Hello Internet! Today I'm going to explain why I think the Yashahime anime is based on someone's Dungeon and Dragons campaign.
SPOILER ALERT! This is going to involve spoilers for the first season, so beware of that. SPOILER ALERT!
I finished watching season 1 of Yashahime this past week. It was good. It wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be, but that is a different subject. It is a related subject because it is what lead me to this fan theory, but I won't go further into that.
The first season has kind of a strange start to it. First it uses In Media Res as a frame narrative for jumping back to the original cast of Inuyasha. Then it jumps forwards to the main characters of Yashahime, but not as they are in the first scene of the show. There isn't a series goal like in the original show, not even after a couple of episodes to set things up. In fact, the three half-demon princesses of the title refuse a quest from the Tree of Ages that could become such a series goal, and then they go off to slay random demons, and they may or may not even work together doing that much.
It is directionless, few things have narrative build-up, and the three main characters all act on their own initiative instead of collaborating towards a larger group goal. That's when it hit me, this is a Dungeons and Dragons party!
There are three player characters, and all of them choose the same class, race, background etc. None of them wanted to change for party diversity, so their party consists entirely of half-demon magic knights who fight in melee. All of them choose to be descendants of this mega important lore character (Inu-no-Tashio/ The Great Dog General), so the dungeon master decides that they are all related to each other, but only the player for Towa likes this idea. Towa's player decides that her character and Setsuna are twin sisters, but Setsuna's player isn't eager to agree, so the dungeon master splits the difference and says that Towa and Setsuna ARE sisters and also says that Setsuna doesn't remember the time they were together. This way, both players can do their own roleplay the way they want.
The dungeon master creates this epic campaign narrative where the three half-demon princesses work together to defeat an old foe of their grandfather, Kirinmaru, and chooses the Tree of Ages to deliver this quest to them. However, the players decide they're not interested. Towa is more interested in her own character quest (recovering Setsuna's memories), and Setsuna and Moroha want to do their demon slaying / bounty hunting roleplay.
Thus, the dungeon master, not wanting to railroad the players, decides to give them what they want. First, DM creates a new quest giver in Juybei the corpse collector, who then tells them about demons causing trouble in the area. This leads to a bunch of one-shot sessions staring random demons, which the three player characters kill quickly and easily. In D&D 5E, random encounters and non-boss encounters only last a handful of rounds, after all, and these three players started at levels higher than first level, too. That's why they have so many abilities at the start of the campaign.
Also, the demon bounty targets tend to evaporate or turn to ash when slain, so no bounty. No treasure and no loot. This is the dungeon master being sore over not getting to play out their epic quest.
Then the dungeon master slips plot-relevant demons into the bounty hunting, the Four Perils who serve Kirinmaru. The one-shot quests then become tied into the original epic quest that the dungeon master planned. Then there's Homura, who fills in a necessary gap in the backstory for the Towa and Setsuna PCs. At that point, the players decide to humor the dungeon master and try the epic narrative. So they go back to the Tree of Ages, the original quest giver, but the dungeon master has already changed the prepared narrative so that the Tree of Ages isn't important anymore (at least right now).
It is at this point that the players for Setsuna and Moroha complain to the dungeon master about the favoritism shown to Towa. They're all players so why is Towa's character arc getting so much more focus than them? The dungeon master explains that Towa's player gave her character a character arc, and they did not do the same for theirs. So, they work together to create something, which is introduced to the narrative in more one-shot sessions.
Moroha gets the history that she trained with a wolf demon, and then gets a present-day duel with her former teacher, which the dungeon master ties into the main narrative via the Four Perils.
Setsuna gets the history of the hidden half-demon village/orphanage where she was raised. She says that she regularly patrols the surrounding area to chase away demons. At least, she patrols when she has time for it. This is a justification for why she hasn't done any patrolling before now in the story.
Towa's player isn't happy about being excluded from both of these sessions/episodes, so the dungeon master frames the second one as an opportunity for Towa to bond with Setsuna. That pleases her.
Finally, we come to the season 1 finale. The Towa and Setsuna players are finally onboard with the epic quest that the dungeon master wanted to do at the start, but Moroha's player isn't, so Towa and Setsuna get her onboard by saying they will place a bounty on Zero (Kirinmaru's sister) themselves. This leads to the epic fight that the DM has been planning since the Tree of Ages offered this quest. In gratitude, DM lets the players use higher level abilities by staging the fight on a Place of Power, the ruined mansion where their grandfather died.
Finally, we come to Setsuna's death. The player for Setsuna has bonded with Towa's player enough to feel comfortable roleplaying the long-lost-sister angle, and acknowledges this in character. Towa's player is still committed to this idea, hasn't gotten bored of it, and so the dungeon master lends them a hand. He has a lore important NPC, Sesshoumaru, offer a chance at an unorthodox resurrection technique.
Did this really happen? Is Yashahime based on someone's D&D campaign? Probably not. But it's fun to think about. By viewing the series through this lens, I could enjoy it more.
What do you think? Does my theory make sense? Let me know in a comment.
Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.
No comments:
Post a Comment