The First Of Many Sad Ramblings About Yashahime...

The first of many sad ramblings about Yashahime...

Lets call this post: They Did Rin Real Dirty...

In the original, Rin never had much screen/page time, but when she appeared, she made a big impression -- she was brave, polite, loyal, funny, sassy, fearless when it came to defending those she loved. Jinenji compared her to Kagome, feeling that she had the same kind of loving and bright soul. She also had a lot of trauma which was acknowledged and shown to still trouble her, though she tried to overcome it by talking and focusing on bright, silly chatter. She also sang to comfort herself when she was away from Sesshomaru and Jaken. Her fear over losing Sesshomaru and Jaken was an important part of her personality, and though it was not said explicitly, living with Kaede was an important step for her to cope with her trauma over losing people she loved. Small though her role may be, she was a big personality, and she was of the utmost importance to Sesshomaru's character arc.

I was not at all surprised that Rin was the mother of Sesshomaru's children. I don't think you were ever supposed to think of Rin and Sesshomaru as "romantic" in the original, but you could not deny that they had a very deep platonic love for each other. At the end, when Rin is left behind in the village to grow up, it seemed a pretty clear signal that the option for them to get together later was on the table. Separating them allowed her to grow up, sort out her trauma, and have a real choice when it came to following him again (in whatever form that might take). There was also the Assate CD, which call it non-canon, satire, or whatever, it showed us fairly explicitly the romantic possibility between the two.

I'm not going to defend the morality of Rin as Sesshomaru's wife. Other people have done it better. I had no problem whatsoever with Rin as his wife, but the way Sunrise portrayed their relationship gave a lot of ammunition to people who did not want to see Rin as the mother of the twins.

First of all, from the very beginning, the powers that be chose to play coy with who the mother was. Anyone who had seen the original and understood that Kagura, being dead and a demon, was not able to give birth to hanyou for the sequel could figure out there were not a lot of options for the mom. It was not hard to figure out, but they made the audience wait until January 2021, almost a year past the first announcement, before they confirmed. They hinted -- Narita and Noto hosting the event revealing the girls design, Rin in the tree, some subtle hints with the twins characters, but over all, they left everyone hanging, and the resolution wasn't worth it. Those of us who knew were just tired by that point. Those who did not want to believe Rin was the mother were disappointed.

I don't blame the people who wanted to see Kagura return for being disappointed. For all that I was convinced that it was Rin, I saw where the Kagura fans were having their chains yanked. For example, why give Towa red/pink eyes when Rumiko had designed her to have gold? Towa's ponytail when she was a little girl looked exactly like Kagura's ponytail. In the first episode, Towa was wearing a robe with the same motif as the infant's clothing. Interesting choice by the animators! Finally, Towa's romance with Riku, an incarnation of Kirinmaru, certainly has something of the same flavor of Kagura and Sesshomaru's relationship. Like father, like daughter?

In addition, like many of the Kagura fans, I was fairly convinced that what we were seeing on screen was some kind of illusion, that at some point, the girls were going to wake up and find out they were in some kind of elaborate training sequence. There were so many odd discrepancies, so many quite frankly cruel choices made for the characters and the narrative, I, like many others thought there must be some kind of reset in the works. Surely, they would not leave our beloved characters in such a narrative mess?

But they did, and I think Rin suffered probably worst of all. Rin had the potential to be fleshed out beautifully. Her backstory, her travels with Sesshomaru, the bond they already shared...there was so much that they could build on to show us what kind of woman she became, worthy to be the wife of the greatest of all yokai.

Instead, they locked Rin silent and weeping in a tree for 3/4 of the entire series. We never saw her truly shine except for a few, very few seconds where she stood up to Zero and Kirinmaru. She barely spoke except to call out names: Sesshomaru-sama! Jaken-sama. Towa! Setsuna. Moe got more dialogue with the girls than Rin did (more on that later).

Also, this may not be a popular opinion, but they did her SO dirty with her character design. It's not about her being short...though she is REALLY short. It's the fact that except in a few scenes, she is made to look like a child. I don't think she's a child. I don't think Sesshomaru groomed anyone. However, I do think that Rin's character design is at best, unfortunate. At worst, it's deliberately malicious to spur controversy. Given that we know the animators CAN draw her beautifully, why show her on the official pages looking like that? Why did all the marketing show her as a child? Why did they keep her in the purple robe she wore as a young girl when we were SHOWN that she was given new ones? We know they were paying attention to the fans, in part because of that ridiculously weird non-sequitur Jaken dropped about "Rin being about 18-years-old at that time..." Get out of here with that. They knew what they were doing. They were stirring the pot to get a reaction rather than, you know, just telling a good story.

Also, they took away everything about Rin that made her so wonderful. Rin was one of the liveliest, chattiest characters when on screen, but they put her in a coma for almost the entire series.

Rin wore beautiful kimonos, gifts from her lord and her eventual husband. He showed his love and affection, honoring her with rich and beautiful clothing. They showed her in her underwear for the entire series, and when she finally got dressed, it was in the old kimono she wore when she was a kid.

