“Double-Edged Moroha”
What They Say:
Set in feudal Japan, half-demon twins Towa and Setsuna are separated from each other during a forest fire. While desperately searching for her younger sister, Towa wanders into a mysterious tunnel that sends her into present-day Japan, where she is found by Kagome Higurashi’s brother, Sota, and his family. Ten years later, the tunnel that connects the two eras had reopened, allowing Towa to be reunited with Setsuna, who is now a demon slayer working for Kohaku. But to Towa’s shock, Setsuna appears to have lost all memories of her older sister.
Content (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As the three half-demon princesses look up at a nearby mountain overlook, they see a lone figure standing defiantly before them, and Moroha recalls a story from three years ago of how she knows this singular woman and their relationship, with a bit of spite in her voice. Before a miasma enshrouded mountain she and her master Yawaragi stood in front of its only entrance, with the crucible of Kodoku soon to be complete in joining several hundred monsters after a fight to the death, allowing only one to emerge with combined strength of all to be the prize. With a sense of dread washing over her, the girl hesitantly asks this mentor if she wants her to go inside the cave, to which the obvious answer is coldly given with the addendum that all she need do is survive. But as an incentive for completing this final training, the callous woman will surrender her prized sword Kurikaramaru, with her tenure as trainer soon to be over after three years as commanded by the leader of the Wolf-Demon Tribe. However as the foolish girl enters the cavern and soon learns her attacks are doing little damage the lone competitor, Moroha recalls the last warning from her teacher – in order to pass this test, she must do so with using her precious rogue.
But after a hard fought battle and barely escaping the arena with little injury, a tearful Moroha finds that her master is no where to be found, expecting the old woman to be waiting in front of the cave entrance, now frustrated by this obvious deception. However in a nearby village, the errant teacher is blissfully playing a sugoroku with the Corpse Dealer, with the shocked man confused why she left a young girl to deal with the crucible of Kodoku all alone, with Yawaragi thinking her pupil has a fifty percent chance of surviving, but Jyubei estimating her odds are closer to being ten percent, especially after learning she forbid using the rogue. Although as they discuss the Moroha’s mixed heritage and how every application of the taboo cosmetic causes her demon blood to run wild, this opportunity to succeed without its utilization is a chance for her to grow stronger, without a dependence on forbidden strength. As the conversation ends, the foolish woman learns she has lost the match and even more money which she had set aside to buy a key to unlock her Armor of the Iron-rat, to which Jyubei begins to mention an interesting proposal, but not before the frustrated student bursts in and starts to complain about left behind and not giving her Kurikaramaru. But as she becomes more angry with every passing second, the Corpse Dealer offers a deal to settle each side’s problems: in order to pay off Yawaragi’s creditors with enough money left over, he suggests buying the girl for fifteen ryou with Moroha working off this new debt, to which the selfish teacher quickly accepts this idea with the half-demon left dumbfounded as to what had just happened.
In Summary:
Although it is pleasing to finally learn why Moroha is so obsessed with earning money, the source of her problem only points back to the show’s heavily burdened reliance on recycled premises from Inuyasha, namely the opening scene of using the Kodoku as a final training ground, when those with familiarity with the prior series knowing this was how Naraku reached his ultimate form. While the underlying source is fleeting, there are still too many ideas within this supposedly new show to call it an overall original, and this problem is seen within the final fight and the techniques which Moroha uses to defeat her foes, from Blades of Blood which could have been inherited, to the closing skill Crimson Backlash Wave that Yawaragi teaches her student in the end, these all harken back to her father, especially how they both rely on reflecting their opponent’s power. If the studio wanted to build a series around nostalgia, then they have succeeded, but since this is supposed to a new show in revealing how these half-demon princesses can be their own heroes, the need to rely on skills and ideas of the past in the end weakens both and creates something that is becoming ever more tiresome.
Grade: A-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
