Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon 14
半妖の夜叉姫 14
Hanyou no Yashahime episode 14

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Setsuna, Towa, and Moroha visit Jyubei, where they discover a beautiful girl named Tamano there. She was rescued from the snowy north by the pirate, Riku. Tamano briefs the girls on her situation. At the age of 13, she started getting tons of marriage proposals, which she turned down. One night, the evil god Homura kidnaps her and treats her as his wife. However, his insane jealousy caused him to burn to death many male staffers. Eventually, Tamano is locked into a jail cell, but she escapes.

Because of the high bounty on Homura’s head, Moroha readily agrees to slay this entity. Towa and Setsuna head to the snowy north, finding  Homura’s mansion, which is within a bubble of spring-like conditions. Moroha charges in and taunts the angry Homura. As such, he uses a fire breath attack to knock her out into the distant snow. Setsuna and Towa attack, their Rainbow Pearls glistening. Instantly, Homura recognizes them as the two kids he was to have killed years ago.

A powerful, humanoid, female youkai named Zero ordered Homura to burn down the forest. This was to slay the hanyo children of Sesshoumaru, who gives tacit approval to the event by not stopping it and simply turning away. And enraged Towa battles Homura with Setsuna. Meanwhile, Tamano decides to return to settle things with Homura. She’s accompanied by Riku.

Moroha, Setsuna, and Towa are facing down Homura when Tamano arrives. When Tamano rejects him repeatedly, Homura ends up burning himself to death. Riku smugly observes this, noting that non-humans loving humans is a bad thing. However, this means that Moroha is once again denied her bounty prize.

Thoughts/Review:

Although it was still a one-off episode, Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon 14 did provide us with one answer about the forest fire that separated Setsuna and Towa as kids.

Homura Punished?

One of the cliched things in storytelling is for some master bad guy to send out a henchman to do a job. Said henchman does the job, but unbeknownst to them, doesn’t actually succeed. Such was the case with Homura in Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon 14.

In the Japanese “pantheon” of gods, Homura is not listed among them. However, he is called a Jyashin (邪神) — evil god. As such, it seems strange to me that an apparent youkai “lord” (dai-youkai) could order a god around. Granted, Homura’s domain may have just been the one mountain, but still, one would think a god would not need to obey a youkai, no matter how powerful they were.

Still, Homura did burn down the forest as Zero asked. However, Setsuna and Towa survived, howbeit apart. Considering what the two have been doing of late, this Zero youkai surely knows about them. Thus I think she did something to Tamano to infuse her with great beauty. Thus Homura becomes enamored with Tamano, kidnaps her, then becomes insanely jealous, making him not think clearly.

Further, I think Riku was part of this plan to punish Homura, considering how he was there to assist Tamano in her escape. If Homura killed Setsuna and Towa, then fine. Otherwise, he was dead meat. The surprising part was he ended up killing himself. But maybe that was part of it. Whether he killed the girls or not, Riku made sure to encourage Tamano to reject Homura, so he’d commit suicide.

Sesshoumaru

Back during the Inuyasha series, it was often difficult to figure out Sesshoumaru’s motives. Initially, he had disdain for all humans and such. Yet at some point, he took an orphaned girl under his wing and protected her. While his youkai servant, Jaken, would take some abuse from Sesshoumaru, the daiyoukai protected Jaken as well.

By the time of the flashback in Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon 14, Sesshoumaru had clearly married (I believe it is Rin) and was the father of Setsuna and Towa. On the surface, it seems strange that Sesshoumaru would give tacit approval to having his daughters burned to death. However, knowing that Sesshoumaru never shows his cards, I suspect he knew the girls would be OK.

Who knows, maybe he arranged for the tunnel to open to the present day world, thinking that both his daughters would be safe in the future. I hope we learn more about that.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review of Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon 14 with some final thoughts.

• There was a new OP/ED song for this episode. I know that the Inuyasha series used to change tunes frequently. Maybe that’s a common thing. Sadly, they didn’t do anything for me.
• The whole side thing with Towa’s smart phone was a bit amusing, but stupid as well. I’m not sure how she’s keeping it charged up, but I’d be using the phone to take pictures and such. It isn’t something to just be cast aside, assuming you can keep it charged.

In the end, Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon 14 gave us some plot to explain the fire, but nothing else. And as such, was OK for what it was. I do want to know more though.