Rin loved to sing. Music was her thing, at least in the anime and in the funny extras that were recorded to go along with the movies. Her song for Sesshomaru was sweet and wistful. She sang funny songs with Jaken. There is even a little subplot in one of the extras (yes, I know, not canon), where she says she wants to sing for Sesshomaru because she finally has her voice back because of him. Setsuna's lullaby is supposedly from Rin. Setsuna remembers it from the womb (how fucking stupid was that...you could not have let Rin actually sing to her babies...I'm so bitter). We get mere seconds of Rin going "da-da-da" to the melody. RIN! The SINGER. Does not even get to sing to her babies the lullaby she created. Towa gets to talk about how Moe comforted her with music after she fought, and Setsuna learns music from Moe, Towa's adoptive mother. Setsuna plays the lullaby with Moe, and yes, she plays it FOR Rin, how much more moving with it have been to have Rin sing to her or with her? Instead, we get Setsuna watching 'Moe-Sensei" with stars in her eyes thinking how amazing she is. And at the very end of the series, MOE plays RIN's lullaby while thinking of the girls. Rin NEVER has a moment with both girls and the lullaby. That's just cruel, and I swear to God, it seems like it's mean on purpose.

Speaking of being mean, the worst of all is that the writers chose to take Rin, a character who watched her entire family get murdered, who died twice, who had to restart her life with Kaede, a girl who had been rendered mute by trauma, and give her even more hell.

They took away Rin's voice. Again. They took away her family, her children. Again. They gave both Rin's music and her children to Moe, a new character that I cannot imagine anyone cares about. It wasn't an illusion. Time was not turned back. They took everything from Rin again, and then showed that she is happy and smiling, trotting off after her lord while the children she birthed but will never raise go flying off in the sky on their stolen -- ahem, "borrowed-- ride. The original honored Rin's tragedy, showing her pain and methods of coping. Yashahime added to the pain and dared to show her unaffected by it.

I hated what they did to Rin. While I love the idea that Sesshomaru and Rin married and had children. I cannot get over what they did to Rin's character and story.

No longer just a love interest

Btw these are with reference to a post by Mr.Fanboy on YouTube.

Always nice to see Uravity getting some much needed appreciation.

Please Sonic Movie, give Amy Rose the love she deserves

My biggest fear if Amy shows up in the movie universe is that the writers will try to overcorrect her character, and in that, make her generic.

I like the posts about Amy surprising everyone with how strong she is and not feeling bone crushing pain with Knuckles handshake. They are funny posts, but she being strong out of the bat undermines the potential for her physical growth intertwined with the emotional one.

We first meet Amy as a helpless civilian who Sonic has to rescue, and although people may say she was just a damsel in distress, I think is appealing to her character growth. Amy is not super fast, super smart or super strong. She has no physical or mental advantage amongst her peers, which means she has to work much harder to stand besides them, and she does so! She went for helpless civilian to someone that can be side by side with her hero, and that's damn inspiring! You get it? Amy is the underdog of the group! She being tough at the start means we won't see her grow into her toughness. Her reason for sticking around could be her love for sonic, yes, but could also be she being inspired by him and wanting to protect others the way he protected her.

Speaking of Sonic, I'm a bit conflicted when it comes to Amy's fangirliness. On one side it's the old and unfunny stick of 'girl being forceful around the boy she likes' and I'm sick of it. But on the other hand, it would be great for her character to start as a fangirl who see Sonic as this perfect hero to growing out of it as she sees him as a person, but still loves him. And it would be really sweet to see Sonic warming up to her as she starts to treat him normally.

Also, I hope we are at a place in the movie industry that adventure/action writers can write a female character who likes stereotypical girly things without fear she will be seen as weak. The latest games don't tap much into it, but Amy likes tarot, she likes cooking and baking. She is gentle, passionate and compassionate. She also wrecks robots with a hammer. She can do both! Show that Amy's biggest strength is her ability to be compassionate to others, to bring out the best in people and to stand up to protect who she cares about. Show that she is the heart of the team.

The writers earned all my trust with Sonic 2, but I'm afraid the see the fans saying they like Boom Amy better and ignore the wonderful things that made mainline Amy herself.

I may be asking too much, if she is introduced in the next movie, there's still mc'freaking Shadow to develop, and a movie can only be so long.

But please, PLEASE, let Amy Rose be Amy Rose, with the good, the bad and the ugly and all the things that make her herself.

Eid Mubarak! 😊

Eid Mubarak!

Eid Mubarak everyone! 🥳🎉🎉

WARNING!!!!

People, please be careful. There are also people tracking children and people and putting bids on them based on their profile pictures on whatsapp, tracking and kidnapping them. Especially young children, so please be cautious, especially parents who have their children as their profile pictures.

Please pass this on to everyone so that they are aware of the danger. I don’t how it is all around the world but I know it can’t just be here so please please spread the word. Thank you.

My expectations for anime are so low now that when I saw the spike in NSFW Yor Forger fanart after the “Spy x Family” anime premiered, my first thought was, “Well, at least they’re sexualizing an adult woman rather than a teenager/child.”