Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon 20
半妖の夜叉姫 20
Hanyou no Yashahime episode 20

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Setsuna takes Towa to a place deep in the mountains. She sits on a rock and tells Towa that there is a hidden village for hanyou here. After the fire in the forest when she was a child, Sesshoumaru’s 2-headed dragon, A-un, lands. A hidden Jaken instructs the girl to mount the dragon. Setsuna does and A-un takes her to the hidden hanyou village. She’s greeted by some older hanyou children and then Shiori, who runs the village.

Setsuna hands Shiori a package, which carries a simple request to take care of Setsuna as well as some gold. Shiori takes Setsuna in and Setsuna grows. From time to time, she’s given gifts with instructions for training her youkai powers. As such, she was able to help defend the village from youkai attempting to enter and eat them.

Some years later, Shiori receives instructions to return to Kaede’s village. She stays there for a while, but she chafes at Kaede’s restrictions on killing human bandits. As such, she returns to the hidden village. One day during an eclipse, Shiori’s youkai power faded and the barrier protecting the village fell. A humanoid youkai named Gaga Gozen leads a band of youkai to the village to eat the children. Miroku and Hachiemon tail them to see what they are up to.

Setsuna and the older children are able to defeat the lesser youkai. However, Gaga is ultimately able to defeat them all, including Miroku. Gaga traps Setsuna, but she becomes enraged. This triggers her youkai blood and she breaks free, slaying Gaga. However, Setsuna cannot be controlled, so Miroku puts her to sleep and seals her youkai blood. She’s given Gaga’s naginata weapon, which also helps her channel her powers.

Towa is touched that Setsuna opened up to her.

Thoughts/Review:

After a frivolous episode, Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon 20 returns us to more interesting, character stories. This time, it was all about Setsuna and I loved it.

Setsuna Love

Back in episode 16, we got a some backstory for Moroha. As such, I was pleased to see Setsuna get some backstory in Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon 20. One of the things the writers made sure to do was link the events of this episode to certain bits of lore established in previous episodes. For example, in episode 3, we saw the younger teen Setsuna show up in Kaede’s village. Now we know why she showed up there.

More recently, we saw that Setsuna not only knew Miroku, but she knew he had a seal on her youkai blood. Episode 20 lets us know that Miroku only put that seal on by necessity after Setsuna went berserker. The events of this episode made what happened in episode 13 carry more weight. It shows a certain level of maturity Setsuna has. She understands and recognizes that her youkai blood is too much. I liked that.

One of the really nice touches was that Setsuna opened up to Towa. It didn’t feel forced, which was nice. Further, we got to see Setsuna smile and soften up, which was lovely to see.

Sesshoumaru as Father

Although I didn’t look into it, I had seen comments in the past noting how Sesshoumaru was a terrible father. Folks seem to forget that Sesshoumaru is not human. Not only is he a youkai, he’s a dai-youkai — a youkai “lord” (or great youki) if you will. He does not operate nor abide by human standards. Yes, he may have taken a human wife, but even there, he behaved with his normal, youkai standards.

I could see what Sesshoumaru was up to in Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon 20. For a start, he wanted Setsuna to be somewhere safe, yet among her own kind. Thus he arranged to have Jaken deliver Setsuna there. Not only that, he gave Shiori a bar of gold. That had to be a HUGE help for the village.

Next, Sesshoumaru sent Setsuna gifts over the years. But not only that, he had Setsuna training for years to become the warrior she is today. What’s interesting is that Sesshoumaru had Setsuna return to Kaede’s village. I’m not exactly sure what Sesshoumaru’s lesson for Setsuna was. I suspect that he wanted her to learn to live among humans as one of them.

To that end, it wouldn’t surprise me if Sesshoumaru allowed for Gaga to gain intel on the hidden hanyou village and Shiori’s weakness. For a start, Setsuna rebelled against living with Kaede and returned there. Next, it would be a way for Sesshoumaru to test his daughter. And in the end, Setsuna returned to where he wanted her. Further, he apparently had no objections to her becoming a youkai exterminator.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon 20 was a lovely episode, allowing Setsuna to get the spotlight. It was an episode I thoroughly enjoyed. I’m hoping at some point, Setsuna and Towa can have a proper chat with their father. And I hope we can see Shiori again.