Happy Saturday all Yashahime fans! It’s time for the weekly overview of the latest episode by yours truly!
We begin the festivities with Moroha doing some Tai-chi excercises with Grandpa Higurashi’s clique and she is getting along swimmingly with them. G-Higurashi gives a gift to the excitible grandaughter; a Kappa claw.
This is where similarities between Kagome and Moroha come into play when we see the latter give the same face-fault as her mother once did. But in a twist she enjoys it, to G-Higurashi’s happiness. She soon sees a piece of the root demon moving back to the tree and later find out she threatened it by poking at it with her sword.
Moving to the Towa side of the episode, she is at school with a brief info on who her teacher is and she gives a sentence in English by a book of going back to Kyoto. It’s soon brought to light that she is from the Federal era due to what occurred and will go back with them, though she has some trepidations regarding her own circumstances by returning, since she was raised by Sota.
Then we get to Setsuna, whom is wearing a nice blue dress and has taken up the violin. She was taught by Moe, which is revealed she is a famous classical musician by her sentence and praises Setsuna for her craft of picking up the basics and forming the music in her own way.
For me when I listened, she reminded me of Michiru Kaiou (Sailor Neptune) from Sailor Moon, which the way it sounded and the elegance it held.
![Michiru Kaiou | Sailor Moon Characters Wiki | Fandom](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/sailormooncharacters/images/9/94/Sm_neptune023.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20111204014720)
After that Mei comes in to tell her Moroha is back and found a way to get back home. To Setsuna and Mei’s astonishment, Moroha has packed a big back full of stuff and it’s asked how she was able to do that. Also, we see the packing of the history book that plays a part in episode 1. That’s why calls Towa an idiot for bringing something like that in the first place.
Moroha soon comments on Setsu’s dress to which the latter pulling a Sesshomaru says “I’ll kill you” but with a comical red vein to express her sentiments. Sota and Towa arrive and Moroha reveals she “borrowed” Sota’s credit card to get the stuff for the trip and recipts, to which she says “It’s just some modest shopping for your cute niece”.
Yeah right, she badgered his ass to his chagrin but he bears with it given she is his niece.
![Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita – 9 | Avvesione's Anime Blog](https://avvesione.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/jinrui_wa_suitai_shimashita-09-watashi-uneasy-comedy-reaction.jpg)
Evening happens and we are with Sota looking at a photo album that Towa sees. The two have a heart to heart regarding what’s going to happen. Towa expresses her own hesitation with leaving, to which Sota easily settles her feelings that he knew this time would come due to finding her all that time ago and go with his blessing.
He also briefly touches on his older sister Kagome and how Towa is a little like her with bringing a ruckus to their life but also traveling to the federal era.
Soon we are at the big goodbye for the trio, with key insight that when mentioned by Mrs. Higurashi regarding Kagome to give her regards to which she says in a whisper “…I don’t really know her” which is slowly coming to bear fruit in the future regarding her own parents and her circumstances.
Setsu gets a present from Moe in a violin, which she happily excepts and will continue to practice with when she feels restless at night, showing she has a softer side.
Towa says bye to Sota and Mei, the latter which tries to make her and the others promise to come back. There is some hesitation with that given if they can but Towa is somewhat able to quell the fear.
Then Moroha gets the ball moving by “pretending” to offer the Rainbow Pearls as commission to enter the rainbow corridor to which the tree complies and the trio enter.
We are soon met by an appearance of a certain priestess, Kikyo, or someone taken the appearance and it’s discovered she is the will of the tree and that she does have control of the root demon taken possession there due to seeing she was able to put it to sleep.
Along with a prediction that the girls will save the world…
![Mikuru Asahina | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya | Know Your Meme](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/975/838/c1b.png)
The trio find themselves in an unknown place and meet “Kikyo” and it’s revealed that due to Kikyo sealing Inuyasha a long time ago, the tree was able to gain sentiance with taken the form of Kikyo by the arrow of sealing.
The tree of ages has a request, to ask the daughters of Sesshomaru and Moroha to slay a powerful demon lord, Kirinmaru.
