurto (Sesshomaru) lamented on his Twitter that the fandom suffers due to the decision of Viz Media.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Fans were disappointed that Kyuki dies at the hands of Riku after she was defeated by Towa rather quickly. Unlike the previous series where Kagura went out of her way to devise a plan to betray Naraku in the overarching story, Kyuki dies after three episodes worth of onscreen time, and that she planned to betray Kirinmaru in episode 7. Riku simply kills her off after she recognizes him, and he intends to take her Rainbow Pearl after dispatching her.
  • Inuyasha and Kagome, the stars of the previous show, are sealed off in the Land of the Dead before the show starts, forced to watch Moroha grow up from afar. This was obviously done in order to negate Inuyasha's various Story-Breaker Power abilities from ending the plot too early, but as a result, we only get the briefest of mentions of them in Season 1. It hits even harder when they finally rejoin with Moroha later on and fans noted that the family has real chemistry together and that Inuyasha plays very well off his daughter. Many fans lament that viewers didn't get to watch a full series of such interactions.
  • Miroku and Sango stay on the sidelines for much of the storyline, with their children appearing more often than they do. The fact that neither of them seemed concerned about their longtime friends being sealed off for over a decade, nor do they ever act like Moroha is an honorary niece, just drives it in further. Sango was especially lambasted due to being essentially a stay-at-home mom despite only being in her late 30's.
  • Shippo doesn't appear at all in Season 1, except for the first episode, and only comes back into the plot about halfway through Season 2. Not only is he still a little kid despite, again, 17 years passing in-universe, but he only has marginally more control over his Fox Magic as he did in the original series. Once the other original characters come back into the fold, Shippo gets relegated to being nothing more than Inuyasha's taxi.
  • Koga and Ayame were shown to take in the infant Moroha after Inuyasha and Kagome were sealed off in a voiceless cameo in a flashback. It's their only appearance in the entire series, as they would give her to Yawaragi to train her until she sells her off. You would think that Koga would want to look after the child of his rival/close friend or that the Wolf Clan as a whole would be more important in the show, but aside from Yawaragi showing up in one episode, all of the wolves vanish without so much as a cameo.
  • Rin. Instead of having her mature and maybe be a steady rock to Towa and Setsuna, she instead gets sealed in the Tree of Ages for a decade and a half, and once she's free, she spends her remaining screen time kneeling next to a comatose Sesshomaru. A major complaint about Rin in the original series is that she was more of a plot device than a character and somehow Yashahime managed to make the issue worse.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • A lot of fans were disappointed in the Higuarashi family's apparent lack of interactions with Moroha the few days she spent in the modern world (apart from her great-grandfather). This is especially true for Kagome's mother, who recognizes Moroha to be her granddaughter and barely shows interest in her, while Sota shows pictures of Kagome to Towa pictures instead of Moroha. While it might be intentional to keep the mystery of "how much" Moroha knows or cares about her parents, it still came across to many as an obvious cheat in the narrative that rubbed them the wrong way. Admittedly, Kagome's mother had always been portrayed as a rather absent-minded parent, so her nonchalant behaviour towards Moroha isn't entirely OOC. It's perhaps Sota not saying anything about his sister to Moroha but Towa instead that comes off as the oddest narrative choice.
  • Near the end Season 1, none of the girls expressed any desire at all to meet or even know who their parents are. Even Moroha, who laments her origins in Episode 16, makes no mention of what she knows of her parents i.e. if she thinks they abandoned her, if she thinks they are dead, etc. The girls' journey and motivation could easily have been made more intriguing if they expressed a continuous desire to meet their parents or know what happened to them. Instead fans are left questioning why they should care about this if the girls themselves don't seem to care.
    • By the time Episode 18 rolled around, the twins met Sesshoumaru in person for the first time since they were infants. Neither of them showed any strong reaction to learning that their father came to save them from being brutalized by Kirinmaru and both are rendered unconscious shortly thereafter, giving them no opportunity to even try and learn more about their situation from him. Not only did some fans feel that this was a waste of an opportunity for deeper interaction between the twins and Sesshoumaru, they also felt that it was a blatant cop-out by the writers to artificially stretch the plot for longer by keeping the protagonists from any significant interaction with their parents.
  • Episode 15 ended with the reveal that baby Moroha was given to Koga's clan. This made many Moroha fans excited for a background episode about her childhood where she was raised by none other than Koga himself and how her childhood was growing up in his clan. Instead, the background episode in question entirely skips her first 11 years to focus on her relationship with an entirely new mentor character with neither Koga or Ayame even being shown, resulting in what many found a generic, underwhelming episode that would have been many times more interesting had it actually been about her upbringing within the wolf clan instead.
  • For those who actually enjoyed the pairing of Rin and Sesshomaru, some felt that the show didn't spend any time elaborating on how they actually came together, making an immediate jump from Rin being a child to suddenly being his wife and mother of their children, which comes across as very much a case of Strangled by the Red String.
• Too Cool to Live: Yawaragi was Moroha's mentor, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise to learn that she's killed after Moroha's Crimson Dragon Wave deflected her Scattering Winds, hoping to take out Konton with her if not for his Rainbow Pearl.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Many fans were surprised, and delighted, to find that Kaede was still alive and will be a prominent character in the sequel.
  • A lot of fans were very surprised to find that Buyo, a normal house cat, is still alive after 15+ years, especially since the average lifespan of a cat is just 15 years.
  • In Episode 20, nobody thought that we would see a now all grown up Shiori return since the previous series and now that she is raising a village full of half-demon children, she's doing pretty well for herself and has come a long way since her last appearance.
• Values Dissonance: While's it's a divisive pairing all over, Sesshomaru/Rin is still a little less controversial in Latin America and Asia than the US and Europe. This is chalked up to be because of the former pairing following a common convention of supernatural romance stories that are present in the region's folklore.
• The Woobie: Rin gains this status after marrying Sesshomaru and giving birth to their daughters. First, Sesshomaru arrives and takes their children away, before she can even hug them, with no explanation. Then, while Sesshomaru and Inuyasha destroy a fragment of the Grim Comet, Zero takes an opportunity to link her own life to Rin's, so that if Zero dies, she will too. Zero also places the silver scale curse on her, so that it will slowly kill Rin over time unless the location of her and Sesshomaru's daughters. She refuses to do so, and places her husband's Bakusaiga on her shoulder, showing that she is willing to die to protect their daughters. You really want to give her a hug after all the undeserved shit she's been through all because of Zero's petty grudge.

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