Plot: Towa and Setsuna were a loving pair of half-demon siblings until fate drove them apart. Towa was thrust through time to modern day where Kagome’s now grown little brother, Sota, found Towa and adopted her. Ten years later, a now 14 year old Towa has found nothing but trouble as she’s grown up. She’s attracted fight after fight after fight, and it’s lead her to transferring schools several times.
Meanwhile, ten years have also passed in the feudal era. Setsuna has grown into a skilled demon slayer alongside Sango and Miroku’s son, Hisui, and Kohaku, as well as a recently formed band of demon slayers. They’re hunting a centipede demon that has been harassing the nearby village. Bounty hunter, Moroha, who has given herself the nickname Beniyasha, is lying in wait for the same demon. The demon is after Moroha’s red Rainbow Pearl, and when it acquires it, it next seeks out the golden Rainbow Pearl in Setsuna’s eye.
After obtaining that, the Tree of Ages suddenly glows and creates a rift similar to the one that thrust Towa through time ten years ago. Moroha, Setsuna and the demon are thrown through the rift and land right at Towa’s feet. The sisters have finally been reunited, but there’s no time for celebrations with the demon still attacking.
Breakdown: Alright, before we head to the meat and potatoes, let me get the timeline stuff out of the way.
Krystallina mentioned to me last time that it’s probably been about 20+ years since the end of The Final Act, not the 10+ years I initially thought. That made some sense to me, but now that I’ve watched this episode it’s almost certainly a more proper estimation.
Towa and Setsuna were about four when they were separated. When Towa met Sota, he was definitely an adult because he adopted her. He was 12 at the end of The Final Act, so that leads me to believe at least six years has passed since Kagome left. An additional ten years passing meshes well, but we also see Hisui, who was a baby in the end of The Final Act, and he’s definitely an adult here, so yeah, at the very least 16-20 years.
Now, still addressing stuff regarding regular ol’ Inuyasha….I have some concerns and complaints.
First of all, I made a little bit of a joke in the tags of the Episode One-Derland of this series. I asked if I should be concerned about Inuyasha and Kagome since Moroha seemingly grew up alone. Well, now I have to ask more seriously.
Should I be concerned about everyone!?
Inuyasha and Kagome supposedly didn’t raise Moroha. She’s seemingly slightly younger than Towa and Setsuna, but Inuyasha and Kagome are nowhere to be found.
Despite us getting Towa and Setsuna’s backstory in this episode, they imply that they raised themselves out in the woods, and Sesshomaru and Rin are nowhere to be found. (Given the new timeline information, I’d say it’s more likely that Rin’s their mother now, but we still don’t know.)
Also, Hisui, Setsuna and Kohaku don’t know Moroha, but Hisui and Kohaku are seemingly teamed up with Setsuna, which is why she has the moniker of demon slayer. How did that end up happening? Also, it doesn’t seem like Sango and Miroku are anywhere around either.
What exactly happened to everyone in the original cast? Everyone seems like they’re either dead or inexplicably missing.
Now to get onto something more petty. What is up with the way this show ages people? Specifically, the way it ages old characters. Sota aged perfectly well, so did Kohaku.
However, guess who Towa saw when she got to the modern era?….Buyo….Kagome’s cat…..How the hell is this cat still alive? I thought, maybe, it was just for that one shot, and it’s not outside of the realm of possibility for Buyo to still be alive six or more years after The Final Act…but he’s also in the OP, meaning he must still be around for the main series….which takes place an additional ten years after Towa came to the modern era. Not only would it be very unlikely for Buyo to still be around after all that time (he certainly wasn’t a kitten in Inuyasha) but he hasn’t aged a day.
Speaking of people who haven’t aged a day, remember how I said I wasn’t certain if the promo shot of the group was accurate since Kaede likely wouldn’t have been alive after ten years in the feudal era? Well….it’s 20 years later….and she’s still alive…and looks no different, in the slightest.
