I was prepared to be a lot harsher on the show before I watched the finale but then I watched the finale and had a really good time so I dont know. This show is unambiguously really flawed in several ways Ill discuss as I continue the review but overall it was really fun to have a femaleled adventure show and I really liked the cast of second generation characters and their chemistry. ...second generation being the operative term here. Im one of those weridos who was drawn by the fact that I really liked Towas design and wanted to see what adventures shed get up to even if I didnt watch or read Inuyasha proper. Like the most complete exposure Ive had is reading a Lets Play of the PS2 game where you got to play a selfinsert. I do wonder if that made me enjoy it more given that I didnt have the baggage of wondering what the original cast was getting up to or that I wasnt really pressed that Sesshomaru is a bad dad or so on. I dunno I did like what I saw of Miroku now that he isnt a sex pest though I found myself not particularly fond of Sesshomaru himself. And its not even related to the elephant in the room of Towa and Setsunas moms identity ...okay no thats part of it. Honestly I understand they were pandering to the shoujo wish fulfillment fantasy of I want to grow up and and marry the immortal expressionless bad boy whos protected me since I was young Its fine hes been nineteen for a millennium so hell still be nineteen when Im... however old I am But I dont know the Hikaru Genji method is still kind of a bad creepy look even when I know its probably meant to be the Twilight problematic immortal husband fantasy instead of the Usagi Drop problematic fantasy. But this aint about the characters from Inuyasha this about the characters from Yashahime and I love them The best is quite obviously Moroha who is always simultaneously the stupidest and smartest person in the room and has absolutely perfect gremlin energy but I see people being down on Towa and Setsuna and I dont know I like those girls. Towas a little dim and naive but like shes a jock. Its fine. She doesnt know anything about all this demon stuff she just wants to resolve her childhood trauma and rekindle her relationship with her sister. I expected Setsuna to be a boring lineface type but I think shes actually pretty fun to watch because shes clearly an edgy teen trying too hard to be cool but you can see her subtly melt a little bit when a little girl is like ONEECHAN YOURE SO COOL. The rest of the cast is... more of a mixed bag of really good and really nothing honestly. Riku was consistently the most interesting character outside the main trio to me and it was a lot of fun to watch him scheme and backstab his way through things. Im mixed on his relationship with Towa but I dont know I could be sold on it? Zero was a pretty neat villain even if I feel like her motivations were kind of eh and I really hope to see more of Mirokus daughters next season because they seem fun. On the flip side man Hisui and his gang of demon hunters are super boring even when they get some focus. The Four Perils are a victim of the shows inscrutable pacing that Ill discuss a little later and... Im not super sure how I feel about Kirinmaru? He felt like he very suddenly went from a laconic villain who almost felt like he was having weird memory issues to almost trying to be a Demons Have No Sense of Right and Wrong sensei to the main trio. I like that he feels like a very grey morality character but... hm. Okay heres the part where I get into what I think the shows big issue is: it feels like they started out pacing the show like the original Inuyasha but with more of an initial bunch of mysteries for the characters to solve which I actually kind of liked. After the gang rejects the Tree of Eternitys quest and decides to do their own thing you get to learn one or two things about them or the plot every episode while they have monster of the week adventures. Then around the big backstory episode halfway through it starts to feel like they realized they might not get a second season so they doubled down on trying to include everything they possibly could? The Four Perils felt like they were supposed to be more important than they ended up being particularly Konton so their deaths felt weirdly sudden. I know that starts before the half point of the series but Konton felt like he was the one that was being set up to be the primary midboss and then he gets suddenly killed off? I think the most egregious point was Morohas backstory episode which felt like it was meant to be a twoparter except part one got axed. Im pretty curious about the behind the scenes of this shows production because I genuinely cant tell what conditions the crew was working under. Moving on from discussions of the plot and characters man they really did save the entire shows animation budget for the fight with Kirinmaru huh. I spent the majority of the show being really unimpressed with the shows animation especially when it came to the more monstrous creatures. Totetsus design was kinda neat but his mouth didnt move at all? Is that an intentional choice or just limited animation? Man this is probably an unfair comparison but I was watching Jujutsu Kaisen and Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai at the time and their monsters are really beautifully animated so the way a lot of the critters in this show were animated were kind of a letdown. The musics pretty alright with bangers of OPs and EDs and pretty solid if somewhat repetitive inepisode music. So yeah the show does have some failings but Ive gotta admit I was super hype seeing Towa going absolutely feral and unlocking her demon form in the last episode and I really wanna see more of this casts adventures. Im glad a second season was indeed greenlit so that the cast can have a little more room to breathe and develop and... maybe Ill go back and watch Inuyasha proper someday? Maybe? I dont know I like NotSex Pest Miroku.