First of all, I’ve got to say: YES! We finally get answers to a lot of the questions that the series has raised up to this point. There’s still a handful of unanswered questions, but most of the big ones now have answers. Unfortunately, you had to have some serious patience to get here. Viewers who were able to make it through some of the slower pacing early on, as well as being willing to come back after watching the problematic Episode 14, were rewarded immensely.
The framework for the episode is that Riku is telling a story that first started 18 years prior to the beginning of the series. We see Riku talking with Hosenki II, a character who created a black pearl using Riku’s rainbow pearl and Lady Izayoi’s rouge. Hosenki II delivers the black pearl and the rouge to Inuyasha. The black pearl is a gateway to the grave of the Great Dog-Demon (Inuyasha’s father), and he immediately puts it in his eye. Kagome insists on holding on to the rouge, so Inuyasha doesn’t do something irresponsible with this other keepsake from his mother.
The story then skips ahead to the time that Rin is giving birth to the twins. Yes, we finally got official confirmation that Rin is Towa and Setsuna’s mother. There had been some hints dropped throughout the series up to this point, but this is the official confirmation. As a very pregnant Kagome is on her way to see Rin, she notices that a lunar eclipse is starting. She is stopped by Riku, who warns her about a comet that’s on it’s way and visits every 500 years. Previously, the Great Dog-Demon and Kirinmaru had defeated the comet fragment that threatened the Earth. He asks Kagome to convince Sesshomaru and Inuyasha to work together in order to defeat it. She is told the comet will arrive in seven days’ time. Meanwhile, Seeshomaru is approached by Zero, a mystery demon who has connections with the currently slumbering Kirinmaru. She warns him that Kirinmaru will soon awaken, and that his twin daughters are going to be in danger. This explains why Sesshomaru takes the twins away shortly after their birth. Jaken creates a barrier and says he will raise the twins until such a time that he can bring Rin to the barrier. We obviously know that Rin never made it to the barrier, but this episode doesn’t answer how Rin ended up in suspended animation in the Tree of Ages. So that’s one of the major questions that’s still left unanswered.
After this, we see Sesshomaru and Inuyasha successfully destroy the comet fragment, and everything seems to be fine. But then, we see Kirinmaru awakened and being informed about Sesshomaru taking a human wife and the birth of the half-demon twins. He also learns that a quarter-demon child is soon to be born. Apparently, the Shikon Jewel had left a prophecy that something that should not exist and “not of this world” would destroy Kirinmaru, and Zero pieces together that the half-demon girls and the quarter-demon soon to be born could be the ones to fulfill the prophecy. Sesshomaru barges in, and says he he will help Kirinmaru kill Inuyasha.
We then skip to the flashback scene of Kirinmaru and Sesshomaru approaching as Kagome asks Hachi to take Moroha away to safety. We then get to see what happens afterward, and it turns out Sesshomaru isn’t there to help Kirinmaru. After taking the black pearl out of Inuyasha’s eye, he uses it to send Inuyasha and Kagome to the Dog-Demon’s grave. Now we know what happened to Inuyasha and Kagome, and why we haven’t seen them this whole time. My guess is that when the time comes, Sesshomaru will use the black pearl to bring them back. It’s also revealed where Moroha went to: Hachi took her to Koga’s wolf tribe. Knowing this, Moroha’s clothing style and behavior make a lot of sense, since she would have been raised by the wolf tribe. But we still don’t know how Moroha has acquired the debt that she’s so desperately trying to pay off. So there’s a second unanswered question. Although, from the preview, we may potentially get an answer to this in the next episode.
And then we see the first scene from the second episode, when Towa and Setsuna were separated by the forest fire. We still don’t get to see what happened to Setsuna, so there’s another unanswered question left hanging out there. At this point, we return to Riku, saying that’s all he’s going to tell, and chides the audience for being so hasty. Let’s face it, the writers were smart enough to know that the audience would be left wondering what happened to Setsuna, so they used Riku’s personality to bring across the idea that they were aware of this. But it’s interesting to note that Riku ended up being an important player in the events depicted in this episode. Riku is still rather mysterious, and I’m still not entirely sure if he should be seen as a hero, a villain, or as an anti-hero. Maybe we can count that as another unanswered question?
Overall, though, I’m glad that several of the major questions hanging over this series have finally been answered. But could we have had this episode somehow happen a little earlier, or have the information in this information sprinkled in throughout the series up to this point? By waiting until the 15th episode, they were really asking the audience to be patient, but they risked losing audience members who simply don’t have the patience to wait this long.
But it’s going to be interesting to see how Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon progresses from here.
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