Hanyou no Yashahime – Sengoku Otogizoushi – 11

「人喰い沼の呪い」 (Hito Kui-numa no Noroi)
“Curse of the Man-Eating Pond”

Yashahime continues to tread the same territory this week as Setsuna and Towa team up to take on a water spirit. But whereas the last episode was more centered around making sure that she understood that Towa might be her sister, this time around, she begins coming around to Towa with the possibility of her being a formidable sibling

The words “monster-of-the-week” have become a little too common in the story and this episode does little to push the needle for the events of the universe. It does give some more bonding time to Towa and Setsuna and has some funny moments from Moroha, but Moroha being ostracized from much of the sisters’ exploits lends itself to a deeper issue that Yashahime has with treating her story as inconsequential. Despite being Inuyasha’s actual child, there isn’t much on Moroha’s docket and she shows barely as much investment in trying to find her parents as Towa and Setsuna do with their eventual interactions with their father.

That being said, it gave Setsuna more to work with considering that she hasn’t had as much personality going for her aside from being invested in hunting demons and taking very little of Towa’s chipper attitude. But with this episode, we get some insight into the compassion that Setsuna has as she uses her violin to ease the minds of the two children looking to avenge their father.

Again, there are cute moments here and there and there isn’t as much that can be said about the events of the episode, but it’s nice to see that Setsuna can have some screen time where she is accepting her sister’s peppiness a lot more easily as she goes out of her way to be kind to those around her.