by Tuesday PopeInuyasha was the anime of my early teen years. I cried over the relationship tease of the two leads Inuyasha and Kagome, I cried over how hot Sesshomaru was (and still is), I cried when listening to the soundtrack I burned on a CD player hidden in my bad during lunch, I just cried a lot. So when I heard a sequel series was coming, I was pretty excited. Less excited when I found out it would be about the progeny of the main characters, but still down to watch. We are just shy of episode seven now and I’ve devoured each one as it’s come out. Is Yashahime Half Demon Princesses worthy of the mantle of Inuyasha or is it dog poo?
The series follows three main female leads. Moroha is the daughter of Inuyasha and Kagome and, in my opinion, the best character. She is exactly how you’d imagine their daughter would be. Towa and Setsuna are the twin daughters of Seshomaru. No we don’t know who the mother is yet. She is implied to be a human and we are all waiting to make sure our fears aren’t confirmed that Rin is the mother.
The show starts with a flash forward of the three working together to fight a demon. Then we flash back to Towa and Setsuna playing in the forest. Sesshomaru in a dad of the year move abandoned his young daughters in the forest to raise whichever one made it out alive. One day during a fire, Towa is sucked into the modern day and found by Kagome’s brother who raises her like his own daughter. Setsuna meanwhile makes it out but has lost her memories and ability to dream after they were stolen by a dream butterfly. Moroha’s parents disappeared at some point and we don’t exactly know what happened to them, but she’s not bothered by it. She’s too busy trying to earn money from a corpse dealer.
One day while fighting a demon, Moroha and Setsuna are sucked through a portal to the modern day where they continue the fight with the demon and Towa joins in. Towa hasn’t felt like she belongs and always ends up in fights. She wears men’s clothes so that she can fight easier. After a brief reprieve, the three head back to the feudal era with the goal of finding the dream butterfly and defeating demons along the way. There’s of course more to the story, but this is the basic set up for the adventures ahead.
I imagine this show will be a slow burn and we’ll get plenty of monster of the day episodes with a little plot between them. It takes four episodes to get to the main meat of the show. Episodes five and six have both been fun monster of the day demon slaying stories that have the fun and creativity of the original show. I’m so far thoroughly enjoying everything especially now that the beginning is over. I wasn’t sure exactly how to feel but episode five won me over and when anime cons are back, I want Yashahime merch.
Speaking of the original, all the original voice actors are back for the dub minus Moneca Stori as Kagome as she has retired. I watched the first episode in the dub and the three girls have very typical dub voices. They’re fine. The returning characters are all rough. With the exception of Sesshomaru, you can tell it’s been a long time since they voiced these characters. Kelly Sheridan in particular as Sango sounds a bit too much like her role as Starlight Glimmer in My Little Pony. But they’re fine. They’ll get into it more as the series goes on. Richard Cox as Inuyasha is always a delight. And hey, this may mean we get to meet them again for autograph opportunities at future cons.
I can’t say if I recommend this anime to non-Inuyasha fans. The show does a good job at turning Miyoga the flea demon into the exposition demon for things you may have forgotten between series, but you’ll get a better experience if you watch Inuyasha first in all it’s mid 2000s glory. The show does do away with the romance element that drove Inuyasha forward as it’s centered around the friendship of the girls and Towa adapting to the feudal era. If you are an Inuyasha fan, get on it. You’ll love the call backs and you’ll be intrigued by the mysteries of the current story.
I was worried the show wouldn’t feel like Inuyasha without the titular character, but it absolutely does and I love it. Catch it on Crunchyroll now!