Kagome’s grandpa is also alive and well, which is more reasonable in present day, but he also looks exactly the same as he did back in the original series.
Kagome’s mom also looks identica—oh, please excuse me. I forgot. She’s certainly showing her age by…having a few Mr. Fantastic-esque gray stripes in her hair and nothing else different, down to her clothes.
You guys, uh, getting lazy or what?
Well, enough of that jazz. What of the stuff in the new generation? While this episode certainly has more substance to it than the previous episode did, I can’t deny that I wasn’t really impressed. Nothing stood out or seemed really cool, outside of a few attacks Setsuna and Moroha did. Even the battles were kinda lame, especially considering they got lazy with their monster selection (masked as fanservice, I guess) by having their first enemy be Mistress Centipede – the very first demon Inuyasha and Kagome fought together. I know it’s not the same one, but it might as well be.
Inuyasha dispatched that one fairly easily, but a group of demon slayers and the children of Inuyasha, Kagome and Sesshomaru could do nothing against it….
They also basically make a new Shikon Jewel situation with the mysterious Rainbow Pearls, which I think are terribly named because they’re red, gold and silver….Not only are there, seemingly, not seven of them, but only one of them is an actual color on the rainbow spectrum.
They’re little gems that demons want because they make them more powerful. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a freshly baked MacGuffin.
I am still interested in the stories of these girls, especially since we don’t know what the driving plot of the series actually even is yet (in regards to what their goal is) but they really need to bring more to the table to keep me locked on this series, because, as it stands, it really feels like they’re still running on fumes from the original series.
Towa continues to be an interesting character. I love her view on the norms of society, particularly in regards to gender roles, but I don’t much care for that scene near the end.
Her little sister, Mei, who is Sota’s biological daughter, yells to her that she knows Towa really wants to be cute and girly, but she’s basically trapped in a world of fighting and wearing boys’ clothes because she keeps beating bullies and gang members who confront her. Towa responds that there’s a part of her that can’t answer that question immediately. In narration, Towa explains that she hated that boys were expected to be masculine and girls were expected to be feminine, but now it’s “time to stop being stubborn” about that idea because it’s not worth making Mei cry.
*huff*
I want to say that was just badly worded, but….Nyrrhhhhhh. I get it to some degree. She should stop fighting if it’s putting her family in danger and making her sister unhappy, but it’s worded like ‘Yeah I should just be cutesy and girly like I’m supposed to be. Darn me for being stubborn.’ I can’t even really get fully behind the not-fighting aspect because she’s not seeking out fights, at least from what I saw, she’s just defending herself against assholes who keep attacking her.
Towa did have the most going on in her story, both with development and action, but it was also not all that interesting. It was a very familiar plotline where the super-skilled main character pisses off the local thugs after beating them, so they take the MC’s loved ones hostage and force them to concede in battle, but MC soon decides ‘enough is enough’ so they unleash their hidden power to fight them off. Only in this instance ‘unleash her hidden power’ is basically just jumping really high and fighting the same way she was previously.
She does at least get to win fights in her part, but she’s a half-demon, daughter of Sesshomaru no less, fighting nearly comical fully human thugs. It’s hardly tension-filled.
Like I said, I am still interested in this series, but most of the things I want to see are related to the original cast. I haven’t really latched onto the new group yet…..besides Moroha. I am loving her more every minute, but we didn’t get much of her specific backstory in this episode. She just appears and fights a lot, but I love her spirit. She’s such a cool kid. It’s also really cool to see her sword and her arrows in action. She actually has an ability that allows her to rain sacred arrows onto her enemies, which is awesome.
All in all, it’s getting better, but it’s still a slow roll and they’re still not delivering on anything involving the original cast outside of a few side characters. I know the series is not about them, but it’s frustrating watching a spin-off of a beloved older series and not getting practically any current information on the original characters.
Rating: 6.5/10
Next time….
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The Anime Madhouse 