Hanyou no Yashahime S2 Episode 1 [First Impression]

After a while, the season 2 is finally here. I didn’t have much expectation considering how the first season was overall a let down due to its horrible pacing and focus, but again, it’s only the first episode and I was already quite disappointed by how the first 6 minutes was spent too much on recap of the first season. The opening was not bad, the visual was wonderful but the song was, frankly speaking, so-so in my book. Not bad, but not great either compared to the first season’s openings.

As for the episode itself, ever since I saw the trailer, I knew that Setsuna would be immediately revived right at that moment. What I couldn’t understand is why the studio decided to make Sesshomaru disappeared at the end of the first season when he gave Towa his Tenseiga even though he didn’t really left that place. It felt…weird. It made me think it’s not necessary to show Sesshomaru disappeared like that.

I knew it that Towa would materialize her demonic power to use Tenseiga and revived Setsuna. Of course, nothing came easy as Setsuna’s broken weapon attracted swarm of mid-tier yokai that were too much for only Moroha and the others to handle by themselves. Furthermore, this episode revealed that Tenseiga could only revive people within the span of an hour otherwise the dead soul would be forever lost. This contradicted what I knew in the original manga. If I remembered it right, there’s a chapter where Sesshomaru revived a yokai who was killed by Hakudoshi and the yokai was already dead for more than a few hours. For anime-only viewers, they won’t find this a problem, but for a longtime Inuyasha fan like me, this could be confusing.

The saving grace for this episode was none other than my favorite character since Inuyasha: Sesshomaru! As a great yokai with so much pride, he’s not the type who would openly show affection, even to his daughters. While he couldn’t express his love the same way any normal father would do, you could still tell that he cares for his daughter. The way he carefully guided Towa to concentrate on materializing her power, the way he was suppressing his pain when Jaken questioned Towa using Tenseiga to revive Setsuna, and especially the way he caressed both his daughters’ face while calling out for Setsuna. I found the subtlety of his love breathtakingly touching.

Next, while not much, was Moroha, who once again return as a comic relief of the episode. She never failed to make me laugh as usual since the first season. In this episode, she got smacked twice by Tottosai and then by Jaken, almost defeated by a swarm of yokai, and despite her hard work she got nothing at all in the end. This was pretty much how her bounty hunting usually ended up (defeating the yokai but didn’t get her reward because there’s no corpse to give as proof). No, if there’s one thing she got, that would be having her dead cousin came back alive.

As much as I like to have Setsuna came back, the way she so easily defeated all of the yokai in one swing seemed overpowered though. Oh well. Tottosai then addressed the problem with Towa’s weapon. All this time, she used a broken sword and empowered it with her demonic power. While she’s strong, a broken sword is still a broken sword, and the sword she used was a sword unfit for fighting against a great yokai such as Kirinmaru. Her new sword must be the sword shown in the promotion pic and trailer. Looking forward to see how Towa would get and use her new sword.

While the opening was so-so, I love the ending. The song was soothing and seeing the girls wearing modern clothes was a perfect eye-candy. It’s extremely rare to see them wearing modern clothes, so I’m very happy with the new ending.

Overall, the first episode of the second season was pretty average. If not for the many questions that have yet been answered in the first season, I don’t think I’ll continue to watch it on weekly basis. There are quite a few of things I’m looking forward to see in this season despite my worries of how it would be executed.

By the way, I’m putting on hold my Hakuoki review for the time being. I want to focus on the series I’m covering right now. But I’ll continue later.