Kirinmaru is a king that matched Sessohamaru and Inuyasha’s father, the Great Dog Demon, in strength and power by being equals. Kirin ruled the east while GDD ruled the west. Kirin goal by the tree is to twist the fabric of time and cause the now to return to nothingness.
Apparently it’s also revealed by the spirit of the tree that Sesshomaru decided to renounce the title and walk his own path, which is accurate to his character.
While Moroha is all for it, to get the money, Setsuna denies the request and in impressive display offers out her own opinon regarding, once again, that she knows nothing on that Sesshomaru is her father and that he should be the one to take responsibility for his actions and not for his children to take it up
The TOA follows up that Sesshomaru cannot defeat Kirin due to they both follow the same path and states that it was the wrong path to follow, and that Sessshomaru will emerge once he’s defeated and in turn defeat (destroy, I guess) Sesshomaru.
Towa follows suit with that as his daughters they can’t just defeat Sesshomaru due to that relation. TOA is somewhat impressed by their moxie and in a trolling move, sends them to the root demons side of the veil, given they were in a sub-space where the true TOA was while the path they needed is in the root’s path.
A good battle is shown, seeing Towa utilizes her attacks of “Cyclone Burst”, Towa’s demon energy blast (nothing yet on what it will be called) with Moroha showing off her own with “Crimson Dragon Wave”.
The root demon paralysis the twins for a moment before Moroha uses the gimmick her grandpa gave he (the Kappa foot) by throwing it in it’s eye and it works!
Setsuna uses “Scourge of Swallows!” an attack that takes the form of swallows that can multi-hit targets, Moroha using “Heavenly Arrow Barrage”, spiritual arrows that immobilize a demon it hits due to the purification aspect, which she soon discovers a weak point to instruct Towa to strike!
Towa finishing it by concentrating her powers and the Pearl in her left eye to shoot out an Azure Dragon, to the shock of Setsu and Moroha. The Root demon is finally (for now I take it) destroyed as the girls are come out into the federal era where Kohaku, Hsui and Kaede are waiting due to the disturbance.
By the end, we see the TOA talking to someone that has popped in throughout the episode and it looks to be Sesshomaru. It’s also revealed that the butterfly the trio are looking for to be in it’s domain and that “she” admires their fighting spirit to refuse her wish yet.
We pan to the tree and we see an adult Rin, who seems to be sealed within and ask Sesshomaru if he is alright with the current choice.
The demon, to which we only see his body and not face, walks off, to the TOA bemusement and states that this too could be for the best as she looks at the sleeping Rin within the tree.
The Gateway to the Past was another decent if not stronger episode with showcasing what to expect, power wise from the trio, the pieces of the puzzle and the mysterious big bad Kirinmaru, whom wants to cause chaos in the world by using time.
The takeaways of info regarding Moroha not really knowing who is Kagome brings to the matter something occurred during the time in the past. Along with not mentioning her father, Inuyasha, which I can say she might not even know as well.
Setsuna getting offered this new insight that she’s not just serious but a lonely girl is seen when she was practicing the violin and it showed she has deep sorrow. I hope she is able to show more of these quiet moments of her.
The dad-daughter dynamic between Sota and Towa was moving for me. Towa feels that she was a burden on Sota for how she was and expressed the discontent over being brought up by him but he is happy that he raised her and thinks of her as his own and will forever see her as his daughter, spite no blood relation.
Along with the Higurashi clan accepting Moroha and Setsuna as their own kin, which really expresses the feel of family by blood relation and by familiarity.
The explanation regarding seeing Kikyo was nice, so calm down Kikyo haters, she was just an image due to her powers being embedded in the tree. Along with TOA expressing that it doesn’t think much of the root demon in there, which showcases that if it wanted to, it could potentially have gotten rid of it?
The mystery of the figure in the tree, Rin and seeing Sesshomaru look on in observation with his daughters and niece, is apparent and I have to wonder where this will go.
Time will be at stake and we have no clue where this tale will take us but it’s getting even more exciting!
Until next time everyone, see you later!